Stuff you have made today

[The_Yellow_Ardvark]

A few hours hiding from the TV and the computers.



This didn't need much, a clean and removing the rust.



It is a Stanley head on a non Stanley shaft. The hickory didn't take much wax. The head did come up well with the wax.


The Record 1 ton vice was seized.
The rust didn't look to bad.



But it was enough.



But I did get it into bits.



The C/sunk jaw screws came out with out a struggle, there was copper grease on them.



The paint took 3 days to cure, not surprizing in the temps we have had.

 

[Dr.Al]

Made a prototype today...

It'll look a bit neater when I make the real thing!

I watched a great video by Neil Paskin on making a quick release vice mechanism - it's a really nice design without needing a separate release lever: turn the screw half a turn anticlockwise and you can then slide it freely; turn it half a turn clockwise and the nut engages. Neil Paskin has no drawings available (apart from for a wooden version), so I decided to have a go at figuring it out. I'm glad I did the prototype as I learnt a few things along the way. I'll probably produce some drawings from my first version so I can work from them for version 2.

Another view of the mechanism:

and another:

The main bits used to make it are shown here - I cut up enough to make four of them; probably a sign I didn't have much faith in my chances of getting it to work first time!

Thread is M20 as that's the biggest I could get at my local store on Christmas Eve!

 

[My Old Landy]

I have started a small project that involves a bit of cast iron

 

[northwest]

Messed about doing some jobs I wanted to do today as opposed to "scheduled work", biggest piece is 34mm across (or it might be 37) just to give you some perspective;



The knurling didn't go to plan and it would need a special tool making to get down the bottom of the little pulley @Brad93 will be along shortly I would imagine to chastise me for trying to use an Integi cut knurl as a single wheel push knurl! :-)

I was using for the first time one of the cheap (£7 each) Chinese PCD inserts, quite impressive but really not much between it and a polished insert.

 

[Brad93]

Messed about doing some jobs I wanted to do today as opposed to "scheduled work", biggest piece is 34mm across (or it might be 37) just to give you some perspective;

View attachment 267206 View attachment 267207 View attachment 267208 View attachment 267209 View attachment 267210 View attachment 267211

The knurling didn't go to plan and it would need a special tool making to get down the bottom of the little pulley @Brad93 will be along shortly I would imagine to chastise me for trying to use an Integi cut knurl as a single wheel push knurl! :-)

I was using for the first time one of the cheap (£7 each) Chinese PCD inserts, quite impressive but really not much between it and a polished insert.

not me, me and knurling don’t get along, every time I try and do it it just comes out rough. That could be in part due to the J&S knurling tool or because I’ve never worked out the correct dia.

 

[EddyP]

Finally finished properly repairing the bodged repaired some idiot did on the front end of my TVR, well I say finished, it’s ready for the satin black.
Pretty cold out at the moment so did quite a hot mix for the flow coat haha.

Did a bit more on the rocker covers too, need a lot more flatting and then 2k clear coat.

 

[northwest]

or because I’ve never worked out the correct dia.

There isn't one.You can calculate diameters until the cows come home, it has no relevance. A knurl, is a knurl is a knurl and I can prove that.
No, the thing is, those Integi knurl heads (and I have a few) are spendy, real spendy. Thought you might have come across them and I know you don't like to see tooling abused. I was trying to use one wheel as push knurl but I have another solution for the job.

 

[Guzrik]

Yes, in my own experience. What you've made is essentially a cylinder leakage tester, but without the gauge for measuring leakage. The principle behind it is right, but 6 bar is very low compared to combustion pressure.

Often* steel gasket failures are hard to pinpoint, while it may have failed you still need significant pressure to force combustion gas past the gasket into the cooling system. Combustion pressure can typically be 20-70 bar, or more.

If you were to get bubbles in your coolant reservoir from the tester, you would get them with the engine idling, which would be an easier test. Also, if this were the case then you could verify the failure with a carbon monoxide reaction test:

View attachment 266659

(Because if the gasket has failed and 6 bar will push bubbles into the cooling system, then combustion gas is already in there and this will detect it. Even if it needs 20 bar and the gasket has failed, this will show it where your tester won't.)

*Not always, they can fail quite spectacularly with combustion gas, oil and coolant all mixing freely.


I'm not saying your tester won't work, it may well do.

Couldn't find a leak and neither could the garage with CO tester.
So disapearing coolant must have been from a leaky thermostate houding. Lucky me.

 

[Justme]

View attachment 263680 View attachment 263681 Made grabrails for a disability entrance . Arrived to fit yesterday to find out that the ramp was extended by 900mm . Lots of calls arguments and heavy words later they were installed with the agreement of engineer that’s was there fault and we will look at sorting it after Xmas as I can’t get another set made and galvanized in time . Only engineer iv ever come across who doesn’t think extending the length of sloped section by near 50% is an issue for anyone

Easy fix.

Let them dig the sides out & flash them on a slope so you dont need to extend the rails.

 

[Moose McAlpine]

Couldn't find a leak and neither could the garage with CO tester.
So disapearing coolant must have been from a leaky thermostate houding. Lucky me.

Did they pressure test the cooling system?

Negative CO test rules out headgasket failure as being cause of coolant loss, so that's good to hear.

With some faults you end up needing to do 2-3 different tests to pinpoint the cause and even that can be difficult or inconclusive.

 

[Johnny Crossan]

Rotted diff casing for drive axle from a bus, this is the new section welded in place

 

[Chillitt]

Thanks, She'll be pleased to hear it. The octopus gets lots of comments when I'm climbing, I imagine this one will get even more.

Long time ago I made a Garfield into a chalk bag. He would hang upside down, with a rope tied to his feet as a belt...

 

[mrsbruce]

Long time ago I made a Garfield into a chalk bag. He would hang upside down, with a rope tied to his feet as a belt...

That has just created a certain image in my head about where the chalk comes out.

I shall never look at Garfield in the same way again.

 

[Chillitt]

That has just created a certain image in my head about where the chalk comes out.

I shall never look at Garfield in the same way again.

Thats exactly right.

 

[optima21]

not me, me and knurling don’t get along, every time I try and do it it just comes out rough. That could be in part due to the J&S knurling tool or because I’ve never worked out the correct dia.

Ive given up with knurling these days and mill splined ends, I think they look better in the small sizes I use too, but when I'd found a size of bar that worked so I go a decent knurl, I used to stamp the diameter on the knurling tool.

 

[selectedgrub]

made some sanding sticks for sanding down the models Im making, using lollipops sticks and wooden coffer stirrers as the backing.

Have you thought of using fingernail emery boards?

 

[Dr.Al]

not me, me and knurling don’t get along, every time I try and do it it just comes out rough. That could be in part due to the J&S knurling tool or because I’ve never worked out the correct dia.

I don't know how much the diameter matters in practice. I always do cut to the right diameter and it always works well, so I'm sticking with it. It's a long time since I've tried cutting without bothering about the diameter and I know I had mixed results when I did, but that could have been down to other factors. It takes a few seconds to measure the diameter, bung the number into the knurl calculator, then take a skim pass to get the diameter right. Even if it's questionable whether it helps or not, the effort is so minimal that I can't see a reason not to do it.

I worked out the knurl pitch by running the knurl wheel in a straight line along a piece of paper and measuring the distance for about 150 lines. I then divided the distance by the number of lines and wrote the resulting pitch on the side of the tool, so I don't have to remember it. I then use the calculator on my website to get the diameter right. It always seems to work well for me, as long as I flood the knurl with oil. That part is really important (you can get away with compressed air if you're lucky, but a stream of oil works better) - it gets the little chips away from the knurls and stops them getting jammed up and wrecking the finish.

My knurling tool isn't anything fancy, just one of the arceurotrade ones with some ebay knurling wheels (a coarser pitch than the arceurotrade supplied ones). The knurls were advertised as 1.2 mm pitch (one pair) and 2 mm pitch (the other pair). The ones I'm using are 1.429 mm pitch (based on measuring 150 lines rolled onto on a piece of paper), so who knows which of the two pairs they are!

 

[Hood]

Knurls just magically jump to the correct knurl for me, never bothered what diameter it was, just always worked even with the ultra cheap and crappy knurling tools I have use.

 

[Maker]

Knurls just magically jump to the correct knurl for me, never bothered what diameter it was, just always worked even with the ultra cheap and crappy knurling tools I have use.

Me too, I'm tempted to try knurling a taper to prove there's no magic number.

 

[optima21]

Have you thought of using fingernail emery boards?

yeah but I didnt have any of them, they would need cutting down and I already had the parts to make my version