What did you do today?

[754]

I am thinking a mill table or glass plate may be more accurate than the granite..

[DennisCA]

Thanks for posting that. I have a chewed up gib that I was going to try to build up by brazing but I am concerned about it cracking. This looks like a safer repair to attempt given my skill set.

No problems, some commercial machines have gibs made like this. I cut off the majority of the damaged part with a bandsaw and left some material, then a belt grinder until I got it real close, then I drilled and tapped. One screw is an M4 and one an M6 screw. After that I did some more refining until there was zero play and it could retain the screw with friction.

Today I made new support legs for my shop crane. The factory ones are too big and unwidely for me to move it around a lot of the time... They are also too high to get them underneath certain benches. So I am making half-length support legs that are lower profile. Cut and welded them up today.







Next is finding some suitable castors.

[Cenedd]

I am thinking a mill table or glass plate may be more accurate than the granite..

Not my mill table it wouldn't! It's fairly flat (recently been surface ground) but it's usually covered in swarf, vise and parts.....and is tiny. Also soft so won't stay that flat for all that long.
You may be right on the glass - float glass especially. I have a piece but it's reserved for "scary sharpening"....that I was going to be dead keen on doing....you know how it is. Will give it a go when I next need to do something wood'y that requires sharpness. Won't be long, the wife has decided we need to replace all the internal doors....and they're all a non-standard dimension. Yay!
Might slap the gauge on the float glass though for interest's sake.

[softtail]

New (old) bandsaw showed up today after major layover in Salt Lake due to weather. Tilt bed operator was grumpy old guy who didn't inspire confidence (how you gonna get this thing off?), but we managed to get it onto the driveway.. good thing I had extra time to beat back the snow piles so he could maneuver..needed every inch. Then I was alone to figure out how to get it off the pallet and into garage. Walked it back off one end of pallet with bars, and propped that end on wedges, then lifted end still on pallet with new toe jack and pulled out pallet. That was by far the toughest part..after it was on hard ground, it walked right into garage with about an inch to spare at top. Having two levers is great.. you can get a shuffle thing going. Need a bigger shop.

[Tim The Grim]

I always thought there should be holes in the burner plates on my grill so I used this bimetal hole saw from Grizzly to do 42 holes in the 3 plates.
Except for a little paint it’s as good as new.


While I’m recuperating from my bypass surgery and can’t ride, I added some engine guards to my Sportster. I’m gonna mount some LEDs on there so I started modifying some off the shelf mounts from Amazon and then made a few clamps to fit the mounts to the lamps. Time for some paint and I’ll take some pics when assembled.


I can do a pretty solid 6 hours in the home shop now. Gotta be ready to do 12 hr graveyard shifts outside by mid April when I’m back to work.

[JRouche]

Repaired tapered gib

I agree with the other member (Rowbare), great fix.

I dont know how you did it even though a pic=1000 words

Drill and tap for an end plate? Nice fix.

What it the machine. Looks like a pretty nice gib even with the swarf cuts. Ill take swarf cuts over wear. Call them oil slots.

A swarf wiper could help.

Oh, and now I know why the gibs got benty. Cant compress swarf

Good job on the fix.

I love these stories. Oh thats right! Could you tell us the story of how to fix it JR

[DennisCA]

It's a Deckel FP2 gib (steel, not CI btw) for the vertical table that goes in the X-direction. The table seized up and galled with the gib because the previous owner injected grease into the oil nipples. That's when they sold it and later I picked it up for a price that should have made me wonder if everything was OK, they said it ran, which was technically true.... The marks are what's left of the original scraping from factory.

I bandsawed the broken portion off and used a belt grinder to remove material until I got close, then I drilled and tapped and hand fitted a steel piece as the new retainer. Then I did some more material removal until the screw was tight enough to be retained by friction.

[3 Phase Lightbulb]

yep, got my temporary face lift this morning. Just have to wait a couple of days and it'll get better. it was 80F a couple of weekd ago..

Yup, I'm back in Boston now. Right before I left, the local weather was saying back into the 70s+ in a few days, but it was a shocker to leave Boston where it was ~37F and arrive in Austin where it was ~31F!!

[Jon Heron]

It was -22C here this morning, its March 7... I give.
Stick a fork in me...
Cheers,
Jon

[3 Phase Lightbulb]

It was -22C here this morning, its March 7... I give.
Stick a fork in me...
Cheers,
Jon

That's the problem with very cold temperatures; at -22C, the brain shrinks so small that people don't realize they should move

[Jon Heron]

Ha!
Jon

[PStechPaul]

They can't stick a fork in you until you thaw out. Time to crawl into an oven and shut the door...

My favorite cold weather story, one that made Jack London famous:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_Build_a_Fire

https://americanenglish.state.gov/files/ae/resource_files/to-build-a-fire.pdf

More short stories:

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/2429/2429-h/2429-h.htm

[brian Rupnow]

God, I love that piece of poetry. I first read that in grade three or four in public school over half a century ago. At one time I remembered all the words to it, but with time I have forgotten a lot of it. I never heard Johnny Cash recite it before, but he certainly does it justice.---Brian

[MattiJ]

Turned the internal taper from craptastic china chuck, now measures +-0.03 next to jaws and +-0.08 with 60mm stickout.

[danlb]

I just got back from a 4 day trip to Oregon that stretched to 2 weeks. I was supposed to help my octogenarian Mom manage a contractor who was to seal a groundwater leak into the basement. No real machining, except that as I took off my shoe the night that I got there a piece of swarf fell on the floor.

The day before I was to come home we were hit with the worst snow storm in recent memory. Thanks to a day trip, we got home after dark to find 4 inches of snow on the roads. That's when I found that Mom's fancy 2010 Cadillac was unable to handle a freeway overpass in the snow, much less the steep road to her house. The Valley was dark due to trees knocking down power lines. We detoured to the only hotel in town with lights and spent 4 days there till we could climb the hill to Mom's place. Strangely, the brand new hotel had a generator that provided lights to the common areas, but that's it. We were able to get two dark rooms. No heat. No hot water. No lights. No internet. $115 a night each. The food supply was limited to the cold continental breakfast supplies and the booze and snacks in the gift shop. I gave Mom my everyday carry flashlight and I sparingly used the light on my cell phone.

Key learnings:

Yep, it pays to have a knowledgeable person communicate with the contractor work crew. They got the sump pump and vapor barrier installed on time and on budget.

I can confirm that a Galaxy S9+ with 20% battery left will still be usable as a cell phone 48 hours later if it is put in low power mode.

My flashlight will provide 3 nights of low level light on one battery.

Maybe I should put a bail out bag in the trunk of Mom's car.