What did you do today?

[3 Phase Lightbulb]

I made a TIG filler rod holder tonight. I needed to cut out 9 holes to fit 2" SCH40 pipe and decided to cut them out with the CNC bridgeport. Silly but fun

[RichR]

I installed a new garage door spring at my moms house.

[lakeside53]

I spent a day fitting a dro to my lathe... had to remove the cross side and put it in my mill to and reposition the gib lock. The cross slide must weight 80lb. At least one more day to go.

[Mister ED]

Assembled and then tore back apart a wood shaper ... time to replace the other 3 bearings (should have bought them with the first two I just replaced).
Then I finished up the remote control panel for my mill and got the VFD parameters all set. New 3ph motor, AB VFD, and now remote stop/start, jog, reverse, and pot. Sure will be a big improvement dialing in rpm over the original 5 speed belt.

[PStechPaul]

This afternoon I used my shop vac to pick up most of the little shards of glass that broke when the tree smashed my truck cap.





Last night I built a simple battery pack balance monitor.

[MushCreek]

Yesterday I did heavy yard work- the perfect antidote after a frustrating week at work. I cleared a brush patch, and mounted my wood chipper to my tractor and ground it all up. Of course today I'm so sore I can barely walk!

[Cenedd]

Finally got round to fixing the door on the utility room. One of those uPVC doors with the locking up one edge. The action was stiff and it had started to become difficult to lock/unlock which nearly caused problems when I needed emergency through that door (long story, don't get me started!). Tried lubricating it all and it made no difference so I did what any of us would have done....and took it to pieces Turns out that when the builders had rebuilt the top half of the wall that door is in (also a long story!) they'd managed to fill the top edge of the door and the top of the mechanism with a nice mix of plaster and rubble. That had just made it down to the top one of the hooks that gets thrown out to lock the door and well, a sliding fit is not a sliding fit when it's full of grit. Grit didn't come out as it was held in by the grease. Couldn't take it apart and clean it out as it was pinned together and the ends of the pins peened over - alright, technically I could have taken it apart but I lack the facilities to put it back together again. So I put it all in the 'parts washer'* and cleaned it all up using a 'specialised degreaser'**.
Worked the majority of the grit out and filled it full of white lithium spray grease. Door works nicely now.

Did find that in working the mechanism back and forth that my fingers have sprung leaks. Seems to be yet another factory devoid of deburring tools Can we maybe organise some sort of fundraiser and send a job lot of deburring tools to these poor factory workers?!


*kitchen sink - wife's dead happy
**Fairy liquid - reminds me, I must clean the grease off the bottle!

[Dave C]

After several days, I finally finished installing the vinyl rain gutter install, and like Mush Creek, I'm sore all over from all the trips up and down the ladder. All I had left to do yesterday was install the downspouts which I thought was going to take an hour or so. WRONG! The good news was that I beat the storms that were forecast. The bad news is the job took most of the day, and required a refresher course in plane geometry to get the drain pipe lengths to work out with the angles of the fittings. The job was complicated by the gutters being on 2 , eaves at right angles to each other, with one lower than the other.
Notice the wad of Pine straw in the lower gutter. Going to have to be more diligent about keeping the roof cleaned off from now on.

[jdedmon91]

I’ve been needing a metal cutting vertical bandsaw. Mainly because my horizontal is just that not the vertical and horizontal type.

Since my space is limited I decided to go the portable bandsaw with stand route. Picked out the new Harbor Freight model simply because it’s not an every day use item and a SWAG table. I installed a box with a switch and outlet on the table.

I’m well pleased so far


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Cenedd]

Got inspired by AvE and his "Chickadee" in the shop and figured it was about time I had another go. Last time I tried, my son couldn't refrain from pointing at all the dangerous bits. You know, "What's this?” while getting finger close to spinning carbide than you're comfortable with. This time (he's a bit older) went better and we did some fly-cutting and drilling. Trying to knock together a quick model of a table as part of his holiday homework. Only thing that went wrong was my assumption that a 3mm endmill (in a drill chuck - didn't want to complicate things too much) would make a hole close enough to take some 3mm dowel pins with Loctite 638. I suspect I may have to start again and aim for (and maybe fail) an interference fit. Main thing is that he's happy and it went pretty well.

Edit: just remembered. He needs a bigger nose....the safety glasses keep falling off! Had to hold them on for him. Glueing them on is inappropriate, right?!

[MushCreek]

I've been trying to get my '92 Miata roadworthy the last couple days. Nothing really wrong; just doing baseline maintenance since I don't know the history of the car. What a PITA to work on! You have to remove 6 unrelated parts to get at each part that needs service. The little bugger has 9 (NINE!) coolant hoses, most hard to get at.

To replace the timing belt and water pump, you have to take lots of stuff of, including a very tight crankshaft bolt. A) It's hard to hold the crankshaft still while you turn it, B), the sway bar is right in front of it. I had to lower the sway bar out of the way, and cut down a socket so I could bust it loose with an impact. I could just barely get it in there with the A/C evaporator in the way. On a machining-related note- a carbide cut-off tool will part off a Harbor Freight impact socket fairly easily.

[MattiJ]

I've been trying to get my '92 Miata roadworthy the last couple days. Nothing really wrong; just doing baseline maintenance since I don't know the history of the car. What a PITA to work on! You have to remove 6 unrelated parts to get at each part that needs service. The little bugger has 9 (NINE!) coolant hoses, most hard to get at.

To replace the timing belt and water pump, you have to take lots of stuff of, including a very tight crankshaft bolt. A) It's hard to hold the crankshaft still while you turn it, B), the sway bar is right in front of it. I had to lower the sway bar out of the way, and cut down a socket so I could bust it loose with an impact. I could just barely get it in there with the A/C evaporator in the way. On a machining-related note- a carbide cut-off tool will part off a Harbor Freight impact socket fairly easily.

Still considered ”easy” if you don’t need to pull out the engine to change timing belt!

[AD5MB]

To replace the timing belt and water pump, you have to take lots of stuff of, including a very tight crankshaft bolt. A) It's hard to hold the crankshaft still while you turn it.

old motorcycle man trick: pull the sparkplug off a cylinder coming up on TDC, drizzle a rope in there until the cylinder is full of rope, do your wrenching thing with the rope blocking the piston, which blocks the crankshaft. beware of fibers coming off the rope.

[Cenedd]

Still considered ”easy” if you don’t need to pull out the engine to change timing belt!

Yeah, I was going to say that. I thing it was a Lancia Beta I was helping a friend change the timing belt on. It's a word half a V8 - like literally only half of it to make a straight 4. Official routine was to remove the entire engine. We got away with doing nasty (and definitely unsafe) things with suspension spring compressors to get the tensioner back on Blood as an assembly lubricant... obviously!

[Dave C]

Wait til you have to re do the brakes on that thing. They are also a bear to work on, and btw, don't start on them until you read all about how to do it. dahik. Fun car to drive on back country roads, but maintenance is hell.