POTD- PROJECT OF THE DAY: What Did You Make In Your Shop Today?

[verbotenwhisky]

Even without casters, that base would make me very nervous.

Here's my dirt cheap Chinese hydraulic press:



Now, that's pretty stable but even so, I'm planning on moving it to another wall where I can anchor it at the top to a bracket on the wall, so there's no chance of tipping.

There has been one recent occasion where I've needed to get round something or other to press on the bit that needed pressing and I didn't got the setup quite as perpendicular to the pressed surface as it should have been. After a few pumps of the handle, the pair of steel pins I was using to transfer the force slipped and pinged out and the whole frame rocked back and forth a bit!

@hotrats seriously mate, your safety is way more important than convenience or any extra time spent getting this right.

Not that your interested; but, the best upgrade to my 12 ton press, similar to yours, likely same manufacturer, was to change out the jack for an air over hydraulic.

 

[SouthernChap]

Not that your interested; but, the best upgrade to my 12 ton press, similar to yours, likely same manufacturer, was to change out the jack for an air over hydraulic.

View attachment 494902

You Americans and your compressed Air everywhere!

I'm waiting on two benches so I can reconfigure the area where my Warco Minor (currently sat on a pallet at the front of the garage, just outside the envelope of my 'allocated' workshop space) is going to sit, trying to work out where the hell I'm going to store all this plastic and doing tetris in my head to see where I can move non-workshop items to to open up another two-thirds of a wall to get me more space (which in all likelihood will turn out to be swallowed up as soon as I clear it).

All the while, my little 7x is once again sitting disassembled, awaiting the hopefully final lapping of the unmachined middle undersides of the ways to install a central shear plate to aid rigidity (and also act as a carriage lock)...

...and now you want me to fit an air compressor in this place?

Listen my fine, spoiled-for-square-footage, American brother: I live on a pissant little island with a fine military tradition but armed forces that could probably be, size-wise at least, out-matched by the combined forces of the Texas National Guard and a few of the local militia groups, a once proud industrial capacity that apparently experienced something akin to The Rapture in the 1980s, and an economy that staggers from gangbusters to empty pockets like a one-legged drunkard hopping on an ice-rink!

Here in the UK, we have small houses, on ever smaller plots with, if we're lucky, small garages, that we inevitably have to share with the other members of our household.

Fitting an air compressor in?

Pfft! I have a spare 12v mini-tyre inflator, that I had to carefully repack a cupboard to find a space for!



Seriously, though, that's a good idea and if my reconfiguration goes well, and my ideas for separating off my workshop area from my better-half's 'garden shed' area of the garage (AKA some covert annexation by putting up a partition that will benefit me more than it does her ) I should have a good place for a 50l compressor.

 

[verbotenwhisky]

You Americans and your compressed Air everywhere!

I'm waiting on two benches so I can reconfigure the area where my Warco Minor (currently sat on a pallet at the front of the garage, just outside the envelope of my 'allocated' workshop space) is going to sit, trying to work out where the hell I'm going to store all this plastic and doing tetris in my head to see where I can move non-workshop items to to open up another two-thirds of a wall to get me more space (which in all likelihood will turn out to be swallowed up as soon as I clear it).

All the while, my little 7x is once again sitting disassembled, awaiting the hopefully final lapping of the unmachined middle undersides of the ways to install a central shear plate to aid rigidity (and also act as a carriage lock)...

...and now you want me to fit an air compressor in this place?

Listen my fine, spoiled-for-square-footage, American brother: I live on a pissant little island with a fine military tradition but armed forces that could probably be, size-wise at least, out-matched by the combined forces of the Texas National Guard and a few of the local militia groups, a once proud industrial capacity that apparently experienced something akin to The Rapture in the 1980s, and an economy that staggers from gangbusters to empty pockets like a one-legged drunkard hopping on an ice-rink!

Here in the UK, we have small houses, on ever smaller plots with, if we're lucky, small garages, that we inevitably have to share with the other members of our household.

Fitting an air compressor in?

Pfft! I have a spare 12v mini-tyre inflator, that I had to carefully repack a cupboard to find a space for!



Seriously, though, that's a good idea and if my reconfiguration goes well, and my ideas for separating off my workshop area from my better-half's 'garden shed' area of the garage (AKA some covert annexation by putting up a partition that will benefit me more than it does her ) I should have a good place for a 50l compressor.

LOL, sorry man, I keep forgetting I am in Texas....

 

[SouthernChap]

LOL, sorry man, I keep forgetting I am in Texas....

You know the State of Texas' total area is approaching triple the size of the UK but with under half the population!

You guys have a lot of space!

 

[ggbutcher]

Been making this in bits and pieces for the past two months:



It's the backend of an airbrush booth, designed to 1) use my existing ducting for the 3D printing cabinet, 2) not take up too much space, and 3) cost a lot less than a manufactured one. Indeed, mostly scrap materials except for the filter grating and the duct register box, set me back about $30US. Still to come is the "desk" part and hood. The duct fan is a 200CFM grow tent fan; at ludicrous speed it will suck the filter right into place...

 

[Gnpenning]

Southernchap@. Wait a minute, aren't you the once great super power of the world? You had a number of colonies with plenty of room. Your island was a small portion of land under rule. You have a incredible history.

 

[SouthernChap]

Southernchap@. Wait a minute, aren't you the once great super power of the world? You had a number of colonies with plenty of room. Your island was a small portion of land under rule. You have a incredible history.

We certainly have a history, some of it great, some if it not so much.

British colonialism probably had some positive effects but, in common with all countries that practiced colonialism (we were certainly not the only colonising power and, in some small ways, not consistently the most brutal), it has probably has left a net negative stamp on the world.

But then that's to be expected. Actions, and thus consequences, are driven by intentions, and colonialism is rarely driven by benevolent intentions.

The intention was always to make money and the main commercial actors, those who could afford the costs of taking advantage of colonialism, were run by psychopaths, just like the vast majority of corporations are today. However, those commercial partners in colonialism were unfettered by any requirement to maintain a good public image and indeed were mostly free of legal restraints.

So yeah, having the long history is a mixed blessing*.

Besides, whilst the long history is fascinating and vital to understand, it doesn't make my workshop any bigger!

*Mind you. I'm not in the business of feeling personal shame for my country's colonial past. My ancestors were under the cosh of these psychopaths too. Besides, I don't feel proud of my country's past or present since, as a confirmed individualist (albeit with a pragmatic belief in collectivism where necessary) that makes no sense in my philosophy; I can only feel pride or shame in my own actions. Not anybody else's, and certainly not the actions of others long dead.

 

[verbotenwhisky]

We certainly have a history, some of it great, some if it not so much.

British colonialism probably had some positive effects but, in common with all countries that practiced colonialism (we were certainly not the only colonising power and, in some small ways, not consistently the most brutal), it has probably has left a net negative stamp on the world.

But then that's to be expected. Actions, and thus consequences, are driven by intentions, and colonialism is rarely driven by benevolent intentions.

The intention was always to make money and the main commercial actors, those who could afford the costs of taking advantage of colonialism, were run by psychopaths, just like the vast majority of corporations are today. However, those commercial partners in colonialism were unfettered by any requirement to maintain a good public image and indeed were mostly free of legal restraints.

So yeah, having the long history is a mixed blessing*.

Besides, whilst the long history is fascinating and vital to understand, it doesn't make my workshop any bigger!

*Mind you. I'm not in the business of feeling personal shame for my country's colonial past. My ancestors were under the cosh of these psychopaths too. Besides, I don't feel proud of my country's past or present since, as a confirmed individualist (albeit with a pragmatic belief in collectivism where necessary) that makes no sense in my philosophy; I can only feel pride or shame in my own actions. Not anybody else's, and certainly not the actions of others long dead.

History is a jaded thing. There are many, in today's world, who would like to ignore inconvenient portions of history to allow a portion of victim-hood to themselves and/or their particular self defined class or group. We cannot change history and should not be ashamed of history we had no part in deciding; however, we should recognize and learn from it even when it is uncomfortable.

I am not from the line of thought that history 100% repeats it's self, I am more of the mind that I agree with Samuel Langhorne Clemens who once postulated, “History Doesn’t Repeat Itself, but It Often Rhymes”.

 

[davek181]

 

[davek181]

I had written a long description to accompany the photos in my post above, but some how it was lost and i couldn't figure out how to edit it in. So to clarify this is a repair to a DEF tank pump's fragile original fitting that breaks off all too easily. A new pump is $500.00 so i had to figure out a fix. i have made fittings out of aluminum, brass, stainless, and final design Delrin. The picture shows the first one made from aluminum. The fittings picture is the plastic original and the failed stainless one that I made too deep of cut on at the last and twisted it. I didn't take shots of the successful ones, but you get the idea I am sure.