Improvised milling machine

Have not even *seen* a metal shaper since Vo Tech in 77. Just Googled and was surprised that they are actually sought after today. Well, smaller ones at least... Will keep my eyes out for a deal.

I'm sure those will cut quickly, too. Did you get the $30 price, or was the sale off by then? Those many 20% off coupons floating around come in handy, too. I picked up their 45W solar panel kit for $126 on sale and with a coupon. Some $4.50 9W LED lamps from China, some $4 fixtures from VA, and a Walmart battery will keep my home lit for days during an outage. I think the ($15) 96144 heater from HF will help keep the room warm, too.

No, I hadn't seen the word "mold" in the message I responded to. That do makes a difference, it do.

Cool. Is it a non-outgasing plastic, I hope?

Prolly a good idea. Hey, in that last pic with the 19 bat houses, aren't those installed a bit too low?

Neat project. I helped my neighbor build quite a few from leftover plywood a few years ago. I haven't seen any bats over there, though. I'll ask him how many were occupied. I know he gave the majority of them away to his church friends.

Finding a deal is easier with the big ones. Sometimes a shop will give it to you if you get it out of there. For the nice small ones, like 7" stroke (e.g. my Rockwell/Delta/AMMCO one), expect to pay in the vicinity of $1000.00. (At least back when I got mine.) The small ones are the ones which are sought after in general. Most home shops don't have room for the larger ones. but a small one can do some intersting things which are difficult to do on a milling machine or lathe.

Enjoy, DoN.

I LOVE My Logan shaper!!

The methodology of the left has always been:

1. Lie
2. Repeat the lie as many times as possible
3. Have as many people repeat the lie as often as possible
4. Eventually, the uninformed believe the lie
5. The lie will then be made into some form oflaw
6. Then everyone must conform to the lie

Ive passed on at least (3), 36" shapers, including a Cincinnati that was absolutely mint. All of them were "free".

I managed to find homes for 2 of them, and the third is still parked in the back of the companies parking lot..slowly headed for the center of the earth.

Gunner

The methodology of the left has always been:

1. Lie
2. Repeat the lie as many times as possible
3. Have as many people repeat the lie as often as possible
4. Eventually, the uninformed believe the lie
5. The lie will then be made into some form oflaw
6. Then everyone must conform to the lie

Try Dawn dishsoap

The methodology of the left has always been:

1. Lie
2. Repeat the lie as many times as possible
3. Have as many people repeat the lie as often as possible
4. Eventually, the uninformed believe the lie
5. The lie will then be made into some form oflaw
6. Then everyone must conform to the lie

$39.99 supposedly marked down from $79.99. No coupons... Need to look at one of those panels next time I'm in there. Have been dreaming of solar since we built our house twenty years ago. Roof faces as close to true south as I could get it and the pitch angle matches our latitude.

Outer shell is the same poly ethylene as all the rest with traditional wooden baffles. One of which was very successful this past year. About a dozen bats moved in their house (from mine) with in a month of their return and then attracted friends. Peaked at 49 bats!

The all plastic house right beside it was mostly ignored all summer but five bats moved into it when cooler weather started. Not true hibernation but they are in torpor most of the time. Another long time bat house enthusiast about 50 miles away from me says he always has a few do this each year and that they will leave for hibernation as well once we get close to a hard freeze.

Those baffles are 1/4" thick foam cored PVC mechanically grooved with my modified jointer. PVC may be an outgasing plastic? Guess I need to look that up... Only one bat house built that way as I'm not going to sell a style that is not at least similar to one that is known to work.

And four of them are upside down. Actually molded that way because I forgot to put register pins in the lid:-( Symmetrical as are the six clamps... Lid forms a built in French cleat in the back of the bat house so those four will forever have a flat sloped roof with no decorative dormer. Mold now has pins.

Cool! Once you get one successful bat house in an area it will attract more bats and make it easer to start new colonies.

Will do!

They'd put out "45W" into a 17V battery or intelligent switchmode charger. The current is about the same for a 12V battery but of course the wattage is lower. The charger in the kit simply connects the panel to the battery as long as the battery voltage is below 14.4V.

My HF panel kit was good for 2.8A when new, now it rarely reaches

Last fall we lost power for a week and it was enough to run this laptop an hour or two a day. I use only about 200W on average anyway (4-5 KWH/day) and can do without, or run a small generator an hour or two a day to recharge batteries, but if you need a generator constantly I don't think they are worth buying. A decent battery and inverter double the system cost. My panels can't produce $0.02 worth of grid electricity per day. jsw

How old are those, Jim?

No, they're not for powering the grid. A several KW/H system is better for doing that.

I got mine for emergency lighting and maybe heat. The HF heater only puts out 180W, so it's doubtful it would be much help.

Need to find a plastic that outgasses something to kill the "white nose" fungus or there won't be any bats left to call the house home :(

If I recall correctly, I thought your mold could hold water. If so I would probably try putting in enough water to just cover the area you want to cut and then run the cutter/blade underwater. With the way those tools work I don't think you would get much splashing around and the water should help keep the blade/cut area cool.

February 2011.

Grid-rate electricity, $0.15 per KWH. They do better vs generator-rate electricity which I roughly estimate as $0.50 to $1.00 per KWH, highly dependent on % of full load and the remaining life of the genny. jsw

That's not a long time to drop 28%. Are they kept clean and unscratched, and test days identical? What do you think accounts for the loss? Mine are glass-covered but would expect resins (found on the smaller mobile solar chargers) to do a bit of yellowing. Do yours still look new?

Yeah, emergency power isn't as cheap as grid, that's for sure. I had my electricity back on within about 5 hours last time, but my neighbors right across the street were down for over 4 days. They lost $400 worth of food in their freezer and about $100 in the fridge. I took thermoses of hot water to them several times a day for the duration. One more reason NOT to have an additional freezer. I need to do a 24-hr test of my fridge. The quick test gave me 135W while running. I have it set for 40F which keeps the freezer at 0F. IN an emergency, I'd probably have to dial it back unless I had a genset running. It might take all the juice the panels produced, leaving none for lights.

I saw a YouTube of the HF $119 genny. He said "they're not that loud", but later in the flick, you could distinctly hear the roar of the damned thing in the background with the doors and windows shut. I wouldn't own one, except for very-short-term use in emergencies. My questions are: Are cheap gensets reliable enough to depend on when stored for years at a time? and Can I find replacement parts to rebuild them when they do go bad?

I haven't tested them as thoroughly as I do other things because I haven't found a really good location for them that combines safe year-round access (not on the roof) with plenty of exposure to the sun but not to passing thieves. My deceased solar water heater was in the best south-facing spot and still was shaded before 10AM and after 2PM. Really I have too many big trees, which do cut my air conditioning cost, $10 for all last summer.

Speaking of testing, HWiNFO32 version 4.06 can display and log the voltage, charge/discharge power, and estimated remaining capacity of a laptop battery.

I just received a hi capacity one from Amazon and am cycling it to update its internal capacity estimation. The last one they sent me ran an hour, this one has already gone three and may have another 1/2 left. The log preserves the shutdown time (or the record just before it) and any steps in the capacity estimate, which creep in if it hasn't been recently updated by a full discharge+recharge cycle. The Windows Event Log catches when the computer sleeps unless the battery drops out too suddenly, but this also records data I can graph and examined.

jsw

Q: What do you call a house with trees surrounding it: A: A TARGET.

Cool! I need to get my old laptop running again.