Thread: What have you repaired, renovated, re purposed or recycled ?

Originally Posted by KBs PensNmore

G'day Rob,
My first band saw, did do its gearbox in, actually the bearing collapsed, ruining the shaft.
Kryn

Yes, that's what I've heard about these. The bearing goes and takes the gears with it on occasions. I believe you can do a shaft/gear spacer modification to stop the shaft moving out of alignment and this happening. Don't have the link any more.

I go to a saw works at Edwardstown and prices are pretty similar to your place.

Yes this could be an interesting thread.

Rob

Originally Posted by Stustoys

Well I turned a couple of kg of shopping bags into an ER32 collet box. Does that count?
Stuart

How did you do that ?????????

Rob

https://www.woodworkforums.com/f65/ma...et-box-157684/

Originally Posted by scottyd

Where do I start!

On my desk is a router that was deemed to be beyond economic repair on my desk. Its just got some seriously tired bearings in it that were making some bad noises, thatll be easy fixed if I can figure out how to get them off the spindle! Its in otherwise fine condition and should make a good powerplant for the TPG im starting work on.

Then we have the makita 14.4v battery drill that was refusing to engage in gear, also deemed by the school to be beyond economic repair. One period when I ran out of real jobs to do, I pulled the whole planetary gearbox apart (what a cool piece of design!) and found the culprit, a few pins that act as a shift fork around one of the ring gears had sheared off and only one remained. They didnt look too complex, but obviously strength is a factor in their design, so ill get my hands on some 4140 or stainless of some description and try to make some new parts. Makita told us that the parts were unavailable and the job requied the replacement of the whole gearbox...pfft, bugger that. Once she's fixed, that one will probably head back into her majesties service in my woodwork room for the kids to try and destroy it again. Ive noticed another one in my colleagues room is also starting to show the same symptoms, so that job might make it to the front of the queue.

Also, there's the vernier calipers that needed maintenance last month. One was closing up ok, but the metric scale wouldnt zero out. I took the vernier scale off that half of the slider and carefully opened up the holes enough to allow the scale to be tightened down on zero. There was the second pair that wouldnt close up properly because some numpty chucked them on a lathe tray or table a bit hard. This happens fairly often, so i get a stone out and carefully re-hone the ends of the caliper where it usually suffers. A little bit of permanent marker on one jaw to check its contact with the other and back into the fray they go. The third pair is missing a lockscrew, so I might just have to whip one up when I get bored one day. Its only on the fine adjuster block, so its in no hurry to get done.

Some time ago, someone did a repair on the thicknesser's depth handle by replacing the handle on the handwheel. Only problem was that they used a handle that appears to have been purchased on ebay. Rather than machining or using a die to cut the thread on the end of the handle, the manufacturer just cast the whole part, thread and all. Its been done really badly, the threads dont really line up right and arnt a constant pitch, it kinda looks like drunken threads, but in a different way. Anyway, when the thread gets installed into the handwheel, the threads are so distorted and so tight that it actually damages the female thread on the way in. A few months of use later and the handle simply flogs its way out of the cast iron wheel and falls on the ground again. The handle is obviously the problem, so it gets stashed in my drawer for demonstrations in the futue and a new handle got made up.

Thats just a rundown of my last month. Surely the little darlings will trash something else for me soon.

Its an odd world when youre an industrial arts teacher, particularly when it comes to money. The faculty doesnt get a lot of money, and most of it will go into consumeables and materials for the kids. Where we can, we stretch that into updating and repairing gear, but every penny pinched is less materials for kids jobs, which means we cant as flexible and creative with what we do. So to that end, rather than buying and paying for repairs, we do as much as we can to figure it out for ourselves. Local machine shops will often donate end of rods and bars for us to make unusual things from, and occasionally lend us a tool we cant afford. A case in point is a nut I had to make for a drill press that some oxygen thief stole while I was replacing some bearings. The replacement part was quoted at $80. It took me 4 hours all up to make the nut from a piece of centreless ground 4140, at $50 an hour for my labour, but because my pay doesnt come from the faculties budget, it "costs" the school nothing. The metal was donated and the 3/4in 16tpi tap was lent by a local workshop. The kids get their drill press back, I get to make another job and money isnt taken from important places to get it to happen.

Its all good fun though, I cant imagine how schools deal with the money when they have staff that cant fix things. Just palming the problem off to a contractor is so so expensive.

Hi Scotty,
I have felt your pain mate! Some of the new generation of students don't give a bugger.I gave up on digital verniers calipers for similar reasons,drowned in coolant or just smashed screens.The life of a Industrial technology teacher is one one on going cycles of repair and disciplining the kids who should of never been placed in the industrial group anyway.

The hours( mostly after school) you put in repairing and upgrading are never noticed by the admin or even the mongrel students.Some of the better kids will complain about the lack of availability of gear.Overlay that with the duty of care and student to teacher ratios being far too high and its a real stress raiser.

The real trick is to find that magic project that really engages (most of) them. I have found kids being very watchful that the bad guys don't knock about the gear that's needed to complete the wanted project. Kudos to you for sticking with them.
Cheers
Grahame

Originally Posted by Grahame Collins

The real trick is to find that magic project that really engages (most of) them. I have found kids being very watchful that the bad guys don't knock about the gear that's needed to complete the wanted project. Kudos to you for sticking with them.
Cheers
Grahame

I thought building machine pistols in school workshops would be frowned upon....

PDW

Originally Posted by Grahame Collins

Hi Scotty,
I have felt your pain mate! Some of the new generation of students don't give a bugger.I gave up on digital verniers calipers for similar reasons,drowned in coolant or just smashed screens.The life of a Industrial technology teacher is one one on going cycles of repair and disciplining the kids who should of never been placed in the industrial group anyway.

The hours( mostly after school) you put in repairing and upgrading are never noticed by the admin or even the mongrel students.Some of the better kids will complain about the lack of availability of gear.Overlay that with the duty of care and student to teacher ratios being far too high and its a real stress raiser.

The real trick is to find that magic project that really engages (most of) them. I have found kids being very watchful that the bad guys don't knock about the gear that's needed to complete the wanted project. Kudos to you for sticking with them.
Cheers
Grahame

I didnt realise there was a (former?) IA teacher here! Digitals are a hiding to nothing, someone in my school before me thought very wisely to buy three mito verniers and three mito micrometers. Slight problem with the micros is that theyre metric and the lathes are imperial...but dont let that get in the way of a good demonstration! Proper verniers with a real vernier scale are a nice way of including some numercy in their curriculum anyway, and the local machine shops all use them still, so its relevent as well.

Im lucky with my bosses, they all get to see a bit of what im doing and have expressed how happy they are. Hell, this holidays the GA was making a bit of a meal of making a new dias for the basketball court. The previous dias was made by an IA teacher...then another one had a go at fixing it...and then another had another go at fixing it...30 years later it was in a pretty sorry state of alignment and covered in bird poo of the mig and arc varieties. I was in school over the holidays helping some year 12 students with their major D+T projects and figured the GA could do with a hand. Two days of hard...ish work later...

Griffith-20130426-00287.jpg

Fortunately, the principal was ducking in to pick up some paperwork on friday (school holidays here in NSW) and saw me hard at work, so its mega brownie points for me. Having seen the old one, they are very impressed with the new. Which isnt hard, the old one really looked like stevie wonder had a hand in its consctruction.

And I know what you mean about jobs...just when you reckon youve finally nailed an almost universally popular and achieveable job...the kids tastes change and youre back to the start again .

Anyway, thats enough spamming the thead with my stories, back to the recycling in 3...2...1...

Great thread Grahame! I am notorious for repairing and recycling stuff, to the extent now people drop off their unwanted cr@p for me to play with... running out of room!
Last weekend I fixed up a simple bit of kit, but one that I have replaced several times before, the spray nozzle for the garden hose. The last one got chewed by one of my dogs before I could repair it, this one broke dragging the hose across the lawn They are a great item in the garden, just a shame they aren't built a bit more robustly (obviously Jack Russell proof would be a good start).
Anyway, hammered the aluminium into shape, flooded it with Araldite and pop riveted it all together- with washers on the underside. Seems good so far.

One of the best (most surprising?) repairs I did was in a washing machine: replaced a broken fin on the agitator with red cedar, Araldited into place and lasted for years.

Cheers

Thanks Andy,
I am enjoying this very thread very much as there's so many posts that I see and get an idea to fix or modify something from what someone has shared with the rest of us.

Sometimes, all you need is that basic germ of an idea from something posted here and you are off into the shop planning and organizing it.

Some things take time waiting for the right material and sometimes the material/s drop right into your lap and you are off and running.

The "things I would like to make file" just keeps getting bigger and bigger and shed space gets smaller and smaller.

Thanks to all who have contributed ,so far.
Grahame

Originally Posted by Grahame Collins

Thanks Andy,
I am enjoying this very thread very much as there's so many posts that I see and get an idea to fix or modify something from what someone has shared with the rest of us.

Sometimes, all you need is that basic germ of an idea from something posted here and you are off into the shop planning and organizing it.

Some things take time waiting for the right material and sometimes the material/s drop right into your lap and you are off and running.

The "things I would like to make file" just keeps getting bigger and bigger and shed space gets smaller and smaller.

This all sounds very familiar. I currently have the 2HP 240V 3phase motor, pulley, belt, the pillow blocks, bearings, shafts, the steel for the frame, the VSD, the switches (emergency, on-off and pot), wiring, AC plug - all ready to make my 6 x 24" belt sander but I'm stuck adapting some insect screen doors we found during the latest kerbside rubbish collection!

I have an old walk-behind rotary slasher, a rugged NZ built brute that has had use and abuse for years. Came time to attack the Wet Season jungle. I fired it up for the first time in months, throttle stuck open a second too long, loud bang and it ground to a halt making expensive noises. Held my breath as I removed cowlings from the 11hp Honda vertical shaft engine. Seems the plastic cooling fan on the flywheel was brittle with old age and with a few extra revs, had spread itself everywhere. Spare one probably not available in Oz, or worth more than the old slasher, so looked around and found a piece of 1.5mm mild steel sheet, marked out and cut a circle, and some radial slots with a thin cutoff wheel.
Bent up to form a set of blades in the vise, trimmed them slightly for clearance and refitted to the flywheel. Moves plenty of air and seems to balance, so I still got the jungle cut before the afternoon was over. Thank heaven for a bit of simple workshop gear. Would be stuffed without it. Combustor.

Well I found the problem with the roadside junked Karcher washer. The plastic (almost everything is plastic) high pressure output pipe from the pump had a split in it.

I finished up repairing it with a good dose of Araldite to seal it, and then went over that with my favourite Selleys two pack expoxy kneed dough to make the whole thing as strong as steel.

It should work.

Apart from that, the pump seems OK.

See what tomorrow brings when I test it again after everything has hardened.

Had a few YouTube viewers asking about the repair, keen to know how to fix this, rather than saying what a genius I was for slotting the Torx tip

So I'm doing a Karcher repair video (if it all works out) and other hackers can fix their unit - seems like this is a very common problem.

Rob

Hi all, I think there is nothing better than scoring someones discarded/junk items & either repairing or dismantling for future parts/projects, my sheds are full of what some would call pure junk i keep everything & its amazing what u can make from that, my biggest frustation would be after searching for ages not being able to find an item that i know is there & u come across it some weeks later looking for something else,, hope Im not the only one that has this hic-up, ya know its funny have not worked for 12 mths & the to do list seems to be growing / shed space shrinking dont understand it, or is it the beer fridge in the corner & the local resource centre fault ????, My latest project is making wood heaters from discarded hot water cylinders have 3 more to make for mates & then some to put on gumtree best pull me finger out, some pics, cheers all.
DSCF0695.jpgDSCF0696.jpgDSCF0698.jpg

Looks pretty good, I guess there would be no shortage of material for these!!!
Is there much work involved in doing these heaters.
I continually have this problem of knowing it's here somewhere, sometimes even after 2-5 mins. It's called CRAFT Disease, Can't Remember A Flaming Thing.
The only cure that I know of is to get a bigger shed for more storage and STUFF.
Kryn

Originally Posted by pench

Hi all, I think there is nothing better than scoring someones discarded/junk items & either repairing or dismantling for future parts/projects, my sheds are full of what some would call pure junk i keep everything & its amazing what u can make from that, my biggest frustation would be after searching for ages not being able to find an item that i know is there & u come across it some weeks later looking for something else,, hope Im not the only one that has this hic-up, ya know its funny have not worked for 12 mths & the to do list seems to be growing / shed space shrinking dont understand it, or is it the beer fridge in the corner & the local resource centre fault ????, My latest project is making wood heaters from discarded hot water cylinders have 3 more to make for mates & then some to put on gumtree best pull me finger out, some pics, cheers all.
DSCF0695.jpgDSCF0696.jpgDSCF0698.jpg

We got shed fairies/gnomes that hide stuff here in Cent Vic I blame it on the pet possums.