I got a bunch of stuff I've been saving.

I was looking through the project folder in my pictures file and realized I have a lot of stuff saved up for posting on my blog. 
I guess I'll go back to the wet grinder project.
The first problem was removing the old, rusted tight, hub.
  Getting it onto the mill was interesting, but now I can do something with it.                                                                    

 I start by making a series of cuts towards the center, increasing the depth until I hit air.

 After that I start working my way around the perimeter making plunge cuts.

Finally, it's free! Sort of.

In the next post I'll show you what happened.

No, really, I'm back this time!

OK, so it's been seven months since I last posted anything. I feel really bad about that. When I'm in the shop doing stuff, I keep forgetting to take pictures. That, and my motivation to do anything with my evenings besides facebook and solitaire is very low.
I have been doing stuff.

One of the mechanics across the alley brought over this SOG tomahawk to see if I could make a longer handle for it. I told him I could, but it would take some time to fit it in. The original handle is above the tomahawk in this picture.

 I messed around with some different ways to use this aluminum tube I had. I think I made the best choice. The tomahawk head and handle are untouched and could be reassembled quite easily.
The band below the screws was going to be heat shrunk into place, but I didn't count on how quickly aluminum conducts heat. The fallback was J-B Weld.

I tapped the hole in the end 5/8-16 in case he wanted to add weight/length/or use it as a stash.

I will try to be more diligent about my blogging.

Today's meanderings

I'm sitting in the office trying to sort out some paper work. A fly is buzzing me. What I want is this:

 

What I got is this:

My good friend, Justin, shared his success in using his air pistol as a salt shooter, so I figured, what the heck.

First I need some wads. Justin used paper towels, so I thought I'd get more efficient.

.
Fold it over, I get four at a time!

I believe that will work.

Push it down a little.

Add a little salt. Please note the custom fabricated salt scooper.

Ram down to the bottom of the barrel. I know, it's a breach loader. Trust me, it's way easier to load salt from the muzzle.

Take a shot! This is about quarter size at about twelve inches.

This was all good fun as I was stalking the fly who was no where to be found, now that I'm ready.
Left the gun close at hand in the office while I worked. I got up to go back into the shop. Two feet in, there's the fly, but the gun is in the office. I guess it wasn't the fly's time.

Chisel restoration

 So, as promised sometime in the distant past, here are the chisels I'm restoring.
They've been abused and misused and left to decay.

That's the fixture I made to hold them at the proper angle on the surface grinder.
It is not possible to put enough coolant onto the chisel to keep from burning the tip, so I've abandoned the idea of using the surface grinder.

Here is the wheel I have found. That is a 2" square tube in the middle to approximate the new hub that I need to make. I may do a post about removing the old hub later. Suffice to say that the wheel is sound, no cracks, and that I can build myself a nice slow, wet, wheel with which to do hollow grinds on my chisels and other things.

Happy New Year!

Life has been in a state of flux for some time now, but I believe I can start to settle in to the new normal. Most projects have been on hold due to excess obligation in the stuff I get paid for. I guess there are worse things.
I was browsing around and came across a thing about restoring old wood chisels. This is because I own a set of pretty good chisels that have been variously abused and then neglected. I started on the 1/2" chisel because it's a handy size and one of the most abused ones. "Abused", in this context, refers to a really bad attempt at sharpening. I'll add some pictures in later entries.
Anyway, the rust is not much of an issue when you have a sand blast cabinet so the two main things have been smoothing out the flat back, and recreating the hollow grind at the tip. I spent a bunch of time building a holder that would work on the surface grinder, but sadly, that spins so fast that it's not possible to put enough coolant on it to keep from burning the tip. So I'm stopped while I research solutions.
I decided that I wanted a big, slow wheel much like you'd find at the antique store. Trouble is they think these things are worth something and if you do find one, the odds are good that the stone is cracked. I did find one that I think I can make use of, so that's where that project is.

...and he's back! Sort of.

Long, long lapse in posts due to many mitigating circumstances.

This is the third computer since the last post.
I decided to save some money when WinXp went out of favor by converting the machine to Ubuntu Linux. I discovered that Linux is a tinkerers paradise. Sadly, it's not the kind of tinkering I'm best at. Eventually, I got it to a condition I could live with.

Earlier this summer, M'lady and I took a weekend holiday up in Glenwood Springs.
http://www.visitglenwood.com/

We had a fine time. I collected my first speeding ticket in the Miata, 83 in a 65. Met up with some friends and drank good whiskey and soaked in the pool. Came back through Aspen and over Independence Pass. Had a picnic. Life is good.

We get back and we have a mystery; there's debris from the tree all over the backyard. We begin imagining scenarios involving mating racoons when we find the burned end of the phone line that corresponds to where it was touching the tree. The box mounted to the side of the house is barely attached and looks like it exploded. Lightning has struck somewhere very close, but fortunately, not the house.

In the end the losses were two computers, one cable modem, one answering machine, the sprinkler control box, and our peace of mind.

The cable was back up in two days. The phones were out for a week and a half.

This happened on M'ladys birthday that ends with "0".
Not that we're superstitious or paranoid or anything.

A Time of Many Changes

The past two months have brought many changes to my life, the least of which is converting my old XP machine to Ubuntu, a user-friendly Linux. The important things like documents and photographs were easy. It took a couple of weeks to get the sound to work; I'm not happy with the fix, but I'm not going to knock success. The trackball is crippled, there are fixes out there but I'm tired of fighting computers and it works well enough. I got a refurbished machine for the shop running Win 8 that presents a completely different set of problems and frustration. Add to that a new version of QuickBooks and I feel like if I can remember my name, I'm doing well.

 Somewhere along the line I broke the tip off of one of the good kitchen knives.

It's good to know how to do stuff. I tried to take as little metal off as possible, so the drop to the point is a little steeper.
Working on knives gets me inspired to want to make a Fairbairn-Sykes style knife. http://www.fairbairnsykesfightingknives.com/
There are several examples of "field made" knives that I really can't resist trying one myself.