Stuff you have fixed today

[Stueeee]

Nice work. Has she ridden a trike before?

If not you might want to suggest she has a go and gets used to it at slower speeds before you fit the motor as its a lot harder than it looks. Although you don't have the balance problem of a normal bike, the handling is totally different and they tend to want to follow the road camber, constantly trying to drag you into the kerb or road edge. And then try to tip you off when you corner, if your a bit too quick.

It's a bit like riding a motorbike with sidecar. A completely different animal to a bike on its own.

We both have a bit of experience of trikes via a previous purchase. Your motor cycle and sidecar analogy will be even more appropriate on this one as it's effectively one (rear) wheel drive. This is actually Sue's second electric trike. The First one was a brand new Jorvik, which would have been a comedy of errors (in terms of build quality and after sales service) if there had been anything funny about a £2k plus machine that was so poorly realised. The seller's attitude was pretty much 'if you don't like it you can just go and spin on it' until Sue published a number of factual reviews on the internet, when suddenly a full refund (dependent on the reviews coming down of course ) suddenly became available.

 

[sako243]

Levelled out a previously very rutted bit of the kitchen gardens with some top soil. There was several hundred tonnes of shale there previously.

 

[Jelly_Sheffield]

Finally received and fitted the chain for my little top handle chainsaw.

I did this as a distraction whilst waiting for the socks I forgot to launder until two hours before leaving for a week to tumble dry.

Chainsaw maintenance in chinos and a linen shirt was probably unwise but I got away with it somehow.

And the saw runs lovely with the new chain tensioned up properly.

 

[jmp49]

Finally got round to the 207 door pillar vinyl wraps with daughter on her car. We'd peeled the old stuff off a bit back but there was residual glue so used a toffee wheel to get the last of it off and sanded out some chips, then put wrap cut on the straight lines. This is very very fine but strong thread bound to a red tape, that when you pull cuts through the vinyl cleanly that you can see across the door pillar line here.


Then I made daughter do the vinyl wrapping because she's done a bit of this sort of thing before with cricut etc. And its her car, so she gets the satisfaction of looking at it every time she uses the car.
Car's same age as her, 17 years old, and she's happy with how it looks. Ignore the grubby handprints all over the paint, I dont claim to ever have hands clean enough to work on painted cars without having to wash them afterwards.


Came out alright

 

[sardine]

Not quite fixed yet but 'FIXING' !

(Welding content as I'm using welding clamps on the wood

We have a 'curved bridge' over a stream (yes the wife and daughter went to Monet's garden and wanted one ) and when built the curved handrails had to be laminated from shorter pieces as at the time I couldn't source 16 foot lengths of 6" x 2". Over the years the weather hasn't been kind to it and the rail is rotting but I have been able to source two 16 footers to replace them. Original 'curve' - more a series of straight lines wasn't ideal so this time I'm trying to get the replacement 'set' into a proper curve before removing the original (otherwise there'd be nothing to fix it to.

Now I've had it clamped into the curve for a couple of weeks - ideally I'd steam it but no suitable steam generator or tube to put it in - but then I thought of my Karcher steam cleaner.
View attachment 493461

So with the wood clamped in place I gave it a really good going over with the pressure set low to avoid raising the grain, and the temperature high. I've done this several times now but will it work ???

Have some pictures:

View attachment 493462View attachment 493463

Place your bets and answers on a post card please

If you chuck it in the stream for a few days it will bend to that curve just fine.

 

[Blobber]

The lower lifting link with the height adjuster on the tractor needed a bit of work, the adjuster was seized and there was a lot of play in the holes

The seized bit is the big threaded rod/nut, the nuts pretty well hidden in the cast normally but you can just about get to it to kill it with fire, ive not got any oxy but got some pretty good heat cycles into it with my blow lamp

It didnt loosen off but What helped was you could just get a club hammer between the casting to use as an anvil and belt the nut on the each face, did that on all sides of the nut
and with the help of 36inches it came free pretty easy

Just got to clean everything up now

 

[My Old Landy]

The lower lifting link with the height adjuster on the tractor needed a bit of work, the adjuster was seized and there was a lot of play in the holes
View attachment 496061
View attachment 496062

The seized bit is the big threaded rod/nut, the nuts pretty well hidden in the cast normally but you can just about get to it to kill it with fire, ive not got any oxy but got some pretty good heat cycles into it with my blow lamp
View attachment 496063

It didnt loosen off but What helped was you could just get a club hammer between the casting to use as an anvil and belt the nut on the each face, did that on all sides of the nut
and with the help of 36inches it came free pretty easy
View attachment 496064

View attachment 496065
Just got to clean everything up now

It is good to see you using the stilsons!

 

[Blobber]

It is good to see you using the stilsons!

Probably the one and only time, but at least they got used thanks very much!

 

[awemawson]

edIf you chuck it in the stream for a few days it will bend to that curve just fine.

That was given serious consideration. Anyway it’s now fixed and the old rail converted to kindling, just awaiting screw holes to be plugged and a few coats of good old creosote from my stash.

 

[addjunkie]

It is good to see you using the stilsons!

They have a real nice thin handle….ideal for the scaffold tube help.

 

[Dcal]

Today I fixed my sandblaster.
It stopped delivering grit into the airstream.
I suspected a blockage in the metering valve so emptied the pot and checked.
All looked good, the grit was flowing freely and the valve seemed to be working as it should.
I sieved and refilled the pot but it made no difference.
The only way to get grit was to divert the air through the pot and this delivered far too much grit. (And not enough air)

Checked everything again and I found a small air leak between the two parts of the valve.

I made the valve six years ago and it's been faultless until now.
I couldn't see an obvious leak but it is just a metal to metal joint.

Made a gasket

Put it back together and checked for leaks.

It now works great again.

I think the leak was enough to blow the grit back into the pot instead of it dropping or being sucked into the airstream.

 

[brewdexta]

Started to fix the Tom Senior M1, or rather the motor and VFD. I converted the original Brooks Gryphon motor from star to delta by finding the star point and breaking it out into the individual windings. However, it was gutless. Life got in the way, and I acquired another Tom Senior, a light vertical, which meant I've only just got around to fixing it.

I suspect that I have one winding reversed, that is instead of a2 connecting to b1, and b2 to c1 and c2 to a1, one of these is reversed. I thought I would use the induced voltage method testing, using a 10v AC power supply, if its the right way around you get about 4v induced into the other winding. If all else fails I have a new motor, but that involves broaching a keyway.

I'm also replacing the VFD with a cold plate VFD, no annoying fan! I have a 40 ohm, 200 watt brake resistor on order, I'll compare before and after to see how much faster it slows down.

Pics next time, I'm in the pub!

Well its only been 6 months, about time I got back to this one and try and diagnose the gutless motor that I converted from start to delta by diving into the windings. I thought I had inadvertently reversed an a1 with an a2 or similar with b or c.

When I took it apart, it was obvious which one are a1, b1, c1 as they had the original black wiring connected to the external connection block. a2, b2 and c2 were in newer brown wiring that I used to extend the star point to the connection block. Before breaking it out, the motor would have been wired like this with the a2, b2 and c2 connected together at the star point as per the diagram below.

Tapping out the connections with the ohmmeter proved this to be so, I also checked the resistance of each coil, all about 12 ohms. I chased out how I had wired it when last working and it does seem to be all correct and now in delta formation as per below.

Just to be sure, I used the induced voltage method to double check, this is from another forum. I had bought an AC transformer for this forgetting that the wiring would be a different colour so thought I may as well check it out. The clips on the motor connection plate have the 9v AC supply.

"If you label the wires as A&A, B&B, C&C, then connect one of the B's to one of the C's
Connect the low voltage supply to the wires A&A

Then check for an induced voltage across the wires B & C that are not joined together. If a voltage is present the you have connected a B1 to a C2 - if not then you have connected a B1 to a C1. A voltage of 10VAC supplied to A&A will give about 4VAC across the B&C wires.

Then use this method again with the A&C wires joined and voltage applied to wires B1 & B2"

This confirmed I was doing it right, but the voltage was only about 2.8v instead of the 4v quoted above. I repeated this for all 3.

It looks like the motor is wired correctly. I'm tempted to try it with the new inverter before swapping it out for the new modern 2hp motor that I have as will need to broach a keyway, which means I will have to get back on the hydraulic press project.

So, not fixed yet but getting closer......

 

[nickk]

This valve block arrived today,customer couldn’t align the 4 mounting holes,a quick opening up slightly made me appreciate my seldom used mill,just 0.030”larger.