What did you do today?

[Weston Bye]

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.

Excellent. I have a soft spot for Genevas. Much easier to build than one would expect. If you haven't seen it before, check out mine in Machinists in Motion under the Interactive tab at the Digital Machinist website. (see my signature line below) It was the subject of the second article I did for Digital Machinist. Also see my Quartz Movement clock and Walking Beam while you are there there. (sorry for the shameless self-promotion)

I spent part of the day building and fitting parts for a new clock design.

[Westline]

I'm pretty proud of this so I thought I would share it with you guys.
After 4 months of on and off work on my dads Devilbiss compressor finally completed the pump on Sunday.
I don't have pics of what the whole thing used to look like but the head used to look like this.

Now after stripping sandblasting the entire thing at times that I would not urk my neighbours the pumps looks like this.



The interesting thing is only one valve plate was broken but I replaced the bearings, bearing seals and gaskets while it was open anyway.
Also honed the cylinders and sprayed the entire pump.
All in all I'm one happy camper.
Now I have to do the motor and tank .......not that much fun

[Timleech]

Zero metalworking content

Spent a fair chunk of the weekend turning one of these:-



into this:-



The timber is one of several 9" x 6" pieces of redundant lockgate fendering from Liverpool docks, which I bought (old fixing bolts still in place) for repairs to the stands (Bostocks) in my little dry dock. There's some spare, & the timber was too good to waste. Most of the beams are Greenheart, anyone who has dealt with greenheart will know it tends to splinter and the splinters can turn nasty. Some of the beams are what I know as 'Purple heart' but that's probably not correct. It's very like greenheart, extremely dense and durable, used for similar things, but has a purplish-brown colour and is less prone to splintering (more suitable for sitting on!) The blocks sitting on the ground are greenheart, the rest comes from one piece of the 'purple heart'.

The spot is where a big beech tree snapped off in a storm a couple of years ago and demolished all the smaller trees in its path. After I'd cleared as much of the beech as I could there was a nice elevated clearing just asking for some sort of seat. I reckon the whole assembly must weigh at least 200 lbs

Tim

[vpt]

Finally had time to weld up the mani.

[J Tiers]

Got off work, went to welding class, where I decided that MIG sucks and stick rules......... we just started MIG, and so far I do not like it much.

Fixed a leak around the tub, glared at the slow sink drain a bit, avoided doing any tax paperwork, and came here to waste time...............

[Black_Moons]

I'm pretty proud of this so I thought I would share it with you guys.
After 4 months of on and off work on my dads Devilbiss compressor finally completed the pump on Sunday.
I don't have pics of what the whole thing used to look like but the head used to look like this.All in all I'm one happy camper.
Now I have to do the motor and tank .......not that much fun

Wow, Awsome hotrod compressor paint job Hope it proforms as fast as it looks.

[RussZHC]

No chips but something actually re: lathe

Painted some small lathe parts.

Fitted the nut for the QCTP/compound "T" slot.
Would have been way simpler if the mill was up and running but need lathe up and running first for making parts.

Bonus: did not shiver once (it got up to about 8C here today)

[lakeside53]

Went sking.. Awesome

[Black Forest]

Went sking.. Awesome

I never liked water skiing much. I guess I am a control freak.

[winchman]

I'm in the process of replacing the wood deck on a stake body truck with a steel tread plate deck. At the end of last quarter, I stripped off all the angle around the edge of the bed, and removed the bulkhead that supported the blade for the bulldozer that the truck had been used to haul.

Then I installed two channels and the plate for the hitch ball.



This morning I fabricated this removable mount for the safety chains.



Here's a shot showing the paint burned off the outside of the frame where I welded the channels. I was pleased to see the pattern is so consistent. It wasn't an easy place to work with the mig gun.

[PixMan]

I mixed up the 13 gallons of coolant for the surface grinder's new coolant/dust collector unit, checked concentration with a refractometer, and filled up the unit.

Works GREAT!

[sasquatch]

Went to do some work at a house we bought in town.
This house is a One Owner built in 1939. The one bachelor son still living there gave me a box containing the original blueprints for the house , and a stack 4 inches thick of every piece of correspondence concerning all the construction materials, prices from woodwork, trim, furnace, electrical, plumbing, the lot it was built on, the labour rates paid out for various stages, in 39 the carpenters were being paid around 45-50 cents per hour.
Also brochures of other house designs they had considered.
Amazing they still had all this, great to have all the history of this house.

[The Artful Bodger]

I wanted a piece of steel for my project so took myself down to an engineering company in this small town. I parked my ute then walked around one side of their premises and right around to the back of the building on the next street but no sign of any front door!

One door did however have an open padlock on it so I gently pushed it open and found a young man inside operating a lathe, he and an older man, maybe the proprietor, were the only two working in a shop with rows of machines, lathes, mills, a forge in the corner and no doubt a lot more I did not notice.

I got my metal and left wondering what the future there might be.

[John Stevenson]

Trying to play catch-up on a few projects before the racing season starts.
Did two steering wheel centre logo's today for a couple of Alvis vintage racers [ not mine ].



Had a play with the latest Vetric software called Aspire. You cab pull this into 3D shapes and then machine it from there.



It's actually trickier than it looks as the centre flat section isn't on centre, if it was then the triangle would have the lower point on the edge of the circle.

The doming was done with a 6mm ball nosed cutter and the engraving done with a 20 degree V tool. 47 minutes per part.

[terry_g]

Actually I made this yesterday. A rest for my .223 Savage.
I tried it out today and it works very well.

Terry