What did you do today?

[jdedmon91]

Improved my tailstock die holder so I could use a wrench with it. Here is the video https://youtu.be/W6E0DhIE-b0


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[Robg]

I've been a busy boy lately. I saw a bolt action pen on Jeremy Schmidt's site and decided to make one myself. It was fun & challenging, both in that exact specs & dimensions were not detailed and required some hit & miss experimentation to accomplish. I will need to refine it when I do more for the family.
I replaced the heater fan in my son's car & serviced it.
Yesterday I finished plumbing the air line in the shop (after several years of procrastination) with a bunch of 1/2" natural gas line I had at my disposal to finally get the air hoses off the floor. It was tricky in that I had no help in working with those long pieces of pipe by myself. Looking forward to finally having solved that mess and make myself a bit more efficient as well.
Now on to the numerous projects on the back burner!

[Bob Engelhardt]

'Was cutting some smallish pieces out of .040 steel sheet, using a power hand shear. Too much clamping & re-clamping, so I turned things upside down & clamped the shear & held the work. 4 standoffs & 2 bars made an "adapter" for holding in a vise. *Huge* improvement!

[achtanelion]

I recently moved office at work, so I spent today moving 11 solid core teak and mahogany doors to my new house. They'll be quite the improvement over the flimsy hollow core things the house came with.

[ncjeeper]

I bought an Atlas 7 shaper.

[PStechPaul]

Now that my brush cutter is running, and the rain took a break, I dragged the machine up to the meadow and cleared some of the high grass:



This is how I fixed the missing primer bulb. Saline nasal spray:



It seemed like the trimmer was not doing a very good job of cutting the vegetation, so when I got the machine back down "to earth":



I had bought some heavy-duty nylon line last night, so now I think it's ready to do some real work:



The manual for the mower suggests keeping the nylon line in water to keep it flexible and strong. Anybody ever heard of that?

http://www.powermateoutdoor.com/lawn_care/PWFT16022.html

[Toolguy]

Nylon is hygroscopic. It absorbs moisture. It's strong and supple when wet, hard and brittle when dry.

[CCWKen]

I don't bother with the soaking. It only works the first time then storing the machine in the shed or where ever is going to dry it out. I could never tell the difference except wetting and drying probably shortens the life of the cord. That way, you buy more cord.

Check your manual for attaching the cord. That doesn't look right. I've always see them exiting the trimmer head together--Not splayed out. That will definitely shorten life. Mine has a sort of layered clamping head so you can set the cord at different heights. The two ends of the cord exit the head together.

[vpt]

We have a couple of those brushers. We also buy the "heavy duty" cords that come in a tube. Clearing around 2-3 acres around our ponds we end up changing the cords about 3-4 times on each trimmer/brusher. They would last much longer if there was nothing to hit under the grass, but rock, sticks, and other hard debris take them out usually.

I've had thoughts of using steel cable just to see how it would hold up.

[MrFluffy]

I just have two brushcutters, one with a blade and one with thick nylon that autofeeds. When its going to be rough, I use the blade and hope I don't hit too much hidden rock/concrete (*zzzzzing*) and the rest of the time, autofed nylon because its a bit too easy to kill small tree's and shrubs by sawing through their stems when I'm supposed to be tidying up around them. A spool reloaded will last a few sessions and you tap them on the floor spinning to feed and cut off, sure you have them there. I probably put a new head on because I've wore it out every couple of years.No way I'd go back to reloading individual strands.
Plus side, if one is playing up, like older garden equipment usually likes to at the most awkward time, you can just go get the other brushcutter instead of getting frustrated enough to throw it in the lake itself.

Anyway, got my tank clean, just waiting on the isolation bobbins to arrive monday now.


Also started a new project, my little mig welder had a fixed torch and the replacement torches are stupidly expensive and its been feeding inconsistently on smaller wires, the suspect is a large flat in the torch cable where it looks like something crushed it. So I decided it deserved a euro socket conversion and opening up the world of cheaper replacement torches.
First job offer it all up, and the nipple bit was too short to mate right up to the drive wheel on the torch. So I set it up in the 4jaw and dialed it in so the nipple end span on the axis and machined the brass thread outer away to allow it to pass further into the assembly.


Drilled the torch mounting out to 5mm same as the nipple and much closer.


The drive motor was designed for clamping the torch outer and made clamping up with the brass nuts awkward, so decided it needed one of these thingys, and after a spot of post it note cad and a bit of whittling out it popped.

[MrFluffy]

And bingo.


And here's a euro torch assembly we prepared earlier :-)

[CCWKen]

We have a couple of those brushers. We also buy the "heavy duty" cords that come in a tube. Clearing around 2-3 acres around our ponds we end up changing the cords about 3-4 times on each trimmer/brusher. They would last much longer if there was nothing to hit under the grass, but rock, sticks, and other hard debris take them out usually.

I've had thoughts of using steel cable just to see how it would hold up.

Don't bother with the cable. They'll unwind unless you weld the ends or put a ferrule over the ends. They're also hard on trees, ornamental stone, car tires, sides of the house, metal sheds or whatever else they contact inadvertently. And the weld or ferrule will be history if you hit something solid like a metal fence post. I'm experienced with this and know this for a fact.

[CCWKen]

Nice going MrFluffy! Glad you got that tank clean and back together. I could smell it from here.

[plastikosmd]

Starting to rehab an ironworker I picked up last week. New magnetic switch and lines to the motor. It started as just a switch but on the first start = Arc flash and Bam! Breaker trips. Figured I had a bad switch so I jumped it. First time it started, second =same tripping. Found a short in the conduit running to the motor. Up and running and now it needs a hydraulic line.

Also ran out and picked up the sawmill I bough a while back.

[Arcane]

........The manual for the mower suggests keeping the nylon line in water to keep it flexible and strong. Anybody ever heard of that?........

Yes, I heard of that many many years ago so I tried it and it does seem to work.