Todays Project - What did you do today?

[f350ca]

Thanks guys, shouldn't be getting this much attention on a metal forum. lol

Carrying the rails down a bit is mostly for looks Ken but also gives me some flexibility at assembly. The tenons on the bottom horizontal piece are haunched, (shoulder all the way around), then the mortise is a little longer than needed. I assemble the face after the shelves are made, so a can align that part perfectly to the bottom shelf.

[RobWilson]

Those glass fronted cabinets are stunning Greg  , dam fine craftsmanship  



Rob  

[dallen]

(03-16-2015, 09:09 AM)f350ca Wrote: Thanks guys, shouldn't be getting this much attention on a metal forum. lol

Carrying the rails down a bit is mostly for looks Ken but also gives me some flexibility at assembly. The tenons on the bottom horizontal piece are haunched, (shoulder all the way around), then the mortise is a little longer than needed. I assemble the face after the shelves are made, so a can align that part perfectly to the bottom shelf.

Wish I had the skill set to make cabinets like those, haven't heard anyone say stop posting the photo's/

Plus takes a lot of talent to make something like that!!

DA

[DaveH]

(03-16-2015, 09:09 AM)f350ca Wrote: Thanks guys, shouldn't be getting this much attention on a metal forum. lol

Stunning work Greg

Even 'metal hackers' appreciate beauty and craftsmanship in whatever form it comes in.


DaveH

[EdK]

Kitchen cabinets, man cave cabinets.

I wonder how wood and metal would look combined to make some shop cabinets.

Ed

[Roadracer_Al]

No pictures, so a verbal description will have to do.

We were invited to a bonfire at Ocean Beach in San Francisco yesterday, and I woke up from a short nap with a plan: build the ultimate weenie roasting forks.

I found in my stock bin an 8-ish foot section of 1/4" round mild steel. I thought it would be enough for 4, but was only enough for 3.

I rooted around in my scrap bin and found some 1" round and 1" square tubing. I sliced a pair of ~3/4" pieces off the round and welded them to the square tube roughly 4" apart - these would be the former for the handles and forks.

With the former clamped in my vise, I used a scrap of cardboard to determine the length to cut for the handle - turned out to be about 8.5". I chopped 3 pieces to that length in my bench shear.

With a pair of needle nose vise grips, I clamped the handle blank so the joint would be in the middle of one bend -- that way I could put the 27" shaft between the ends and weld it. Each round end was heated with an O/A torch and bent around the former.

To make the forks, I sheared some 4" blanks, chucked them up in my favorite pencil and TIG electrode sharpener (cordless drill) and pointed both ends at the belt sander (linisher for the Brits) about like a pencil. These were also heated and bend around the former.

In retrospect, I needed a bit of vertical scrap between the tubes on the former to clamp to -- clamping to the tubes was not satisfactory. Especially on the shorter fork pieces - they were not up to my typically modest standards, mostly because my torch ran out of oxygen...

A grand total of 30 minutes of heatin' an beatin'...a few minutes of welding... and a bit of tuning up with a hammer, et viola! Manly weenie forks!

I zip-tied the wicked-looking forks to the luggage rack of my motorcycle with the pointy bits sticking out the back and headed into town. No tailgating, y'all! They were a big hit - people were trying unsuccessfully to roast weenies with bamboo skewers.

I've already come up with a couple of improvements for the Ultimate Weenie Roasting Fork MKII:
--incorporate a bottle cap opener somewhere,
--the 27" handle was a bit hot on the hands -- 35~40" would be more comfortable, so maybe a folding handle.
--maybe stainless for the Mil-Spec model.

[dallen]

worked on this enough to get it working today, I started on it back first part of the week,



Still have some clean up and a iittle bit of adjusting to do. Fun parts making it without hardly any dimensions.

DA

[PixMan]

Neil (expat) and I teamed up at my shop today to try and get done with the parts for his latest motorcycle project. Everything is 300 series stainless steel, some 304 and 303, mostly 316.

Neil started on lathe work, making a spacer bushing, then roughing out two castellated hex nuts. After my power tapping test I set to milling the hex on two axles he had made during our last session. Once the milling of the hex on one end was done, I drilled the cross holes for the split (cotter) pins. Then I milled the hex on the nut blanks he'd made, and gave them back to Neil for cutting off from the short bars and tapping through. What a joy to use a quality spiral point M12x1.25 tap under power on the lathe! In under power, twirled out by hand. The M10x1.25 wasn't as happy, as all I had was a four flute hand tap. I let Neil do that one.

He also made a centering "washer" for the headset on the bike, and it came out like jewelry. Here's a few pictures of the finished parts.

[RobWilson]

Hi Lads 


I made up a new lead hammer , no idea were my original handle went to so I made a new from  a bit SS 22mm hex  bar to fit the CUBAR hammer mould  .







Cheers Rob 

[PixMan]

Over here one can occasionally find a lead hammer mold like that at a flea market/car boot sale, it's the lead you can't easily get.

Back in the days of non CNC, the shops I worked in would have "Cook's Lead Hammer Service" come around in their service van about twice a year. They'd collect all the lead hammers from around the shop and trade for new. Later on I noticed how the handles went from nice cast steel with "Cook's Lead Hammer Service" cast in, to simple back iron pipe. Now they've evaporated, it seems.