What did you do today?

[Black_Moons]

Brazed a gas tank.. did'nt turn out so well, Very ulgy.. Wonder if it fixed the leak? Good news is at least I did'nt blow myself up.

Cleaned the nastyest bicycle chain ever on my motor bicycle.. Its basicly been getting coated from oil in the exhaust, and debrie from the road.

[winchman]

I modified two obsolete 12-ton special purpose jackstands to make them useful again. The tube was originally welded to the end of the block. I moved it to the center, and added the round bars on each end.





That paint is surprisingly tough. I preheated the blocks for several minutes with the OA torch before welding the tubes in place, but the paint took it in stride.

[danlb]

I added a 4th leg to my little (2 x 2 ft) portable welding table. The guy who built it had it set it up with three legs so it could lean against a wall or workbench. I just added 3 feet of 1 inch black pipe attached at a swivel. It's functionally just what I wanted. Very stable when it's in position.

Only after I'd finished it did I realize I was still working in 'pre welding' mode. I'd taken a 6 inch long piece of 1/8 inch strap, bent it to a U, flattened the U, drilled it for the pivot pin and welded the U to the underside of the table. It would have been SOOOO much easier to cut two pieces of strap, drill them at the same time for the pin, and weld the darn things in place.

What did I do today? I learned a lesson.

Dan

[madwilliamflint]

Finished up a project then started turning down some stock to make a holder to put my dremel flexible shaft in the quick change holder on the lathe.

[DeereGuy]

I worked on getting a high gloss black anodized finish...getting close I think.

[rock_breaker]

PeterF

We catch about a 15 second blip of news about the floods in Austrailia and am wondering how many members have been affected. Perhaps you can fill us in as to what has happened.

Thanks

Ray

[Timleech]

Not just today, but the last three evenings after work -
I'm stripping a diesel engine down for rebuild, the crank needs to come out (It's a Gardner 4LW if that means anything to anyone apart from Sir John). Someone has modified the front of the crank to take a more substantial pulley, turned it down & made a special steel pulley held with two grub screws in the side and two 1 1/4" x 1/2" Whit grub screws into the end, half in the shaft, as Dutch keys. Decent job until it needs to come apart after a few years in salt air. I got all the screws unscrewed except one of these long 'keys'. Tried a good quality socket drive hex key with 1/2" ratchet, hand impact driver, electric impact wrench, heat, penetrating oil, it would move back and forth maybe 1/8 turn but no more. Eventually the end of hex key sheared inside the grub screw. Tried a selection of carbide drills, I wasn't making much impression, that key must have been bl**dy hard. Eventually got the end of a carbide drill sheared off inside the broken hex key .
Tonight I went prepared with welding kit to see what could be done, maybe arc away some of the remaining key and at least alloy or anneal what was left to something drillable. I was clutching at straws, even considering cutting the whole pulley off with a grinder. Anyway, first thing was to try to disintegrate the piece of carbide drill, so I worried at it with a small punch. Didn't do the punch much good but did manage to break the carbide up. Then, hey presto, the punch jammed in the hole & was able to pull the remains of the key out of the hole with surprising ease (I'd been having to lever out the complete key before it sheared).
Then had to drill out the whole of this 1 1/4" long hex grub screw, took a while & blunted sveral drills but I got there!
Next stage is to get a powerful puller & maybe some heat on the pulley until it gives in! Then, finally, I can get the front oil seal plate off the crankcase and get the shaft away for grinding.

Tim

[John Stevenson]

Today,
Nineteen bloody electric motors to strip, mode the rotor, mod the mounting flange and machine new adaptor plate from a laser cut 10mm thick blank, rebuild and get ready to ship out tomorrow morning.

I'm seriously starting to hate electric motors.

Sleeved a mounting flange and tried to upset 3 customers on the phone, flange was Ok but didn't mange to upset anyone.

Pub tonight, steak and a pint £5.49 and no washing up, life is good.

Came back, read the forum, laughed my arse off at Tims antics with the little LW, thank Christ I'm out that game, 19 years was long enough, decided electric motors aren't quite that bad.

Sent he cheque off for those magazines Tim, let you know when they are ready to collect.

[MotorradMike]

Made a bacon sarny with lots of mayo and butter.
Posted it to to Sir John.
Tomatoes might not keep so left those out.

Enjoy!


PS: If you don't like doing the motors put the bloody price up until you do.

[vpt]

Unloaded a truck, loaded another truck, fixed a vacuum cleaner bushing and belt.

[Walter]

Well, I had a damn good day in the new shop (new job). Finally feeling comfortable with the equipment, and went to town on the 4 projects I had in hand. 3 finished and 3/4 of the way done on number 4.

[DougA]

One of those days when everything falls into place. Made the rounds to three customers in three different towns. First one just needed a lesson on how to run there band saw in automatic and have the parts come out the correct length. Second one was installing the newly repaired chip conveyor back in their saw. Of course this was made more difficult by the planners putting the side of the saw the chip conveyor goes in against a wall. But since I figured last week how to get it out it went back in quickly. We raised the head up as high as it would go then disconnected power to the saw. Took the biggest forklift in the building and half lifted/slid the saw at an angle until we could sneak the 8' conveyor back into the saw. This thing weighs around 7000 lbs. After that another drive to customer number three for an easy hydraulic cylinder problem. Quick seal kit install and I was done. After everything went so well I could have made another call but didn't want to take a chance of ruining a good day so I quit early.

[gunbuilder]

Today, I just about froze, again. Had to move more snow, the wind keeps blowing enough snow in to block my driveway. I blow it out one day and the wind blows it back that night. Nearly a full time job just getting the road clear enough to get in and out.

The older I get the less cold I can take.

Thanks,
Paul

[38_Cal]

Took the car in for front brakes...it's too darn cold to do in the driveway, I'm not laying on a sheet of snow & ice! My garage is now my shop, so can't pull in to do any work. Crowned a barrel that I relined, and started putting the rifle back together...taking too long, don't do Winchester Low Walls often enough. Worked on a couple of stock patterns that I'm sending off to be duplicated. Had a customer/friend drop some work off and chewed the fat for an hour. No profit to be made on that job, but he's on his way to becoming a client, not just a customer...the difference being where you put the decimal point on the bill!

David

[J Tiers]

Hah.... fixed the high temp squirrely problem with a new product (a small custom VFD) and found that the fix also knocked the conducted EMI 15 dB below limits (that's good, btw).

Then found that the boss is promising another customer a VFD of 3.5x the power in the same package...... (not so good, the existing one is about maxed out).

I reckon I came out even on it today...... but got nothing done in the shop here but some bandsawing.