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

  • 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.