2021 POTD Thread Archive

Not machining by any means. Built my wife a greenhouse from reclaimed wood and materials I had, other than a handful of 1X2’s and plastic for the doors. It’s nothing fancy, but it should suffice. Note the 30-30 casings in the latches. They fit nicely and they’re cool!4CD4B016-022A-449A-8EC8-6F3C33C6DDA0.jpegB3D9EC80-831D-4BAD-A6FF-72408B1CA2DD.jpeg
 
Cool, I like the casing! My ex father in law did that to me one time, he was just coming back into town from a hunting trip and wanted to leave us a note but we weren't home. So he scribbled a bit on a scrap of paper, rolled it up and pushed it inside a casing, and poked that into the keyhole on our front door so we'd see it (old style keyhole, eh). I was the first one home and when I saw the rifle casing sticking out of the front door I just about had a heart attack figuring it was some cryptic signal from the mafia or something that I was about to be terminated.... :oops:
 
Not machining by any means. Built my wife a greenhouse from reclaimed wood and materials I had, other than a handful of 1X2’s and plastic for the doors. It’s nothing fancy, but it should suffice. Note the 30-30 casings in the latches. They fit nicely and they’re cool!View attachment 388268View attachment 388269
that's not machining :grin: at least I use shell casings for machining;). I use them on top of my remote oiler.. it keeps the swarf out of it.
I thought I had a pic... I'll have to get one when I get home...
 
Doin' some casting? I started with a burner like that, but ultimately went to a larger orifice with a 60 PSI regulator and a blower to force air in. Much faster to get to brass.
R

It’s for a forge, and provides mixture to a ribbon burner (135 small holes in a ceramic block). I just put the straight nozzle on for a quick test. The gas orifice for this is a .030” MIG tip.

For a melting furnace, a larger burner and forced air might make sense. I haven’t had the need yet for for forge. I would like to cast aluminum at least, just haven’t spent the time getting set up.
 
Repaired a refrigerator drawer today. A little bit of plastic fractured in a high stress area on the drawer, namely a small lip that attaches the front of the drawer to the main drawer. This caused the front of the drawer to pull out, but not the drawer. This has been quite an annoyance to both myself and my wife. The refrigerator is only 1-1/2 years old. Here is the broken piece.
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Yesterday, I decided to fix it. Made a prototype, which wasn't quite right, but gave me some hope it could be done. So came up with version 2!

Today finished version 2. Here are two pictures of the solution. I made a piece with a lip, this went on top. Then I made a bottom piece which was roughly shaped to the inside part of the drawer to act as a nut. I made the nut plate larger to reduce the stress on the sandwiched plastic. M3 screw. 6061 - stronger than the plastic. The lip is on the drawer face. The lip catches the plastic molding that is part of the drawer body.
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The inside surface of the drawer was curved, so had to do quite a bit of filing and fitting to get my custom nut plate to fit. Have to say it is nice to have the drawer fixed. It was hard fixing this in situ. If I have to do this again, I'll empty the vegetables from the drawer!

The plastic molding features on this drawer conspired against any clamping. I found a decent spot to drill on the top piece. Marked it and drilled for 2.5 mm on the mill. Then brought piece to fridge and used it as a drill guide. Hand drilled with 2.5 mm drill through the plastic. Used hole in plastic as a guide and held nut plate underneath and spun drill bit to mark nut plate. Then brought nut plate to mill and drilled and tapped for M3. Finally used an 1/8" (3.125 mm) drill to get clearance through the top plate and the plastic. Miraculously, everything lined up and I assembled it with an 8 mm long M3 socket head cap screw.

Now back to whatever it was I was doing... What was that again?
 
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