POTD- PROJECT OF THE DAY: What Did You Make In Your Shop Today?

T-nuts are not normally through threaded all the way as a safety. Prevents damaging the table by breaking out the top of the slot.
Be careful! or better modify those T-nuts.

T-slot slot nuts are quite normally available in either threaded through or partially threaded style. I prefer the threaded through type. What prevents undesired consequences in my shop is operator awareness and accommodation of the circumstances at hand. YMMV

For example:
 
What prevents undesired consequences in my shop is operator awareness and accommodation of the circumstances at hand. YMMV
Congratulations on having error free employees. My milage did vary. Setup mistakes were made. Some can be very expensive. So using as many error resistant methods as possible was my go to.
 
Congratulations on having error free employees. My milage did vary. Setup mistakes were made. Some can be very expensive. So using as many error resistant methods as possible was my go to.
I have staked the threads on any of mine that were loose! Smarter fools every day…
 
Congratulations on having error free employees. My milage did vary. Setup mistakes were made. Some can be very expensive. So using as many error resistant methods as possible was my go to.
I have staked the threads on any of mine that were loose! Smarter fools every day…

I understand completely. I used to manage tooling design/manufacturing projects. Sometimes we couldn't make things Murphy proof, but we had to try. :dunno: Noticed how I used the non-offensive "Murphy" and avoided mentioning the obvious derogatory descriptor. :grin:

Did I mention that, now, mine is a one man (hobby) shop? :grin:
 
I understand completely. I used to manage tooling design/manufacturing projects. Sometimes we couldn't make things Murphy proof, but we had to try. :dunno: Noticed how I used the non-offensive "Murphy" and avoided mentioning the obvious derogatory descriptor. :grin:

Did I mention that, now, mine is a one man (hobby) shop? :grin:
I think “fools” is non-offensive way to write what I was actually thinking!
 
Nothing very exciting, but yesterday and today (less than 24 hours) I designed a housing that would hold a SSD and a Raspberry Pi 5 together. I 3d printed it today and assembled it. It actually came out on dimension, on the first try. Tried to make a snap together housing, but had a little trouble persuading the RPI shelf to snap into the lower SSD tray. Took a pair of screwdrivers to wedge open the case. Don't think it will fall apart any time soon, unless the lower tray splits. Since it is in PETG I think it has enough give.

An RPI5 booting from SSD, is a good user experience. Responsivity is much, much better than previous generations. Actually writing this post from the RPI5 on Firefox over VNC. Syncing the browser from my main computer was a breeze. This rig is temporary, hope to have a board to use NVME sometime, so I didn't want to bother machining these pieces. Can't imaging springing open an aluminum case either!
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Photos taken while this RPI5 was running Firefox and writing this post. You can see an apparent bow in the lid. Might be a bur or something in the tabs, but I filed off the end of the tabs a little to make it easier to snap in. In CAD there was no interference. The fun of adjusting for 3d printing. Was an interesting exercising, never tried to design something that locked together. Think I need a little more clearance next time. M2.5 screws hold down the RPI5 to printed standoffs, as well as the SSD.
 
I wanted a chalk sharpener. You can buy them — there’s a few different varieties — but all the ones I’ve seen work essentially the same way. A series of closely-spaced blades that you scrape your tailor’s chalk over to restore a nice sharp edge. I didn’t want to buy one, so I made one instead.

I had a few ideas for the blades but in the end I settled on standard utility blade refills. A pack of 50 was twelve dollars or something, and I use them all the time anyway so no money wasted. For the block I just pulled some scraps of mahogany out of one of my boxes. It works easily and I always like the looks of it. I would support the blades, sharp edge up, on the angled ands and leave a little bit of a trough in the centre as a reservoir for the chalk dust.

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These utility blades are about 0.024” thick and I have an 0.028” thick slitting saw so I used that to cut the slots. Setting up for cutting took the longest time of anything, mainly because of the angled faces. I tried every way I could think of to hold the blocks and finally had to bring over my Starrett vise from the drill press — it was the only one I had that was long enough to clamp the pieces by the ends. It looked pretty goofy on my tiny milling machine table but it worked. I spaced the cuts an eighth of an inch apart, so over 4” there will be 33 blades.

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Once I had the slots finished I glued the blocks together and put on a couple of end caps. After a bit of sanding and a couple coats of varnish I was ready to set in the blades.

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My plan was to set the blades in epoxy so they wouldn’t chatter in the block during use and also so they wouldn’t fall out when I turn the block over to dump out the chalk dust. I wanted to keep the gluing to a minimum and not smear it all over the place so I masked off each side but left a window down the centre where I would put the epoxy. This worked pretty nicely, and a palette knife has just enough spring to force the epoxy into the slots but not so stiff as to feel clunky. Then I put the blades in, one by one, with a pair of tweezers.

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I thought I’d have more time on the epoxy than I actually did, and by the last few blades I could tell it was starting to set up a bit. I made it though, and once they were all in their slots I used a little block of wood to seat them in as uniformly as I could. There was a wee bit of squeeze-out on the tops of some of the slots but I managed to scrape it off without it looking too unsightly. Just eyeballing it they look pretty even.

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It makes me feel a bit queasy looking at all those razor-sharp edges pointing straight up and ready to slice me to smithereens but it does do the job. And very nicely at that, I must say. I’m going to leave it without a lid for a while for a while and see how I like it. If I do decide to make one I think I’ll just bend something up out of copper that just slides on and off but still keeps the blades covered when not in use. Might be the smart thing to do. Thanks for looking!

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Haha, funny you should mention that. I used to sign all of my pieces — I’d sign my signature and then cut it in with a fine Exacto blade and the date. Worked well, people seemed to like it but after a while I stopped doing it. I mean, who’s really going to care about such things, I have no kids of my own. But then yesterday for some reason the thought crossed my mind again and I just signed and dated in pencil on the bottom before the first coat of varnish. Not as nice as cutting it in but whatever.

Yeah I hear you Greg, it makes me nervous too! I think I will bend something up just to be on the safe side….
 
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