What did you do today?

[mattthemuppet]

roughed in the extension tube. Couldn't thread it as I'm having problems with the halfnuts jamming up on the Atlas. I'll finish this off when the SB is back together.

bored a recess in the tailstock nut/ screw holder for a thrust bearing. The new screw has a little extra length for one at the other end, but that'll have to wait for the extension tube to be finished.

[Ironbearmarine]

Last week i strained my back. So its been a leedle tender doing chores. One chore my accordion playing gun moll took on to help me, was splitting firewood.
its a daily task and i was very appreciative, but when i saw my delicate fluer wielding the maul....So i decided we need a log splitter. Into the scrap pile. A piece of heavy walled tubing some steel plates, angles, a couple of wedges and a 8 ton hydraulic/pneumatic long throw jack. About 8 hours and we are in the log splitting business. Its quick and dirty but it works great.

[Alan Smith]

What a gentleman Ironbear. I bought my delicate flower one of these for splitting firewood. https://www.logmatic.co.uk Essentially its a large slide hammer with a log splitting tip and it works surprisingly well. Now I must train her to play the accordion!

[J Tiers]

I have been cleaning up and fixing some Stanley planes I got recently. A #55, a #40, another with a wood sole that I forget the number of, and a fairly ordinary Stanley, also forgot the #. Blades needed de-rusting (about 20 or 30 of them for the #55), minor fixes needed done, some blades sharpened, and I waxed the soles (Butcher's wax).

Now I will compare them with what I have, and see which I like better. The losers go. I have to make room for some wood-body planes that I will retrieve in a couple weeks.

[The Metal Butcher]

Yesterday was interesting.

I got these welded tube ends machined. The over-aged material definitely machines poorly. Some I did a better job on at controlling heat and there was a noticeable difference when it dropped from the 6061 tube to the 4043 filler. I cut a spiral groove in with my parting tool for additional grip when bolted up. Seems like the threads survived, but I will use anti-sieze and pray they don't gall. I have just under 1.5x engagement so hopefully that is enough. Still, for a challenge of welding a 3/4" thick plug into 1/8" wall, I'm pretty happy with my results. Hopefully I have antiquate penetration.

---

Just after I got done, the power went out for about 2.5 hours. I fired up the diesel genny for mom. Earlier in the day dad had told me about a Iveco truck he wanted to scrap but was "too hard to move, stuck down in a hole." That sounded like challenge to me. Bored and with no shop power, I went up, lifted the front and back end, chucked some firewood in the holes, and pushed in right out. Then instead of going backwards and talking the long way around, we pushed it back through and up this steep little incline. That looks every bit of 13+k lbs pushing/pulling power between the two tractors. So I guess he's going to go forward with scrapping it now. 'Twas a ton of fun and only took about an hour.

[nickel-city-fab]

Yesterday was interesting.
......
Still, for a challenge of welding a 3/4" thick plug into 1/8" wall, I'm pretty happy with my results. Hopefully I have antiquate penetration.

You probably did OK. On jobs where I want to be absolutely sure, I put a huge bevel on the thicker part and just pour it in like concrete. Uses a lot of filler tho.

[The Metal Butcher]

You probably did OK. On jobs where I want to be absolutely sure, I put a huge bevel on the thicker part and just pour it in like concrete. Uses a lot of filler tho.

I did. I beveled the plug until a 1440 lathe started to chatter, which on Aluminum, is pretty big. Maybe 3/8" wide or so?

[nickel-city-fab]

I did. I beveled the plug until a 1440 lathe started to chatter, which on Aluminum, is pretty big. Maybe 3/8" wide or so?

Cool, I was hoping you would That is exactly how I would have wanted to do the job -- and for damn sure you don't have to worry about penetration or strength now, because you have it in spades!

[The Metal Butcher]

Cool, I was hoping you would That is exactly how I would have wanted to do the job -- and for damn sure you don't have to worry about penetration or strength now, because you have it in spades!

We tried pushing the practice piece down with an arbor press to see if it would strip out the threads, but it just broke the weld and pushed in plug in. Granted, it had less chamfer and was being pushed down instead of pulled out. Still took probably 3 to 4 tons. So, yeah, should be alright. Thanks for all the help btw.

[nickel-city-fab]

We tried pushing the practice piece down with an arbor press to see if it would strip out the threads, but it just broke the weld and pushed in plug in. Granted, it had less chamfer and was being pushed down instead of pulled out. Still took probably 3 to 4 tons. So, yeah, should be alright. Thanks for all the help btw.

Awww crap, I would be embarrassed if a weld broke. But if its tough enough for what you need, OK. I would be worrying about cyclic fatigue. No prob on the help, hope it all made sense (spread out over 4 or 5 posts...) EDIT to ask, how did the weld look at the break, how wide/thick was it?

[The Metal Butcher]

Awww crap, I would be embarrassed if a weld broke. But if its tough enough for what you need, OK. I would be worrying about cyclic fatigue. No prob on the help, hope it all made sense (spread out over 4 or 5 posts...) EDIT to ask, how did the weld look at the break, how wide/thick was it?

I'll grab a pic next time I'm up. It was maybe 1/8" wide, and I didn't have the best penetration. But, I can't be too embarrassed as a strong enough press will always win. 20ksi as welded, 1.25" diameter. So with 1/8" weld thickness that's only 0.5 square inches of weld. So 10k lbs. So if I was at 8k in my estimate, well that's 80%, not terrible. The new ones should be a lot better but I'm not going to test them.

[nickel-city-fab]

I'll grab a pic next time I'm up. It was maybe 1/8" wide, and I didn't have the best penetration. But, I can't be too embarrassed as a strong enough press will always win. 20ksi as welded, 1.25" diameter. So with 1/8" weld thickness that's only 0.5 square inches of weld. So 10k lbs. So if I was at 8k in my estimate, well that's 80%, not terrible. The new ones should be a lot better but I'm not going to test them.

Story time. The press doesn't always win. One job about 20 yrs ago, I was asked to re-position and re-weld the cam arms inside a collapsible concrete mold. Basically its a 4" dia vertical shaft with radial cams made out of 1" plate. Rotate the shaft and the insides of the mold folded inward. releasing the product. Rotation via an 8" x 12" hyd cyl. Did the job with 7018, full penetration (lots of beveling). Dozens of cams, took a few days and a couple cases of rod. Used an air chisel to peen in between passes.

The numbnuts on night shift broke it the next day. They over-rode the hydraulic relief. The welds held, but the 4" dia shaft had a 180 deg twist in it, putting everything over center. Production mgr estimated the stress on the welds was around 140ksi.

Sigh, this mold is no bigger than your closet, it is used to make those square concrete drain boxes for the highway. Had to climb back in with the torch, order a new shaft, re-do everything.

Best part was, it was a brand-new mold, they had just bought it. Rumor had it that the incident was revenge for mgmt laying off half the place right before the holidays.

[wbldon]

I realize this is a metal working forum but I have used both my mill and lathe for wood working as well. Today I repaired a 100+ year old hard maple rolling pin my wife inherited from her mother that belonged to my wifes Grandmother. On one end it had a crack from getting wet and drying out too many times without being re-oiled. I used a 1/4" end mill to cut a slot in rolling pin to remove the crack. I then cut and fitted a piece of maple in the slot, making sure it was a tight fit. I then used some Titebond III to glue it place. Once dry I worked it down by had with a file and finally gave the entire roller a light sanding. Finally I heated up the wood then it got a good coat of Butcher Block Oil and was hung it up to dry for a few hours. Should be good for another 100 years.. LOL..
wbldon

[PStechPaul]

I finally got around to installing new brushes and brush holders in a circular saw I had bought at a Cabin Fever consignment shop, for $2. The saw itself was in great shape, but needing brushes. I think I installed a heavier spring in one brush holder that was heat damaged, and it ran. So I bought a set of replacement brushes for about $10-$15 or so. Installed a fresh blade,and all seemed OK. John used it to saw a slot in the floor, and I noticed that it had a strong smell indicative of electrical overheating and burned insulation. When I tried running it, I saw quite a lot of sparking on the commutator, and it seemed like it was running a bit slow. I tried cleaning the commutator but had the same issue. I have a feeling that there may be shorts in the armature winding. Here are the old brushes:



The saw as I bought it:



Here is a video clip of the saw running:

http://enginuitysystems.com/pix/tools/Circular_Saw_6697.AVI

[140mower]

Got some new poly over the greenhouse and threw together some benches inside. Everything except the poly is pretty much stuff that I had left over from other projects. It's about 16' x12' , so for about $40.00 and a bit of time I have knocked one thing off the honey-do list.....