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

[BGHansen]

nice fix Bruce... the geothermal furnace, is that your own design?
Does it work well?

We have a unit called "Well Connect". It's a pump and dump system. The cooling cycle makes perfect sense to me. Compress Freon which raises the temp. Remove heat through the condenser, then drop the pressure through a throttle valve which drops the temp. Move air over the cold Freon to cool the house. Instead of trying to remove heat from the compressed Freon with 90 F hot summer air, we use 50 F water. It's WAY more efficient on the cooling cycle. It's on a 15A 220 breaker instead of a 40A (old conventional system). The massive increase in efficiency results in a much smaller compressor.

The heating cycle flips the water/air coils. In the heating cycle it blows air over the compressed Freon to make heat. We spent $2100 on electricity last year and used about $450 in propane. Previously we burned through about $1600 in propane and $1500 in electricity.

Our system cost about $12,000 installed. Gonna take a lot of years for it to pay off at around $500 a year savings.

I'll find a link to our unit and post it. Typing this on a tablet.

Bruce

 

[BGHansen]

Link is wellconnectgeo.com. Learned from the website that it uses 1300 W when running.

Bruce

 

[mmcmdl]

Same old stuff . Loaded up the new garden with one of the neighbors ground up stumps and dirt . Maybe 10 yards or so . Loading it and dumping it wasn't a problem , raking that crap was . The stomach is hurting a little . Got all the lathe stock in buckets ready to go out to a member maybe this weekend , heavy $hit hauling it up from the basement . Yesterday did a scrap run and was quite pleased with the prices , stainless was $.85 a lb. I didn't take my one hunk of 304 that weighs 82 lbs up figuring it's worth more to someone making something . Stuff is leaving , and I got a saw out and can actually use it . 2 four wheelers were wiped down also , they look brand new for 02s . To sum it up , same crap , different day .

When I can get into the tools , I'll have a $5 sale for all of them each at the yard sale and on here . It would keep me busy for years .

 

[woodchucker]

Same old stuff . Loaded up the new garden with one of the neighbors ground up stumps and dirt . Maybe 10 yards or so . Loading it and dumping it wasn't a problem , raking that crap was . The stomach is hurting a little . Got all the lathe stock in buckets ready to go out to a member maybe this weekend , heavy $hit hauling it up from the basement . Yesterday did a scrap run and was quite pleased with the prices , stainless was $.85 a lb. I didn't take my one hunk of 304 that weighs 82 lbs up figuring it's worth more to someone making something . Stuff is leaving , and I got a saw out and can actually use it . 2 four wheelers were wiped down also , they look brand new for 02s . To sum it up , same crap , different day .

When I can get into the tools , I'll have a $5 sale for all of them each at the yard sale and on here . It would keep me busy for years .

might have to take a road trip to one of your garage sales...

 

[brino]

might have to take a road trip to one of your garage sales...

Take a trailer!
Brian

 

[DavidR8]

I just played with three little projects that had been bugging me for awhile.

1) I found a very solid stand that was for a drum set, I believe, but it was missing a knob on one of the leg adjustments. It was 20 tpi, but but a custom diameter for some reason, so I threaded and knurled a replacement. I have a cheap knurling tool, but I don’t care.
2) I saw a very simple drill sharpening fixture on this site and made one out of Delrin, with a step to fit my grinder tool rest. Now this really works, no need for a drill doctor, etc. It’s pretty simple to use, and does a nice job.
3) I needed a cable clamp, nothing on hand, lazy, made a die and pressed out a clamp. So now I have free 1/2” clamps for life. This equipment is paying for itself every day.

View attachment 405091View attachment 405092View attachment 405093

I've got a slab of phenolic I might use for a drill guide. Thanks for the idea!

 

[mmcmdl]

Snafu as usual . Go to grind the nails sticking up thru the landscaping ties with the RA grinder . Better than yanking 200 ft of extension cord out I pull the small HF generator out for the job . 2nd pull , the friggin cord snaps . It's only 11 years old and cost me a whole $70 back then . Anyway , I tore the guts out of it and just used a drill to start it up with no yanking what so ever . More dead weight for the trash man that didn't show up today . I start the truck and take the landscaping ties out to the garden . Bought them from from Homey Repot . These things look like BentCarrott.com should have sold them . What a bunch of unusable trash , better suited for the burn pit . Unload the ties and back the truck up , the brake pedal goes to to the floor . Brake fluid flowing out of the left front caliper . JFG , tomorrows unexpected job .

On another note , the young neighbor across the street stopped in . Said he heard from my other neighbor that I went thru bladder cancer ops . Turns out , he has it and was asking questions about everything involved . Just a young guy so I was , but also wasn't surprised to hear it .

 

[mattthemuppet2]

Fixed up a 1" solid carbide boring bar that I got with a bunch of auction stuff a while back. Screwed a brass M4 screw into the partial insert hole then used my friends mig welder to build up the nose and sides of the insert pocket. Looked pretty ugly

Then got the base of the insert pocket more or less level on the mill

Milled the pocket flat then spent a good while with the Dremel, a bunch of burrs and an angle grinder to get this

Still needs a little fiddling but I figured I'd stop for the night before I made it worse. 100 times better than what it was though

 

[GoceKU]

Today i had some time to spare and some parts arrived for the W210. A set of front springs that wore also cut and a used turbocharger. The coil springs have to wait the turbocharger got my attention. This car has good working space and good quality hardware. I had to remove the coolant pipe to the alternator, yeah the alternator is cooled by the engine coolant. One thing i found that the catalytic converter is hollow and was full of oil, that will explain all the smoke. I install the new turbo drain the oil removed the oil filter but had to stop the replacement i bought wasn't right and did not want to run the turbo with the old oil.

 

[Wheat.Millington]

Sorry for the terrible pictures but did a really quick job this morning - hated the tiny little wheel on the tail stock on my lathe, so found this amoungst a random pile of scrap and made it my new hand wheel - it works BEAUTIFULLY, and the weight means it can turn with some momentum.

I was going to strip and paint it, maybe even turn it into a different shape, but actually I kind of like how ridiculous it looks lol, so I think I'll keep it as-is.