2017 POTD Thread Archive

Bruce, great idea. I'm actually just now taking a break from butchering my 11 year old granddaughter's first white tail. We always do some jerky and its labor intensive so I really like the idea of meat sticks. Do you have a special recipe you use?
Bill
Congrats to your granddaughter! Bet you're still smiling!

I do the shooting. Skinning and butchering is a "family" activity. My wife makes summer sausage in spicy, Italian and whatever else strikes her fancy. She uses burger for jerky nowadays, used to cut steak meat into strips. But it goes so much faster pumping it out directly on dehydrating racks than cutting thin strips. Plus the burger meat is easier to chew. She makes jerky and meat sticks in Teriyaki and spicy. Nice to walk by the bag and grab a handful for a snack. Better for us than M&M's.

Bruce
 
Carried on with improving the plow attachment I made for one of my mowers.

Originally, I used some rods & pipe to connect the plow ends to the main part of the plow (I had to shorten it so it would fit on my truck with the rest of my equipment). The rods promptly bent, so I switch to much larger square tubing that can slide together. Last year, I just welded on the bottom two square tubing setups, and left the top rod&pipe alone, which worked ok, but the remaining rod still didn't work too well, and the tabs I welded on to hold the extensions onto the center section permitted more free play than I'd like (the extension could separate a bit from the main section and then it would vibrate out the top rod).

So, I cut off the tubes for rod that were on top, and replaced it with square tubing and then drilled holes through the square tubes that I insert pins through, and now the extensions can't move outwards at all anymore.

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As well, I made a better mount for the winch control. It came with a mount for attaching to a tube (ie, a quad handlebar), and I tried using it, but it was pretty annoying, as I had to lock the handlebar controls, then reach for the winch control, use the plow, then lock/reach/move. And the bolts would work loose, so the control would flop around until I retightened them.

I decided to make a mount for the switch so I can use it with my thumb while my hands are still on the controls, and so it's firmly bolted down.

The result:
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I should have bent the mounting tang on the far mount the other way, so the whole control would be about 1" over, so the near mount would clear the engine speed control, but I didn't think of it until I started writing this post. :-(

And what's a little work without making a mistake...I made both mounts together by holding two pieces of 1/8" plate together, then cutting off the bits that didn't look like a mount, but I don't have a particularly accurate method of bending the pieces (ie, draw a line, stick it in a vise so the line is along an edge of the vise and then hammer it over). After drilling the holes in one side of the mount for the winch switch, I found that the other side of the mount was a bit higher, and the lower bolt on the switch just missed the mount. Here's the pic of the mount after I welded the section I had previous cut from the mount.
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Tomorrow, I take it for a tour of the park and see how it all works.

I still have to think about how to rework the cutting edge of the plow. Now it's in 3 sections, and each of the ends can/will catch on cracks/edges of concrete. It's not too bad for the middle section, but it could cause problems for the extensions (possibly bending them or the mounts, which is what happened with the previous rods/pipes setup). I need to come up with some way to attach a full-width cutting edge after attaching both extensions so it stays at the right angle, distributes the force evenly to the plow, and goes on and comes off easily.
 
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A few days ago I decided I needed some ER 40 collet blocks ( I really don't have a need but you know how that goes). I was going to make a round one that I could chuck in the 3 jaw for machining threaded or delicate parts and a hex one for quick indexing in the mill vise. I put a 50mm diameter round in the rotary table vise and tried to machine the flats but found the setup wasn't stable enough. So now I needed a TS for the RT. I could buy one ....... but why do that when I can make one. Easy enough ....... ya right. I discovered how nasty mill scale is. Killed my end mills before I figured out what was happening. Then some grinding and back to work.

Finally done and put into use.
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Relative newbie here - you folks are inspiring. Today I finished several simple hangers designed to get our stored bicycle carriers up off the floor and out of the way. No real machining but I used a couple of our new tools - PM-712G (horizontal bandsaw) and the Hossfeld Bender.

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Howard

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Just something silly.

We tinker with Atmos clocks and the oil is very not cheap and constantly worried about knocking it over so we grabbed a chunk of mystery metal with a partial hole too large and made a holder.

The larger top of the hole was perfect for an o ring to be stuffed in to make it secure.

Came out good.

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I did no work in the shop this weekend. What I did work on will have a major effect on the shop. I built a new shed which I purchased from a company called Shed In A Day. The walls come prebuilt and they include a floor which most packages do not. I now will be able to remove project wood and their storage racks from the shop. Saturday was sunny and over freeze and today I finished the roof and just have Ice and Water for now until I get the real roof on.
Pierre

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The ozonator in my hot tub wasn't making bubbles like it is supposed to. I checked the tubes for a break but didn't find any. I had absolutely no idea how it functioned. So, I went to the Googles and all was revealed.

It bubbles now, but I'm not sure it is producing ozone. You are supposed to be able to smell it, but I don't smell anything. I found out about a kit to test if it is producing ozone. I ordered it. It was cheap, about $12. Much cheaper than a new ozonator.

I'm trying to be smart about this one. Usually, I buy a new battery before I discover that it was the alternator.
 
Finally got around to cleaning these up. Atlas called them "index centers", and they came with my new/old horizontal miller I got in the summer. The miller itself was used pretty heavily, but if I had to hazard a guess on how many times these were actually employed I would probably say once. The only reason to pull them all apart was the grease and oil was hard solid.

Almost no scuffing on either of the centres or quills, none of the screw slots or wrench flats are rolled over, everything is almost like they just came out of the box. Except they've been painted, and somewhat poorly at that. Oh well, evidence of someone else's legacy of good intentions, I'll leave them as is for now, I'm just happy to have them.

Thanks for looking.

-frank

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