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2020 POTD Thread Archive
- Thread starter eugene13
- Start date
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- Jul 14, 2017
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- 2,459
Today i stopped by the steel place bought me 1,5" thick wall pipe for a future project, also i ordered me a cylinder hone, but is looking more like a brake hone, it arrived. On the way back i also got a call from a local shipping company, the winter tires for my father's car araved so i pick those too, i've forgot how small 14" tires are. With that now i need to pick me 4 good rims out of the stack of peugeot rims, i'm thinking steel rims for winter.
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- Sep 2, 2013
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- 5,439
Spent the better part of the last two weeks installing a 200 amp service for my masseuse of 35 yrs. 235' of 2' deep trench, 245' of 4 conductor direct bury 4/0 cable, remote meter and disconnect to a 200amp main panel at the house. The house is a log tiny home sitting on 6x6 steel H- beams. With a shallow insulated crawl space. Pretty challenging to run circuits, but finally finished up the other day, and got back to work on the shop. Latest project was hooking up an old urinal I got free on Craig's List. Had to build a stand off as it was designed to be hung on an interior wall, and I'm putting it on an exterior wall. Dug a small leech field behind the shop for it, and will be using the condensate from the furnace (puts out almost 5 gal a day) for flushing until I get my roof collection system in next summer. Should be a blessing on those -20 winter days coming up. Cheers, Mike
- Joined
- Feb 17, 2013
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- 4,409
Good one, Mike!
When I bought my house, the shop came equipped with running water and, among other fixtures, a pissoir. I thought it a golden opportunity to add a (reversible) sign above. The texts are from a story I recalled from Playboy Magzine, mid '60s:
When I bought my house, the shop came equipped with running water and, among other fixtures, a pissoir. I thought it a golden opportunity to add a (reversible) sign above. The texts are from a story I recalled from Playboy Magzine, mid '60s:
- Joined
- Jul 19, 2020
- Messages
- 91
Went outside today, noticed one of the tires on the 5th wheel travel trailer was flat. I keep all the tools on board to change a tire if I have to, but had not needed it yet. Today we find out. Broke the lugs loose, then grabbed the small bottle jack I keep onboard. Decided the small 1.3” dia pad with shallow V grooves on the jack would be unsafe under the 3” axle. Scrounged around, found a old rusty chunk of steel and made an adaptor. Much better now, I’ll try it tomorrow.
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- Oct 18, 2016
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- Joined
- Jul 19, 2020
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Pics came out screwy... should be ok now.
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- Nov 23, 2014
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- 2,637
My dad was a private pilot. The sign over the urinal at the Gaylord Mi airport read "Pilots with short props or low manifold pressure, taxi on up close ".
Bruce
- Joined
- Dec 6, 2015
- Messages
- 834
When your niece asks you for a wand from the Harry Potter books, do you stop working on stuff and focus on that? The answer is a resounding "yes". My niece is a fanatic of "Luna Lovegood". She asked me to make Luna's wand for her. That silly niece knows that she can ask, smile, and I'd make something for her. (The others do, too - which doesn't bode too well for me as they ALL have me wrapped around their little fingers.)
This was actually the most technically challenging thing I've ever done, and I've done some things to within five thousandths of an inch. Turns out, this was a piece of wood done to within 5 thousandths of an inch. Not knowing about the wand, I took to the Internet. I found a picture of the wand and a brief write up about it (a Harry Potter fandom page), obtained the overall length from another Google search (34cm), and scaled and printed the wand.
Next I set out with calipers to get the dimensions (distance between features, diameters, etc). That gave me a "machinists drawing" to work from. I could not find any rosewood, all the wood shop stores had were maple blanks, so that's what I had to use - white, untainted, plain maple.
I broke out the wood lathe, and....
...promptly hosed the first one. I learned that with that much flex, I needed to do the ends first, and work my way to the middle. If I turned down the middle and then did the ends, there was too much flex in it and it would likely break. I also found that you need to use a support with where you are cutting the wood - and since follower rests don't exist for wood lathe tools, you have to use your hand.
I do not recommend using gloves on a lathe. I do NOT NOT NOT! But that's what I had to do. I knew that if the gloves caught, the friction on the center was loose enough that the whole thing would stop spinning - I knew that because I would jam the tool in hard enough once at the start to get it to bite, and I didn't dare have enough pressure between the drive center and the tailstock center that the wood ended up flexing. The friction between the gloves and the wood was the worst part - it got hot enough that my nerves were damaged (it still hurts typing this up and it's been a few days). But, any sacrifice is worth it for my nieces and nephews.
I finally got a reasonable replica of the movie prop (the said prop looked like dark walnut, actually, not rosewood like in the books) in shape.
Next was indexing the grooves on it. It was the first time I'd done indexing on the wood lathe. It turned out okay, and I was excited for a chance to try it.
For the finishing, I used stains (I was starting with plain maple, right?). First were two layers of "Sedona red", followed by a couple of coats of dark walnut.
I don't like the grain (OCD gets big here as the grains of maple are different from the actual rosewood, but you cut your losses and move on). The final result still has yet to be done - I need to part the end off to length, and I need to cut the pommel side into the wand. But the interim result looks fabulous!
This was actually the most technically challenging thing I've ever done, and I've done some things to within five thousandths of an inch. Turns out, this was a piece of wood done to within 5 thousandths of an inch. Not knowing about the wand, I took to the Internet. I found a picture of the wand and a brief write up about it (a Harry Potter fandom page), obtained the overall length from another Google search (34cm), and scaled and printed the wand.
Next I set out with calipers to get the dimensions (distance between features, diameters, etc). That gave me a "machinists drawing" to work from. I could not find any rosewood, all the wood shop stores had were maple blanks, so that's what I had to use - white, untainted, plain maple.
I broke out the wood lathe, and....
...promptly hosed the first one. I learned that with that much flex, I needed to do the ends first, and work my way to the middle. If I turned down the middle and then did the ends, there was too much flex in it and it would likely break. I also found that you need to use a support with where you are cutting the wood - and since follower rests don't exist for wood lathe tools, you have to use your hand.
I do not recommend using gloves on a lathe. I do NOT NOT NOT! But that's what I had to do. I knew that if the gloves caught, the friction on the center was loose enough that the whole thing would stop spinning - I knew that because I would jam the tool in hard enough once at the start to get it to bite, and I didn't dare have enough pressure between the drive center and the tailstock center that the wood ended up flexing. The friction between the gloves and the wood was the worst part - it got hot enough that my nerves were damaged (it still hurts typing this up and it's been a few days). But, any sacrifice is worth it for my nieces and nephews.
I finally got a reasonable replica of the movie prop (the said prop looked like dark walnut, actually, not rosewood like in the books) in shape.
Next was indexing the grooves on it. It was the first time I'd done indexing on the wood lathe. It turned out okay, and I was excited for a chance to try it.
For the finishing, I used stains (I was starting with plain maple, right?). First were two layers of "Sedona red", followed by a couple of coats of dark walnut.
I don't like the grain (OCD gets big here as the grains of maple are different from the actual rosewood, but you cut your losses and move on). The final result still has yet to be done - I need to part the end off to length, and I need to cut the pommel side into the wand. But the interim result looks fabulous!
- Joined
- Oct 18, 2016
- Messages
- 2,852
Your niece is a lucky girl.
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