Things you have made

[TimC]

A 100 watt "Suitcase" solar panel. Two 50w Renogy panels hinged together with a bit of left over living hinge from Vitage Tech. This is for my son's teardrop and his 72 aHr battery bank. Just need to find a suitcase type handle and a latch and it's all done. It's a bit more expensive than one rigid 100w panel but much less than a flex panel. Easy to move around. Wired Parallel.

[twisted lines]

Part of a old scraper 2 X 4 trailer out behind the shed

[rofomoto]

Some things I built

[friz]

Two eggs over easy. This is the extent of my "making" since I got the camper done.

Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk

[halfdome, Danny]

Now that the weather has changed to rain I'm back out in the shop.
Jane asked me to make a new gate by her garden.
The old one was made about 1989 with a Cedar frame and lattice in the middle, it's time for a new one.
This one is made out of 1 3/8" thick quarter sawn Sapele (African Mahogany) which is heavy and dense.


I found the brass leaded window in a place in Tacoma that has a large stock of these triple glazed windows.
The door/gate on the other side of the house I made of the same wood in 2016 finished with Spar Urethane.
The front of that gate is west facing and the finish didn't hold up so the new gate has Penofin Brazilian Rosewood Oil finish with 99 % UV protection.

https://www.penofin.com/wood-stains/exterior-wood-stains
You can reapply it after a few months.
It can be reapplied when needed with a brush, let it soak about 30 minutes then wipe dry with a lint free cloth.

Something that someone may consider on a Woodie sided teardrop?

In the spring I'll rebuild the fence with Hardi Plank siding and install the gate.
Danny

[DJ Davis]

I've been experimenting with PMF. I wanted a partitioned storage box, but couldn't find one that I liked or fit my needs. So...instead of thinking outside the box, I built a new box! I also like the dice game Farkle, aka 10,000. I play the version I learned which uses 10 die, thus I made a tray 18" x 14".

Instead of luanne scraps or any type of wood veneer, I decided to try PMF with cardboard. I glued together cut panels of cardboard, glued canvas to it with Titebond II, then painted the items with porch paint leftover from the galley refit a while back. I think once the paint cures completely, it'll do just fine!

As for pics, sorry, I can't figure out how to shrink the size of the pics to under 1 MB. I'll keep trying, though!

[Tom&Shelly]

Today I finished making a hot-wire foam cutter for Shelly for her birthday. (Which was actually last December )



We made one a few years ago while building the teardrop walls, to cut the one inch thick foam down to 3/4 inch thick to fit with the plywood skeleton. That one had a 6 foot long wand, and Shelly's since mentioned a nice bench version would be good for her doll house making business. A few weeks ago I was attempting to organize my junk, and realized I had almost everything I needed to make one.

The MDF was scrap from a pair of work benches we made while dating (they're both still in the shop, btw), the volt meter was one I decided not to use in the teardrop, the front panel was a piece of fiberglass covered Baltic birch that was scrap from the teardrop, etc. etc.

The antique radio knob and the quarter inch telephone jack are from a small parts cabinet I bought from an estate sale this past Spring. I think the previous owner must have been an amateur radio operator. Incidentally, I bought the small parts cabinet to try and orgainize my junk. It doesn't necessarily work so well if you buy the cabinet already full of even cooler junk. (Pro tip!)

I did buy the black track, but that's mostly for a miter saw station I'm hoping to get around to building this Winter. It wasn't surplus, but preplus, if you will.

I did buy the light dimmer used to control the temperature, because I decided it was worth it not to take apart the original hot-wire cutter, just in case we need it for something someday.

I did buy the aluminum extrusion used to make the arm. It's called 2020 because it is 20 mm by 20 mm. It's used for frames for CNC machines, 3D printers, and the like. While studying this and the hardware that goes with it on Amazon, I accidently ordered nuts for 3030 extrusion. It has the same pictures as the 2020 kit. If, like me, you are new to this material, don't do that! (Another pro tip!)

There are two sizes of nuts that go with this extrusion



The one on the left will not slip into the slot, but must be installed from the side. The other one will go in sideways, and then is supposed to turn 90 degrees to the right and lock. Note two sides are rounded, and two aren't. Works okay, but I found they often need to be poked with a jeweler's screw driver.

These are all M-5 threads. For the knob that adjusts the arm angle, I wanted a bolt with a long nut as a head (if you know what I mean). Couldn't find them, so I decided to solder a regular bolt onto a long nut and then cut off the original bolt head. Worked just fine, but I discovered I didn't have any M-5 bolts long enough. That's when I discovered a 10-32 bolt works just fine! When the M-5 knob arrived this morning (oh ya, I ordered those too) it fit just fine!

Got a few more boring details, but this is already getting long, so I'll post them below. Feel free to ignore unless interested. Actually, I suppose you can do that with most of the comments above too.

I'll close this by answering how much foam can a hot-wire cutter cut, if a hot-wire cutter can cut foam?: It does.

Tom

[Tom&Shelly]

For those interested in the black T track, I'll mention it is 3/4 inch wide by 3/8 inch deep. My 3/4" router bit did a dandy job making a dado for it. I thought I was getting the same type of track used in my router table, but that is actually 3/4 inch wide by 1/2 inch deep. That probably wouldn't have been so good in the MDF as it would have left only 1/4 inch under the dado.



I made the fence from scrap 2x2 angle aluminum and a few pieces from a bolt and knob kit designed for this T track



I am hoping to build a nicer router table into the miter saw station, and wanted to use the fence from the original router table. Can do, but will need different hardware. This black T track has some reinforced sides (I think it's the same profile as Powertrack) and thicker bolt heads will not fit. However, quarter-20 hex heads (on the left) do fit nicely.

The other bolts and knobs I bought from Amazon and they fit fine as well. I'll certainly use the rest of them to make jigs for both the miter saw station/router table as well as the hot-wire foam cutter.

Tom

[Tom&Shelly]

So when Shelly read the first post about the hot-wire cutter she said it sounded like I'd been working on it since her birthday last December, and not just for the past few days. So, if you see her, yes! That's what I've been doing in the shop for the past many months!

Tom

[Tom&Shelly]

Sorry to keep hogging the folder, but in case anyone is interested in the electrical part of the hot-wire foam cutter, here is what the bottom looks like



The electrical design is all based around the transformer, which I found in my junk, but don't remember where it came from. It claims the maximum altitude is 10,000 feet so it isn't for aircraft use. Or, for that matter, for some of the taller peaks around here. Luckily, the shop is in the basement!

It has a diagram showing the primary (120 vac) and two 6.3 volt secondaries, one for 10 amps and the other for 0.88 amps. For an 8 inch piece of nichrome wire, a light dimmer in series with the primary, and the higher current secondary from the transformer are quite sufficient. But, as an electrical engineer, I certainly couldn't let it go at that.

I wanted some sort of voltage indication, but all I had was a DC voltmeter. However, I also had a rectifier (on the circuit card) with a big capacitor, so I converted the ac voltage from the lower current secondary to dc just to use the meter. Didn't have the range I wanted, so I rewired the secondaries in series, and used the 12.6 vac into the rectifier, to give the meter better resolution. After all, the absolute voltage on the meter means nothing in itself, it just translates (with experience) to the wire temperature best for cutting different types of foam.

The quarter inch jack is so we can make a hot-wire cutting wand, with maybe an 8 inch piece of wire, and plug it into the machine. I reckon the old quarter inch jacks and plugs, used for telephone switchboards, earphones, or, in this case, as the morse code key input to a radio transmitter, will handle the current.

Oh, the circuit card also has a fuse suitable for the 120 vac side, so I used that for safety. I also added a 5 amp automotive fuse to the secondary, hopefully to protect the transformer if something bad ever happens.

Tom

[featherliteCT1]

[album].


I especially like the connecting rods!

[twisted lines]

cooler junk. (Pro tip!)

There are two sizes of nuts that go with this extrusion


I'll close this by answering how much foam can a hot-wire cutter cut, if a hot-wire cutter can cut foam?: It does.

Tom

Nice cutter!

This came in a cool trinket's bucket; any Idea what or if it may fine tune Amp' s

Dial.jpg (52.89 KiB) Viewed 379 times

[Tom&Shelly]

This came in a cool trinket's bucket; any Idea what or if it may fine tune Amp' s

Let's see...it might be. The upper photo shows something called a Vernier Dial. You can fine tune it using the scale above the main scale. (Probably best if you Google on it, I'll muff up the explanation!)

In the lower picture, the parallel plates on the right are a 2 gang variable capacitor used for tuning radio circuits. The Thing on the left looks to he a hand wound inductor made from a ferrous torroid. As to what the maker intended it for, other than saying it was some sort of tuning for something, I think we'd need more information.

Cool stuff!

Tom

[Tom&Shelly]

If anyone is interested, about halfway down this page is a description of how to read a vernier radio dial

https://www.antiqueradios.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=271668

Essentially the same as reading a vernier dial on a caliper, which many here may be more familiar with. The page I referenced mentions a drift in terminology, where non-vernier radio dials that look similar began being marketed as vernier dials. I bought one from Lafayette in the 1970's and I remember my Dad being upset by the fraudulent marketing. Today, when you google on vernier radio dials, most of the pictures are not that; but yours is.

Tom

[twisted lines]

Thank you, It did come from a long time ham radio buff.
Custom made I’m sure, no marking only a few #s .
And me with no idea.