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.
Things around the home & hearth
All four nestlings emerged on schedule:
The oldest nestling was ready for feeding almost immediately, even with unopened eyes:
As any infant will tell you, holding your head up is hard work:
But doing only half the job won’t get you fed:
They’re just starting to make little chirps, so this isn’t nearly as raucous as you might think:
The adults seem to have no trouble bringing an endless stream of worms, insects, and unidentifiable organisms from the yard and garden.
Go, birds, go!
Five years later, the digits I painted with Rust-Oleum Rusty Metal Primer have weathered pretty well, while the original ink has fallen off the retroreflective sticker:
As before, I wiped off the crud with denatured alcohol and painted neatly inside the lines. The other digits on both sides still look as good as the day I painted them, with only a few bubbles and nicks.
Memo to self: Next time, buy a big sheet of 3M retroreflective film, make a stencil by vinyl cutting, paint the entire number in one shot, and be done with it.
Having figured out the geometry for two- and three-channel soaker hoses, I cranked out more clamps:
Actually, those are the remainder of two production runs devoted to reducing the amount of water sprinkling the garden paths. A 50 foot hose runs along both sides of one 14 foot bed, crosses the path, then continues along the adjacent bed. The hoses have (deliberate!) sprinkler holes along their porous rubber body and sometimes the layout puts a hole where it waters the path.
The blue silicone rubber strips provide a bit of sealing to prevent the absurdly high pressure water from streaming through the orange PETG clamps. It’s OK if the clamp leaks, but less flow is better!
I’m getting really good at making those aluminum backing plates and, in fact, I think it’s faster to run the blanks past the disk sander, then drill the holes, than to CNC-machine them. Could be wrong, but Quality Shop Time is not to be sniffed at.
Although it’s not particularly keto-friendly, I made a loaf of NY Times No-Knead Bread (fine-tuned versions):
Wow, that tasted good and definitely added a bit more pep to my morning bike rides!
The receipe produces a rather wet lump of dough in the mixing bowl:
It looks much more promising after rising for 18 hours:
The recipe calls for a large heavy pot, which produced a long-disused nickel-plated cast iron Wagner Ware No. 8 Drip-Drop Roaster from the attic:
I scrubbed out the interior and used it as-found to good effect. After the cookin’ was done, a few hours of electrolytic stripping seemed in order:
The lovely nickel plating on the outside of the pot didn’t need stripping, but the interior is once again a nice flat black surface and the next loaf should drop right out …
After pausing to recover from construction, Ms Robin laid four eggs in four days:
She’s surprisingly tolerant of our comings and goings, as well as garage door openings and closings:
We’re trying to stay out of her way as much as possible.
The gallery pix come from my phone, held against the soffit over the nest, and aimed entirely by feel, while standing on the Greater Ladder. If I had access to the top of the soffit, I’d drill a webcam hole, but …
This makes writing 3D modeling code and turning threads look downright attractive:
The previous owners apparently surrounded a cedar (?) tree with a ring of large, decorative rocks. The tree vanished long before we arrived, with the stump accreting random stones, bricks, and similar impedimenta ever since; my first task involved (re)moving a couple hundred pounds of rocky debris.
After using the stump as a fulcrum for that steel bar to break the rotted roots and loosen the surrounding soil, it’s out and away:
Back to the Basement Laboratory …
After five gardening seasons, my simple 3D printed wrench broke:
Although Jason’s comment suggesting carbon-fiber reinforcing rods didn’t prompt me to lay in a stock, ordinary music wire should serve the same purpose:
The pins are 1.6 mm diameter and 20 mm long, chopped off with hardened diagonal cutters. Next time, I must (remember to) grind the ends flat.
The solid model needs holes in appropriate spots:
Yes, I’m going to put round pins in square holes, without drilling the holes to the proper diameter: no epoxy, no adhesive, just 20 mm of pure friction.
The drill press aligns the pins:
And rams them about halfway down:
Close the chuck jaws and shove them flush with the surface:
You can see the pins and their solid plastic shells through the wrench stem:
Early testing shows the reinforced wrench works just as well as the previous version, even on some new valves sporting different handles, with an equally sloppy fit for all. No surprise: I just poked holes in the existing model and left all the other dimensions alone.
The OpenSCAD source code as a GitHub Gist:
| // Hose connector knob | |
| // Ed Nisley KE4ZNU – June 2015 | |
| // 2020-05 add reinforcing rods | |
| Layout = "Build"; // [Knob, Stem, Show, Build] | |
| RodHoles = true; | |
| //- Extrusion parameters – must match reality! | |
| /* [Hidden] */ | |
| ThreadThick = 0.25; | |
| ThreadWidth = 0.40; | |
| function IntegerMultiple(Size,Unit) = Unit * ceil(Size / Unit); | |
| Protrusion = 0.1; | |
| HoleWindage = 0.2; | |
| //—— | |
| // Dimensions | |
| /* [Dimensions] */ | |
| RodOD = 1.6; | |
| RodAngle = 35; | |
| /* [Hidden] */ | |
| StemOD = 30.0; // max OD for valve-to-valve clearance | |
| BossOD = 16.0; // single-ended handle boss | |
| SlotWidth = 13.0; | |
| SlotHeight = 10.0; | |
| StemInset = 10.0; | |
| StemLength = StemInset + SlotHeight + 25.0; | |
| StemSides = 2*4; | |
| Align = 0*180/StemSides; // 1* produces thinner jaw ends | |
| KnobOD1 = 70; // maximum dia without chamfer | |
| KnobOD2 = 60; // top dia | |
| KnobSides = 4*4; | |
| DomeHeight = 12; // dome shape above lobes | |
| KnobHeight = DomeHeight + 2*SlotHeight; | |
| DomeOD = KnobOD2 + (KnobOD1 – KnobOD2)*(DomeHeight/KnobHeight); | |
| DomeArcRad = (pow(KnobHeight,2) + pow(DomeOD,2)/4) / (2*DomeHeight); | |
| RodBCD = (StemOD + BossOD)/2; | |
| //- Adjust hole diameter to make the size come out right | |
| module PolyCyl(Dia,Height,ForceSides=0) { // based on nophead's polyholes | |
| Sides = (ForceSides != 0) ? ForceSides : (ceil(Dia) + 2); | |
| FixDia = Dia / cos(180/Sides); | |
| cylinder(r=(FixDia + HoleWindage)/2,h=Height,$fn=Sides); | |
| } | |
| //– Stem for valve handles | |
| module Stem() { | |
| difference() { | |
| rotate(Align) | |
| cylinder(d=StemOD,h=StemLength,$fn=StemSides); | |
| translate([0,0,SlotHeight/2 – Protrusion/2]) | |
| cube([2*StemOD,SlotWidth,(SlotHeight + Protrusion)],center=true); | |
| translate([0,0,-Protrusion]) | |
| cylinder(d=BossOD,h=SlotHeight,$fn=2*StemSides); | |
| if (RodHoles) | |
| for (i=[-1:1]) | |
| rotate(i*RodAngle + 90) | |
| for (j=[-1,1]) | |
| translate([j*RodBCD/2,0,-Protrusion]) | |
| rotate(180/4) | |
| PolyCyl(RodOD,2*SlotHeight,4); | |
| } | |
| } | |
| //– Hand-friendly knob | |
| module KnobCap() { | |
| difference() { | |
| scale([1.0,0.75,1.0]) | |
| rotate(180/KnobSides) | |
| intersection() { | |
| translate([0,0,(KnobHeight-DomeArcRad)]) | |
| sphere(r=DomeArcRad,$fa=180/KnobSides); | |
| cylinder(r1=KnobOD1/2,r2=KnobOD2/2,h=KnobHeight,$fn=KnobSides); | |
| cylinder(r1=KnobOD2/2,r2=KnobOD1/2,h=KnobHeight,$fn=KnobSides); | |
| } | |
| translate([0,0,-Protrusion]) | |
| rotate(Align) | |
| cylinder(d=(StemOD + 2*ThreadWidth),h=(StemInset + Protrusion),$fn=StemSides); | |
| } | |
| } | |
| //- Build it | |
| if (Layout == "Knob") | |
| KnobCap(); | |
| if (Layout == "Stem") | |
| Stem(); | |
| if (Layout == "Build") { | |
| translate([-KnobOD1/2,0,0]) | |
| KnobCap(); | |
| translate([StemOD/2,0,StemLength]) | |
| rotate([180,0,0]) | |
| Stem(); | |
| } | |
| if (Layout == "Show") { | |
| translate([0,0,0]) | |
| Stem(); | |
| translate([0,0,StemLength – StemInset]) | |
| KnobCap(); | |
| } |
The Smell of Molten Projects in the Morning 