tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-357335972024-02-27T22:53:09.981-08:00Steve's News BookDaily words and images describing some of the stuff I do.Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12791616711734310139noreply@blogger.comBlogger1191125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35733597.post-90137410342392321082015-06-07T06:03:00.000-07:002015-09-28T06:07:40.939-07:00Summer Blue Birkenstock and borrowed pyjamas<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqxltg0pWnmzghiFypWSccIJP_M3Zhqhn-qrijInM0mkebIBMqvauSvh04fAuD2r7z73aHCPcMuDKbq9tziQH5pCUtqIAT3v-vGUrqdowUMH7k1khUT4b7rdhOLmqzPAp8Afa8/s2048/Photo%2525202015092810%25253A07%25253A20.317%252520pm.jpg" target="_blank" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqxltg0pWnmzghiFypWSccIJP_M3Zhqhn-qrijInM0mkebIBMqvauSvh04fAuD2r7z73aHCPcMuDKbq9tziQH5pCUtqIAT3v-vGUrqdowUMH7k1khUT4b7rdhOLmqzPAp8Afa8/s500/Photo%2525202015092810%25253A07%25253A20.317%252520pm.jpg" id="blogsy-1443445660146.4426" class="alignleft" width="500" height="1514" alt=""></a>Staying with friends in London to accompany them on a weekend in Norfolk. I had a ranging day in London. A late night followed by an early start to visit the new Covent Garden flower market. As we drove to the market I was struck by how the city has become a mass of juxtapositions rather than the more themed composition, a modern Waterloo station quickly losing its function and no longer a train hive but a venue for fashion shows and such, even the New market is apparently not long for this world and will soon be overwritten. Little posters on the garden gates of a terrace of houses saying 'Say No to the Garden Bridge'. So many people in a city and a government that wants to please them all by changing very little and doing as little as possible. It is bound to result in jumble.</div><p>The nature of the day followed a similarly twisting course, I thought I had a grip on the things starting in overalls helping to repot market plants for sale in shoreditch, but the chaos of city living got the better of me. I ended up departing for Norfolk with none of the essentials that I had planned to add to the day bag before leaving. The general discombobulation is interesting. </p><p>We don't really have a vocal workforce of beggars in Japan, so there is some novelty in the occasional approach one receives in the city. One chap started with a request for £900 to finance a stay in a posh hotel, humorous, but it did not spur me to loosen the purse strings. Disappointed he fell into the distance but shouted over his shoulder in a not entirely uncomplementary tone 'Nice Birkenstocks'. This was not the first comment I had received relating to my footwear and I must confess I began to suspect a conspiracy. The sandals were actually a kind Father's Day gift and as such give me a sense of my place in the order of things.</p><p>Lovely to be out of the city now and away from the perceptible hum of humanity. I had a short walk and was struck by the profusion of white campion and surprised myself in correctly identifying a whitethroat singing off among the herbage.</p><p> </p><p> </p><div style="text-align: right; font-size: small; clear: both;" id="blogsy_footer"><a href="http://blogsyapp.com" target="_blank"><img src="http://blogsyapp.com/images/blogsy_footer_icon.png" alt="Posted with Blogsy" style="vertical-align: middle; margin-right: 5px;" width="20" height="20" />Posted with Blogsy</a></div>Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12791616711734310139noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35733597.post-53380069826025536632015-03-26T01:55:00.001-07:002015-03-26T02:00:15.373-07:00Woodworks<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnTexqPwkU__mMLaFUlkG9fOZ0CsAPm_4P_3Zxp6cbIpEaSgM1PpNIO2gGhnjC1cCbKAcmuWit0362FtLqqGRihgyb1EzWxWqKNL_3PbzYQUTmfKsLyJJAw0V2Vh04Rj190nET/s2048/Photo%252520201503265%25253A55%25253A08.512%252520pm.jpg" target="_blank" style=" "><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnTexqPwkU__mMLaFUlkG9fOZ0CsAPm_4P_3Zxp6cbIpEaSgM1PpNIO2gGhnjC1cCbKAcmuWit0362FtLqqGRihgyb1EzWxWqKNL_3PbzYQUTmfKsLyJJAw0V2Vh04Rj190nET/s500/Photo%252520201503265%25253A55%25253A08.512%252520pm.jpg" id="blogsy-1427360381801.5974" class="aligncenter" alt="Water ripple sanded" width="500" height="238"></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Top rail for stairway</td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: none;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiigtXvWgq88XEvk1FebobK2Cg9oyYztna7ygRTp1XH871kfMTFJ5NGXHdSEiWYA9OaCK8NvBQB4MgZjM4bko4yjhuoe_SDuXp_RWybQiYCGxz02ytKKcWGa5vxiXe7EqVpkz6q/s2048/Photo%252520201503265%25253A55%25253A08.671%252520pm.jpg" target="_blank" style=""><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiigtXvWgq88XEvk1FebobK2Cg9oyYztna7ygRTp1XH871kfMTFJ5NGXHdSEiWYA9OaCK8NvBQB4MgZjM4bko4yjhuoe_SDuXp_RWybQiYCGxz02ytKKcWGa5vxiXe7EqVpkz6q/s500/Photo%252520201503265%25253A55%25253A08.671%252520pm.jpg" id="blogsy-1427360381803.7822" class="alignnone" alt="" width="500" height="1308"></a></div><p> I have recently taken to doing searches on Pinterest rather than google, there seems to be a feathering out of results which includes items I would not have thought of. Some of the time it is random pictures of cute kittens, which are sometimes amusing, but a recent search brought up images of wood surfaces carved by a CNC machine working off of some kind of algorithm. The watery effect was pretty nifty, so I thought I would impose something similar on this top rail for a soon to be built house. I don't have the technology to do CNC, but I do have a small belt sander, which I am quite friendly with. Initially I was just going to have the corner block rippled, but I couldn't stop and drew out more ripples onto the rail and had at it. The wood was then scorched and brushed back to enhance the grain. I will stain and polish next, even the raw finish is pretty effective. I may have to study a few ripple box images and work on expanding the idea to include more reactivity.</p><p> </p><div style="text-align: right; font-size: small; clear: both;" id="blogsy_footer"><a href="http://blogsyapp.com" target="_blank"><img src="http://blogsyapp.com/images/blogsy_footer_icon.png" alt="Posted with Blogsy" style="vertical-align: middle; margin-right: 5px;" width="20" height="20" />Posted with Blogsy</a></div>Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12791616711734310139noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35733597.post-46570985672326468752015-03-11T02:16:00.001-07:002015-03-15T01:38:51.997-07:00Learning<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEic01W4NxbQjtm5vZgAyZZanDR-ek5c8NpCyLBeApTEQr3Rzd25dTG8pF_C0RyqRkMNf9___TcBJIlve0OlS-Ut10A8cX0pyj1c4tSOrJv4uQ4CTvv_nZUMX-vitl8TnH6raZUM/s2048/Photo%252520201503153%25253A21%25253A16.278%252520pm.jpg" target="_blank" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEic01W4NxbQjtm5vZgAyZZanDR-ek5c8NpCyLBeApTEQr3Rzd25dTG8pF_C0RyqRkMNf9___TcBJIlve0OlS-Ut10A8cX0pyj1c4tSOrJv4uQ4CTvv_nZUMX-vitl8TnH6raZUM/s500/Photo%252520201503153%25253A21%25253A16.278%252520pm.jpg" id="blogsy-1426408678533.694" class="aligncenter" alt="" width="500" height="333"></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">I must apologise for the varied quality of pics, I have yet to master the hidden activities of these apps. Trying blogsy now as a possible ipad solution.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">Here is a section of the tree motif. I think I was a little too concerned with the physical relief of shapes when I started out, trying to obtain layers of depth in the glass. That is reflected in the upper levels of each blob of foliage and branch. I wanted to give some sense of looking up into the organism, and I think the thing was saved by the flatter areas of 'tone' in the lower areas of each blob, especially where the larger branches cross through these. I would like to follow up more on the use of those tonal distinctions, which basically involve spraying loosely over the area on repeated passes and observing the result each time by lifting the visor on the helmet. The deeper relief areas start with the deepest, creating an edge where the mask is lifted out and then working back in, the next section back is then lifted out and an edge put in while the blasting is less vigorous as one nears the now naked edge created by the previous blast. I also used mini masks here to put in leaf like motifs as well as cutting a few leaf like shapes out and driving those in deep before removing a main patch of mask.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">I confess I did enjoy the challenge of layers where the branches got crissy crossy and nearly messed up a couple of times, it is just about doable to remask over areas already blasted, but the edges will get mixed and if you are fussy you won't like it much.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkCJfC9JVttCNElNqoTVwyaWK07WjFKLBzJL6S7lK9kERPBIsyf-1zUaYlB2wjyZ4WJIaNPVKK5MpyIyBfCsuyexcWPvN3EBmGaWiLT1BjGGLE04cbaJb8Q_w3Iq9bv96h3g5H/s2048/Photo%252520201503153%25253A21%25253A16.899%252520pm.jpg" target="_blank" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><font color="#000000"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkCJfC9JVttCNElNqoTVwyaWK07WjFKLBzJL6S7lK9kERPBIsyf-1zUaYlB2wjyZ4WJIaNPVKK5MpyIyBfCsuyexcWPvN3EBmGaWiLT1BjGGLE04cbaJb8Q_w3Iq9bv96h3g5H/s500/Photo%252520201503153%25253A21%25253A16.899%252520pm.jpg" id="blogsy-1426408678593.4604" class="aligncenter" alt="" width="500" height="750"></font></a></div><p> </p></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">The corner motifs were basically all about making a relief, I did use a mini grinder to put in some vein detail and other little assists where blasting would not do.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"> </div><p> </p></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br></div><p> </p><div style="text-align: right; font-size: small; clear: both;" id="blogsy_footer"><a href="http://blogsyapp.com" target="_blank"><img src="http://blogsyapp.com/images/blogsy_footer_icon.png" alt="Posted with Blogsy" style="vertical-align: middle; margin-right: 5px;" width="20" height="20" />Posted with Blogsy</a></div>Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12791616711734310139noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35733597.post-87288531294711480872015-03-10T03:17:00.001-07:002015-03-14T23:30:00.209-07:00Mini mask<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4-W-wn0sjNkLQohrVJ4T8J5ZOy3VjS267DDIwF7ldYvHRE4sHKpxMGBmWMudKBlldGv8oDswsZ9930iBDsJhyqI5i_ROcNu2GJPKROdQxTSxU5pVt3MgoLF29S5dBMOg1Sdx7/s2048/Photo%252520201503153%25253A29%25253A52.745%252520pm.jpg" target="_blank" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4-W-wn0sjNkLQohrVJ4T8J5ZOy3VjS267DDIwF7ldYvHRE4sHKpxMGBmWMudKBlldGv8oDswsZ9930iBDsJhyqI5i_ROcNu2GJPKROdQxTSxU5pVt3MgoLF29S5dBMOg1Sdx7/s500/Photo%252520201503153%25253A29%25253A52.745%252520pm.jpg" id="blogsy-1426401000200.5251" class="aligncenter" width="500" height="911" alt=""></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"> </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">In the end I experimented with some pieces of rubber mat with grass leaf patterns cut into the edge and found that the marks made with the nozzle held close and the mask held tight to the glass were OK. So after blasting in a kind of stepping stone path cut from the original masking tape I stripped off most of the masking and proceeded to put in the last section with a series of these mini masks giving a repeated grassy motif. I learnt a lot during the process with this piece, but I think I would like to do something a bit looser next time and see if a little freedom will teach me some more having got the equipment sorted out a little better than before. The glass sheet is 80x185cm. Looking forward to seeing it in its final location I was disappointed when I took it to the site to find that the wall it was going into hadn't been built yet. So it is in a corner hidden behind a sheet of plaster board until that happens.</div><p> </p><div style="text-align: right; font-size: small; clear: both;" id="blogsy_footer"><a href="http://blogsyapp.com" target="_blank"><img src="http://blogsyapp.com/images/blogsy_footer_icon.png" alt="Posted with Blogsy" style="vertical-align: middle; margin-right: 5px;" width="20" height="20" />Posted with Blogsy</a></div>Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12791616711734310139noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35733597.post-849309562997855332015-03-10T03:08:00.001-07:002015-03-10T03:23:17.167-07:00Masking<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjurBzOioDQrEZbw-drh84bh5ayFlLhyuH45bj3xrUnask_azVXFbrhr-Va4f7aBJCVl2hBOdg5TUhiRZdPoyNzDO5Q7yFkHaC_a3jUfNXRfbKnss5jatlTdHOXBiAXiSSaeJrj/s800/blogger-image-903796440.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" width="100%" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjurBzOioDQrEZbw-drh84bh5ayFlLhyuH45bj3xrUnask_azVXFbrhr-Va4f7aBJCVl2hBOdg5TUhiRZdPoyNzDO5Q7yFkHaC_a3jUfNXRfbKnss5jatlTdHOXBiAXiSSaeJrj/s800/blogger-image-903796440.jpg"></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">I have sidelined other work to focus on a sandblasting project.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">I started by building a big hopper for sand and a rack to support the work, then draping some polythene sheets around and fitting up an extractor fan. I hooked a helmet up with an airline to keep the dust out and otherwise wore a certain amount of protection.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">The difficulty with these processes is the masking, it has to hold in place and has to be fairly painless to get off. But however painless it is a major hinderance to understanding how things will look when it is gone. Anyway, this is the piece so far with masking still on. I needed to see it out of its crèche to think about the final area around the roots of the tree.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">It is usual to view blasted glass from the non blasted side, so the characters here have been traced through onto the back so that I can blast them from the other side.</div><br /><br />Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12791616711734310139noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35733597.post-64736891978896461362015-01-22T02:27:00.001-08:002015-01-22T02:32:42.718-08:00Aluminium<br /><br /><center><a href='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVZW_2K8vvgHqc_4jETfjZv4WPLat0IyVjApdKU9rX2eTKlCrCel2ZaI7WNsWdNwm8rW-yoSq1iWOoxZndgCuNwFAGgQ4Gc6d8Xz3-oejKYJzZ9J4mLRxydQcIsnf5V4-iDgux/s800/iphone_photo.jpg'><img src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVZW_2K8vvgHqc_4jETfjZv4WPLat0IyVjApdKU9rX2eTKlCrCel2ZaI7WNsWdNwm8rW-yoSq1iWOoxZndgCuNwFAGgQ4Gc6d8Xz3-oejKYJzZ9J4mLRxydQcIsnf5V4-iDgux/s800/iphone_photo.jpg' border='0' width='100%' style='margin:5px'></a></center><br />It has been a while since I have done any lost foam casting, but a recent request for a sign got me going on a slightly upsized set of flasks for sand casting with the lost foam method. I lost track of my original intention to document the process, as I was also using the brain for constructing the equipment and time kind of ran out. The actual pouring was pretty chaotic, but in the end the piece came out OK except for the top part where the speed of flow couldn't drive out the gases from the polystyrene out quickly enough leaving voids along the ridge. <br />Even sketches of the process of embedding the original and all the sprues and whatnot in sand might not be sufficient to convey sufficient detail to replicate the process, so perhaps the best solution will be to have another go one day soon and video it.<br />There is something odd about feeding the pot in the furnace while it is blasting away to melt the aluminium and also focusing on the job of jamming the sand in that leaves the brain with very little room for any other activity.<br />This piece is about 55x35cm, which is just about the limit for the new set of flasks. Anyway, after fitting the problems with the top hardly notice at all thanks to the position and the lighting.<br /><br /><br /><center><a href='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIwQb-xk62lAgrDPGPkeEXySaZNrIwvYbhtyQk3inoDZ5gghdScV-KwhGa1RxhAeg75WzuNHRFnob9DNC5aGQimILMT1BBXnr6tYxnuskbo7CICefBFGeuCQXbWkt3LBKLWCHv/s800/iphone_photo.jpg'><img src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIwQb-xk62lAgrDPGPkeEXySaZNrIwvYbhtyQk3inoDZ5gghdScV-KwhGa1RxhAeg75WzuNHRFnob9DNC5aGQimILMT1BBXnr6tYxnuskbo7CICefBFGeuCQXbWkt3LBKLWCHv/s800/iphone_photo.jpg' border='0' width='100%' style='margin:5px'></a></center><br /><br />Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12791616711734310139noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35733597.post-40580318683227975492015-01-16T01:22:00.001-08:002015-01-16T01:47:37.482-08:00Snow barrier<br /><br /><center><a href='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_oMQBHn-oTW9Xzxwj8A8TYfcrr9NyJyxf7c0wCpFSAMFiewUPggTj2Bzqw9AwM20JgL7CR_R6wlbob2saa3RKNYbv1j-_J0UHYcGMS6-QtSV7NV8r8xLwjdyzyYz7qWB4v9no/s800/iphone_photo.jpg'><img src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_oMQBHn-oTW9Xzxwj8A8TYfcrr9NyJyxf7c0wCpFSAMFiewUPggTj2Bzqw9AwM20JgL7CR_R6wlbob2saa3RKNYbv1j-_J0UHYcGMS6-QtSV7NV8r8xLwjdyzyYz7qWB4v9no/s800/iphone_photo.jpg' border='0' width='100%' style='margin:5px'></a></center><br />I have worked through the stack of logs and that has left me free to tackle a project that has been looming. A fence designed to stop snow slipping off of a steep roof into a neighbours property. The juiciest bit for me was a curvy top rail for the fence, which is about 8m long. I noticed these two logs had a similar curve in them and sawed them to about 18cm thick along the axis closest to the shared curve. Then I used a little jig for the chainsaw to make a perpendicular cut along a curved line for the top and bottom of one beam and then traced that curve onto the matching piece. The beams taper from 18cm at the far end to about 12cm at the near end. The curve having been cut I marked out level lines onto one side of each beam. I decided that the bottom surface at the tip would be the lowest point and the underside of the beam at the center would be 240mm above that. You can see a stick tacked on to the far end of the right hand beam, I marked that at a few points and used those to snap in the level lines with an ink line. The level lines obviously allow me to measure the height of the curved beam where the pillars intersect, but they are also important to measure along and find the 2m centres for those pillars.<br /><br /><br /><center><a href='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxmXktlxyidfA-QL6kYDeDv3V3t1Rf_fm4DM9uhSXrpmHwzZOAHqMc4_qg8T7x6ZlDWzT12lwjPUkZlUg3lVfnvewYPYCVRRtD0TOciahBeCNsPRi0GGFfCBGwkKTirNIqqykq/s800/iphone_photo.jpg'><img src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxmXktlxyidfA-QL6kYDeDv3V3t1Rf_fm4DM9uhSXrpmHwzZOAHqMc4_qg8T7x6ZlDWzT12lwjPUkZlUg3lVfnvewYPYCVRRtD0TOciahBeCNsPRi0GGFfCBGwkKTirNIqqykq/s800/iphone_photo.jpg' border='0' width='100%' style='margin:5px'></a></center><br />This is the chainsaw jig, I was worried that a normal drill would have trouble with going through the tool steel on the bar, but it worked fine, perhaps just the area around the rim of the bar is heat treated. Anyway, the bar is bolted onto the jig using two threaded inserts in the plywood.<br /><br /><center><a href='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFK5qi8S70QoTOoWm2L_giiCYgjtWruZir5OES84VRcmBjbT8ilcSggNcfOYkB58VVadzk1QweNnR5u8eulPZpvlznco9dfRNr8CAS5QXybgtdVdAJUyo8wYy4wV6siqVTwxSi/s800/iphone_photo.jpg'><img src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFK5qi8S70QoTOoWm2L_giiCYgjtWruZir5OES84VRcmBjbT8ilcSggNcfOYkB58VVadzk1QweNnR5u8eulPZpvlznco9dfRNr8CAS5QXybgtdVdAJUyo8wYy4wV6siqVTwxSi/s800/iphone_photo.jpg' border='0' width='100%' style='margin:5px'></a></center><br />Having drawn in the morticed for the pillars I needed to make them properly perpendicular. With the beam in the workshop underside facing up I wedged up the thin end on a block to orient the beam correctly, then with a spirit level on the morticer I was able to orient that to cut into the timber at the correct angle. I had already put in a little profile on the beam at this stage using a curved blade in a groove cutting tool that I made several years ago. <br /><br /><br /><center><a href='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjF-onkFGYzqfQIXmUtQSI6Nb5SaP6ZAEHzD0gNY8JEYFltK-IVlAtfodNodxPu8jrXFFjiU_mRJDECv2IxQ0PQPlYLRQS_PY-0UDRrgpEUpL3qeXiHQOzzvu3LIAgbkQZZR_uW/s800/iphone_photo.jpg'><img src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjF-onkFGYzqfQIXmUtQSI6Nb5SaP6ZAEHzD0gNY8JEYFltK-IVlAtfodNodxPu8jrXFFjiU_mRJDECv2IxQ0PQPlYLRQS_PY-0UDRrgpEUpL3qeXiHQOzzvu3LIAgbkQZZR_uW/s800/iphone_photo.jpg' border='0' width='100%' style='margin:5px'></a></center><br />I needed a kind of fancy lap joint to mate up the two halves of the beam in the middle. I have written about a self tightening version of this joint before, but this time I used a little hardwood slat to push the joint halves tight together.<br />Here is the finished joint.<br /><br /><br /><center><a href='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-59kP-9AdQC-55HVhIxG8tX9qEfC_lTBSc3_Ef9rRG3ggc9AILaA90_nr1C55SqkxP3-gDtBwox7m_h36Yrjq4Vam-9vkbHrBnr7VODjxjqOdakwK_MS5hQi9veX39Aus1AQ3/s800/iphone_photo.jpg'><img src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-59kP-9AdQC-55HVhIxG8tX9qEfC_lTBSc3_Ef9rRG3ggc9AILaA90_nr1C55SqkxP3-gDtBwox7m_h36Yrjq4Vam-9vkbHrBnr7VODjxjqOdakwK_MS5hQi9veX39Aus1AQ3/s800/iphone_photo.jpg' border='0' width='100%' style='margin:5px'></a></center><br />This shows how the little spline acts on the two halves to drive those little nose portions snugly into place.<br /><br /><br /><center><a href='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqRCpcTNfOMFXngxfDF8UgYkUbIm8xkI8V9QWvw7Kss3IqIS6E1vzD7Y1gOg4VrKUfN05WvRNET_GLrmCSy7JsIYBFCfKhBghQu0nmEupvvfhOh-cOJf4xlig1RwpSpIOXivJ9/s800/iphone_photo.jpg'><img src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqRCpcTNfOMFXngxfDF8UgYkUbIm8xkI8V9QWvw7Kss3IqIS6E1vzD7Y1gOg4VrKUfN05WvRNET_GLrmCSy7JsIYBFCfKhBghQu0nmEupvvfhOh-cOJf4xlig1RwpSpIOXivJ9/s800/iphone_photo.jpg' border='0' width='100%' style='margin:5px'></a></center><br /> This shows the beam and pillars erected on site from the neighbours car park. I have to go back and nail planks top and bottom to finish the fence and also fit some braces that will tie the structure to the house. Last year's heavy snow came straight off the roof and onto the wimpy metal fence knocking it off its socks, hopefully this addition will keep the snow in bounds.<br />Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12791616711734310139noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35733597.post-70167125109465852942014-11-06T01:53:00.001-08:002014-11-06T02:07:09.796-08:00Timber<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><center><a href='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMJuRUB1GqFyhyphenhyphenlsXd0qkkLEg9tahsveglwBfFMmcpk7FDFZIzpGoPownguwUZXtk8HJsuV8pnkoSrfDhKH069X3wKuRvkRZSPeifl2UpMnhfRidDhvY4j4HKV1oJlRT5cD3H3/s640/iphone_photo.jpg'><img src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMJuRUB1GqFyhyphenhyphenlsXd0qkkLEg9tahsveglwBfFMmcpk7FDFZIzpGoPownguwUZXtk8HJsuV8pnkoSrfDhKH069X3wKuRvkRZSPeifl2UpMnhfRidDhvY4j4HKV1oJlRT5cD3H3/s640/iphone_photo.jpg' border='0' width='100%' style='margin:5px'></a></center><br /><br /><br />Back in the early spring just before departing for a sojourn in the UK I cut down the major portion of a wall of cedars that stood on the slope between the house and the stream. These trees have blocked a massive amount of our daily quotient of sunshine for the past 20 years and it has made a big difference to have them gone. I used some of the felled weenies to make logs that would act as spars to hold up two stacks of logs from the larger trees. Selecting trees that were well positioned on the slope I cut them a little higher than necessary to leave a stump that could be notched to make a fork that would hold the squared end of a log slotted into it. Where the slope was shallow the other end of this log rested on the ground higher up the slope, if not the other end rested in another slotted stump. This left me with the logs stacked on a kind of platform above the ground with lots of air underneath so they could dry out a little over the summer. I stripped off the bark as the logs were stacked to give the bugs fewer places to hide and aside from turning a little dark with a layer of mould they have remained sound and free of insects. <br />I built an extension on the roof of my scaffolding timber store shed and also laid out some scaffold pipes as joists to hold up a level platform made from shuttering panels I had used in placing the concrete for the foundation extension. I screwed two 5.5m lengths of angle iron along the sides of the panels and they form skimpy rail tracks for a frame extension on my chainsaw sliding rack to form a trolley with the notched rollers I had used on the trolley for gathering rocks from the stream bed. The chainsaw now runs on the rails instead of needing something to slide along on top of the log being sawn. I gave the thing it's first trial run on one of the logs today and it works pretty smoothly.<br />One other addition was an old bike fuel tank that I connected up to the chainsaw fuel line to save me having to refill the tank every couple of runs.<br />I can now winch cedar logs up onto the platform in turn and saw them up into lumber for the next extension to the home. I need to organise a space for the sawn lumber stack so that the timber can dry out a little more because it is still a little too heavy to shift around and work on. The 5.5m rails mean I can just clear a rip cut in a 5.10m log, but it means I have one foot braced against the wheels on the trolley to start the saw up while the trolley hangs on by the skin of its teeth at the end of the track. As you can see, the log is held in place with a few large staples knocked into it and the slats on the platform. The slats allow me to wedge up the narrow end of the log a little to get a better balance to the cut. The saw end of the mounting trolley has a screw adjuster to raise or lower the bar, but I still have to adjust the tip end by hand and measure the height each time, I guess one day I will put in another threaded rod and synchronise the two adjusters with a chain to save me this little inconvenience and I will be able to adjust the bar height parallel to the platform with the one handle. I might also make some kind of mechanism to winch the trolley along the track with a handle, it isn't a hard push to get the saw along the cut, but it means keeping a stressful pose for a few minutes each time. Twiddling a little winch handle might be a little too genteel but it would deliver less wear and tear on the body.<br /><br /><br />Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12791616711734310139noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35733597.post-18812697818697927852014-10-23T02:52:00.001-07:002014-10-23T03:02:13.551-07:00Scribble<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPaQDannOdQLAr-oxSnwtRKUkOG8tODEM13rB9aski8eNc9KJ1qFRdiD8M2d6qwiWqo04fdR_2vVZoKLEF6192WyChyphenhyphenza2WxkvLStJWpPxhyDb_lqvz_aWCudDKt_eRimDMTz_/s640/blogger-image--1174887298.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" width="100%" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPaQDannOdQLAr-oxSnwtRKUkOG8tODEM13rB9aski8eNc9KJ1qFRdiD8M2d6qwiWqo04fdR_2vVZoKLEF6192WyChyphenhyphenza2WxkvLStJWpPxhyDb_lqvz_aWCudDKt_eRimDMTz_/s640/blogger-image--1174887298.jpg"></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">I looked at a few forge ideas on the web. They all seemed to have a deep fire pot filled with coke. I thought it might be worth scribbling my idea for the forge down here. I didn't see the point in having all that coke burning when the only bit used was up top and I didn't like the idea of burning so much to heat so little. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">I had an old circle of 6mm plate, so I drilled that to act as the tuyer, if one can call it that. I welded that plate onto a short length of 120mm diameter pipe cut to a slight angle pointing toward the blower end, then sat the weird kind of top hat shape in the pot over the air pipe and packed the space around the thing with ash. I cut some scraps of fire brick to leave a nice little tapered pit space for coke to burn well insulated and bring the tops level with the barbecue tray.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">Fire bricks can then be arranged as needed on the tray (as in the hammer picture) to make different shaped fire areas depending on the work and hold the stack of coke waiting to burn in place where needed. I thought I was going to need a blast of air and was worried my little blower wouldn't cut it, but really the problem is keeping the air flow low enough not to be cooking coke for no reason.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">Although smiths are commonly seen working on the tip of a bar, one also needs to work on sections mid bar and on odd shaped pieces too, so flexibility is good and having the fire high up with space around it allows that to happen without having a massive mountain of coke to play around in.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"> One idea I would incorporate if building again would be a water trough at the front edge with a dipper or wiper squirter pump to cool bar or tongs when they get too hot to be held as well as for quenching work where needed. Between the fire and that I might have a section cut out and covered with course mesh to allow ash to drop down when sweeping out the fire pit, but not course enough to let coke lumps fall through. You can see a selection of buckets under the forge in other photos set to catch ash. Most of the ash can get down the air holes and down through the cinder flap, but a bigger drop zone would be good to have. The cinder flap is just a circle of steel welded to a small bolt head, with the bolt on and the flap in position the nut is welded to the down pipe so the flap can swing out sideways when one is cleaning out.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">One advantage of the scaffolding is that the clamps don't have to be tight so the whole thing can be swung out of the way, or into different positions within a given area. I imagine one day I will set up the forge, etc near to the press and make some kind of more permanent arrangement with a hood etc, but this works for now.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">I don't have a hood set up yet, but the ceiling is fireproof and there is a big fan set up next to the forge to blow smoke and fumes out the door, so not entirely stupid.</div><br />Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12791616711734310139noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35733597.post-83102916418444853692014-10-23T01:53:00.001-07:002014-10-23T03:02:43.530-07:00LeverageI hope that the changes in the shop tooling and the purchase of the anvil will be factors that give me more leverage in working with iron. I got to the point of assembling one of the grilles today and brought it up to the house for a little relaxed viewing to check for balance issues in a place with a little less clutter.<div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiO9y1hK6nBs2_5V_gGQVlDy8sGEXiY3Ywm9U3mK38K59VbngUCJUIIq0Qrvz5BEQAOwydN5-YUxs45jvQ5ve74QPy-bqdBzx4tczW2YzLvnVGa9K4m67tw4vp_TrrFaD_CKsLV/s640/blogger-image--1482116011.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" width="100%" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiO9y1hK6nBs2_5V_gGQVlDy8sGEXiY3Ywm9U3mK38K59VbngUCJUIIq0Qrvz5BEQAOwydN5-YUxs45jvQ5ve74QPy-bqdBzx4tczW2YzLvnVGa9K4m67tw4vp_TrrFaD_CKsLV/s640/blogger-image--1482116011.jpg"></a></div><br /></div><br />Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12791616711734310139noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35733597.post-21614417436000405382014-10-23T01:47:00.001-07:002014-10-23T03:01:18.346-07:00Purchase<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjgTGo6xRxyVE79ooM4xNe11yw5I3sr1j1woSHnI0jj3hLsEKqT-hb_F9MFHjfTll3aGDjowDbwv3IlfO7RHJUGO_El3bmCt4MYvYPNK7ZBzlyPIXA0oLsNchqMoSpsxiIKrQ2/s640/blogger-image--1313919475.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" width="100%" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjgTGo6xRxyVE79ooM4xNe11yw5I3sr1j1woSHnI0jj3hLsEKqT-hb_F9MFHjfTll3aGDjowDbwv3IlfO7RHJUGO_El3bmCt4MYvYPNK7ZBzlyPIXA0oLsNchqMoSpsxiIKrQ2/s640/blogger-image--1313919475.jpg"></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">For a long time I have been scanning the auction sites here for a suitable anvil to replace my little homemade rail track unit. This one caught my eye as it had several little features I liked. There are a couple of little cleats on the heal for bending, the step up to the face from the horn is steep and rounded off, and there is that little rounded flat coming off of the horn, which creates a nice little depression for knocking things out in. The other feature is that the anvil comes with a steel top and an aluminium base, these are bolted together with a rubber pad in between. This makes the unit quite a bit lighter than it would be if it were all steel, and the rubber pad knocks out any ringing. I believe it is a delta future 1 anvil for farriers made in America. I checked prices and I guess I paid the equivalent of the price for a new one in the US. Anyway, I enjoyed polishing it up and hope to enjoy many happy hours with it in the shop. I am considering swapping it on to the newer stump at the back, but having just fitted the swage block into that I am reluctant to chop it down to the proper height and lose that bit of work. Maybe a trip to the dam to pick up a suitable stump when the weather picks up.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMF1M4J32ays23tlOHPYStMlUKpM61PIFR4kcOQ5-xDL93agjGqbeHNQlKxwLzsf0oZyB1s4N9_TLBk9s4PfZhNQPtdbzr3vwTlRXELCvXYKdrxDtHo9lDxO09V0i0Y1e3cEmD/s640/blogger-image--2018347273.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" width="100%" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMF1M4J32ays23tlOHPYStMlUKpM61PIFR4kcOQ5-xDL93agjGqbeHNQlKxwLzsf0oZyB1s4N9_TLBk9s4PfZhNQPtdbzr3vwTlRXELCvXYKdrxDtHo9lDxO09V0i0Y1e3cEmD/s640/blogger-image--2018347273.jpg"></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">I built a little forge to facilitate the ironwork. I had an old hammer head welded to a length of bar for a long time, I played with forging it with the press, but it was hard going with only the torch to heat it. Having got the forge fired up for some grille work I was tempted to use the heat on the hammer head and got it into this shape after a few heats. It started out as a pretty square lump. Hard to believe that the mass of metal is the same in both ends.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzoNovKu8ZTq6sOdj9_fCl6oNTbEcrTmFyw9hx5rQZcY2KElqxNaBd3b1rAidL-Nwvlzhqg2kLWOqc_1YK-OcYjsw48d-oBKIyykDu-8syyKreZKGSKG5GZkcR4NCmBjmhqYXV/s640/blogger-image-1749460967.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" width="100%" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzoNovKu8ZTq6sOdj9_fCl6oNTbEcrTmFyw9hx5rQZcY2KElqxNaBd3b1rAidL-Nwvlzhqg2kLWOqc_1YK-OcYjsw48d-oBKIyykDu-8syyKreZKGSKG5GZkcR4NCmBjmhqYXV/s640/blogger-image-1749460967.jpg"></a></div>The forge is an old barbecue plate with the top from an old gas cylinder welded in under it. The usual T shaped pipe to blow air into and allow cinders to drop down out of the forge. Scaffolding pipe was what I had most of, so I used that, then had the idea of simply mounting the thing to the wall with a few odd scaffolding joints. I didn't want to put legs on it as I will be tidying it out of the way soon.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">I had to redo the hammer a little after taking this picture, the long end was slightly too shapely. It doesn't look as good after adjustment, but it works better. The one by its side is something like the original shape, but slightly smaller. I just let the head cool down on the forge when I had done shaping it to let it anneal, then I heated the face up to non magnetic and dropped it in the slack tub. And the same for the tip of the long end. It seems OK, not quite as hard as the face of the anvil, but the body should still be soft enough to take shocks without thinking about cracking up.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRxlyi5PI5TApP8S0zt0uAXACabB2MrHMMbXU_2fsDsUXmB5FS81HGDZ2lWqO4ZFAOEp2T1CGTeqGyQKc_ESFc1V6ytCDYcPkVh2HLRkw2IOH55xXdNo8XcX6z-iN8SbSNCDbs/s640/blogger-image-440791712.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" width="100%" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRxlyi5PI5TApP8S0zt0uAXACabB2MrHMMbXU_2fsDsUXmB5FS81HGDZ2lWqO4ZFAOEp2T1CGTeqGyQKc_ESFc1V6ytCDYcPkVh2HLRkw2IOH55xXdNo8XcX6z-iN8SbSNCDbs/s640/blogger-image-440791712.jpg"></a></div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><br /></div><br />Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12791616711734310139noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35733597.post-61664249598825613302014-10-12T15:35:00.001-07:002014-10-12T16:18:24.425-07:00More scaffolding uses<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><center><a href='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcVT_LEVGg6l8DeTasmP_fa_WiegCleMGJot5JoELEDwzhX8raz4VQcJuI8IidMOj4yFWpIr8zpsME5bWV7a5cqolz0YKQO9FtmjWIlalAVAtHmcLO8Aj6LkiR2mvpL-gkhC_6/s800/iphone_photo.jpg'><img src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcVT_LEVGg6l8DeTasmP_fa_WiegCleMGJot5JoELEDwzhX8raz4VQcJuI8IidMOj4yFWpIr8zpsME5bWV7a5cqolz0YKQO9FtmjWIlalAVAtHmcLO8Aj6LkiR2mvpL-gkhC_6/s800/iphone_photo.jpg' border='0' width='100%' style='margin:5px'></a></center><br /><br /><br />So, as you will know from the movie 'The great escape' one of the biggest issues in digging is where to put the spoil. Luckily we had no need to maintain secrecy and created our molehill in plain sight. As we have dug out the space under the house we have expanded the field area in terraces out front between us and the river. With the digging in 2013 I needed more stone to hold up the terraces that would be formed with all the spoil, so I built a scaffolding rail system for a little trundle to haul large stones up from the river using the electric winch again.<br />Sammy did a huge amount of work shifting stones up one by one and also in a bucket suspended from a rope, but I didn't want to break him, so this seemed like a good solution. There was still a lot of work involved in dragging in rocks from further afield as they grew scarce at the railhead, but the vertical shift was achieved by the railway. I had to make some special fitments at the joints to allow the rollers to ride over them smoothly. I think I used six three meter lengths of scaffolding, so the winch wire was at its limit.<br /><br /><br /><br /><center><a href='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKuwRCY41QgvMZ4OHviaN_VfSkkMp4FfV-FQv_uHdmRdgUyazs2eDuD09dlKR1LeqKkzuhP2_kcYSAU_nLNx4HnhiPNkISIGyphMJTOnxK2wtmpXlVHu8VV2R67XlD3RnaImkU/s800/iphone_photo.jpg'><img src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKuwRCY41QgvMZ4OHviaN_VfSkkMp4FfV-FQv_uHdmRdgUyazs2eDuD09dlKR1LeqKkzuhP2_kcYSAU_nLNx4HnhiPNkISIGyphMJTOnxK2wtmpXlVHu8VV2R67XlD3RnaImkU/s800/iphone_photo.jpg' border='0' width='100%' style='margin:5px'></a></center><br /><br />The tipping bucket is separate from the carriage, there are a couple of cleats on the front face, a square bar is slotted between them, then the whole bucket is heaved over sideways to dump out the rocks while remaining on the carriage if possible. The little blue rag taped to the rail is there as a marker to show the winch operator down by the stream where to stop. <br />The actual digging took a while, but I seem to have neglected to take any pictures of the progress in that.<br />The same system came in useful for building another concrete delivery chute down to the workshop from the road when it came to forming the retaining walls for the new digging.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><center><a href='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhY3sbWolSyaUBhnX3tWpIjaFOxcJyVgLCrCIFmj7pKvMa5Hwik6faeaDO5Pbz6lpTaw1yyxY5v1ALrofsncrlyKLYvGgzIqrAq67tlfKTd90PJXPiPKblk1ihNHF1_oqccRuiU/s800/iphone_photo.jpg'><img src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhY3sbWolSyaUBhnX3tWpIjaFOxcJyVgLCrCIFmj7pKvMa5Hwik6faeaDO5Pbz6lpTaw1yyxY5v1ALrofsncrlyKLYvGgzIqrAq67tlfKTd90PJXPiPKblk1ihNHF1_oqccRuiU/s800/iphone_photo.jpg' border='0' width='100%' style='margin:5px'></a></center><br /><br /><br /><br />Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12791616711734310139noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35733597.post-28549538378417980802014-10-10T15:55:00.001-07:002014-10-10T16:00:19.241-07:00Lunchtime<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwL7EY3mGRCSf1B0vamyeFM1ZeTRVM5v3KlyDCweEdZpxZkTuAEVKISo73OGPlojQXoIQvN6loevGCysPvTKtvhmxmuZXEo4bFSvsLDnD4cRr71DR1kryxDV56vlKv2EDD71Oy/s640/blogger-image--850675254.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" width="100%" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwL7EY3mGRCSf1B0vamyeFM1ZeTRVM5v3KlyDCweEdZpxZkTuAEVKISo73OGPlojQXoIQvN6loevGCysPvTKtvhmxmuZXEo4bFSvsLDnD4cRr71DR1kryxDV56vlKv2EDD71Oy/s640/blogger-image--850675254.jpg"></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">I had a fairly successful morning working at the forge and using the flypress. When lunchtime came around I took a quick diversion down to the greenhouse dome to check on the sole surviving cucumber plant. For future reference I am interested to see how long it can survive. As I was leaving I noticed these two monsters on the doorframe. The mantis seemed to have the advantage in size and....</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6-HII6cdMnyM3fOTb9tEmp00bbS8Kd5S8X_mCXPPvRoe0gxIbvtX5FYvxcGIy-6dk98oAtGD7tygPICYdm7i9M0TNK7q2DmzMgTt9cfIpMZevWCsEn5psHnuTSxhdxEYCW2El/s640/blogger-image--1576008474.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" width="100%" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6-HII6cdMnyM3fOTb9tEmp00bbS8Kd5S8X_mCXPPvRoe0gxIbvtX5FYvxcGIy-6dk98oAtGD7tygPICYdm7i9M0TNK7q2DmzMgTt9cfIpMZevWCsEn5psHnuTSxhdxEYCW2El/s640/blogger-image--1576008474.jpg"></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">also as it turned out moments later, in strategy, she (judging by size and plumpness) was clearly waiting for some sustained movement to properly assess an attack from the side and she seized the opportunity when it came. I suspect this is just general practice, not specifically spider catching behaviour. I saw a similar sized mantis chewing on a large species of bee the other day and she also had the body grasped side on. The scene of the bee struggling despite half of its body having become subsumed by the mantis did actually make me feel a little queezy as I empathised a bit too much with the victim. In this case though I didn't stick around to witness the disappearance of the body, the first spurt of inards from the back of the abdomen of the spider was sufficient to let me know that this might be a PG entertainment I would not be able to erase from memory, so I headed off for my own lunch. The mantis did seem to relish the fluids that emerged and no doubt the nutritional burst will help her see it through to autumn and the ordeal of egg laying.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><br /></div><br /><br /><br />Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12791616711734310139noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35733597.post-71837987862843335352014-10-08T16:25:00.001-07:002014-10-08T21:00:30.303-07:00More moving<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIrJ9wHAjh6bS3Lo76qdK6t5IYBg3o01bIDor5yB71zfQeNfa7zSX1bNj7eiY942GWz0ddQBYMWWZg0ZWJcwJmA5VuOuPMn-P4PtbgFm4SEaZlwaQTJNAtEGPxFZak3MZTQJ84/s640/blogger-image-415189207.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" width="100%" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIrJ9wHAjh6bS3Lo76qdK6t5IYBg3o01bIDor5yB71zfQeNfa7zSX1bNj7eiY942GWz0ddQBYMWWZg0ZWJcwJmA5VuOuPMn-P4PtbgFm4SEaZlwaQTJNAtEGPxFZak3MZTQJ84/s640/blogger-image-415189207.jpg"></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">So, after several years of scrabbling about to get in and out from under the press in order to use it I finally decided to make a stand for it. I had some 100mm H beams and 90mm pipe that had been taken off of roadworks on damaged traffic mirrors which allow drivers to see what is coming around a bend. I am sure the bright orange color will be familiar to locals of Japan, especially whoever hit this one and bent it. The press is sitting quietly in the background waiting for its vertical promotion. The stand is on its back doing its impression of the Tommy Cooper 'dead one of those' while I weld in underneath.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6jdd39vK-CHeC23FfSrt2vBmeUA9YEfKbdbPTQJJCwpzJh7GPkbmX0olHBOdqvYUhcokzk3klpWwVdPsqFU3svBCtENRJcEmVhY4fjC6TvD-BIz9TPQGyg7P2aGeW-WExDgdG/s640/blogger-image-309283639.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" width="100%" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6jdd39vK-CHeC23FfSrt2vBmeUA9YEfKbdbPTQJJCwpzJh7GPkbmX0olHBOdqvYUhcokzk3klpWwVdPsqFU3svBCtENRJcEmVhY4fjC6TvD-BIz9TPQGyg7P2aGeW-WExDgdG/s640/blogger-image-309283639.jpg"></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">Having had a sturdy set of stretchers fitted the stand was de-benched and shunted over to the press area. The press again found itself broken down into its major components. I don't think the beam I am using to sling the chain block from would take the weight of the whole thing without permanent compromise. I did accidentally put the weight of the whole thing on it when trying to lift the fly wheel off, it is a little stubborn and when swivelling it around to loosen it up it caught and the screw action of the press acted to lift the whole thing up until it lost friction with the ground. Interesting.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5fUcKbXl4NeYzIryrdBHsJDDv1WapxCl-mxj3a2s-VXMaTbN5UeO36alKLOD3vSpRT1nNYl08lumEj90_zg9imCVEK0pC0u9RNCIfB6WFTX6Ux2DyCd0N5viYpoYza4_eKRIv/s640/blogger-image--1430039730.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" width="100%" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5fUcKbXl4NeYzIryrdBHsJDDv1WapxCl-mxj3a2s-VXMaTbN5UeO36alKLOD3vSpRT1nNYl08lumEj90_zg9imCVEK0pC0u9RNCIfB6WFTX6Ux2DyCd0N5viYpoYza4_eKRIv/s640/blogger-image--1430039730.jpg"></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">I knew I was only trying the press out for height on the stand, but I didn't realize at this point that I had slightly snookered myself several months ago when I performed a small surgery on the press screw. I got tired of having several degrees of play in the flywheel motion before the screw engaged, so I poured some molten white metal into the top and hoped for the best. This worked nicely and there is no play at all now, but it also meant that the screw would no longer travel through its full range of motion, I presume this is because the screw had worn slightly at the most used area and the ends are still their original size, I only mention this in case there is someone out there considering a similar procedure. I would suggest measuring things first to check if the screw is true all the way and maybe heating it prior to pouring in your metal so that when it shrinks down on cooling you will have a tiny bit more play. Anyway, this is not a problem for the press, because the range of motion is still fine for work, but it meant that I was left with the screw poking up and there was very little clearance above the press to raise the flywheel onto it. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">I had a rethink, cut a little off of the stand legs and made another attempt to lift the press with the chain block slung high up beside the beam. The sling on the beam slipped its moorings and dropped the whole thing back down after rising a few inches, it was slung properly, but the grips on the wire didn't like the stresses they were under. So I took this harmless accident as a warning and called it a day for that session and let the semi subconscious work on it over night. In the morning I made a U shaped steel strap with holes in the top that would hold a 16mm bolt that rode on top of the beam and clamped the U sides to the beam. This then had a loop of steel welded onto it raising the chain block body to the highest point possible in the space with its main body at the side of the beam. I raised the press a little with this and made some adjustments.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgul5YcUf0jc4H3QAMtEwkNsZmDf2w_HcAHe-Otgoded8XcKAsV7SWJ6c4ANB5ppMbMJUfd73aXH8ZZm-ifRXWio8S0GqCDFJEL9Wtum5BFVgFDI4IX4r_9PHGmYdOd9CvFO4yk/s640/blogger-image--1551658417.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" width="100%" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgul5YcUf0jc4H3QAMtEwkNsZmDf2w_HcAHe-Otgoded8XcKAsV7SWJ6c4ANB5ppMbMJUfd73aXH8ZZm-ifRXWio8S0GqCDFJEL9Wtum5BFVgFDI4IX4r_9PHGmYdOd9CvFO4yk/s640/blogger-image--1551658417.jpg"></a></div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"> I observed the degree of twist it was putting into the beam and realised I had over done the length of the hook loop, you can see silver where I have cut off some from the sides so that the chain block body rested snug as near to the beam as it could get. That slight difference greatly reduced the twist. I put a little slab of steel plate in under the bolt to stop that biting into the top of the beam, the cosmetic damage to the wood is from that sling slip I mentioned earlier.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPGcB8myxeYXja741b1jiotbuP3J1xkTjfeAzuOhmGdKtHWRPPUISrxDsJIDIAM5fpRfu5VgjewGIwYP5MU9Dg7QgYV75nyrvrur4ITyEHJHKz2ZvL_4S0F1cc3GmFb2FN3KRY/s640/blogger-image-1698985248.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" width="100%" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPGcB8myxeYXja741b1jiotbuP3J1xkTjfeAzuOhmGdKtHWRPPUISrxDsJIDIAM5fpRfu5VgjewGIwYP5MU9Dg7QgYV75nyrvrur4ITyEHJHKz2ZvL_4S0F1cc3GmFb2FN3KRY/s640/blogger-image-1698985248.jpg"></a></div></div>There he is at a much better working height. The whole thing is a bit rough and ready as usual, perhaps one day when I have an immense swathe of free time I might put a dab of paint on it, but for the most part the rest will just be fiddling, making fitments to clamp the press to the stand and making whatever adjustments necessary to make it easier to use. The chair is just in there to indicate scale. The speaker magnets on the right side of the press are really handy for holding the spanners and whatnot for swapping out tooling, they are held up out of the way and it stops them from straying off, which is something that all my tools are prone to.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3UsAdNlKTYxhho91EYWpjl6U_A2PSK6YIWyjsLOWUd2tnGLW4O3J7PRyQOpM98logHFCHYZRjk_vngxMglKrlnPS2EWOA54sDFI9FkvcW_QrucC1SjhZ9MjLG6vwkrr8iEgEn/s640/blogger-image--941348380.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" width="100%" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3UsAdNlKTYxhho91EYWpjl6U_A2PSK6YIWyjsLOWUd2tnGLW4O3J7PRyQOpM98logHFCHYZRjk_vngxMglKrlnPS2EWOA54sDFI9FkvcW_QrucC1SjhZ9MjLG6vwkrr8iEgEn/s640/blogger-image--941348380.jpg"></a></div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">During my rethinking phase with the press back on the ground I used it to bend some shaped dogs to bolt on the stand at each corner, they stop the press from twisting itself off of its perch. This reactive torque as the press bears down is what you have to consider most when fixing these instruments, the force of the blows is contained within the body of the press, so there is no significant stress beyond the weight of the machine applied to the floor. Obviously, having secured the press to its stand it will now try and twist that as one body, so I will anchor it to the floor using the foot plates attached to bottom of the legs.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">On the web I saw a couple of people had retractable wheels on their stand units, and I was going to do the same, but on thinking it over I realised I would be leaving a set of wheels idle for almost their whole lives as the press will hardly ever be moved. I think I will invest in one of those low hand lift trolleys instead, that will serve to move this and whatever other heavy object finds itself in need of spacial readjustment. That and the need to prevent torsion within the framework is the reason for the overkill on the stretchers, I put the H beams on their sides to act as little trays for the most used press tooling and I might put a shelf between them one day. It should be possible to slide the forks of the lift in under the stretchers, lift the thing a smidgen and wheel it away.</div><br /></div><br /></div><br /><br />Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12791616711734310139noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35733597.post-40758375526029968062014-10-08T02:30:00.001-07:002014-10-08T16:51:45.376-07:00Movingly heavy objects<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTGeOnvJBFRkQVw3IXjyPZE8Qj4P7ej5oT2AB39f4GOaGol3pLqhqbHSN-ICb-ntzym6thGF2LZAkwyFZ2u8VDgh8qSS6RLLohfhP67AiNl-YP_mq4IIsudmQBljixaJDiBXGv/s640/blogger-image-412208752.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" width="100%" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTGeOnvJBFRkQVw3IXjyPZE8Qj4P7ej5oT2AB39f4GOaGol3pLqhqbHSN-ICb-ntzym6thGF2LZAkwyFZ2u8VDgh8qSS6RLLohfhP67AiNl-YP_mq4IIsudmQBljixaJDiBXGv/s640/blogger-image-412208752.jpg"></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">Some years ago I bought a battered old fly press and built a kind of shed around it. In 2013 I decided to dig the final section of my workshop out from below the house, this involved shovelling about 20 cubic meters of rock and earth and is a separate story, but before digging I wanted to move the press down into the workshop using the slope that I would be digging out. We erected this scaffolding structure to await the arrival of the press body and the large flywheel, which we shifted along the path in front of the house. Then used rollers to get the press body in under the tripod and hoisted it onto a scaffolding pipe slope down to the shop.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0VUZKxZKAEpobgNQWw4lvav-4Uq3C2zGTGNE-Gdm2voAMfqPdNhgTEVt2v9vOnA2JG8O_GvCapnvKA8rjlNAbqIuZT77q78ipUbAAcmbJ2XsovhWX5WUHYC0Cwgc0scASg3bH/s640/blogger-image--1032547167.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" width="100%" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0VUZKxZKAEpobgNQWw4lvav-4Uq3C2zGTGNE-Gdm2voAMfqPdNhgTEVt2v9vOnA2JG8O_GvCapnvKA8rjlNAbqIuZT77q78ipUbAAcmbJ2XsovhWX5WUHYC0Cwgc0scASg3bH/s640/blogger-image--1032547167.jpg"></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">This is the view back up the slope showing the structure, we used two sheets of 25mm plywood interchanging them along the way as we lowered the press body down on pipe rollers using an electric winch.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLHVALWjmmQjEOhmnYGtF1X7nA_6dV5cttGv-4R-pUoQEz7OgfwUriLPv6goNZdOnUmea-owL55rE0rHCxowSlOrl3HOftni6hsvd_IkKwn12s71MwHKs68aGQWHe44134YCtb/s640/blogger-image-1165902633.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" width="100%" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLHVALWjmmQjEOhmnYGtF1X7nA_6dV5cttGv-4R-pUoQEz7OgfwUriLPv6goNZdOnUmea-owL55rE0rHCxowSlOrl3HOftni6hsvd_IkKwn12s71MwHKs68aGQWHe44134YCtb/s640/blogger-image-1165902633.jpg"></a></div>I made a truss to allow the flywheel to stand up on its own and also to allow it to be tethered to the winch while rolling down the hill. Again the sheets were swapped along the way. You can see some slats screwed into their undersides to stop them marring too much against the scaffolding clamps and also to butt against them and prevent slippage. I screwed them only in the center so that they could be knocked diagonal where they happened to fall where a clamp was.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5NRg4AKB03Q73OzI9Sw5ARk7F7OZpl97cBL1yFCBVTlnehtiNiJBiw5hwvaDpBFJgQ49yUeU2PKfm7uoNt_33_JkIfT6UgUp0G8pOZF5IRdN30X-3ypzK6X9QBWO_ApSE8e0U/s640/blogger-image--745768401.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" width="100%" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5NRg4AKB03Q73OzI9Sw5ARk7F7OZpl97cBL1yFCBVTlnehtiNiJBiw5hwvaDpBFJgQ49yUeU2PKfm7uoNt_33_JkIfT6UgUp0G8pOZF5IRdN30X-3ypzK6X9QBWO_ApSE8e0U/s640/blogger-image--745768401.jpg"></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">Again the view from below.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifGhOzFD-BcDe1cWBkPTaRaGdYeDfTttTwbTJ9MERQuyS8ZwHFgkmmScSXLHYdF6EnOA4t5UBtsrrgJdjnNYTWhavW_8WvWkHVBLYfEmKbWGFnApJ9T-5xMpbOTmvAtnQAWALl/s640/blogger-image-1390118962.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" width="100%" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifGhOzFD-BcDe1cWBkPTaRaGdYeDfTttTwbTJ9MERQuyS8ZwHFgkmmScSXLHYdF6EnOA4t5UBtsrrgJdjnNYTWhavW_8WvWkHVBLYfEmKbWGFnApJ9T-5xMpbOTmvAtnQAWALl/s640/blogger-image-1390118962.jpg"></a></div></div>There was a bit of luck with how the sheets of plywood landed and we were able to get the press body nicely seated on rollers when it arrived, you can see the flywheel still on the slope.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYEQrtHnnl66oL2L0fb3PLC4DreJrpgXowd2QJkLirl0tHX_PgLQSMJDppxtKb3FvSfCLetFN3ip5QXXWbHHoJeKO3E3zAEJ6QEfEkq7PPR29PfrP5g-GeBp-xuWphLh9UwOVQ/s640/blogger-image--434217665.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" width="100%" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYEQrtHnnl66oL2L0fb3PLC4DreJrpgXowd2QJkLirl0tHX_PgLQSMJDppxtKb3FvSfCLetFN3ip5QXXWbHHoJeKO3E3zAEJ6QEfEkq7PPR29PfrP5g-GeBp-xuWphLh9UwOVQ/s640/blogger-image--434217665.jpg"></a></div>With the two parts down I disassembled the scaffolding and used a chain block slung from the ceiling beams to reunite the parts of the press. With it sat on timber with stoppers screwed in to stop it skewing in use it delivered some hours of service like this until a few days ago.</div><br />Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12791616711734310139noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35733597.post-72528755721000966632014-10-06T04:47:00.001-07:002014-10-06T04:56:06.713-07:00Further drifting<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAmrgKhFLivxehDtUZ7uwI-1JWWiCWz79bIgxtfOCKPAIG1X2x2ge3Ujx4jNstZbzXx48DQbF-xM9qWvChc-BBGlkwQ0NOBWZoHXK-VnaO-8axSs9zw_rS4OuWk656fS6FIUAy/s640/blogger-image-1252594029.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAmrgKhFLivxehDtUZ7uwI-1JWWiCWz79bIgxtfOCKPAIG1X2x2ge3Ujx4jNstZbzXx48DQbF-xM9qWvChc-BBGlkwQ0NOBWZoHXK-VnaO-8axSs9zw_rS4OuWk656fS6FIUAy/s640/blogger-image-1252594029.jpg" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
I had a go at making tongs to grip the little sections of bar as they were being worked hot. The tongs on the left were made from pieces like those two on the right. They are what is left of a grate I made for the wood stove, the fire eventually ate the central portion and left tapered bars that I kept for later use. The three bars in the middle are marked out ready to be slotted and drifted two have been drawn down slightly in the press, it has sufficient power to do that with the bar cold, which is convenient.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuFdIFkcscMN8IWdOzytTMi7BadyzNEPtsHh07lB7R3f1cpc-pwYOK_sCiYDoH1NUD1DAq0EM34_4lrXoW1Qr959P-Slyl3H7CkTQ06cmTPcf73Ib23SRSsl4KzJDIfdQ9zYJA/s640/blogger-image-2058307452.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" width="100%" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuFdIFkcscMN8IWdOzytTMi7BadyzNEPtsHh07lB7R3f1cpc-pwYOK_sCiYDoH1NUD1DAq0EM34_4lrXoW1Qr959P-Slyl3H7CkTQ06cmTPcf73Ib23SRSsl4KzJDIfdQ9zYJA/s640/blogger-image-2058307452.jpg" /></a></div>
I made a few rings of different sizes to slip on to the reins of the tongs so that they hold their grip, one fully slotted bar and the one in the tongs is just over half done. The three drifts I used to widen the slots are on the swage block at top right.Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12791616711734310139noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35733597.post-75415989066812016142014-09-22T02:38:00.001-07:002014-09-22T02:38:16.107-07:00ApprovalI do seem to get myself into a tizzy submitting designs. Anyway, I got to the stage of drawing up a chalk version of my plan on a sheet of steel so that I can try parts against it as I make them and also tack weld some "walls" onto it to get the final fit OK. <div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIl6CIKU1RhxIvexgubm6ywiKGTL_6ECFZrYhBNWmYZ4BVUnjlYrhYvjGlz8YmZU_vevzWIT1z9cNAR_C0UvgiMEOluO-ikNdGPBoasQ4koVbFopVhAsL19fUaXSI05Sdwh2AJ/s640/blogger-image--1046953445.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIl6CIKU1RhxIvexgubm6ywiKGTL_6ECFZrYhBNWmYZ4BVUnjlYrhYvjGlz8YmZU_vevzWIT1z9cNAR_C0UvgiMEOluO-ikNdGPBoasQ4koVbFopVhAsL19fUaXSI05Sdwh2AJ/s640/blogger-image--1046953445.jpg"></a></div><br></div><div>Having done that I contacted the client with some sketches and photos of my ideas and have now got the go ahead for the first two grilles. But I changed the top intersection of bars after doing <span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', HelveticaNeue-Light, helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">another experiment to try out a split and expanded tenon at the part where the vertical bars intersect with the horizontals.</span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', HelveticaNeue-Light, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> A hole is punched and drifted into a rectangle shape in the horizontal bar. I stamped a shoulder into the vertical bar and then drew it down into a straight section the right size to fit through the hole and then slit it into two forks and drew those down further leaving some meat on the end to make into little flats. After straightening the two lobes of the forked tongue to fit through the mortice hole I then bent them back on the bar to hold the set firmly in place.</span><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_KGUPdU5hflkFaCFooL6jOootEeqTsqYvKbCo_Kp55UOLabahzSRGsPYp4laxI2LyWw2phqVtwqryj8RgK_yvNFV7QUfJCtP1jVfRnb3OB3V8P47s5OEt4c9CW8DK0KP2MF3c/s640/blogger-image-321673251.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_KGUPdU5hflkFaCFooL6jOootEeqTsqYvKbCo_Kp55UOLabahzSRGsPYp4laxI2LyWw2phqVtwqryj8RgK_yvNFV7QUfJCtP1jVfRnb3OB3V8P47s5OEt4c9CW8DK0KP2MF3c/s640/blogger-image-321673251.jpg"></a></div>I am not sure of my skill set as yet, so I may end up making the verticals in sections to be welded into one piece for the final assembly, but I would like to keep these joints as physical connections, not just welds.</span></div></div>Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12791616711734310139noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35733597.post-36366689732408840242014-09-17T06:26:00.001-07:002014-09-22T01:43:21.352-07:00DriftingI am working on ideas for a series of iron window grilles to be mounted on the interior of five windows. The client seemed interested in having glass incorporated in the design and when I saw pictures of some work done by a friend starting out with art adventures I thought the marbles he was using might provide a solution. <br>I have been practicing slitting and drifting bar to house the marbles. The bar below is 25mmx9mm and I drew it down in some sections to about 17mm and 21 so that the different sized holes I wanted to drift would have similar sized walls.<br>I watched some videos on you tube and made some slitting punches and drifts.<br>This bar is my second go.<br><br><center><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjH3Prtuijz1xxVxTaSEcT3sx5frQagB3ryIjauYldhZ5ZYGsv6JMVaPA42diARy4ecr415Bzny8GhGsykk-pfPJ1Dj4BHEyawmUNb5lm6GrB7e8lsm0qTTOK_VuY0fJlDjsw8z/s640/blogger-image-2092502946.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjH3Prtuijz1xxVxTaSEcT3sx5frQagB3ryIjauYldhZ5ZYGsv6JMVaPA42diARy4ecr415Bzny8GhGsykk-pfPJ1Dj4BHEyawmUNb5lm6GrB7e8lsm0qTTOK_VuY0fJlDjsw8z/s640/blogger-image-2092502946.jpg"></a></div><br></div><br></div><br></center><br>Here are the two slitting punches and one of the drifts with the bar after having the slits drifted out to three different sizes.<br><br><center><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1lquwkVTPwsu_FmLCyhlw7wHMUZ1KZyhmT690uTLlzwpCtXcU50E8RsnzRREBUUd6KbC2PwczZWLGVDNZ_bGXZz54bavMjQO0SHAYyARPs9CT79yjmobJMXWNDnT2R8nExt3s/s640/blogger-image-958190350.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" width='100%' src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1lquwkVTPwsu_FmLCyhlw7wHMUZ1KZyhmT690uTLlzwpCtXcU50E8RsnzRREBUUd6KbC2PwczZWLGVDNZ_bGXZz54bavMjQO0SHAYyARPs9CT79yjmobJMXWNDnT2R8nExt3s/s640/blogger-image-958190350.jpg"></a></div><br></center><br>With the marbles laid in the holes on the bench it didn't look very impressive, so I used a few blobs of hot glue to hold them in place so that I could hold the thing up to the light as seen below. I expect I will be able to weld this test section into the finished piece somehow once I have done a bit more testing and finalised the design a bit more.<br><br><br><center><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8Ityv5RRw952IqJP6QkW3scXVn5BMMsCM1iUOEdYYSS1zOQum1ExfBL6hcq8OCTr9J85FiG7MEAPkIGBDed1p5X1NGcd9HVW7Ltb1SWwCchJCWnlIFlmJpDTs09_ca6rpoUic/s640/blogger-image-1213790765.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8Ityv5RRw952IqJP6QkW3scXVn5BMMsCM1iUOEdYYSS1zOQum1ExfBL6hcq8OCTr9J85FiG7MEAPkIGBDed1p5X1NGcd9HVW7Ltb1SWwCchJCWnlIFlmJpDTs09_ca6rpoUic/s640/blogger-image-1213790765.jpg"></a></div><br></center><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br>Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12791616711734310139noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35733597.post-89079857610398109552014-04-13T03:05:00.001-07:002014-04-13T03:08:29.571-07:00Slow arch<br /><a href='https://picasaweb.google.com/steviep63/SteveSNewsBook02?authkey=Gv1sRgCLaL_dG45oKjCg#6001716466140897602'><img src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgi4kldd4kDfwhbcDPMpprd6c2aaaOfD2P3bthoQr2zShjmBU7247UTULhkc4HUltNDawDevc7c1m1xy9zXOoDXlH7nwieCXaTyDV2WRQlC_KJ1CHhWgT6UOSTrzXSE81SPViTg/s800/9.jpg' border='0' width='100%' style='margin:5px'></a><br />I used the jig for the big chainsaw to make some planks and this billet for a window lintel. I also made a new jig for the small chainsaw to make it cut perpendicular to a surface. It worked well to cut the straight edge and the arc. I recessed the area at the top on both sides with a series of cuts with a groove cutting tool. <br /><br />Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12791616711734310139noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35733597.post-3487717751655364882013-04-16T03:31:00.001-07:002013-04-16T03:32:14.029-07:00Foam casts<br /><a href='https://picasaweb.google.com/steviep63/SteveSNewsBook02?authkey=Gv1sRgCLaL_dG45oKjCg#5867390466534045298'><img src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCXYNxBPOo0ZbEwai3cLZeqQ2pi9HFdLutksenNJApaz0td6pLs5MW_8LYRvjfGqf9osmziuzWyKAW-LzfXboBGevrKNAGikPm5LxBAP4VSPApPAiSXg9SZE378l9sjWS-ZPx9/s800/9.jpg' border='0' width='100%' style='margin:5px'></a><br />We had a day session doing some little polystyrene foam casts of animals. Forgot to photograph the visitors work, but these were Sammy's and mine.<br />The process is documented elsewhere for some small fish castings. Probably used the same flower pots for the casting flask. Foreground toady 70mm nose to toe.<br /><br />Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12791616711734310139noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35733597.post-68169900412445472772013-04-15T03:23:00.000-07:002013-04-16T03:26:43.422-07:00Skipped<br /><a href='https://picasaweb.google.com/steviep63/SteveSNewsBook02?authkey=Gv1sRgCLaL_dG45oKjCg#5867388981794100514'><img src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSrOLUbSGhzABbAxaQ0TIazcxGsTYlCecztBkzgID62gZES0V1wm0fWRXiZc1xwm4-uhmtWjQLCZq4dKVQ9j9MuHi1REkwXUPMBuKUmu8aUvFuML6Z8MOokNcdSTxrB6iORxPR/s800/9.jpg' border='0' width='100%' style='margin:5px'></a><br />Got busy with other things, skipping to the finished item. <br /><br />Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12791616711734310139noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35733597.post-32899209080136757772013-03-07T01:57:00.000-08:002013-03-23T03:20:35.886-07:00Eaves<br /><a href='https://picasaweb.google.com/steviep63/SteveSNewsBook02?authkey=Gv1sRgCLaL_dG45oKjCg#5858481101261163794'><img src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiH0PvLJhomnrszdQcceqbZap4d3SuI2b5wEvos1PWnjaOPMf_moBXDo_iQ8gA9toprDtZm6zQhjQyKvcrBVzwUgAqj1fHvLd_P-fCOi-H3JGXMKSY1nm1AJavcfNRwxsQJpuMK/s800/9.jpg' border='0' width='100%' style='margin:5px'></a><br />At this point I changed my roof plan a little. I realised when doing little sketches that the eaves would be an issue where they hit the wall. My plan was just to run a strip of roof over the top and handle wherever it hit. But on placing some experimental rafters I noticed that I could make the roof gradually wider on the front face and cover a little vent hood that is concealed by the curve in the wall and also get the shape to nestle into a little cove the wall better.<br /><a href='https://picasaweb.google.com/steviep63/SteveSNewsBook02?authkey=Gv1sRgCLaL_dG45oKjCg#5858481137510991394'><img src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAot__I9_Pjo5XvVzqyX_p83qPTGGHv4ex4Bh7bjHkHTc3JVs5RO1o-_ajIDrhSBsQ6i079N3QqnrfgTASu0oxwfu0LdBjkuutOWrXgg22sT0dtrGysvfyicf3f7VKqlZerOfm/s800/10.jpg' border='0' width='100%' style='margin:5px'></a><br />I forgot to take intermediate shots, so the curved plank that forms the nose at the tip and the rafters have been covered by other timber and I have put on a sheet of tar paper to keep off the rain. I decided to split the eve plank into two tasks rather than try and make it as one piece. So the right hand end is just cut to a straight edge that will butt onto the remaining portion later.<br /><br />Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12791616711734310139noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35733597.post-86289965360265741042013-03-06T01:30:00.000-08:002013-03-23T02:56:43.141-07:00Planks<br /><a href='https://picasaweb.google.com/steviep63/SteveSNewsBook02?authkey=Gv1sRgCLaL_dG45oKjCg#5858474598421309410'><img src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqJuG-DPVfOsAd18lBQzQoIShcFl94xFO6yYLHXGMr9pbhyphenhyphenRcXjysEtwzXFgx7Uslk-5V2c1ID4ffrgJUmpqwriBAa2pTH0UN2wfhQ0IcORVsZTJaj8oniVBx0bdXP0QDr8R_p/s800/9.jpg' border='0' width='100%' style='margin:5px'></a><br />More stud work added above the main beam and another of the roof curve pieces added to the back. 12mm plywood that used to be our utility room floor. The dusty rectangle is where the freezer stood. At this point I decided to leave out the decorative plank that forms the divider between vertical cladding on the upper section and horizontal below.<br /><a href='https://picasaweb.google.com/steviep63/SteveSNewsBook02?authkey=Gv1sRgCLaL_dG45oKjCg#5858474641392837122'><img src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEbnFksYH0Ij1Lgmd_dGwW8GYA6DiGP6ebsb4JE0wtpPcRf34XCVSCTs8T1UIDmaTwpGx58H5zbcDrCqIso0FAkJzAISmtnyZ1o-MAHD5FF5-btYg4lqnMtMp6iX33jazU2cuh/s800/10.jpg' border='0' width='100%' style='margin:5px'></a><br />Leaving out that plank meant I was able to work from behind the wall standing on another informal scaffold plank to cut each of the vertical wall cladding planks. The little gap visible is where the plank will slot in. So I cut the planks to the length plus that gap, then held the planks with their tops poking up above the roof line and traced on the profile to be cut. Pop the plank back in and check for fit, then draw from the back to chop off the excess at the bottom.<br /><br />Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12791616711734310139noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35733597.post-8940833316415476382013-03-05T07:10:00.000-08:002013-03-22T08:21:55.737-07:00Door<br /><a href='https://picasaweb.google.com/steviep63/SteveSNewsBook02?authkey=Gv1sRgCLaL_dG45oKjCg#5858187703528564626'><img src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpj8c2uiWSeob1q9AEt1qtNrxp5dgmQNtm18C2g4nQzF5RgVgxUfy5fr24lYpezp1urA51p23XALD71fJP3YSP8RgP0uqdXr995UGJwHqkjQ3FNuCtC8_qMAU1_yzjSu7y-rJh/s800/9.jpg' border='0' width='100%' style='margin:5px'></a><br />I tend to use a bare minimum of work scaffolding, I added a triangle of pieces under the structure to rest a plank on, then added more cross timbers and the end piece.<br /><a href='https://picasaweb.google.com/steviep63/SteveSNewsBook02?authkey=Gv1sRgCLaL_dG45oKjCg#5858187753708245074'><img src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiX9k7k0nOQrenF0LN332KEF07TJPPMMCZezeRB8csTwfX1opei7SiPc_CRPWdduxy2ZcfKvUv3lVwZhjlzzBf4CO1go3JmD4sHFm6sTjr1r4h_BJ-UOyTb8Q1TY5nvQBCYbTA2/s800/10.jpg' border='0' width='100%' style='margin:5px'></a><br />The cross beam has a 2x4 screwed along it back edge which forms an overhang into which the rail for the sliding door is screwed. There is a hole that runs down through the timber and the rail so that the runner heads for the door can be attached and adjusted. I made several copies of the top curve at home to make various parts of the roof. I wasn't sure why I left a nubbin of the end piece sticking up from the roof line, but it ended up forming a tenon that slotted into a nose piece.<br />The sliding door would not have worked well had I not trued up the scaffolding frame.<br /><br />Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12791616711734310139noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35733597.post-12069162504303999712013-03-04T07:01:00.000-08:002013-03-22T08:10:53.673-07:00Level<br /><a href='https://picasaweb.google.com/steviep63/SteveSNewsBook02?authkey=Gv1sRgCLaL_dG45oKjCg#5858184910152956258'><img src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhx5F_EtIN6x9d0y5eEmmAfw0OGG2I2qYA3lBz0fWyulhcOSbGYzXWFd3tx_hfOwMMd2iXbAeVG6gQ1KLtQzeIc-bU857gxAiITQwPji-i7ezyPlhRF04REB0hgt_acb-hgljpp/s800/9.jpg' border='0' width='100%' style='margin:5px'></a><br />I adjusted the level of the scaffolding at the front and put in a floor plate, also added one more lateral timber.<br /><a href='https://picasaweb.google.com/steviep63/SteveSNewsBook02?authkey=Gv1sRgCLaL_dG45oKjCg#5858184959250055298'><img src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhN-ABIwbnmYWamonucPo5eXt0NNAbmpcn_95IIN8fSJmZAr0vkwy3QAlXhbjuTIPZCx0xz0hrx286iVX4uLMkgTz83X25RTXeqGmyX2M_j_iOW-KYniVdl9BKeCHv2J4GoMsbl/s800/10.jpg' border='0' width='100%' style='margin:5px'></a><br />The vertical studs are screwed into the backs of the horizontals with a couple of tiny recesses in the front edges to allow clearance for the scaffolding. The studs are morticed into the big cross beam, which rests on the plate at the corner, it is then held down by a smaller plate cut to the same angles. The cross beam has a shaped arch cut into it for the doorway. There is a small backing timber behind the arch facia piece for the wall planks to be nailed into.<br /><br />Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12791616711734310139noreply@blogger.com