Latest Delivery

[Dr Stan]

(07-08-2018, 11:40 PM)Pete O Wrote: I've been reconditioning my sand with an attachment I made for a power drill, it works 'ok' but is laborious and hard on the drill. Dumping the sand on the shed floor and raking / shoveling holds little appeal! May be just that I'm lazy, but I had a spinal fusion L4/L5/S1 and I have to minimise tasks like shoveling as much as I can. I plan (eventually) to have the muller set up so that I can break molds directly into the muller, mull the sand, then hoist the muller up and empty it directly into the sand tub of my molding bench. Besides, a muller is a good project, right?

I understand life's difficulties due to a bad back, I've not had fusion surgery yet, but it's coming.  How will you lift the muller up to empty it into the tub?

[Pete O]

(07-09-2018, 08:20 AM)Dr Stan Wrote: I understand life's difficulties due to a bad back, I've not had fusion surgery yet, but it's coming.  How will you lift the muller up to empty it into the tub?

A swing-arm gantry over the molding bench is the plan, I need something to lift full sand molds down to pouring height, even flipping a rammed flask and lifting the full cope onto the drag etc, so I figure I may as well set it up to do all the foundry lifting. If I play my cards right I might even be able to use the same arrangement to lift the crucible from the furnace to a pouring trolley. I can generally manage all these things manually but I suffer for it afterwards more than I used to.

[f350ca]

Decided to give powder coating a go. Just got a Red Line gun and a few colours of powder to try. Now need to wire a range plug in the shop for an oven.

[Highpower]

I would love to have a powder coat gun, but don't have the space for a walk-in oven. No matter what size oven I had Murphy's law would deem it too small - just like my blast cabinet...

[f350ca]

Was talking to a chap that makes wood splitters at a forestry show last summer. He powder coats them and cures the finish in a plywood box heated with a propane construction heater. The show is coming up in a week or so, will get more info on how he controlled the heater. Should be able to make the box collapsible. But an oven will be a good learning tool for now.

[Dr Stan]

I have a similar Harbor Freight unit that works well for small (shoe box sized & smaller) parts.  I use the old oven that was in the house when we bought it.  I also made a small spray booth to contain the powder and make it possible to recover & reuse the excess.

Make some hooks to hang the parts or you will have areas missing the paint from where you sit them on the oven racks.

For suspension parts on my '66 Plymouth I plan to have them professionally coated.

[Mike E.]

Got a delivery from the bay today, this rare Boxford lathe dividing head. I've been looking for one for a long time, and when this unit came up for auction I had to bid real high as they seldom come up for sale, especially being complete. Not sure if its a serial number, but the only marking on it is a number 2 on the base ?

[wawoodman]

Well, if 2 is the serial number, it’s an early one!

[Mike E.]

(08-03-2018, 02:57 PM)wawoodman Wrote: Well, if 2 is the serial number, it’s an early one!

I have no idea if it is a serial number, but the dividing head is in great condition. I acquired the complete milling attachment part of the set awhile back, but it doesn't show any numbers; doesn't really matter, but it would be nice to know.

[Vinny]

Well, it wasn't a delivery it was a pickup.  A friend of mine is going full time RV and is getting rid of things.  My next project is a trailer.  This one was a snowmobile trailer that had some rustrot in at least one place. It had been sitting in his yard with a bunch of antennas piled up on it.  After pulling the boards off the top, I found a bunch more spots, so I decided to just redo it.

Stopped at my favorite steel tubing dealer today and picked up 24' of 2x2 tubing.  Had them cut it in 5' pieces (with a 4' left over) and will use that to replace the 4 cross beams.  The back bumper is also shot, so I'll be replacing that with a length of 2x4 steel tubing (that stuff I picked up a couple of years ago - the really heavy stuff).  

In the pic below (I hope it's not too big), things look a bit out of sort.  The top is tilted back as if you were to load a sled onto it.  The cross beams are going to be shortened.  The wife wants to use this trailer for her kayak (easier to load) and doesn't want it as wide as it was.  Which is fine, that means I have the wood already.  The cross beams will be 54" each, 52" for the leaf spring mounts plus an inch extra on each side.

The two side pieces have a one inch ledge for the beams to sit on and get welded on.  That's why the extra inch on each side.  That'll make the width about 5 feet or so.  

It originally had a couple of pieces of wood that the wiring was stapled to.  I'm going to run the wires thru a piece of pvc electrical conduit or two.