The Smell of Molten Projects in the Morning

Ed Nisley's Blog: Shop notes, electronics, firmware, machinery, 3D printing, laser cuttery, and curiosities. Contents: 100% human thinking, 0% AI slop.

Category: Home Ec

Things around the home & hearth

  • Kitchen Sink O-ring Seat Polishers

    Kitchen Sink O-ring Seat Polishers

    My long-running battle with the American Standard kitchen sink O-rings continues, but this time I tried polishing the seats with a strip of 3M 2000 grit sandpaper:

    Sink O-ring seat polisher - overview
    Sink O-ring seat polisher – overview

    Although it’s technically sandpaper, the effect is more like lapping than sanding and the O-rings now ride on a very smooth surface.

    The knurled half-ring is ¼-inch = 6.3 mm acrylic with an ID precisely fitting the pillar + sandpaper:

    Sink O-ring seat polishers
    Sink O-ring seat polishers

    The one on the right has an OD matching the surface inside the spout, but it turned out to be easier using fingertips, even if that isn’t quite how one should do lapping.

    The LightBurn layout shows the “knurls” are half-circles either added or subtracted from the arcs, as LightBurn’s Circular Array tool is my copilot:

    O-ring Polishers - LB layout
    O-ring Polishers – LB layout

    You’ll want to measure the ID and OD of your sink faucet, as well as the thickness of your sandpaper, before making make your own.

    Imagining / laying out / building those took less time than writing this up; I loves me some quick laser cutter action.

  • Hiatus

    Hiatus

    The sellers have accepted our offer on their house, so over the course of the next couple of months we’ll be moving, then selling this place. Having begun dismantling and packing the contents of the Basement Shop, Laboratory, and Warehouse, my blog-worthy activities will grind to a temporary halt.

    Should you or anyone you know be interested in moving to the trendy Hudson Valley region, we have a conveniently located property with a shop-ready basement:

    2108-2110 New Hackensack Rd - Streetview 2023-08
    2108-2110 New Hackensack Rd – Streetview 2023-08

    Maybe we can make a deal …

  • CD / DVD Coasters: Foam vs. Cork Backing

    CD / DVD Coasters: Foam vs. Cork Backing

    Up to this point, I’d been making coasters with a layer of cork on the bottom, held in place with wood glue (for MDF or plywood tops) or an adhesive sheet (for acrylic or glass). Doing that with a CD produced the bottom coaster:

    Laser cut CDs - Foam vs MDF-cork backing - detail
    Laser cut CDs – Foam vs MDF-cork backing – detail

    Although the Mariner’s Compass pattern looks like it extends over the edge, you’re looking through the transparent polycarbonate at the deep pits burned nearly through the entire disc at the corners of the triangles where the laser head slows.

    Although the MDF layer makes the coaster exceedingly stiff, it also makes it entirely too thick and much too fiddly to assemble.

    The top coaster is a Guilloche-patterned CD stuck to an EVA foam disk with an adhesive sheet. A small foam disk fills the hub hole and, not incidentally, covers the adhesive that would otherwise be exposed:

    Laser cut CDs - Foam coaster backing
    Laser cut CDs – Foam coaster backing

    It’s stiffer than I expected and works well unless the mug / glass / cup has a wet bottom. Alas, the small channels cut into the CD’s surface fill up with the liquid sealing the coaster to the mug, so it sticks firmly and follows the mug upward off the table.

    But they’re kinda pretty, inexpensive, and easy to assemble, which counts for something.

  • Guilloche Generator: Now With Layers & Colors

    Guilloche Generator: Now With Layers & Colors

    Tweaking the GCMC Guilloche generator to define colors for the SVG layers produces a pattern ready for LightBurn:

    Guilloche - SVG layer colors
    Guilloche – SVG layer colors

    The blue layer runs at 300 mm/s at 10% PWM to carve trenches all over the CD / DVD surface, which should render it unreadable:

    Laser cut CDs - Guilloche patterns
    Laser cut CDs – Guilloche patterns

    The laser runs much faster than a drag knife or a diamond engraving tool!

    The reddish layer uses Dot mode to draw the legend around the hub:

    Laser-engraved CD - legend detail
    Laser-engraved CD – legend detail

    The characters are 1.5 mm top-to-bottom, with dots just under 0.2 mm diameter on 0.2 mm centers.

    Stipulated: there’s no real point to annotating a CD that you’re wrecking, but the code was already there, so why not?

    So the overall workflow involves generating an SVG image, importing it into LightBurn with those layers set up with the appropriate cut parameters, using the Three-Point Circle Center Finder tool to align the pattern with the CD, then Fire The Laser. Alignment stops on the laser platform eliminate the need to realign every pattern, so it boils down to running the generator script enough times, importing a batch of patterns, then snapping each one into place and cutting it.

    They’re kinda pretty, in the usual techie way:

    Laser cut CDs - Guilloche patterns
    Laser cut CDs – Guilloche patterns

    I have a lot of scrap discs, some ideas of optimizing the process, and a general notion what to do with the prettier results.

    The GCMC source code and Bash driver script as a GitHub Gist:

  • Leaf Shredding Supervisors

    Leaf Shredding Supervisors

    While I was turning this year’s leaves into mulch for next year’s vegetables, a supervisor landed on my glove:

    Pale Green Assassin Bug - front
    Pale Green Assassin Bug – front

    I thought it was a very small stick insect covered with leaf chaff, but it turned out to be a Pale Green Assassin Bug nymph with built-in armor and spines:

    Pale Green Assassin Bug - rear
    Pale Green Assassin Bug – rear

    Something like that, anyway.

    This katydid supervised while I put the tools away:

    Short-winged Meadow Katydid
    Short-winged Meadow Katydid

    Those scary stern claspers must come in handy for something, but I’d rather not be on the receiving end.

    It was a fine day to be outdoors, although I vastly prefer my shop.

  • Smashed Glass Clutter Collector: Better Adhesive

    Smashed Glass Clutter Collector: Better Adhesive

    Pretty much as expected, the cheap craft adhesive sheet turned out to be inadequate to the task of holding the thin upper border ring onto the clutter collector:

    Layered Acrylic Desk Junk Collector - overview
    Layered Acrylic Desk Junk Collector – overview

    So I stripped the adhesive off with naptha and arranged a cut in a 3M 300LSE acrylic adhesive sheet:

    Desk clutter plate - 300LSE adhesive sheet
    Desk clutter plate – 300LSE adhesive sheet

    Four small tabs held that ring to the central piece while I stuck the acrylic ring on it, which turned out to be easy enough. Then I cut the tabs, peeled the paper off the other side, stuck the ring to the plate, and it’s once again ready for clutter.

    The bond is visibly better when viewed through the top of the ring, so I think the 300LSE adhesive is thicker and gooier than the craft sheet adhesive, which isn’t surprising at all.

  • Magazine Dump: Insuperable Opportunity

    Magazine Dump: Insuperable Opportunity

    For reasons that will become relevant later on, I must clear the magazines from about ten feet of shelf space (and a stack of boxes), including this assortment:

    Magazine Dump
    Magazine Dump

    What you see:

    To the best of my knowledge and belief, each collection is complete within those dates, although I’m equally sure an issue or two went walkabout over the course of four decades.

    Having written columns for Digital Machinist, DDJ, and Circuit Cellar, I (still!) have multiple “author’s copies” of those, although I haven’t dug through the boxes for the specifics.

    Here’s the deal:

    • You must take all of any set
    • Any offer ≥ $0.00 is acceptable
    • Shipping from ZIP 12603 is your problem
    • N.B.: Shipping Is Not My Problem (*)

    Best offer on or before 30 November 2023 takes any or all.

    Whatever remains becomes mulch in December 2023.

    (*) A USPS Medium Flat Rate box (11×8.5×5.5 inch) costs $17 within the continental US and holds two or three dozen issues. Obviously, that’s the wrong way to ship an entire shelf of magazines, but gives you an idea of the scale.

    If you want to pick ’em up in person, I’ll help heave ’em into your trunk.