Thread: Your latest project

Originally Posted by Oldneweng

You can tighten up the jibs to reduce movement for the one job tho?

All my steadies are the same size as yours except fot the fixed steady for the CY. It has bearings. This steady is huge. I will need the winch to lift it in to place to avoid injury. The ring is about 50mm thick and at least that deep. Similar to yours but in a 16 inch circle.

Your steady is an interesting design. Be a shame to see it painted light red.

Dean

Bigger the better never know when a big job turns up

Originally Posted by Michael G

Not really - the gibs are adjusted with a screw from the front - none of this multiple grub screw stuff here.
Attachment 282583
Scrap section C-C shows the arrangement although rather poorly. The gib is at maximum adjustment as it is. Once I have a nut worth knowing about the plan is to strip the compound, scrape the surfaces, shim the gib (I think the cross slide needs a new gib so the plan was to shim the compound until the cross slide is done and then cut down the cross slide gib for the compound), install the new nut & screw and then move on to the cross slide. After lunch I will then...

Michael

Just like both of mine (lathes that is). What you do is jam a screwdriver in the end and give it a good wack with a large.....hang on, wrong forum.

You could shim it now just to tighten it to restrict movement, just while making the screw. Of course then there is the method I used .

Dean

Originally Posted by j.ashburn

Bigger the better never know when a big job turns up

Very true indeed. I am not complaining. Not yet anyway. I like big solid stuff. It is harder for me to break.

Dean

My latest effort.

Home made spark plug cleaner - YouTube

Cheers

Rob

Hi Rob,
A nice piece of machining on your spark plug cleaner, it will be interesting to see how it goes. I have an old 12 volt battery one that I used to clean my lawnmower spark plug with, but since the introduction of the unleaded petrol I have not used it.One thing I did notice is that you are screwing your plug in, my old one you push the plug into a rubber fitting and this allows you to rotate the plug as it gets blasted and also saves having grit driven into your threads.I also made a set up for my lathe similar to yours for my little air grinder and gave it a run sharpening some old end mills, worked great as long as you work within the power limits of the grinder. I have one end mil that has a large chip in it so I think I will grind it out on my 8" grinder before finishing it with the air tool. Thanks for your video's and suggestions.
Bob

Non worn modern engines running on unleaded fuel generally don't foul plugs to any significant degree.

However, I quite often work on old worn engines and it's very easy to foul a plug when trying to set up a carby without a guide/specification or they burn oil etc. So a decent plug cleaner is something I can really use.

Apparently fouled up plugs are a real problem with cold climate two strokes, snow mobils etc.

This one works well and it's got some aggressive cleaning ability. Locating the plug with a rubber bung is another way to do it. Worth considering if anyone makes one as it saves the tedium of cutting an internal thread.

I used the forged stub axle as it was not much good for anything else, and I wasn't overly confident that this would work. I didn't want to waste my good/new steel on it.

Now for the next job

Rob

Completed the mitre fence For the bandsaw today. Very happy with the results.
Only one stuff up see oops pic for that. Some render from the cad for a before and after look.
Will look at putting a wooden palm rest on it thats what some of the other small holes in the base will be used for.

Looks great.

How did you do the numbering and degree increments?

Rob

cad it and used a small vee tool and engraved them

Today we did something we have been meaning to do for awhile.. One of our windmills was developing a rather nasty lean... This has been happening over decades but we have not really taken much notice until a few years ago... The lean seems to be getting worse rather quickly..

When Phil was visiting he saw it and can vouch for the lean...

So today we fixed it up, we were not wanting to get it perfect, for the reason that unless you were born before 1927 then you are younger then the tower.. The mill head was replaced in 1981... The tower is suffering from a bit of corrosion (it was never galvanized) so will have to be replaced anyway sometime in the next few decades...

First with the level worked out which legs to cut, and how much to move it to get it close to level...

Hooked the crane onto the top and lifted up the mill head a smidgen and a smidgen to the direction we wanted to lean it so it was not putting any weight on the tower... Had two ropes on either side of the lean... Had no idea what would happen when the legs were cut, but expected very little to happen, the crane should have held it up OK... One rope was connected to a tractor in case some assistance was needed to pull it over..

As the legs are angle iron I nicked the two legs that would be the pivot point..

Planned the escape route and with the dangerous 9" angle grinder cut one leg... Bugger all happened...

Cut the other and...
.
.
.
Not much happened, the legs just came down the width of the cut to rest together on the fresh cut...A hammer knocked the top section on the outside of the inside section and it dropped 20mm or so... Used the crane to carefully apply more weight on the tower by lowering the mill head back onto the tower, it came over very slowly and was a bit of a non event.. as the legs were skidding over one another it came to the point that the tower would not come over any more with the crane having no weight on it... The tractor just lowered the loader frame which the rope was connected to and bought it over the bit more required, the legs were then welded into their new position...

Had to lower the legs by 125mm to bring it back level.. That was with a 2000mm pivot point... I am sure someone can do the maths and work out how much the top moved.. It is 9m tall.. Edit: Ok I just did it and it is 1100mm movement at the top...

All in all successfully done..

The before picture you see here was taken 13 months ago when I was testing out my crane.. Just to give you an idea of the lean..

Had some interest with the mitre fence from another thread and I am going to make a small run (only 6 off) of them so if you are interested at $75 each or the table insert at $15.
This is for a Hammer 4400 bandsaw. If you have a different one contact me and we will see if it will fit.
Send me a PM and let me know if you are interested.

Thanks

R

Just finished two bots for my son and daughter inlaw for the competition this weekend in Ipswich.
The big one is in the 13.6kg class and is made from 6mm bar sides and front with 3mm steel top and bottom. Two Dewalt drill motors and gearboxes for the drive with wheel mounts attached to the gearbox and a electric motor bracket support. Powered from a 4 amp hour battery that will be that will be near flat after a 3 minute round.
The small one is in the 150gr class and has a active weapon of a small SS bowl with two jigsaw blades welded to it used. Used a tig at 7amp for this welding. The inside is from ridge PVC foam with some carbon fibre sheeting glued under the weapon motor mount for extra strength. Wheels made from pcb board and a oring tyre. Named and decorated by my daughter.

Will put up a link when the video are available.

R

Well the big bot lasted only one and half minutes at which time a drive motor blow, These Dewalt motors just done not blow and at $150 each we did not have a spare.
Sparkles, the small bot, got through to the finals. A good result as it cost two bowls to get that far. The competition was tough at this meet.

R

Next time!

Originally Posted by rusel

at which time a drive motor blow,

You think it was just bad timing or crazy current levels from reversing?

Where's the video?

Congratulations to Sparkles and his/her driver (also to the chief mechanic)

Stuart