What did you do today?

[Cenedd]

I'd quite like the option of a right-biased parting insert to reduce the pip on the part cut off....but they are all either ludicrous money (for my budget) or you can buy the tool but not the inserts.

Upgraded my shop whiteboard the other day. Thought that a A3 board would be plenty big enough compared to the bits of A4 paper I was using. Didn't account for larger pens, magnetic eraser etc. Bought myself a 900x600 board from Costco to replace it....and a set of three spirit levels (that I'd resisted last time) just fell into my trolley. Well, obviously I was going to need them to hang the new board!

Decided to give the smaller one to my son....despite my trepidation that he'd draw over anything within a fallout area of the board! He wanted to stand it up so he could write messages on it so I knocked this together:



I've since taken off the pen holder at the top - no use unless it's hanging on a wall and it would have tipped forward if that side were put in the slot.

[Dan Dubeau]

Small pike: (had much better luck other day at river delta where we catch nice amount of bass)

Nice fish. Those hammer handle pike are great eaters.

[Cenedd]

Lost an argument with a wood screw! My son's calendar is screwed to the wall (too hard for nail-in hooks) and it's a pain to change each month. So I came up with one of those 5-minute jobs.....you know the ones?! Drill a hole in a screw the fits the rawl plug, screw a brass hook into that and job's a goodun....right?! Nope. Wrecked a decent cobalt stub drill because I'd not counted on the core of the screw being harder than Chuck Norris! The head was quite easily faceable but a drill wouldn't touch the core. Dug out some of my dad's slotted screws from the better part of 50 years back. They clearly didn't harden them back in those days as even the blunted drill bit chewed through it without much issue. Don't have a tap for 'tiny wood screw thread' so just made the brass hook's thread a good fit and filled it with Loctite 638. Not an elegant solution....but it works.

[RB211]

Visiting my sister and brother-in-law for the 4th.
They are throwing away an old hotwheels Jeep that he suped up with larger motors that ended up stripping the gears.
I may give it a Tim Allen treatment with a brushless DC motor, and a proper rear axle... Better get my son a football helmet...

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[Dave C]

July 4 used to be a big family celebration with the grill going full blast, eating what everyone brought, and playing Rook. Then Pop (my fil, and best friend) died on July 1, 1986, and we buried him on July 4. It's not been the same since. So today was a day of sadness, and a day of remembrance of a great guy who had hit the beach at Normandy on D day. So I spent the day futzing with my HF sandblast rig that hadn't been used in several years, looking for the air attachments that go to it, couldn't find them, so spent an hour re-plumbing the thing only to come up short by 1 nipple. In the search for said nipple I opened a box marked "Hydraulic pump for Ford tractor", and guess what? There, inside the box, along with the pump, was the regulator, air filter and valves for the sand blaster. Another hour of undo and redo finally got the thing blowing sand again. There was only a couple of pounds of sand in the tank so I did a half assed job of blasting the toe jack that I built, and sprayed some yellow paint on it. Six hours later, it's not dry enough to touch due to the heat and humidity. On the bright side, I watched the Braves beat the Phillies, so all is not lost. Sorry for the mulleygrubbs.

[DennisCA]

I have begun disassembling the vertical head on the deckel to service the spindle. This is about as far as I will go for now. I will work on the spindle later, based on my read through of other people doing this, it's best to have the head solidly mounted when you test the play (needs to be done to .001 mm) and the best place for that IMO is back in the machine.... I will probably paint the vertical head and other parts while I have them all apart.

[Cenedd]

Sorry for the mulleygrubbs.

Hey, if you can't share some serious stuff once in a while with the people you (digitally) hang-out with, you're hanging out with the wrong crowd!

And that air line stuff? That's how these things get their kicks - they wait for you to completely replace them and then they jump out at you. It's like chuck keys.

Dennis: That truly is a labour of love. It'll be a fantastic machine once your finished with it by the look of it.

[MattiJ]

Anyone need garage size milling machine?

https://www.go-dove.com/en/auction/view?id=13840855

You can spin medium sized garage on the rotary table

[Bob Engelhardt]

I have begun disassembling the vertical head on the deckel ... test the play (needs to be done to .001 mm) ...

A micron!? That's Stefan territory. It's good to know, now I'll be sure to never get one of those that needs to be reworked.

[DennisCA]

I don't think it's that difficult if you have a sensitive enough indicator (I have a 2um one, it should be enough despite that), there are instructions online and you set the play with castle nuts. And in a commercial setting you're to do this yearly and replace the grease (a special brand).

A deckel spindle is something else at least on the older machines. It has no real bearings, only rollers and cages, the spindle itself is the inner race and the outer race is the spindle housing. Precision ground and hardened surfaces. Pretty difficult if they have been damaged, though apparently that's rare, worst thing that can happen is water intrusion and rust. You can correct for wear by buying a set of slightly bigger rollers.

[jdedmon91]

Made a small wine stopper rack for the house https://youtu.be/FOc1I9VeDPI


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[Cenedd]

Discovered something new that I'm really good at: using diamond plates (credit card sized ones) to turn a semi-sharp knife into a blunt knife. Go me!

[Tim The Grim]

Used my HF engine hoist to pull out 5 rose bushes for the Mrs.
(Machining Content) Made a bracket from 1/4 x 1-1/4 angle iron to screw a 1/2 lag into the bush stump and attach the chain.

[Willy]

Helped a neighbor move his mother and made a dump run for him after. Seems I very seldom go for my own stuff unless it's pruning time in the fall.
While at the dump I spotted a really nice straight shaft Stihl weed trimmer. I picked it up an gave it a tug and the compression felt very good. That's all I needed to know before I rescued that dump orphan.

It was a bit dirty so I cleaned it up as I don't like opening up a dirty engine as I may introduce dirt where it doesn't belong. No sense taking the carb and muffler off to see what the cylinder and piston look like only to get a big dirt booger in the internals.
Shortly after separating the engine cowling halves I find that it had been put together with the wire from the magneto that powers the ignition coil, pinched firmly between the two pieces of cowling. Time and vibration had completely severed the wire.
A $270 Stihl, and rather than fix it, it ends up at the dump! That's three weed wackers, a leaf blower, a chainsaw, and a damn fine compressor I've rescued this year.

Thought I'd found that elusive bag of money earlier this year but the bag only contained soiled undies. Hey it was a very nice bag, how was I to know?

[DennisCA]

I decided to take apart the long reach head further after all.







I wanted to remove the front gear and gear assembly and shaft as well, the gear assembly on this is loud, I am not sure if that's normal or not, but it feels like it has a lot of backlash and maybe something loose. But the gear is stuck on really well and I do not have a gear puller that fits in behind the gear.



I note the plate behind the gear is round on this model, I have seen on a 60s era FP2 and this part has been remade to be triangular. I marked the position of the plate with a punch though, two small marks next to each other because it apparently matters which way it's set.

Started preparing these parts for painting, once the long reach head is disassembled I will also prepare it for painting.