Anyone doing any metalwork?

I'm mostly gluing balsa at the moment.

I'm well over 100 hours into adding a knee ball screw and pnuematic counter balance to my CNC knee mill. I have the mill running and the servo mounted to the knee ball screw. Today's job is adding a servo brake. I still need to mount two limit switches, a home switch and a "knee is clamped" switch. Then the job is done.

Good that I'm on the home stretch. Harvest begins in ten days. Then I work like a dog for two months.

Karl

Only little tiny stuff to, mostly to get other housework-type jobs done. (dowel-end drill guide, paint mixer, and a tiny prop-shaft holder for a micro RC plane)

And I am also gluing balsa, 1990 vintage Hobbico Flightstar 40 that my sons and I are building as electric rather than gas.

Dave

Whatcha making, Tom?

Well, rather the other end of the size scale, but I'm working on a bench photomacrography stand. Scored a cute positioning stage on ebay, rotary axis, XY axis, and two goniometers at 90 degrees to each other. And working on a linear stage that should be able to position the camera in increments of a tenth, driven by stepper motor via reduction and an ultra precise Universal Thread Grinding lead screw. Have a 20x and 40x, and for the latter, I'm hoping .0001 is fine enough. I looked at some Velcro loops with the 40x mounted on the bellows. Lordy, it was all I could do to hold one loop centered in the frame, somewhat in focus, and it looked huge! The above objectives have a very short working distance. Just scored a Nikon metallurgical objective, 4x, it's got more like a 10mm working distance, much easier to light the subject. Here's an example of what the 4x is capable of:

Rigidity is everything at these extreme magnifications. Overall, I'm building something more or less like this:

And building something even more ambitious for my brother, who's really deeply into this.

Sorry, no politics, too busy for that crap...

Jon

I am pulling behind me a 2000 lbs capacity jib crane with a 2 ton hoist on it. The kind that weighs 2,000 lbs and bolts to the floor.

We are making a lot of parts but almost all are mature designs not too much out-of-the-box bizarro prototypes, no time machines, no interdimentional thingys and nothing to do with dark matter or negative energy. So, without something weird or wonderful to do...it's just WORK! I much prefer the "Hold my beer and watch THIS!" kind of stuff.

This is a 10 foot tall jib with a 12 foot long arm. 2 ton Yale hoist, with a trolley of course, was on it (now separated).

The price was $200.

"Steve B" wrote in >

Just got done "JB Welding" my oil pan, prepping my box truck for a likely sale to be transported to South America for a second life in the third world. Have to fabricate a fender next and go over all the air and brake lines. Not a commercially viable undertaking, but I don't want to scrap it after all these years.

No, I mean are you actually MAKING anything out of all these components you are buying?

Steve

No, just buying and selling. Last thing I made something was a month ago. (base for a truck crane). By the way, I am very happy with my truck crane, it is the real thing and the bed does not visibly deflect at all.

I've been working on a raffle ticket dispenser for the local sportsmans club. They have a wood rack holding five rolls of tickets, 2,000 to a roll. The rack gets re-loaded 4 times during the turkey shoot event they have in October. The first design was a failure and I wouldn't give it to them, only had two months to figure it out. The second model was also a failure due to a variation in hole-to-hole in the tickets! It had a lot of detail too all to no avail. I think this current design has a good chance of doing the job. This has been a good schoolhouse project for me and now that I'm retired I have 'spare time' to 'waste' on things like this. ;>)} A poster here had a quote of FDR in his sig relating to happiness so I stamped it into an inside surface of this thing to be found only by someone curious enough to take it apart to see how it works! A present for the guy.... heh heh... phil k.

Happiness lies in the joy of achievement and the thrill of creative effort. FDR

I recycled part of an old SS vent-a-hood into reinforcement pieces for the latches on my motorcycle tourpak lid yesterday . Upper catch had torn the fiberglass out .

Absolutely doing metalwork. Mounted a stepper motor on the side of a little Harbor Freight indexing table and connected it to the handwheel shaft with a timing belt. Will make a cute CNC indexer for another project I'm working on.

Will start working on rev 2 of a stainless steel wedding band for my new son-in-law tonight. Rev 1 fit and looked nice, but sticks up too high for a metalworker.

...put the dang thing in the toolbox when you get to work, look at the picture of your wife in the top of the toolbox, and collect it when you close up the toolbox at the end of the day. Unless you make it from shim stock so thin it will tear, any ring, high or low, in the shop is just begging to be called 9-fingers later on in life...

I'm rebuilding a rather battered Flight Streak* that was given to me. I'm not sure if you can get to here without being registered, but here goes:

• Top Flight "Flight Streak", almost-ready-to-fly control line airplane.

Yes, he's making money out of them, something the rest of us wish we could do...

Good point!!!

By the way, I am well on my way working towards a CDL. I went to our local CDL facility. Picked up CDL books (besides ones I bought on Amazon on your advice). I also asked them if I must go to a truck driver school. The answer is no, I can take a written test and then use rent-a-CDL-truck to pass the driving test.