Since I can't upload the screen capture from work we'll have to make do with a link:
Thursday, May 31, 2012
Wednesday, May 30, 2012
Our .gov at work
If “they” can stop We the People from using large swaths of
common words it will become difficult – if not impossible – to have a simple
conversation. It’s as if the .gov wants
to restrict the free flow of ideas among a free people. Well, I guess we’ve reached the point where
political correctness has worn thin and those who would try to control the
dialogue are trying to replace fear of social ostracism with the real fear that
the .gov may not take kindly to what we may want to innocently chat about.
Of course we all know that that’s not a bug – it’s a feature.
Well, guess what, guys?
And I frequently write about the facility I have put in
place to mitigate the effects of the power grid going
down. I can now manufacture my own electricity. I took these steps in response to two incidents
where the power grid went down as the result of a natural disaster and all
the food in my refrigerator went bad.
Not that any of it might have actually become toxic or anything. Still, it’s better to avoid possible contamination
that could cause food poisoning. As
expensive as all those groceries were, I just threw the stuff out… The black out lasted eleven and a half
days during the first service disruption! That first disaster was caused by an
ice
storm. The second was from an early snow
when the trees all still had their leaves.
They are calling it the Halloween Blizzard though I don’t think it was
really that bad. Link Link Link Link
While we’re talking about the weather, we had an interesting
lightening
storm last night! There was a warning
from the National Weather Service and everything, though I didn’t see anything
from the Emergency Broadcast System…
And while we’re at it, I only saw the first Pirates
of the Caribbean movie.
Krazy Kontraptions: Steadicam®
One of my favorite toys is my Steadicam® JR (pronounced “Steady-Cam
Jay Are”). I haven’t used it in a long
time because I was having problems with the camera that’s mounted on it. This very afternoon at lunch I ordered a few
things from Amazon.com that will let me referb my rig and mount my much newer
and better camera. (Since it’s now
discontinued I figured I’d better grab the stuff while it’s still available!) Hopefully I’ll be posting some cool videos of
my own before too awfully long.
In the mean time, here’s an interview with Garret Brown demoing
a couple of the big rigs:
YouTube can be such a fun place to loose an entire evening!
PS: Just out of curiosity: Can someone please explain to me
how the New & Unproved interface and composition tools (that make it damn
near imfuckingpossible to do ANYTHING creative – even simply embeding a couple
of YouTube videos – without resorting to raw HTML coding) is an improvement?
Cause I ain’t seeing it! Word to the wise,
guys, I already bailed on LiveJournal when their interface became unusable. You need to fix this yesterday!
Sunday, May 20, 2012
A jaw-droppingly brilliant plan
Well, actually...
The Stupid is strong with this one!
Snerk!
Matter of fact, Mum and I heard the BOLO on our scanner when it happened. I probably would have missed it in (the on-line edition of) the paper otherwise.
EDIT: Fixed my jaw-droppingly lousy spelling.
The Stupid is strong with this one!
Snerk!
Matter of fact, Mum and I heard the BOLO on our scanner when it happened. I probably would have missed it in (the on-line edition of) the paper otherwise.
EDIT: Fixed my jaw-droppingly lousy spelling.
Sunday, May 13, 2012
What do you call an update that isn't?
I was going to write something about our busy weekend:
It's been a busy weekend and I don't know where to start in telling the story without this post turning into one of my epic in length of not content posts.
On second thought, maybe I'll just jump in the shower then go to bed.
- Grocery shopping on Saturday with Mum at three different stores
- Mowing the lawn Saturday afternoon
- Bushwhacking our little jungle might me more accurate!
- Powering the electric string trimmer and the blower after that with juice from our solar system
- We've got the power. We might as well use it!
- Setting up at the Flea today
- Selling a bunch of stuff
- WooHoo!!!
- Getting some actual end mills for my shop at the flea
- Having a great Mother's Day dinner with friends
- Messing around in the shop after we got back home
- Replacing the regulator on the air compressor when I discovered that the quick connect fitting was mounted in stripped threads that it's previous owner gooped up with some kind of RTV so the leak wouldn't be noticed until after the thing sold at his yard sale
- D'oh!
- Thank goodness it didn't blow out before I discovered what was causing that leak this afternoon!
- Hearing from my sister via Facebook for the first time in several months
It's been a busy weekend and I don't know where to start in telling the story without this post turning into one of my epic in length of not content posts.
On second thought, maybe I'll just jump in the shower then go to bed.
Monday, April 30, 2012
It's Miller Time!
What a mess!
Well, I was just messing around...
This was merely and experiment not an actual project. The pocket facing the camera is almost twice the width of the cutter. The pocket on top is a single cutter width. They intersect about half way into each other. Both were made with a flat end slot or edging router bit. The top was chamfered (badly) with a V-cutting router bit. The square U shaped slot on the near face was cut with a round end router bit similar to a ball end mill.
The shop looks and works much better rearranged as I described last night. I can actually get at most everything! I still have quite a bit of tidying up to do. But these changes really are a major improvement.
Just thought I'd add these:
Much better!
This was merely and experiment not an actual project. The pocket facing the camera is almost twice the width of the cutter. The pocket on top is a single cutter width. They intersect about half way into each other. Both were made with a flat end slot or edging router bit. The top was chamfered (badly) with a V-cutting router bit. The square U shaped slot on the near face was cut with a round end router bit similar to a ball end mill.
The shop looks and works much better rearranged as I described last night. I can actually get at most everything! I still have quite a bit of tidying up to do. But these changes really are a major improvement.
Just thought I'd add these:
Much better!
Saturday, April 28, 2012
I did it again!
So as we were heading out to the Pepperell town-wide yard sales I told Mum that I was going to be looking for end mills and crank handles. Both would be used with the new vice on my drill press. I didn't find any end mills today. But...
Last year, I think it was closing day at the flea, I bought a much nicer scroll saw than I had been using in my little shop up to that point. It was used and the deck had a light coating of rust, but it wasn't anything that a little elbow grease couldn't remedy. So it came home with me and I played around with it for the next week getting it all cleaned up and trying a few test cuts with it.
Then the very next week at a yard sale I found another one. Absolutely identical except for one little difference. This one was brand new in the box!
I bought that one too.
The first (and it's predecessor if I remember to grab it from the shop in the morning) will be available for purchase tomorrow bright and early at Hollis.
Back to the crank handles I was looking for for my new machinists vice.
I found a set that fit perfectly at a yard sale today. They were attached to an identical vice that's in slightly better shape than the one I bought last week. The vice was (still is as a matter of fact) attached to a floor model drill press that is likewise in slightly better shape than the bench top model pictured in the post about my finally finding the vice.
Guess what I did... :-D
You should have seen the fun I had getting that bench top drill press off of the old table saw body that had been its base! I can't lift the thing. With my bad back it's much too heavy. So, employing the work smarter not harder philosophy I put together a two step rigging plan that got the job done.
Phase 1: I tied the table of the drill press to a structural frame that's holding up the roof over the shop with several wraps of paracord 550. Using the table height adjusting crank I lowered the table until the rope lifted the drill press off of the saw making sure to carefully balance the machine so it wouldn't tip out of its cradle and crash to (possibly through!) the floor. Once lifted I tied the head to the beam with more rope to stabilize the machine. Then I wrestled the old saw body out from under it. With that out of the way I removed the stabilizing rope and lowered the drill press with the table height adjuster onto the stool I keep in the shop. On that I could walk it over to a point where the ceiling was a few inches higher and move on to...
Phase 2: With a tad more room above the drill press I rigged it this time with the same small block and tackle I had tried unsuccessfully to move Thunder with. This time it worked like a charm! Easily and under full control the drill press was lowered to the floor where I could move it out of the shop on my 2-wheeler.
The new drill press looks nice in the shop standing where the old one was. And it takes up quite a bit less space. With a shop as small as mine space is really at a premium! Another benefit of this drill press over the old one: I can open the belt cover to adjust its speed! The old drill press was right up against the ceiling beam and the belt cover couldn't be opened. So it stayed set to the speed it was at when the guy I bought it from delivered it two years ago. If I'm going to try to use this for milling it is imperative that I be able to adjust the RPM of the cutter. I'm actually going to get a chance to learn about speeds and feeds through first hand experience.
Progress!
I'll update this with a picture of the new rig later in the day tomorrow. Right now I should have been in bed a couple of hours ago. The flea starts awfully early!
The promised updates:
The crank handle:
Attached to the vice:
Attached to the drill press:
Oh, and I sold last weeks vice at the flea market today.
I think I'm going to move the new drill press to where the red tool chest is sitting with my brown machinist's tool box on top and put the chest and tool box where the drill press is now. With some very monor tweaking I think that layout will give me the best access possible to my stuff and will minimize the floor space taken up by the drill press.
I didn't have much time to wander around today at the flea. Car show weekend is always busy. So I couldn't track down any actual end mills. For short money I picked up a set of carbide router bits at Harbor Freight this afternoon. That was about the closest thing they had to what I was looking for. We'll see how that goes working some soft stock. I'll have to see what kind of wood I have in stock to play with. :-)
Last year, I think it was closing day at the flea, I bought a much nicer scroll saw than I had been using in my little shop up to that point. It was used and the deck had a light coating of rust, but it wasn't anything that a little elbow grease couldn't remedy. So it came home with me and I played around with it for the next week getting it all cleaned up and trying a few test cuts with it.
Then the very next week at a yard sale I found another one. Absolutely identical except for one little difference. This one was brand new in the box!
I bought that one too.
The first (and it's predecessor if I remember to grab it from the shop in the morning) will be available for purchase tomorrow bright and early at Hollis.
Back to the crank handles I was looking for for my new machinists vice.
I found a set that fit perfectly at a yard sale today. They were attached to an identical vice that's in slightly better shape than the one I bought last week. The vice was (still is as a matter of fact) attached to a floor model drill press that is likewise in slightly better shape than the bench top model pictured in the post about my finally finding the vice.
Guess what I did... :-D
You should have seen the fun I had getting that bench top drill press off of the old table saw body that had been its base! I can't lift the thing. With my bad back it's much too heavy. So, employing the work smarter not harder philosophy I put together a two step rigging plan that got the job done.
Phase 1: I tied the table of the drill press to a structural frame that's holding up the roof over the shop with several wraps of paracord 550. Using the table height adjusting crank I lowered the table until the rope lifted the drill press off of the saw making sure to carefully balance the machine so it wouldn't tip out of its cradle and crash to (possibly through!) the floor. Once lifted I tied the head to the beam with more rope to stabilize the machine. Then I wrestled the old saw body out from under it. With that out of the way I removed the stabilizing rope and lowered the drill press with the table height adjuster onto the stool I keep in the shop. On that I could walk it over to a point where the ceiling was a few inches higher and move on to...
Phase 2: With a tad more room above the drill press I rigged it this time with the same small block and tackle I had tried unsuccessfully to move Thunder with. This time it worked like a charm! Easily and under full control the drill press was lowered to the floor where I could move it out of the shop on my 2-wheeler.
The new drill press looks nice in the shop standing where the old one was. And it takes up quite a bit less space. With a shop as small as mine space is really at a premium! Another benefit of this drill press over the old one: I can open the belt cover to adjust its speed! The old drill press was right up against the ceiling beam and the belt cover couldn't be opened. So it stayed set to the speed it was at when the guy I bought it from delivered it two years ago. If I'm going to try to use this for milling it is imperative that I be able to adjust the RPM of the cutter. I'm actually going to get a chance to learn about speeds and feeds through first hand experience.
Progress!
I'll update this with a picture of the new rig later in the day tomorrow. Right now I should have been in bed a couple of hours ago. The flea starts awfully early!
The promised updates:
The crank handle:
Attached to the vice:
Attached to the drill press:
Oh, and I sold last weeks vice at the flea market today.
I think I'm going to move the new drill press to where the red tool chest is sitting with my brown machinist's tool box on top and put the chest and tool box where the drill press is now. With some very monor tweaking I think that layout will give me the best access possible to my stuff and will minimize the floor space taken up by the drill press.
I didn't have much time to wander around today at the flea. Car show weekend is always busy. So I couldn't track down any actual end mills. For short money I picked up a set of carbide router bits at Harbor Freight this afternoon. That was about the closest thing they had to what I was looking for. We'll see how that goes working some soft stock. I'll have to see what kind of wood I have in stock to play with. :-)
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