Stuff you have made today

[Dev]

Tinkering with the laser to engrave and cut a wee decorative thing for the kids’s room.

 

[Memmeddu]

Trying to teach people stuff can be the most rewarding thing or the most frustrating... And sometimes both!

It is funny when some youths have no common sense and keep making silly mistakes... Eg one guy cutting some plate sat on forklift forks and managing to plasma halfway through one of the forks...

It's funnier that I'm not younger in the shop but almost , and the apprentice is 10 years older than me.
Anyways it happened something similar to the forks , the bucket was on the stands, slightly tilted to not touch directly on them and not interfering with the cutting .
The stand deflected the spark stream directly towards him.
But there is an huge amount of things we have pay attention every single day.
It's not fun but I found myself saying to the least experienced what not to do safety wise , or correct the more experience mistakes or bad abits obviously without pronouncing a word, like when they left the key on the lathe chuck with motor turned permanently on .
I just pass by ,turn off the lathe and remove the key , I hate to see that.
Then after an half hour or more you can here someone "who turned off the lathe?"
The lathe used by the oldest and most experienced man at work doesn't have a clutch lever but an electric clutch.
Things fails once in a while ... And if I can reduce the probability of someone getting hurt by a flying key because a lathe was left on and the clutch failed....

 

[Munkul]

It's funnier that I'm not younger in the shop but almost , and the apprentice is 10 years older than me.
Anyways it happened something similar to the forks , the bucket was on the stands, slightly tilted to not touch directly on them and not interfering with the cutting .
The stand deflected the spark stream directly towards him.
But there is an huge amount of things we have pay attention every single day.
It's not fun but I found myself saying to the least experienced what not to do safety wise , or correct the more experience mistakes or bad abits obviously without pronouncing a word, like when they left the key on the lathe chuck with motor turned permanently on .
I just pass by ,turn off the lathe and remove the key , I hate to see that.
Then after an half hour or more you can here someone "who turned off the lathe?"
The lathe used by the oldest and most experienced man at work doesn't have a clutch lever but an electric clutch.
Things fails once in a while ... And if I can reduce the probability of someone getting hurt by a flying key because a lathe was left on and the clutch failed....

I agree. One of the first things machinists are taught - never leave the key in the chuck. Its a habit that is taught that takes a second and makes everyone a bit safer.

 

[sparkysy]

I remember back as an apprentice on the turning section a fellow apprentice forgot to remove the key before starting the lathe.
It went with two big bangs, left a dent in the back guard and exited through the cement board roof. Left a hole the size of a basketball in the sheet, never did hear of where it ended up!
Good skills for removing it @Memmeddu before it does some damage!

 

[Farside]

Eg one guy cutting some plate sat on forklift forks and managing to plasma halfway through one of the forks...

Bit of weld, soon sort that...
Only kidding, but it's the kind of thing that happens, then somebody pays the price.

 

[Erie Fred]

Done well to bend that three quater round cold

I'm a bit chunky kind of a kid....leaned into it.....

 

[DAPPH]

Is it just me or does the loaf look sad and the choc cake looks happy

It's funnier that I'm not younger in the shop but almost , and the apprentice is 10 years older than me.
Anyways it happened something similar to the forks , the bucket was on the stands, slightly tilted to not touch directly on them and not interfering with the cutting .
The stand deflected the spark stream directly towards him.
But there is an huge amount of things we have pay attention every single day.
It's not fun but I found myself saying to the least experienced what not to do safety wise , or correct the more experience mistakes or bad abits obviously without pronouncing a word, like when they left the key on the lathe chuck with motor turned permanently on .
I just pass by ,turn off the lathe and remove the key , I hate to see that.
Then after an half hour or more you can here someone "who turned off the lathe?"
The lathe used by the oldest and most experienced man at work doesn't have a clutch lever but an electric clutch.
Things fails once in a while ... And if I can reduce the probability of someone getting hurt by a flying key because a lathe was left on and the clutch failed....

Either weld the chuck key to a big lump of metal after taking it out the chuck or take it out and chuck it in a bucket of dirty oil or if there is one the cutting fluid tank.
Then tell them why it happened .

As an apprentice leaving the key in the chuck of the lathe or drill was a safety offence ,usually punished by the loss of a weeks wages & weeks restriction of privileges , along with loads of menial tasks around the barracks or cook house in your own time . Out in the regular adult army it usually got dealt with by having to volunteer for four extra 24 hour duties , two on a Saturday or Friday night or lose a weeks wage & have your cards marked for such an offence .

 

[Erie Fred]

Now with paint !
It's a sheet lifter, I got in 10-15 sheets of 16 ga for the plasma (4' x 10') and the magnet
won't lift them, too thin for the magnet.
The cross arms are 42" wide, I figure this will position the chains 3" on a side with the chains set shorter, will provide a good angle to
keep the hooks on the sheet edges.
On 5' wide sheets, it will be 9" on a side, so hang the chains out a bit longer to not stress the sheet with too much side pull.

 

[Erie Fred]

He unfortunately caught on fire during the teaching session , didn't listen at me when I've said that it was going to happen because he was right in front of the molten steel and sparks stream path .

Fire is soooo over rated.....No worries until it smells like a steak on the grill in the shop.

 

[DAPPH]

Fire is soooo over rated.....No worries until it smells like a steak on the grill in the shop.

Yesterday Fizzy made magic smoke when he fired up his welder . At first he didn't see it as he was masked up about to carry on welding . I got him to stop within a second or so and the welder sent out enough smoke signals to tell the guys at the battle of little big horn to go home and not bother . Tonight the smoke machine refused to come apart , tomorrow Mr Dremel will take charge and grind at the corroded nuts & bolts holding the casings together

 

[GRW]

Watch out those fridges on gas can be bloody dangerous.

Do you mean from CO poisoning, explosion, both?
I do use a CO monitor/alarm & gas dropouts, and the rear of the fridge & exhaust are properly ventilated.
I've used one (this one and one other i still have) over an 11-year period (not continuously of course) without any issues so far.

I know lots of people building campers don't use gas & prefer to spend an absolute fortune on induction hobs, compressor fridges, huge inverters, solar arrays & huge Lithium Battery banks instead, while I use an lpg hob/grill & fridge - but I think the (managed) risks of lpg are preferable to a possible Chinesium Lithium Battery fire.

 

[finyuk2005]

Do you mean from CO poisoning, explosion, both?
I do use a CO monitor/alarm & gas dropouts, and the rear of the fridge & exhaust are properly ventilated.
I've used one (this one and one other i still have) over an 11-year period (not continuously of course) without any issues so far.

I know lots of people building campers don't use gas & prefer to spend an absolute fortune on induction hobs, compressor fridges, huge inverters, solar arrays & huge Lithium Battery banks instead, while I use an lpg hob/grill & fridge - but I think the (managed) risks of lpg are preferable to a possible Chinesium Lithium Battery fire.

Those gas fridges are brilliant,
Have one on an island we have sheep on, near the start of lambing the gas fire fizzled out, so i swapped the empty cylinder for the fridges full one, and to my surprise the fridge fired up again and ran for the next 2 weeks on the empty gas cylinder!

 

[DAPPH]

Those gas fridges are brilliant,
Have one on an island we have sheep on, near the start of lambing the gas fire fizzled out, so i swapped the empty cylinder for the fridges full one, and to my surprise the fridge fired up again and ran for the next 2 weeks on the empty gas cylinder!

When you see the heater tube and the tiny blue flame that heats the condensing tube it's not really surprising how little gas it take to run the fridge, likely less heat than a burning match

 

[Morrisman]

Either weld the chuck key to a big lump of metal after taking it out the chuck or take it out and chuck it in a bucket of dirty oil or if there is one the cutting fluid tank.
Then tell them why it happened .

As an apprentice leaving the key in the chuck of the lathe or drill was a safety offence ,usually punished by the loss of a weeks wages & weeks restriction of privileges , along with loads of menial tasks around the barracks or cook house in your own time . Out in the regular adult army it usually got dealt with by having to volunteer for four extra 24 hour duties , two on a Saturday or Friday night or lose a weeks wage & have your cards marked for such an offence .

One lathe I worked on had some wierd spring mechanism on the chuck key, and you had to push it in against the spring to use it, and once you released it it basically fell out of the chuck.
It was bloody hard to use, and hard-work to clear the chuck after stopping it. .

 

[GRW]

When you see the heater tube and the tiny blue flame that heats the condensing tube it's not really surprising how little gas it take to run the fridge, likely less heat than a burning match

Nice, simple, robust fridges that are amazingly economically & efficient.
They do take a while to chill down (but you can put the fridge to AC on the hook-up at home before a journe, plus the DC can be used whilst driving to offset that).

On a self-build camper forum though it's so biased towards electric over gas, complexity & expense over pragmatism, that I quickly got disillusioned & pulled the plug
The peer pressure and "advice" was all about electric everything, with Solar, MPPT, B2B Chargers, 2000w+ Sinewave Inverters, Compressor Fridges, Induction Hobs, AC Air Friers, and a quarter-tonne of Lithium Batteries to (try) to run it all.

The reality? People were spending as much or more to do a self-build (often using a starship miles ex-parcel van as the base vehicle) than if they'd gone and bought a coachbuilt. A guaranteed way to waste hundreds of hours of your life, to build something with a value of 35-50% of what was spent to do it.
(People are spending £8k+ on doing a fit-out, not inc their labour & the base vehicle cost!)

A cynic would think that perhaps that Forum had a vested interest in promoting such, as any mention of budget-conscious, practical, affordable old-school lpg that's been cheap, reliable and safely used for decades.... got "moderated". Stuff that!

My van won't be anything special to look at (I'm not good enough at finishes nor about to go silly on the Spend) but it'll be warm, comfy, practical - & it won't have cost me at least double what it's actual value is either.

 

[Red'n'Black]

A guaranteed way to waste hundreds of hours of your life, to build something with a value of 35-50% of what was spent to do it.

Sounds familiar.

Back in my 20s I bought mine, an old Merc 307D, off a crustie who'd used it for festivals, in a partly converted state with moon-and-back mileage.

Spent three months and several K fitting it out.

Had a few summers' use out of it and then the engine died, sludged up oilways. Would have needed a complete rebuild.

I put it in the too-difficult pile and left it parked it up over winter. But I'd not put the engine cover in the cab back properly and then the mice got in and destroyed everything.

That was the last straw. Weighed it in for £25. It's put me off big vehicle projects ever since.

 

[jsf55]

I'll never forget the day in school where one bright lad was edged on by the others too put his square table leg in a 3 jaw chuck too reduce the size too make it level luckily the teacher saw it and stopped them. They never did o level metalwork
Did i mention it was fully assembled !

 

[JOEPRO]

Starting to rebuild my doorstep

View attachment 446500

View attachment 446501

It was tiled and was always a disaster with tiles coming loose no matter what exterior grade stuff was used.

So I'm rebuilding it in concrete edge bricks and infill concrete paving for a permanent solution. Many hours work to go yet but will get there.

I get about 3 hours every evening after work to work until dark! This is where I got to tonight



All working out great dead level along the front and a good 1.5mm per paver fall outwards for drainage. Next up is to start forming the 2nd and last step up with more of the grey kerbs. It's been laid out in CAD first so no kerbs need cut and top landing will be 4no pavers wide to again avoid cutting.

This is my first paving / brick diy project. What I find works well is one of the diamond grinding cups for my m18 grinder. I use a con saw to cut the paver length wise a couple mm too long then buff off the last bit with the grinder to make it a perfect fit.

The paving is A&G Fiamatta long stone paving. Basically a concrete paver with a nice variation in colour through it. Matches very well with the golden oak door and existing stone cladding on my house.

 

[DAPPH]

Nice, simple, robust fridges that are amazingly economically & efficient.
They do take a while to chill down (but you can put the fridge to AC on the hook-up at home before a journe, plus the DC can be used whilst driving to offset that).

On a self-build camper forum though it's so biased towards electric over gas, complexity & expense over pragmatism, that I quickly got disillusioned & pulled the plug
The peer pressure and "advice" was all about electric everything, with Solar, MPPT, B2B Chargers, 2000w+ Sinewave Inverters, Compressor Fridges, Induction Hobs, AC Air Friers, and a quarter-tonne of Lithium Batteries to (try) to run it all.

The reality? People were spending as much or more to do a self-build (often using a starship miles ex-parcel van as the base vehicle) than if they'd gone and bought a coachbuilt. A guaranteed way to waste hundreds of hours of your life, to build something with a value of 35-50% of what was spent to do it.
(People are spending £8k+ on doing a fit-out, not inc their labour & the base vehicle cost!)

A cynic would think that perhaps that Forum had a vested interest in promoting such, as any mention of budget-conscious, practical, affordable old-school lpg that's been cheap, reliable and safely used for decades.... got "moderated". Stuff that!

My van won't be anything special to look at (I'm not good enough at finishes nor about to go silly on the Spend) but it'll be warm, comfy, practical - & it won't have cost me at least double what it's actual value is either.

I wonder if their road sense and quality of driving was as high grade ? Sounds like a heck of a lot of expensive silly one-upmanship

 

[DAPPH]

I get about 3 hours every evening after work to work until dark! This is where I got to tonight

View attachment 446965

All working out great dead level along the front and a good 1.5mm per paver fall outwards for drainage. Next up is to start forming the 2nd and last step up with more of the grey kerbs. It's been laid out in CAD first so no kerbs need cut and top landing will be 4no pavers wide to again avoid cutting.

This is my first paving / brick diy project. What I find works well is one of the diamond grinding cups for my m18 grinder. I use a con saw to cut the paver length wise a couple mm too long then buff off the last bit with the grinder to make it a perfect fit.

The paving is A&G Fiamatta long stone paving. Basically a concrete paver with a nice variation in colour through it. Matches very well with the golden oak door and existing stone cladding on my house.

View attachment 446967

Have you put a water barrier .. bitumen paint ,lead sheet plastic or whatever between the blocks and the buildings wall to stop damp bridging over the damp proof course ?