What did you do today?

[PixMan]

Installed the hose hanger that my dad made for the new surface grinder coolant/dust collector unit I bought for him. Every one of these units I've seen being sold with used machines on Ebay or by machinery dealer sites has cracked hoses from people just letting everything hang. This solution that I thought of, dad fabricated and I installed takes all the weight off the hoses, without exerting any forces on anything else. It's a neoprene rubber sling suspended on a coil spring-loaded mechanism that was a door-closer, and fastened to a joist in the ceiling above the machine.

Also laid out and installed new "pegs" to organize the growing collections of grinder wheels & adapters. I used the long screws and plastic spacers sold for installing rain gutters on homes. They're long enough that I can start stacking wheels 2 or 3 deep if I need to. I still have room for a few more before that happens though.

[RussZHC]

Pixman: curious, is there any ever issue with the use of flex hose in such an "industrial" setting?
Build up of crud after awhile, I mean...

[PixMan]

I've not seen it used much in similar applications, only the photos of the stuff. I think coolant mist has more effect than crud alone.

When I worked in CNC screw machine shops that had high-pressure coolant systems and the accompanying mist collectors, the oil mist really attacked the 6" flex hose used on the mist collectors. It would swell up and split. A more-common issue was the oil collecting inside the hose, impossible to get it all out. That weight alone would make the flex hoses sag. I don't want that here, that's why you see the smooth curves, no sags. Then on the CNC machines, the mist collectors started to be installed directly onto the machine enclosures, problem solved.

I do see some flex hose being used in shops that have central dust/mist collector systems. There will be galvanized pipe run along a line of machines above head height, then flex hose down to the interface of each machine. It all seems to be intact, but a bugger to keep perfectly clean. Most don't bother, and I think that's when you get a lot of leaks and system failure.

For right now, being brandy new, this thing really sucks. I think I'd be careful about having a loose grip on a flexible 6" scale near the port, it sucks so bad.

[Video Man]

Found a replacement edger blade for my old edger, bored it out to fit my new edger. Yes I could have drilled the **** thing but I bought a boring head and by nab, I'm going to use it! Edger doesn't require =/- .0005 but I did it because I CAN. My wife wondered why I spent all that money on a milling machine.....

[Tony Ennis]

Learned to brew beer starting with malt.

[singlecedar]

What I did today

Well,
First off, shot carpenter bees with a S&W 1917 with cut-down .308 brass necked down to pass the 45ACP headspace shoulder (.45 Lafayette Bee Magnum). Works quite well with 3.5 gr of HI-SKOR, and fill the case with walnut polishing media. Test-fired some 45 ACP loaded with 7.5gr of CPP behind a 200 grain ice-hardened bullet for 1007 fps. Stiff recoil, no signs of pressure. Colt 38 special was fired with a 158gr cast boolit with 5.7gr of CPP for a nice load (Chrony battery died, and I didn't get the fps).

Ran out of .45 Lafayette Bee Magnum, started shootin' da beez with a Ruger Mark II .22 Target model. Durned if that wasn't fun too. A little bit harder to shoot 'em, but finally figgered out Point-of-aim, and wasted a few more.

Shot the bull, told jokes, and traded some wisdom with my gun-nut buddies. Had to leave the range about 1:15PM.

Got home and started workin' on the wife's 25-06 I'm building for her. Nearly finished jeweling the bolt, when I wound up watchin' the grandkids. Both me and the grandkids had fun, so I reckon we had a pretty good day.

Gonna go fishin' with the wife tomorrow, and carry the S&W 1917 loaded with the Lafayette Snake Magnum (5gr CCP and 200gr of number 11 shot).

Oh yeah, and I dressed down a 1.5" bell reducer to build me another pipe burner for my blueing set-up. Building my own is a heck of a lot cheaper than buying them. Final machining tomorrow after I clean a mess of fish will be a cakewalk.

And right now, I'm answering questions from my wife about what gun I'm talking about to somebody..... women... go figger.

All this should have been in the Gunsmithing category, but heck, the question was "What did you do today?"

[J Tiers]

Just finished sweeping up about 5 lb of chips from the shop, came over here to get the email, and here I am wasting time.....

Went to a few tool sales, cleaned up the purchases (hand tools).

Thinking about whether it's too late to start on a project now....

[John Stevenson]

Threw a new control box together yesterday for a 4 axis project machine I'm working on.
Nothing fancy, just off the shelf items and 6 foot of cable but it makes a change from doing motors



Having said that, next week I have an interesting job even though it is a motor.

Got an axle here off a small battery operated tug from the airport, probably baggage handling ?
Motor coupled directly onto the diff by a fine straight sided spline, motor is toast, no spares available so been given a 'new' motor of totally different design and got to graft it to fit.

Makes a change from the run of the mill stuff for an hour or two.

[PixMan]

Nice work, but looks kind of tight in there. Doesn't that power supply want a little more air flowing around it?

[John Stevenson]

Integral fan in power supply mates up with grille in far end.

[PixMan]

Nice, but where does the air come in or go out for flow?

I guess if you get a 4-axis CNC machine going you won't need that nice large collection of transfer punches any longer. Send them my way.

[John Stevenson]

Grille is full width of the PS, fan is only half width.

Shouldn't get hot anyway as it's all over specked.
Drivers are 4.2 amp only running at 2 amps.

Buy your own transfer punches, I'd be lost without them.

[sansbury]

A prototype 7-position Geneva wheel for a mechanical calendar. This was drawn in BobCAD and cut on my X2. It's ugly, but this was just a proof-of-concept. The wheel could have stood to be a few thous smaller for smoother meshing, but the basic geometry seems sound.

[J Tiers]

It was about 90F here today (32C for you others).

Did the Sunday morning things, then

Made about 2 cu yards of dirt...... means shredding various things together and dumping into a composter to settle and decompose.

Cleaned off the workbench out in the shed. Cleaned the truck bed out of dirt and rocks, and then got it dirty again hauling plants.

Didn't do squat in the shop except make a chuck key for the smaller Cushman out of one I got in a can of miscellaneous extra keys. That dude was some HARD steel, had to torch anneal it, turn the nose down with carbide, and then harden and draw it.

[Tony Ennis]

Shot my flintlock at the range today. The barrel should be broken in now so I can sight it in.

Got the riding mower running for the first time this year, used it in anger. Can't get the blades off to sharpen them. Sucks. Considering buying a cheesy compressor and some air tools.