Ed Nisley's Blog: Shop notes, electronics, firmware, machinery, 3D printing, laser cuttery, and curiosities. Contents: 100% human thinking, 0% AI slop.
The mowing crew we encountered half a mile ahead had a chainsaw and cleared the remainder.
Stay alert out there!
Although I don’t have a picture, there was a freshly dead bat lying underneath the main trunk. I think it rode the tree down, only to get slapped hard against the gravel beside the trail. I’m sure bats power up faster than I do, but not quite fast enough.
The Micro-Mark bandsaw has a metal blade guide below the table that contributes to the awful noise it makes while running, even when it’s not cutting anything. Having recently touched the Delrin = acetal rod stash, a simple project came to mind.
A doodle with the original metal guide dimensions:
Micro-Mark Bandsaw – metal blade guide dimensions
The 10 mm dimension is non-critical, so I started with a 1/2 inch acetal rod and turned the stub end to match.
A doodle suggested how to carve the slot with a 20.5 mil = 0.52 mm slitting saw, with the offset from a Z touchoff at the top:
The V block setup required swapping out the overly long OEM screw for a shorter 5 mm SHCS to clear the Sherline’s motor:
Micro-Mark Bandsaw – acetal guide slitting
The end result looked pretty good:
Micro-Mark Bandsaw – acetal vs steel blade guides
And it looks like it pretty much belongs in the saw:
Micro-Mark Bandsaw – acetal blade guide installed
The 6 mm stud goes into a hole in the frame, where a setscrew holds it in place. You must remove the blade to extract / replace the guide, with the correct position having the end of the slot just touching the back of the blade.
The foam ring apparently keeps crud away from the stud on the backside; I doubt it’s mission-critical.
The saw became somewhat quieter; the ball bearing guides above the table now generate most of the racket. At some point I’ll try replacing them with a block, probably made from UHMW, with a simple slit to guide the blade.
Plastic guides may not last as long as the steel ones, but occasional replacements will be worth it if the saw runs quieter.
When I applied the 7/64 wrench to a setscrew, the missing ball came as a surprise.
Even though the inch wrench set doesn’t get a lot of use, it’s possible I broke the ball off during a previous adventure, but a look at the end shows the black oxide coating covering the end:
Bondhus hex wrenches – missing 7-64 ball – detail
Yeah, it was born that way.
I wonder if and how their lifetime guarantee works.
Protip: as of this writing, the Amazon listing has two other “sizes” showing exactly the same set at significantly higher prices from two randomly named sellers:
Bondhus hex wrench set – Amazon listing
It is safe to assume Amazon no longer has its customers’ best interests in mind.
The overall capacity is down by 10%, with the voltage depressed by 120 mV over most of the curve.
Although I don’t keep daily records, the back of the envelope reveals 150 to 200 hour-long rides per year during the last four years, so call it 700 charging cycles:
Anker LC40 Flashlight – Anodizing fade
High brightness draws 1.5 A and low is 50% duty cycle, so a typical ride requires 750 mA·h = 2.5 W·h. Each cell lives for three or four rides with the LED set to low brightness and the numbers work out close enough.
A depth gauge arrived with a 3/8 inch = 9.5 mm mounting rod that fit one of my magnetic bases, but another base in my collection has a 5/16 inch = 7.9 mm clamp. Having recently rummaged through the aluminum rod stash, this happened:
Depth Gauge mounting rods
The original rod at the top has an M6 thread, the drawer of random M6 screws provided suitable volunteers, and a bit of lathe work removed / shaped their heads accordingly.
The shorter rod has a blind hole, with a dab of epoxy holding the headless screw in place. Not that it matters, but the lathe held them in alignment for curing:
Depth Gauge mounting rod – epoxy alignment
The longer rod got drilled all the way through, with more epoxy holding the screw, and, even with a relatively loose fit, no worries about alignment.
The longer rod gets the clamp away from the depth gauge’s base plate for better positioning:
Found behind a store in Red Oaks Mill, overlooking the Mighty Wappingers Creek:
Tree stump around guide rail
The old rail fell off its (long gone) post before the tree grew around it and the newer rail (upper right) definitely isn’t fresh from the factory, so this tableau has been on display for quite a while.
The tree’s growth rings have pretty much weathered away.
The Smell of Molten Projects in the Morning 