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

ivel03 said:
I'm sure you're all sick of my project by now but i typically don't finish things - i just get them good enough to use and move onto the next thing which means that clamp would forever be there!

View attachment 496285


While it is 100% functional it's not 100% done - the variable speed + fwd/rev control box is sitting on top of the mill control box still. Need to mount the control box and put a couple of wire clamps on it. Darn it, i was so close.... :rolleyes:
Click to expand...
Nope, there are those that will take inspiration from your endeavor and letting them know what the improvements are might provide them solutions to problems.... Keep up the good work...
 
Got new bearings on the 10HP for the phase converter and fully assembled it. Spins nicely and looks good. It took a bit to put in the rear bearing, it was tight on the shaft. The worst part was moving it across the shop, should have assembled it where I needed it. From what I can find online it’s 184 lbs but feels lighter than that, time for a hoist and scale. Still need to put the rubber feet on it and deal with the electric portion but that a problem for another day.IMG_7070.jpeg
 
OCJohn said:
I made a rocket car last week. No, really… I did.

Click to expand...
OMG that bought back a ton of memories.
About 1960 I built a rocket car from Mechanno (Erector).
The rocket motor was a large aerosol can about a foot long with the valve unit removed and replaced with a 6 inch long brass tube that I had pinched the end into 4 outlets.
The fuel was a mix of sugar and sodium nitrate weedkiller.
My mate and I experimented with proportions to get various speeds of burning from very slow for fuses, medium for rockets and very fast for explosives.
I filled the can with the rocket mix slightly dampened so I could tamp it in and make a hollow cone running from the narrow end of the can to 2/3rds down and let it dry for a week.
The pinched tube was inserted into the end and it was fixed to the Mechanno base and wheels.
In those days we could but something called jetex fuse for model jet engines so that was inserted down the tube to the point of the cone.
All set up, light fuse, retire to behind a concrete wall.
It was awesome, a pale blue and yellow flame about a yard long with pressure waves in it, the car took of at a fantastic speed to about 20 feet when it exploded in a gigantic explosion.
We legged it over the waste land to get home from a different direction in the hope no one would know who did this.
When I got home my father just said "Was that you?"
I said what?
You know.
All the gas flames on the stove went yellow from the metal dust in them being shaken loose from the blast.
We searched for the remains the next day but couldnt find any of them.
They were good days.
 
Finally went to pick up these... now to clean and give it a coat of paint... and decide where the heck I will place them. There are two cabinets in the photo. One stacked over the other.

Cabinets.jpeg
 
savarin said:
The fuel was a mix of sugar and sodium nitrate weedkiller.
Click to expand...
Side note. While I'm not known to be extremely cautious, to anyone inclined to play similarly I have a very good friend who is missing digits because of something like this. I believe the details were the explosion happened while packing the motor.
 
dkemppai said:
Side note. While I'm not known to be extremely cautious, to anyone inclined to play similarly I have a very good friend who is missing digits because of something like this. I believe the details were the explosion happened while packing the motor.
Click to expand...
In general, when fooling with stuff like this, avoid metal casings. Use cardboard or something that won't carry far in an explosion. My dad taught me this when I was dabbling in the art of pyrotechnics/rocketry. I still have all my digits, so must have learned something from him. Oh yeah, destructive power roughly follows the cube of the mass. Little stuff, "relatively safe", bigger stuff got very scary, very fast. We tried it, and it made quite an impression on me.

Made some HE and a shaped charge, the diameter of a soda straw and 1/2" long. It penetrated a stack of 10 pennies. Here's a picture where a tiny HE device was set off laying on a penny. You can see the blast dented the penny with the outline of the HE, and interestingly where the rim was damaged in a peculiar way. The raised script on the penny shielded the rim. In between the letters, in the gap, the rim was torn away.
PXL_20240710_141702619.jpg
This is a picture of (I think) the last penny in the stack that was penetrated by a miniature shaped device. I made a conical dent in the end and put a tiny shaped cone made of sheet metal. The straw was upright with the cone like ^ against the stack of pennies. Wish I could find the rest of the pennies, but they seem to be lost to history. It seems the jet bifurcated, since if I hold the penny up to the light I see two spots of daylight.
PXL_20240710_141733903.jpg
Once I did this, I was satisfied, and my interest in these devices somewhat waned. I proved to myself it could be done, and that was enough. I learned how nasty big stuff could get and wanted to keep all my body parts. It was a good lesson.

Every time I got better at rocket making, my dad would reduce the size/mass I could use. More or less kept me out of trouble by setting goals that got successively harder. I learned a lot and the rockets got better and better.

Edit: Pennies were POTD ca. 1972... With adult supervision, FWIW. Haven't dabbled in the subject matter since then.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top