Stuff you have made today

[oldbikedavey]

Drilled and counterbored yesterdays casting for the Norvin alternator cover plate , and was pleased to see how well it all shaped up.
Satinised sandcast finish , a bit like a sort of leatherette suede.... lovely !

 

[W.olly]

Where would we be without bandsaws....
Good migging there - what welder do you have?

Love the band saw, well love all my stuff but the band is a LOT better than an angle grinder hey. dont miss them days.

I recently bought the welder and only tried the Mig out as no Tig gas yet. It very easy to use and excellent spec. best i have had.

R-Tech MTS251 TFT Multi - MIG - DC TIG - MMA Welder 240V

MIG TIG ARC Welder MTS251

www.r-techwelding.co.uk

 

[northwest]

Bit of a busy day today, made the wall brackets for the Quick Change plates but had to make a stave knocker inner and cut the staves real fast in order to get them on a pallet for @fizzy s lot to collect tomorrow, rush job for the weekend (that they have known about for weeks!). Cutting them four at a time at 48" long there was no waste and five from a length:



Then a quick and dirty, but effective build:



Yes, probably loads of ways to make one but this is material I had, literally, under my feet.
Then back to the base plates:



and the wall brackets on the right;



I might just add a bit of patience to the job and get them all powder coated. maybe. Need to drill some holes first.

 

[nickk]

Some limb supports for an exotic tree.

 

[Kram]

Some limb supports for an exotic tree.View attachment 468251

Interesting, do you know what species? If you are fitting please get more photos.

Something to consider for next time, if they are intended to be permenent, as the limbs grow the supports will choke the lower side of the limb before in several years, becoming encapsulated. Where it chokes it will squash out the cambium until it can callous around and over the plates.
For that reason I suggest the supports having a lower contact area. It may be better for the tree in long term to drill it and fit a 20mm stainless threaded bar or similar as it would be a much smaller wound.

 

[nickk]

I’ll find out what tree from the gardener and report back.

 

[nickk]

Interesting, do you know what species? If you are fitting please get more photos.

Something to consider for next time, if they are intended to be permenent, as the limbs grow the supports will choke the lower side of the limb before in several years, becoming encapsulated. Where it chokes it will squash out the cambium until it can callous around and over the plates.
For that reason I suggest the supports having a lower contact area. It may be better for the tree in long term to drill it and fit a 20mm stainless threaded bar or similar as it would be a much smaller wound.

Catalpa,an Indian bean tree.

 

[Hood]

At a loose end today so decided to chop the roller tool, I had made for the press, into two bits and then cut some 16mm steel up to make new parts so that it is now adjustable. Also cut some 25mm up to make a base for it.

The plasma still making a brilliant job of cutting, this is the edge on the 25mm

Very little bevel.

Tool on the press with a top tool I just made up.

As I didn't have anything to do I thought I might as well test out the adjustable tool so drew up some footpegs in fusion, cut some 4mm stainless on the plasma then welded them together.

I made them longer and wider than the aluminium ones I made previously, not sure if they will be better or not but at least I filled in my time today, if I hadn't done them I might have been forced to think about doing some tidying Note I said think, unlikely any would have happened.

 

[RWD3M]

At a loose end today so decided to chop the roller tool, I had made for the press, into two bits and then cut some 16mm steel up to make new parts so that it is now adjustable. Also cut some 25mm up to make a base for it.

The plasma still making a brilliant job of cutting, this is the edge on the 25mm

View attachment 468328

Very little bevel.

View attachment 468329

Tool on the press with a top tool I just made up.

View attachment 468327

As I didn't have anything to do I thought I might as well test out the adjustable tool so drew up some footpegs in fusion, cut some 4mm stainless on the plasma then welded them together.

View attachment 468330View attachment 468331

I made them longer and wider than the aluminium ones I made previously, not sure if they will be better or not but at least I filled in my time today, if I hadn't done them I might have been forced to think about doing some tidying Note I said think, unlikely any would have happened.

View attachment 468332

MX5 seat?

 

[Hood]

MX5 seat?

Nope, Subaru Legacy Spec B.

 

[RWD3M]

Nope, Subaru Legacy Spec B.

D'oh!

 

[ajlelectronics]

Well working on...
It's a garage door controller to identify door positions and react accordingly from an Alexa call from the car or 'bike. Software nearly sorted, just a power failure routine to add. The "dead bugs" are just temporary to show door activation before installation.

 

[Tupers]

I brazed a threaded neck for a Monza cap onto a Mini rocker cover.

 

[GRW]

... not so much "made" as "tinkered with".
This forum made me buy another bit of kit. Some rotten so-and-so put up that Halfords had an on-line sale on a small handy tool box - 3 drawers and a top hinged section that (when closed) locked the drawers at £24.... so I got one to put all my most often needed bits & bobs in that right now are always needing to be dug out.
As I'll have this in the van (& at this price) it's a bit "tinny" and I didn't want my screwdrivers etc sliding and clattering about, but didn't want to lose too much space or go too mad..... so I've lined the top section and drawer bottoms with 3mm ply covered with cheapy anti-slip mat, and then lined the sides with just 3mm ply (these stuck on with double-sided tape).
It's certainly made it a lot less tinny, so hopefully I can stock it now with useful bits n pieces that will all fit in and be far more easily got at.

 

[Hood]

Been using the multiple pin spanner pictured below on my drill chuck if it gets too tight but it is unwieldy to use.

So decided to make a dedicated one. Quick measure, draw up in fusion and then some 4mm stainless onto the plasma and job done, even made a rough hook for it hanging on

 

[Dev]

Are those wheel chair motors ?
I saw an unused pair yesterday and thought someone might be able to make a decent kiddies truck out of them .?

No they’re bicycle conversion kit motors so they work on normal bike chains and sprockets so I can tweak the top speed by changing the ratio of gears. I haven’t needed to, it’s plenty quick as is.

I’m happy to say the only thing I bought from toylander was their (incomplete) build manual.
If I ever have the free time I’ll build another defender if for no other reason than the build manual says I’m not allowed to - which is laughable.

 

[northwest]

Just to complete the circle, finally mounted the quick change fixture, which is great, in theory, practically you need a lot of wall to mount the storage brackets and mount the other presses on them, they don't look very elegant.




Makes swapping presses a breeze though.

 

[Blue Chips]

I'm planning to electroplate a lot of small parts for my Dodge M37 restoration project, so I cobbled together a plating setup, including an adjustable power supply, a darkroom timer, a couple of heaters, a small circulation pump, various anodes, lead wires, connectors, etc. The bench was sitting unused in our storage unit, and I had a 4-foot LED light that was gathering dust.

I made a wall bracket for the power supply to keep it up out of the way of splashes and to save countertop space.

I found the darkroom timer on eBay. It's in near-new condition and I picked it up for a small fraction of the cost of a new one.

I also bought an inexpensive oven that I plan to use to bake parts immediately after plating to help prevent hydrogen embrittlement.

Mrs. Blue Chips sewed some polypropylene anode filter sleeves for me. These should help keep the solution clear of contaminants and sludge produced by the anodes. I bought a large sheet of the polypropylene material...probably enough to make at least 100 filter sleeves (I'll have to practice using her sewing machine and making some of the sleeves myself to avoid pestering her too often).

Obviously, for larger items, I'll switch to larger buckets or tubs.

For preparing parts for plating, my approach would depend on the type of part and the condition it's in. It could include various combinations of abrasive blasting, solvent stripping, ultrasonic cleaning, electrocleaning, alkaline cleaning, acid cleaning/pickling, etc.

I hope to start plating some parts next week. The first batches would be acid-zinc plated with a yellow chromate passivation coating. I plan to post those on my M37 restoration thread.

 

[droopsnoot]

^ It'll be interesting to see the results you get. I bought a kit from Gateros some years ago and have mixed results, but I think that's down to how well I can clean the items before they go in. I'm a bit short of space to have it set up at the moment, so mine was set up and taken down as needed. I wish I'd found space over summer as I have a few things that need to be done and for some reason I don't like leaving it set up in the cold weather as I'm not sure what the effect on the chemicals would be. As they're stored in the same shed that they'd be used in, arguably they're getting down to the same temperature, maybe a little higher when stored in sealed containers in closed cupboards.

 

[northwest]

We should have a thread titled "what you didn't make today, but thought you might".
This job has been dragging on for weeks now and it is becoming embarrassing TBH but out of my control, I contracted to make some converters that require a couple of reamers I don't have so went over to my grinders to get some made, here are the blanks and the drawings but progress has ground to a halt<groan>.



The machine they need to go on has just arrived and the commissioning engineer is arriving Monday so progress soon I hope.