Ed Nisley's Blog: Shop notes, electronics, firmware, machinery, 3D printing, laser cuttery, and curiosities. Contents: 100% human thinking, 0% AI slop.
Tag: Improvements
Making the world a better place, one piece at a time
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:
Those are three lengths of music wire, slightly bent from their storage roll, held in place with a precision clamp metric micrometer. Given the crudity of the setup, the uncalibrated wire diameter, and my lack of thread-fu, the results came out both close and unconvincing.
The 185 mil “wires” (they’re all allegedly ground rod) will let me cut threads matching things like a Jesus nut; they’re suited for 3 TPI / 8 mm pitch screws. Mostly, wires from the front row will be all I ever need.
The black doodad (the set includes half a dozen for all the wire sizes) fits over the micrometer anvil and holds two wires betwixt anvil and screw, leaving me to manipulate the screw, the third wire, and the micrometer with my remaining hands. Hence the vise holding the micrometer, which is known to be Very Bad Practice.
From the side:
Thread Measuring Wires – overview
All of the smaller wires measure 0.5 mil too thin, which is likely due to my lack of calibrated measurement equipment:
Thread Measuring Wires – scant 24 mil
The few thread pitch diameters I measured also came out slightly too small, again likely due to calibration and screw tolerances.
To forestall link rot, a slightly rearranged version of their tables of wire constants:
Thread Wire Measurement Constants
The lower table has metric thread pitches with the wire sizes in inches.
You measure the distance over the recommended wire (in inches or millimeters, as appropriate), subtract the constant, and get the pitch diameter in the same units. Conversely, add the constant to the desired pitch diameter to get the target over-wire distance, carefully cut the thread until it measures a bit less than that, back up sixty seconds, and cut it spot on.
Verily, it is written: there is no UnDo key (⎌) in machine shop work.
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:
Hose Valve Knob – cut pins
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:
Hose Valve Knob – Reinforced – Slic3r
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:
Hose Valve Knob – pin ready
And rams them about halfway down:
Hose Valve Knob – pin midway
Close the chuck jaws and shove them flush with the surface:
Hose Valve Knob – pins installed
You can see the pins and their solid plastic shells through the wrench stem:
Hose Valve Knob – assembled
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.
This file contains hidden or bidirectional Unicode text that may be interpreted or compiled differently than what appears below. To review, open the file in an editor that reveals hidden Unicode characters.
Learn more about bidirectional Unicode characters
That worked surprisingly well for surprisingly long, but the edges eventually came loose and, after far too long, I deployed the Tiny Sandblaster™:
Kenmore 158 – matte cover plate – feet
The mottled matte effect isn’t quite what I expected, but it’s better-looking in person and we deemed it Good Enough™ for the purpose.
You saw the foot on the left in the previous effort:
Kenmore 158 – matte cover plate – feet – detail
The rounded plate directly under the needle sits far enough back to not reflect any of the LEDs toward her normal operating position, so we decided it didn’t need sandblasting.
Shooting the modified copper elbow with gloss black atop gray primer definitely improved its disposition:
Floor Lamp – painted elbow – installed
I’d have been more inclined to apply several light coats if the wind weren’t blowing up a storm. As it was, I shot enough black to cover the not-quite-dry primer (“top coat at any time”) and called it a day.
The scuffed tubes aren’t quite that ugly in person, but they have suffered some abuse along the way. Seen from a normal working distance, however, it’s all good:
Floor Lamp – finished
The lamp isn’t quite as tippy as I feared, so I’ll try it without the broken truck spring counterweight until something untoward happens.
