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.

The New Hotness

  • Fiskars Lopper Jaw Repair

    The Fiskars PowerGear lopper Mary uses in the garden had occasionally encountered a tomato cage wire and the blade had a few dents. We recently had a bunch of knives / blades / tools sharpened by somebody who knows what he’s doing and, while the lopper blade is now deadly sharp, grinding the dents out changed its shape enough that it no longer met the opposing plastic (probably glass-filled nylon) anvil.

    For lack of anything smarter, I cleaned the anvil, spread a layer of hot-melt glue over the surface, squished it flat with a snippet of PTFE fabric, and closed the jaws:

    Fiskars lopper jaw repair - silicone cloth indent
    Fiskars lopper jaw repair – silicone cloth indent

    Which left a blobular layer on both sides of the now perfectly matched blade channel:

    Fiskars lopper jaw repair - blade indent
    Fiskars lopper jaw repair – blade indent

    Trimming off the blobs made it slightly more presentable:

    Fiskars lopper jaw repair - trimmed edges
    Fiskars lopper jaw repair – trimmed edges

    The textured surface definitely looks great, even if the rest looks like the hack job it is.

    I’m hoping the glue layer has enough traction on the anvil to survive the duty it gets in the garden, where Mary uses it to harvest cabbages & suchlike. I’m sure the occasional cage wire will test its resolve, but we’ll know more next summer.