I don't have a very big air compressor. Actually, I have two small air compressors, with not very much power or air capacity. I came across two other air tanks, each slightly larger than the tanks on my existing little compressors. So I figured, what better way to make things work, than a Frankenstein agglomeration of miscellaneous parts? Don't ask why I figure things that way; I don't know myself.
Submitted by amillar on Tue, 2012-03-20 15:55
I made an armored air hose. Why? Because I can.
I had a metal-clad rubber hose which came from a hand-held water nozzle (either from a shower or a sink faucet; I forget which). The hose is about 5 feet (~ 1.5 m) long, and the metal housing is chrome-plated. The connectors on each end are brass, but they did not match up with any common U.S. pipe fittings I had in my junk pile. It still seemed like a pretty nice hose, too nice to throw out.
Submitted by amillar on Sat, 2012-02-25 22:02
I recently acquired a small air compressor from the Habitat For Humanity ReStore. It is not very fast, but it is very quiet. Anyone who has used an air compressor understands that quiet is nice.
It is pretty old. It was made by DeVilbiss, with an Ingersol-Rand pump head. It doesn't have a date on it, but the label on it says "Toledo 1, Ohio", which means it was probably made in the 1950s, or 1960s at the latest (before ZIP codes).
Submitted by amillar on Mon, 2012-02-20 21:02
Over the years I have accumulated a growing pile of pliers, screwdrivers, wrenches, and other miscellaneous small tools. It long ago outgrew the little toolbox I have, turning into more of a tool pile or perhaps a tool dumping ground. I needed a new, bigger toolbox. Having recently built some new toys, namely a
bending brake and
spot welder, I knew I needed to build my own toolbox.
Submitted by amillar on Mon, 2011-04-25 23:26
I wanted to make some metal boxes and trays. I have plenty of scrap sheet metal from things like old PC cases and microwave ovens. I already built a
sheet metal bending brake. Now I just need a way to fasten parts together. Something easier than drilling a bunch of holes and screwing or pop-riveting. Something less messy than soldering or glueing. Something where I can just magically zap the parts and have them stick together instantly. Eureka! Spot welding. Time to dig through Google. And the trash can.
Submitted by amillar on Mon, 2011-04-18 21:27
I got a new pen plotter recently, an
HP 7585B. New to me, of course-- this thing was built around 1987.
I have wanted a larger printer for a while, for printing sheet metal designs and similar miscellaneous uses. Of course I can print on regular 8x11-inch letter-size paper or 14-inch legal-size paper, cut the unprintable margins, and tape pages together, trying to get them straight. That, my friends, is annoying.
Submitted by amillar on Tue, 2010-05-11 14:50
I built my own sheetmetal bending brake. I used some scrap angle steel pieces which I welded with my arc welder.
Submitted by amillar on Wed, 2010-03-10 12:49
According to the backyard foundry experts, the most useful casting metal that's even easier to melt than aluminum is zinc. It melts around 420°C/800°F, so you can even melt it on a hot stove. It casts harder than aluminum for better wear, and zinc/aluminum alloys can approach cast iron in strength and durability. Sounds great! All you have to do is buy some nice clean zinc ingots, and... Whoa nelly, what?! Buy ingots? I'm way too
cheap-@$$ frugal for that. We're going to melt our own. Easy as pie, right? Turns out that melting zinc is easy. Cleaning it? Not quite so much.
Submitted by amillar on Tue, 2010-02-09 12:12
Let's melt metal in the backyard!
Yeah, that teensy-weensy little pool of molten metal in arc welding was cool, but it was time to move up to the next level. A big glowing pot full of silver liquid awesomeness. Oh, yeah.
Submitted by amillar on Mon, 2010-02-08 11:04
I've always liked XMMS as a music player program on Linux. It had enough features, but the basic interface was always simple enough to just work. Unfortunately, it is not maintained any longer, and in my latest Ubuntu upgrade to version 8.10, I found it was no longer included or supported.
The XMMS project continued with a successor, XMMS2, but it is much more than just a simple audio player. I looked at it and got lost fairly quickly. I just wanted something simple like the original XMMS.
Submitted by amillar on Tue, 2009-03-17 15:24
I built a stylish energy-efficient desk lamp, entirely from scratch. I have always enjoyed Art Deco and Machine Age industrial styling, and was inspired to use it for the lamp when my son and I were watching
Batman, the Animated Series. A desk lamp worthy of Wayne Manor was in order.
Submitted by amillar on Mon, 2008-12-22 13:56
We had a short power outage, and when the power resumed, the fan in our iMac (intel core duo) was stuck on full speed. It sounded like a jet plane. I waited a minute or two for it to slow down, but it didn't stop. Even rebooting didn't affect it.
After some Internet searching, I found that there is a chip which controls the fans, which can get stuck like this. Fortunately it can be reset also.
Submitted by amillar on Mon, 2008-12-22 13:15
Here is my crazy aviator costume from Halloween 2008. I was inspired by a recent
steampunk ornithopter picture.
I made the aviator helmet using a leather jacket from the thrift store and the goggles from last year's explorer costume. I made the pattern for the helmet by taping newspaper to my head. Then I cut out pieces from the jacket to match and sewed them together. The copper buckle is household solid electrical wire.
Submitted by amillar on Sun, 2008-11-02 16:04
Here is my crazy explorer costume from Halloween 2007. I was inspired by old pictures of European explorers from the late 19th and early 20th century. Finishing touches included a pith helmet with goggles, a latern with a working flashlight in it, and a ridiculously oversized gun.
Submitted by amillar on Sun, 2008-11-02 14:29
Jessica bought a flat panel TV, and wanted to attach it to the wall with some sort of swing-arm mount. The prices at the store were outrageous. Armed with my moderately-trustworthy arc welder and couple of discarded bed frames, we set out to construct one ourselves.
Submitted by amillar on Sun, 2008-09-21 22:43
