Stuff you have made today

[Onoff]

The keep to go with the mahogany lock box I made previously. OK, it's a bit of 50x50x3 with a TPU cap. Once screwed on with M6 screws it'll get push in TPU plugs. Really wanted a couple of meters of this box but hey ho.

 

[Onoff]

Yesterday to be precise. I'd left space in my gate pillar for a cheap brick light. How to retain? I mixed up 4:1:0.5 builders sand/OPC/SBR with water to a mouldable mix. Primed the inside of the pocket with neat SBR, brushed on.

Trowelled that into the pocket after first putting some foil tape over the end of the flexi conduit in there.

I then sprayed the back of the brick light with Lidl's W5 do-it-all spray oil and pushed it into the mortar. Ratchet strapped it to the pillar and left for 24 hours. The brick light came out easily as the oil acted as a release agent. The face that matters is at the perfect taper. Could have done with some more mortar round the edges but no worries as the brick light will get a neat, U shaped bead of silicone top and sides.

https://flic.kr/p/2q9bRX5

https://flic.kr/p/2q9a3wc

 

[Migmac]

Nothing to exciting but keeps me amused whilst I’m laid up. Stubby screwdriver

 

[Arc Tourist]

Nothing to exciting but keeps me amused whilst I’m laid up. Stubby screwdriver
View attachment 460322
View attachment 460321

Great for chuck keys, and file handle's also.

 

[Migmac]

Great for chuck keys, and file handle's also.

I’ve used golf balls for a few things, handles, but stops on boat rod, jockey wheel knob, key rings and even playing golf !

 

[Dr.Al]

A simple little jig out of an offcut of aluminium angle and a bit of brass:

View attachment 459903

Today I made the other pieces of this puzzle: the hinge parts (which are now covered in sawdust as I laid them out on the woodworking bench to take the photo )

The brass bits are 4 mm long and made from 4 mm brass tube with a 0.5 mm wall thickness (so 3 mm inner diameter). To make them as efficiently as possible, I used a 1 mm thick parting tool in the lathe to face the end, then part the tube off to length (running a 3 mm drill bit through after the facing cut to get rid of any interior burrs on the outer end):

The rear end (i.e. the parted off face) narrows a bit due to the parting burr, but that's fine for the purpose (as long as I put them in the holes the right way round). The hinge pins are 7 mm long (ish) and made from 3 mm stainless steel bar, hacksawed to length and then chamfered by holding them in a cordless drill and rubbing on a file.

I've made 25 brass "hinge bodies" and 13 stainless steel "hinge pins": that's enough for six boxes with one spare of each part for when I inevitably drop one and lose it.

The brass "hinge bodies" get superglued into the box pieces and then the stainless steel hinge pins get dropped into the tube as the box is assembled. They couldn't be much simpler to make or use but they give a nice clean look to a hinged lid box:

 

[My Old Landy]

I made up a little fixing kit for the house signs I make. The spacer rings are two different thicknesses 3mm and 4mm. It gives options for uneven surfaces.
It's just a small gesture but I hope it makes the venture more professional. Who knows

 

[daleyd]

I made up a little fixing kit for the house signs I make. The spacer rings are two different thicknesses 3mm and 4mm. It gives options for uneven surfaces.
It's just a small gesture but I hope it makes the venture more professional. Who knows

View attachment 460343

Ooh - what sort of house signs do you do? Do you have any examples, we are after one - you can pm me if you prefer?

Cheers

 

[DAPPH]

Door seal came off week-old Hoover washing machine. A sock trapped in the door corkscrewed and dragged the seal and retaining ring off. Quick look on YouTube made the refitting look simple. Far from! They must have pee'd themselves laughing after uploading videos? The spring on the retaining ring needs expanding a lot or it keeps flirting off (2hrs wasted). So I needed a giant circlip plier, which I didn't have so I butchered a small qik-clamp in expansion mode. Worked a treat! Lost the screw out of the clamp...hence the roll-pin

View attachment 460306

Ya should have looked at other tube vids for other washing machines , I took the top of ours and had it fitted in minutes .

 

[My Old Landy]

Ooh - what sort of house signs do you do? Do you have any examples, we are after one - you can pm me if you prefer?

Cheers

I make slate signs mainly but can laser engrave on most materials. I'll drop you a pm

 

[Migmac]

Stubby has grown!

 

[MattF]

It's just a small gesture but I hope it makes the venture more professional. Who knows

It's small details which can make a vast difference.

 

[ajlelectronics]

It's small details which can make a vast difference.

That might be what she TELLS you...

 

[Welderpaul]

I made up a little fixing kit for the house signs I make. The spacer rings are two different thicknesses 3mm and 4mm. It gives options for uneven surfaces.
It's just a small gesture but I hope it makes the venture more professional. Who knows

View attachment 460343

Proper screws and plugs..I'm sold!

 

[GRW]

I've been plugging away on my camper conversion - nearly there now, thankfully.
Over the last weekends, I've got the sliding side door, bed area and above the sofa window apertures cut & the windows fitted. All 3 open (2 sliding, one top hinged) and the living area ones have built in blinds and flyscreens.

My Ferroli boiler is mounted and plumbed in, and seems to work well in brief tests. It's mounted on the inside of the ns rear barn door, and the flue stows next to it. In use, open the door, pop the flue on, switch on the gas and water valves and you're good to go. The Shurflo fresh water pump is pressure triggered, and so is the boiler - so open the hot water tap & both kick in on demand. I've also added a H&C fittings at the rear by the boiler as well.

Latest work has been to cut-down the over-large roof rack the can came with, retaining the 3 main crossbars. I've then made some L brackets by cutting up some offcuts of Galv Unistrut I had lying about, to bolt to the remaining crossbars to carry the Fiamma F45i Awning brackets, so I now also gave the awning mounted.
Last job today has been to cut down the new sponge & memory foam mattress to fit. The mattress is a standard double (1900mmm x 1350mm), but the across-the-van bed area is 1840mm x 1350mm so I've had to cut down & shape the mattress - overall I'm pretty happy with the result.

I've booked the camper for its Maiden voyage next weekend - away mountain biking with some friends about 100 mile or so away. There's still fiddly bits & bobs to do and no doubt I'll find some niggles (& I've done nothing mechanical / body-wise bar getting the cam & aux belt done after buying the bare van yet)... but it's great to have it at the stage where I can use it.

 

[Misterg]

away mountain biking with some friends about 100 mile or so away.

Where are you heading?

 

[Erie Fred]

Where are you heading?

"Eastbound & down"......

 

[GRW]

Where are you heading?

Hopton Woods, Shropshire. Been there a couple of times before

 

[Blue Chips]

(I thought I'd post this little mini-project in this thread instead of my M37 restoration thread, since the technique has other applications.)

The ID data plate for my 1954 M37 was missing, and I could not find a proper reproduction plate, so I thought I'd try my hand at making an etched-aluminium facsimile that was as near as possible to the original plate.

To start, I found a photo of an original data plate that would be correct for my truck and squared it up with Photoshop so that it could serve as a model: The plate is 4" wide and 2" high.

Then I made a facsimile of the plate from scratch in Adobe InDesign. That took a while, as I had to modify some characters to come up with a pretty close match to the original fonts.

Next, I printed a mirror image of the design on special inkjet transparency film. The film has a slightly frosted coating on one side, which apparently allows it to accept more ink than an ordinary transparency film. I maxed out the CMYK channels for the black areas in InDesign and set the ink density higher in the printer control app in order to achieve pretty decent opacity.

I then adhered a sheet of photoresist film to a carefully cleaned aluminium sheet, working under subdued incandescent light (the film is UV sensitive). It's hard to get this stuff on without trapping bubbles. There is a way of doing it with water, but I tried it and didn't like that method, so I just had to refine my pressing and rolling technique on some practice pieces until I managed to adhere a few sheets without bubbles. Here's one of them:

I placed the printed film image emulsion side down on the photoresist film, placed a sheet of plain window glass over it, with a piece of foam rubber behind it to keep it pressed tightly against the glass, and exposed it to direct noon sunlight for about 30 seconds. After exposure I removed the thin plastic protective layer from the photoresist film and 'developed' the photoresist in a mild solution of washing soda, which removed the unexposed (unhardened) portions of the photoresist. I then etched the aluminium with an acid solution (I'm still working on figuring out the optimum formulation, so I won't list it here yet). I had a few trial and error (mostly error) runs before I got a couple of decent results. Here's one of them:

Next, I chemically darkened the etched area with Aluminum Black from Birchwood Casey.

Soaking the plate in acetone for a few minutes loosened the photoresist and allowed it to be brushed off easily with a soft brush. I then trimmed the edges to the cut lines with my latest tool, a 12-inch shear.

Here's the end result so far. The etching leaves the letters slightly raised, like the original data plates. I'll punch the rivet holes later with my Roper-Whitney punch set instead of drilling them. I'll use a 3/32" number and letter punch set to add the serial number and other data. I'll probably make a couple of extra plates in case I mess things up when I'm punching the data onto the plate.

I'm sure that with practice I could streamline the process and improve my success rate, but I've got too many other things on my bucket list for the time being.

By the way, the ID plate is mounted on the glove compartment door, which isn't exactly a secure location, as the door is easily removed, but the vehicle's serial number is also stamped permanently in large characters on the frame of the vehicle, so the serial number on this little plate is really just for convenience.

 

[magnet]

On the last lap for the workshop base. I set all the heights withmy homemade water level.
I spent last week at work having a crisis of confidence in the accuracy of my work. So this weekend i borrowed a laser level to check my work. I needn't of worried the water level worked spot on.