2016 POTD Thread Archive

[intjonmiller]

Look at the questions & answers, as well as the reviews, of the product. Many people are using it to great success with all sorts of wood. There is another that is quite a bit more expensive with stellar reviews but I think this one is probably the best value.

 

[RJSakowski]

I had a tree with a T post embedded. I cut it off above the post and let it rot so I wouldn't forget some day and take the chainsaw to it.

My favorite piece of tree art, though is this antler log. It is a piece of elm about a foot in diameter. I figure the deer must have been doing about 100 mph when he hit the tree.

 

[Charles Spencer]

I had another good week at the dump. I've been wanting a lawn roller that fills with water, but didn't want to buy one new. I had been looking on Craigslist, but I found one at the dump on Wednesday.

Then today I had to buy some paint for my new front stairs that I built yesterday. Since I was going by the dump I stopped in and found this:



It's a 10-drawer Kennedy tool box missing the front panel and one drawer. The rails for the drawer are still there. I found the missing drawer on ebay for $16.00 including shipping. I cleaned it up this afternoon, fixed a drawer that was sticking, and removed the rust.

So for $16.00 I got a Kennedy tool box.


Edit: It's actually an 8-drawer tool box. I miscounted.

 

[HBilly1022]

I had another good week at the dump. I've been wanting a lawn roller that fills with water, but didn't want to buy one new. I had been looking on Craigslist, but I found one at the dump on Wednesday.

Then today I had to buy some paint for my new front stairs that I built yesterday. Since I was going by the dump I stopped in and found this:

View attachment 130184

It's a 10-drawer Kennedy tool box missing the front panel and one drawer. The rails for the drawer are still there. I found the missing drawer on ebay for $16.00 including shipping. I cleaned it up this afternoon, fixed a drawer that was sticking, and removed the rust.

So for $16.00 I got a Kennedy tool box.

Great score and glad you're allowed to take stuff from the dump. Around here there are signs at the dump that state " No Scavenging" . Odd isn't it, since we are forced to recycle. Strange new world we live in.

Don't forget to post a pic when you're done with the restoration.

 

[dave_r_1]

Noticed my Ingersoll Rand 60 gal air compressor tank was leaking via a rust hole in the bottom [yeah, my dad and I didn't do much on draining the moisture out regularly enough], so I bought a Sanborn 80 gal air compressor to replace it, wired up a new 30 amp circuit for it [as it needs 22 amps, and I didn't want to slightly overload a 20 amp circuit]. Get it leveled on some wood blocks, wired up, compressor fires up, run it for 1/2 hour with it open to break it in, then close it up to pressurize it, gets up to 75 psi and doesn't get any higher. It's a 3 piston compressor, left and right air intakes are cool to the touch, middle intake is hot, take it off and I can feel air coming out of it when it's working [other two can't feel anything]. Yay, defective out of the box.

Second time in a row I've bought something expensive (> $1000 cdn) from Princess Auto and it's been defective right away. Month ago it was a Briggs & Stratton 22 HP motor that leaked oil when the motor was running.

Anyway, it's going back vs waiting weeks for parts from Sanborn to fix the 'new' compressor. Probably will get a Ingersoll Rand 60 gal SS5L5 instead.

 

[Charles Spencer]

Great score and glad you're allowed to take stuff from the dump. Around here there are signs at the dump that state " No Scavenging"

We can recycle for free or dispose of trash in bags that cost a couple of dollars each. A dump sticker costs $50 per year. I buy one even though I have a rollaway bucket and pick up service at home. I get it so I can scrounge at the dump and dispose of the occasional large item for a fee.

On Saturday mornings the dump is something of a community center. Boy Scouts have fund raisers, politicians go there for votes, etc. There's an area that's got a few tables set up and people can leave things that somebody might want. Kind of like a free yard sale.

About 25 years ago I worked in a town south of here that still had a landfill. People would submit bids to be allowed to run it. They more than made the money back that they paid for the privilege. One guy furnished an antique store that way.

 

[intjonmiller]

The dump near me has a covered, open-air area for leaving and finding things that are still usable. It's pretty cool. But the actual dropoff area is a flat, paved region and everything gets bulldozed away within minutes. Not much use for scavenging.

 

[Charles Spencer]

Everything besides recycling and metal goes into a large hopper at ours. Metal items go into a large rollaway container with an open door on the end. That's were I've found some good stuff.

 

[intjonmiller]

I'm trying to work out how I want to drive the 2"x72" belt grinder I'm building. I have a "2HP" 4000 RPM treadmill motor (ran it at full power with just a bridge rectifier and with no load it's doing 4051 RPMs). The flywheel is over 6" in diameter making it a bit large for my preference. I'm looking at doing more careful grinding rather than just hogging away tons of material all the time. I'll add a PWM controller later, but for now I just want to get it running. I think a 2" diameter drive wheel will make more sense.



But the left hand threads on the original drive wheel side of the motor mean that if I run it from that side in the position I had it mind, then it will tend to unscrew itself. So what way would you solve that? I would rather not pull the shaft and mount it in the lathe, though I suppose that's an option. Do you think a couple of setscrews would be sufficient? Maybe if I bore and internally thread the drive wheel (just a chunk of home brew aluminum alloy), and add the set screws, then mount it and drive the set screws in to mark the shaft, and then grind flats at those points?

Making things from things on hand is so much more complicated than just designing with whatever you care to order or build.

 

[intjonmiller]

Oops, I just realized that the picture of the grinder setup is not correct. I was just playing with different arrangements, and considering using the flywheel as the drive wheel. It will actually be rotated 180, unless I decide that it makes more sense to remove the flywheel, but I would rather have the inertial mass there, especially since it's nicely balanced already.