2020 POTD Thread Archive

Wood looks good, but I might forego the paint. It likely won't hold up well under heavy traffic. Mike
 
Looking great. The older we get manual labour becomes less appealing. lol
If your going to paint the boards I'd go with 80 grit sandpaper, gives a little more tooth for the paint to maybe hold.

Greg
 
Wood looks good, but I might forego the paint. It likely won't hold up well under heavy traffic. Mike
I would stain and seal them. Easy(er) cleanup when oil and grease spill.
 
I don't plan to have any traffic on the wood, the pit is inline with the door so it enters straight no wheel will run over the wood or the frame, as for paint, here we have some very hurtful but very strong paints, many of them are forbidden in other countries because of the pollution. I'll be using some strong paint no worries.
 
Fixed My Threading Dial

When I bought my Logan, the threading dial that came with it had no markings at all. After taking it apart, I concluded that while
the housing is a Logan part, the dial/shaft assembly was shop made, but never finished. Today I scribed the lines and stamped the numbers
in the face of the dial.

Setup was the same as when I scribed the lines on my cross feed dial: the spindle was indexed with a 96 tooth gear to give me a line every
12 teeth.

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The edge of the dial where the lines went was machined at an angle, so the compound was indicated to match it.

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The lines came out great, though I hand stamped the numbers which came out a bit untidy, but they're legible anyway. Now I just have
to find the tiny pin that holds the gear on the shaft: I placed all the parts in a plastic tray when I took it apart, but somehow the shop
gremlins ran off with it. :)

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Hi guys, It's been a while since I have posted anything. I thought this would be interesting, and a bit devious.

My wife raises chickens and ducks, well guess what, you have plenty of water and food, you get rats. I am really getting tired of taking the time to bait and set traps and only occasionally catching one of these little bastards. I've mostly been feeding them delicious peanut butter.

Now I know why you can't buy anything like this in a store. These are extremely dangerous.
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I absolutely love my new PM-835S knee mill. Lots more precise, quieter, and easier to use than my "old reliable" vintage Grizzly G1007/RF-30 (recently sold). Now I'm busy adding a few goodies like those I had on the Grizzle. One of these is a spindle light - my "vintage" eyes can use all the light they can get! So I bought a couple of automotive "Angel eyes" ring lights and extracted the LED modules. Designed a compact mount for them, which also incorporates a photosensor for the MachTach I recently assembled.

Here's a CAD screenshot of the complete assembly, as it will be mounted below the bearing retainer nose of the spindle. The black-and-white stripey thing is a strip of paper I will apply to the spindle, so the photosensor can count the RPMs.
SS Photo & Light Assembly.jpg

The photosensor housing will include wiring for the ring lights.
SS2 Photosensor Enclosure.jpg

Having a small CNC mill allows me to design parts that would be VERY difficult to do on the big mill. Here's a CAD rendering of the housing, still within the block of starting material (1 ⅛" thick polycarbonate, about 3 ¼" x 2"):
SS1 Photosensor Enclosure.jpg

After I got it milled, the question became, how to extract the itty bitty part (about 5/8" tall) from the 1 1/8" block of polycarbonate. I started by filling in the milled areas with wax. Easily visible is the "sink" that formed as the wax shrunk during cooling. No biggie. I used a sharp chisel to remove the excess wax. Front and back views of the part at that point. The bevel, counterbore and miscellaneous holes are artifacts form the chunk of material I'd scrounged from a dumpster.
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kHPIM0370.jpg

I held the block in the mill vise and cut away almost all the back side to the specified part height, leaving two "bars" to support the part inside the wax (which did help keep the part in place, but was not trustworthy as far as a firm hold was concerned).
kHPIM0372.jpg

I then carefully milled away the bars.
kHPIM0374.jpg

I was then able to very easily push out the part and also the wax support. Good thing I didn't depend too much on the wax to "firmly" hold the part! The part itself was exactly what I was hoping for!
kHPIM0376.jpg

Just for fun, I decided to try using the wax and surrounding block as a mold. Reassembled the two together and mixed up a batch of slow cure epoxy. Added powdered aluminum, de-bubbled in a homemade vacuum chamber.
kHPIM0379.jpg

Poured the epoxy into the wax "mold," which I'd clamped to a chunk of wood covered with wax paper.
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Two days later ... epoxy was still pretty soft. It was some pretty old stuff; I guess that's why it didn't harden the way it did when I'd first bought it. The "puddle" of excess epoxy I'd poured out had the consistency of an equivalent thickness of polyethylene. When I tried unmolding, the epoxy stuck surprisingly well to the wax. Had to break the wax off in chunks, then put the replica part into some nearly boiling water to float the last bits of wax off. Here's the result. NOT something I'd want to depend on in the future, but interesting ... maybe useful for an emergency repair?
kHPIM0383.jpg
 
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Got to spend some time down in the basement the past few days , you would never know that anything left . Too many boxes and containers . Every one I open it's like an early Christmas but un-fortunately I need to part with some of it . :fatigue:
 
Today i spoke with couple people about concrete and decided to proceed with smoothing the sides of the inspection pit, i use cement based glue and fill all the small holes. I had a small amount of time left so i tinted the color. And painted the planks that are smooth. The wood color looks better but i'm sure the gray will be better in protecting them, as you can see all the warning labels the paint i'm using is very resistant on oils and other chemicals.
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@GoceKU - I really have to admire the quality and thoroughness of your work. You make it both functional and good looking, and I'm sure you'll be proud of it every time you make use of it. Thanks again for showing us how it's done!
 
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