What did you do today?

[Cenedd]

Finished some water cooled heat sinks. These are for power transistors on a radio transmitter.

Nice. The barbs take me back a bit. Everything's now gone compression fittings in the PC application of this but it's roots are the same....there's just more money to be had selling the shinies!
I can see four channels and inlet/outlet diagonally opposite. Presumably the edge holes link up some of these four central channels to get a flow from in to out; have you drilled all the way through so that all four channels are in parallel or are they partial depth holes so that it's in something like 1-2-1 series?
What's in the rest of your loop? Aluminium has always been on the list of undesirable materials in a PC loop because almost everything else is brass or copper and you can get galvanic corrosion. Is it just that with the right additives (which also tend to be frowned on for selling to the masses) it's far less of an issue than it would seem in your (my) head?

[Tim The Grim]

I had a 20+ year old tall chip board cabinet that has been crumbling for a while.
A long time industry pal is ill and closing out his shop.
I got a nice tall steel cabinet from him to replace the old wood one.
The bottom wood shelf had collapsed under the weight of a few dies I had stored away and
I brought this one out into the light for the first time in many years.




I built this in ‘93 and thought I’d make some money selling key rings and fridge magnets at Daytona ‘94. I certainly sold enough to pay for the die set and tool steel but nowhere near what I hoped for. People liked them but expected them for free. So like so many other examples of “ wishful thinking “ it got set aside and pushed to the back of the bottom shelf. It’s back there again. 😢

[I make chips]

Cendd:
The slabs are 4" x 6" x 3/4" thick. Drilled the 4 5.5" deep thru passages with a cheap ebay 6mm long drill which cut amazingly straight. Side ports to connect all the passages parallel. Surfaces were skimmed with a fly cutter. The 'customer' brother in law hasn't determined a pumping system yet and wanted to use his well water. I advised not as to it being cold and condensation is a no no considering he will mount electronics to them. So he will conjure up some sort of air cooled pumping radiator system which will keep things above ambient. Some propylene glycol for corrosion resistance. (dissolved miralax)

I don't know what his flow rate will be yet so there will be a concern if all passages will have flow. I think he's only dissipating ~500 watts total so it's not a huge heat load. I advised him to get his system up and running then put the slabs on his kitchen cooktop and test it for even cooling. With this much mass I don't think it will be a problem. The small barbs were for pressure testing the plugs for leaks.

[Ironbearmarine]

My wife found a very old pocket watch at an estate sale. Nonworking. I figured i am an engineer slash jeweler, slash etc. I ought to be able to sort this out. Well now i am hooked on collecting and repairing old pocket watches. Welllll… easier to store than antique cars. They are logical simple engines i love it. I have got eight, that were dead but now happily tick away. I have named them: Dasher, Prancer, Comet, Cupid…

[Bob Engelhardt]

A tip and a warning. The tip - to remove the hand from a dial caliper, direct some compressed air here:



It will very effectively remove the crystal/bezel, the dial, and the hand. The warning is that the hand will fly off to a distant part of the universe unless containing precautions are taken beforehand.

[Bented]

Stayed out of the way as riggers navigated a new machine through the shop, not an easy task.

[ChazzC]

Stayed out of the way as riggers navigated a new machine through the shop, not an easy task.

I have the greatest respect for Riggers, particularly when watching them walk a facility to develop a quote for a job. And I am in awe of how they can maneuver 1,000# of equipment through a 100# space (to paraphase).

[MrWhoopee]

They servo feed on my mill has been missing the bottom cover ever since I got it.



Five years is long enough, time to do something about it.
I started with an 8" piece of 4 in. ABS drain pipe.
First I cut a ring about 1.25". Then I split the remaining piece lengthwise and put it in the toaster oven.
When it was nice and soft I pressed it flat on my welding table with a baking pan.



Then I cut a disc from the plate and glued it to the ring.



Off to the lathe to face, turn, bore, chamfer etc.



and done.

[CLARKMAG]

Made a chisel handle on the metal lathe.

[Dan Dubeau]

Finally getting back to my forge project....This is the elbow where the gas, and air from the blower meet. I wanted to make sure the gas pipe was centered down the middle, so I spun it onto a short nipple, and drilled the hole using a ball endmill in the tailstock, then opened it up with a boring bar to the dia of the pipe (0.540"). I'd seen that tip mentioned here about starting holes on angled surfaces using a ball endmill, so I thought I'd give it a try. It worked great and I'll definitely be using that again sometime. I initially was going to use the mill and just interpolate, but wanted to try that out and am glad I did.

That done I jumped back in the mill, and made a quick and dirty centering plate out of nearby scrap for the other end, to keep it all centered during brazing.



Hopefully I'll get to braze it up before the weekend, as I really want to fire this thing and start using it. I've got a bunch of honey frames sitting in my shop right now, so I don't want to start making a smokey mess out there until I get them processed.

[Dan Dubeau]

Last night I started chopping up my 5 way vise stand I made a few years ago. I want to make another one, and needed some of the 2" receiver tube. Truth be told I never ended up making mounts for anything other than that vise anyway, so all the other side mounts were solutions looking for a problem. One of those things that seemed like a good idea at the time...... I'd rather have 2 separate stands now.



I'll be making a tool tray for the stand too at some point in the future. When I get to it of course (could be a few years from now lol).

[RB211]

Since I don't have a 5 axis milling center yet, I suppose the large format resin 3D printer I've had for the past two years can actually be unwrapped and used for the first time. For my flight simming hobby, I've been flying an F16 a lot and I want a F16 thrust quadrant. Some one was kind enough to do all the hard work already and put his 3D models on Github.

[J Tiers]

Last night I started chopping up my 5 way vise stand I made a few years ago. I want to make another one, and needed some of the 2" receiver tube. .................................................. ..........

it's hard to see how big that vise is, but was that stand a good base? I've got a 19" x 70 lb Reed that I want to make a base for, but nothing I have is heavy enough to hold it. That vise looks pretty heavy, and the base wheel does not look all that big....... Maybe I'm thinking too hard about this?

[Dan Dubeau]

It was adequate for cutting, grinding and other light/medium duty vise stuff, which was 90% of what I used it for. But too light for heavy cranking and pounding. I have a vise on my welding table for that. I'd always planned on welding a sheet across the bottom and filling it with copper slag for weight, but never got around to it obviously. When I finish making it's duplicate and finish the tool tray etc, I will fill both bases with concrete, with some slag filler (I have it, and am tired of moving it around the shop....it's heavy).

The vise is a Record 73. I think it has 5" jaws. They're offset to one side. A bit of an oddball style, with integral pipe jaws, and a conduit? bending die too. Price was right .

[Tim Clarke]

Just stop by the nearest heavy duty truck shop and offer to trade them a bag of cookies for an old brake drum. They're close to 100 lbs.