What did you do today?

[The Metal Butcher]

I like dogs, but we have cats, which I also like and have had since I was about 5. Back many years ago after college, my cat had to approve of all girlfriends, or they were out. The cat made an excellent choice of "the" girlfriend to approve!

The same cat commented rather effectively on a previous girlfriend. The g/f was out in the yard at the apartment, in the sun, reading a book. The cat walked up behind her, turned around, and just plain hosed her down.....! The cat was totally correct, that one was unsuitable.

Now if only your girlfriends had the same good sense of choice.

[J Tiers]

Now if only your girlfriends had the same good sense of choice.

One did, and she's still here.

[ChazC]

Attended a Suppliers' Show at The Professional Confectioners Manufacturing Association annual conference (spent the bulk of my career working in the food industry, starting at Hershey), mostly to catch up with former associates since the last two years' events were cancelled. However, I did pick up some give-aways, including the world's smallest milling worklight:



For comparison, it's a 3" vise.

[BCRider]

A little side project involving dead tree metal for doing a little organizing.

I'm sure we all have our favorite material option. But for me it's typically wood. Sometimes plywood but this time hogged out of solid. And old scrap of construction fir which was cut to size and flattened on the back with hand planes. That left me about 5/32 thicker than I wanted so it was scrubbed off with the short scrub plane in the second picture.

First is the mess of storage for the gauges that I've wanted to fix up for a while.



Wood block sized and sitting amongst the shavings with the tools used.



Forstner bits were used to drill out mortises to hold the items. The big gauge has a bar attached to the back which sits in a mortised out slot to hold it steady. The long travel gauge just has the rear mounting tab captured in a 3/4" hole.



So now back to the main project......

[Cenedd]

Much better BC. I must try to get some pics of my new drawers later. One thing I have learned though:

New - Adjective
ˈnyü
Supplied in an unfinished state with the expectation that should you not want to slice yourself to ribbons, you'll deburr it yourself. And should you wish it to move smoothly and/or quietly, you'll lubricte the moving parts.

[BCRider]

Yep, that pretty well sums up most of the current imported affordable machine tools. The rest of the drawer that isn't in the shot is still pretty sloppy. I need to do a little more yet.

[Bruno Mueller]

We continue with the Eureka tool.
I have made more parts.
Part Nr. 3 and 6



Part Nr. 8




Part Nr. 12 and 13

[ChazC]

Finished up work on two small projects. The first sprouted from Stefan G's & RobRenz's Solid Toolpost Blocks – a method of holding indicators without placing a magnetic base on the cross slide. Rather than swapping the stock post on my QCTP for a taller "Eye Poker" as Stefan called it, I drilled & tapped the top of the post M5-0.8 to accept a small adjustable arm:





While I was at it, I milled flats on both the post and the locking handle to make them easier to tighten and remove. Maybe a little less convenient than using a clamp on an extended post, but I bang into enough stuff without creating a potential hazard (to me).


The second project is a 4" x 4"-ish fixture/tooling plate for the lathe (yes, I have a faceplate, but a fixture plate is also handy):



I started with a 4" x16" x 1/2" 6061 plate I got at a good price on eBay, trimmed it and milled the sawn edge so it cleaned up the remains of the row of threaded holes:



I turned a piece of 1" 12L14 rod to 25mm x 3/4" and drilled & counterbored for a 1/4-20 SHCS so I could hold it either in my over-size 25mm ER32 collet or the 4-jaw.so I could hold it either in my over-size 25mm ER32 collet or the 4-jaw:


The SHCS secures the mount to the (almost) center of plate, and 1/4-20 x 3/16" set screws lock it into place using the four overlapping holes from the front, while leaving the holes available.

I'm still trying to remember where I first saw this idea; Tom Lipton showed holding a fixture plate in a chuck (he used his 6-jaw with two opposing jaws removed, but a 4-jaw is usually used in this manner), but I know I saw someone using what I made recently. When (if?) I find it again, I'll edit this post to give credit.

[Cenedd]

Pic of new mini-drawers. Haven't finished 'moving in' yet but things are looking a lot tidier already. The drawer slides are just friction slides (pressed metal brackets that the edge of the drawer runs on) and needed deburring. Why would you need the sharp edges removed on the parts you can't immediately see?! That and a bit of candle wax and the run a lot smoother than they did. Need to find the roll of drawer liner I know I have somewhere too.



So while up in the loft looking for the drawer liner, I decided it was time to get the hazard tape I'd bought 'installed'. This just marks the area the ladder stows into...because some idiot keeps climbing down, collapsing the three sections and swinging it up...only to find he's left stuff in the way *sigh*
The wood up there is all rough-sawn and really rough. It's like it was made from concentrated splinters! Tape didn't stick that well as the splinters just came off stuck to the adhesive. So I took a hand plane to it - BCRider's scrub plane would probably have been better....but you work with the tools you've got (sometimes!). So I'm sweating away (unfit and gets hot easily up there) thinking that there must be an easier way to do this. Belt sander? Nah, too much dust in an enclosed space. Angle grinder? Ditto. Plane, plane, plane. Doh! There's an electric plane in the box behind me with a pair of batteries waiting to go! Ah, that's better! I've only done the area to the left of the tape and it doesn't look as 'juddery' in the flesh. Those are the remnants of the rough-sawn starting point. The aim isn't 'beautiful' though, it's 'less hostile'! The tape sticks and you can put your hand on the surface without it coming away looking like you've wrestled a cactus!

[nickel-city-fab]

Re-attached an axle levelling cylinder on a crane... it had cleanly ripped off thru 1.5" plate, only 2 scrawny MIG welds at the factory.... see pic (behind the wheel, very filthy job BTW)

[Tundra Twin Track]

Last Ride of the season

[mattthemuppet]

oh man, that's stunning. It reached 99F on the outside thermometer yesterday

[eKretz]

Trailer repair. Been a while since I've run a "vertical up" weld bead. (Measured in years...)

[Tundra Twin Track]

oh man, that's stunning. It reached 99F on the outside thermometer yesterday

I don’t mind some warm temps,riding the High Country is always spectacular scenery this was my 36th winter with those views 🤓

[Bruno Mueller]

The next part is ready.
The indexing star with its 12 notches. The part was made of 4140 (42 Cr Mo 4) steel.