Random slightly cool stuff you built but not worth its own thread, thread

[Lord Gruntfuttock]

Can get a roll of marble/tile effect adhesive vinyl from Ali/Temu for not much moneys. I'd stick that on... 

[Doug Hill]

2 minutes ago, Lord Gruntfuttock said:

Can get a roll of marble/tile effect adhesive vinyl from Ali/Temu for not much moneys. I'd stick that on... 

I have tiles left over from doing the kitchen in the last house and vinyl plank from the floors, ain't no dad got time to temu! 

[igor]

Have you considered plumbing in a drain from the toy sink?

[Doug Hill]

Smash a drain straight through the floor? Yolo.

[63Ragtop]

Finished off the lathe tray.

I rounded off the corners on the mdf buck, smoothed it out and started hammering.

And then I woke the Mrs up at 11pm, so took a break and finished it off on the weekend!

The round corners seem to let the ali move and stretch better and is gonna look nicer with the old school lathe. Gave it a scrub with 80-120-emery paper and then the green thing.

 

[lowlancer]

Picked up this sideboard in 2021 - dates from approx early 60s. My place is a little older, but all vaguely true mid-century. It was rough as guts and therefore cheap. I enjoyed the sculptural handles and legs, and needed a project for my new shed. 

Stripped it down completely (not needed and caused issues but I learned a lot)


Reassembled slowly - the top slabs needed to be run through a local joiner's sander as it was warped.


Danish oil or nothing


Complete - this took many months realistically.



Whites Aviation ftw - my house appears in that ancient aerial photo of Whangaparaoa


Humble abode - Don sofa and armchairs (resto inbound on these). Girl skate decks "Chair" series, with Eames chairs featured (also have the rare Chocolate "Modern Homes " series. TVs not welcome here.

 

[63Ragtop]

Very nice, love the mid century stuff.

We have grandma's coffee table, a similar style, needs to be refinished. What did you use to strip it back? Just sand paper?

[Lord Gruntfuttock]

Oh wow. That is very nice work. Well done indeed...

[lowlancer]

2 hours ago, 63Ragtop said:

Very nice, love the mid century stuff.

We have grandma's coffee table, a similar style, needs to be refinished. What did you use to strip it back? Just sand paper?

It was painted inside with some unknown type of paint, so I used a waterbased paint stripper on that and for the varnish on the outside. Then just got the orbital to work, started with 80 (careful if it's a veneer), then up to 400 through a couple grades. Danish oil and 000 steel wool to finish.

[BlownCorona]

https://www.bunnings.co.nz/citristrip-paint-stripper-gel-946ml_p0130269

Dad gave me a bottle of this stuff when i was paint stripping 100 years of paint off my lathe. i was dubious that it would do anything but was shocked with how good it worked. he used to use it for stripping paint off brass/chrome window and door hardware when we was still a carpenter. 

i would certainly recommend a test spot to ensure it doesnt fuck up wood, but holy hell it worked well for me and it doesnt stink or burn like tergo did, though i did still use PPE. 

Edit - some of those reviews dont reckon its good for wood. though i bet the one person who said it turned her wood black was probably using it on something like oak and isnt aware that you can ebonise oak with acidic products. (looks fucking cool when done properly and netts a jet black wood, probably looks like shit when its done with sporadic paint stripper)

[cletus]

On 07/07/2024 at 17:31, tortron said:

 

No I think it's fine

 

(Some drift in the vinyl, can mainly see it in the Os, should be fine once I get the cutting mats, oh and i reversed some numbers...)

A missed opportunity in font and design there 

 

[GARDRB]

Pulled my 32 valve Corolla apart so I could pull the sump out to get welded up and tidy up some last little bits.

 

[Willdat?]

New 3D printer has encouraged me to justify its existence. These spice racks have always triggered me with the poor use of space/volume. Kmart jars, garage shelf uprights, a bit of time on Fusion and job done. Stoked with the 'click', not going anywhere.

[Lord Gruntfuttock]

Had this big ol copper hot water cylinder in the paddock for ages, was always gonna do something with it...

So cut both ends off to make some wood bins, pulled out the element/temp probe tube and knocked out dents. Cylinder was so big there's a whole centre section I may make a drinks/ice bucket out of yet...

Looked at putting claw foot legs on the bins, but just bought cheap wooden fruit bowls off Temu, along with brass handles and some edge strip. The bowls are around 300mm dia, and quality reflects the price (cheap AF), one arrrived broken and the wood is damn near balsa spec, but they'll do...

The ends of the cylinders were quite convex so I hammered them down flat and cut a decent hole in the bowls and gave them a coat of cedar stain/varnish...

Then sanding, sanding, sanding with 120 grit to get a rough polish. I'm leaving it rough with character scratches and dents, cos they're wood bins...

Then wiped down with wax & grease remover, and sprayed with clear spray bomb, bolted base to copper with some big washers, added a black edge strip, riveted some handles on, and done...

Only did one today as a concept but came out OK I think. Two would look better each side of the fire so I'll cut off the copper base ring, solder some brass frost plugs over the holes and do the other one the same...

[Themi]

Background:

I built my first workbench a few years ago, mostly 100x50x3mm box section, quite a bit of surface rust (was cheap as chips) and used MDF for backing and some melamine coated MDF for the bench itself (total 36mm). It has been good, but it can be hard to do everything on one bench. This was just when I moved it to its current home, before it got swamped in all of the things behind me when I took this picture...

I was sick of not being able to use grinders/sanders until I had tidied the clean stuff off the bench, and I was sick of my "clean" project stuff becoming "dirty" project stuff when I inevitably used grinders and sanders without tidying up the bench first. So I needed a new bench.

Goals:

• House drill press, bench grinder, bench sander, air compressor and the vice.
• "Shelves" for some smaller plastic trays I had lying around.
• Materials I either have or can get easily
• Wheels on one side so I can raise it with the jack and move it out of the way.
• (added later) A small "lid" that stops die grinder swarf and bench grinder dust from covering the other car in the garage.

Build:

It starts with a plan, so I measured everything I wanted to have fit and made some loose 3d models to see how it would all come together.

I won't swamp the post with fusion renders, so heres one showing approximately what I was going for.

On the bottom left you can see I had cooked something up using some box section steel as a "foot", with some wheels just on the outside of the foot. The bench normally sits on the solid foot, but when you barely lift the right hand side, the bench comes up entirely on fixed wheels.

Started with a rough frame (very rough welding... stick isn't my forte and I'm not wasting a bunch of time cleaning the rust off!

Added the rest of the structure, shelves notched with a skilsaw and a hammer... Benchtop is 25mm ply with melamine coating, heavy stuff!

Result is a pretty decent attempt at a dedicated grinding bench!

Discussion:

This bench remains covered in dust and swarf, but the primary bench can have long-term electrical or welding projects hang out without getting completely filthy. This bench also can be moved by one person lifting up the right side (kind of heavy with all of the tools+air compressor), but the low profile jack can get under it and lift it too, making it quite maneuverable.

If I had to do it again, I would:

• Not buy the cheapest possible ($5/sheet) non-structural MDF cover for the shelves and backing, it really is crap to work with, and I'm certain I'll have to re-do most of it as soon as someone even sweats near it.
• Measure twice, weld once. Quite a bit of the structure isn't perfectly square, which is mostly fine for a workbench but its kind of problematic for the shelves, backing and sides to all line up.
• Make it full height with a proper lid, and provisions for lighting. For now I've jerry rigged a portable worklight as the main lamp, but the shadows are too harsh.
• Provision some sort of handle on the "picking up" side. It has no good way to grab it, so the jack is the primary way of moving it.

 

Goals achieved, thanks for reading!

[SOHC]

I made a better tong tool, I can form the tong boss and it has a stop to keep everything the same, I still need to pull out the Handel's, 

[GARDRB]

16 hours ago, SOHC said:

The bong toss 

Silly brain

[ThePog]

Been messing around with this broken inflatable spa that I bought for nix a couple of months ago.

There was no pump and the heater was broken, so naturally I bought a $20 pump off tm and grafted it in there.

 

And a 3d printed control panel for the pump and the air

And an old safari rad for heat exchange

 

That pump position was a bit shit tho, any air and it would lose its prime, so I moved it down so the weight of the water primed it. Much better.

 

So I finally got around to cranking it up tonight

 

And ot was cranking pretty awsomely until the fire got a bit too much for the rad and it burnt through, putting the fire out.

Still, i have another copper coil heat exchanger, this will probably work way better. Tomorrow night maybe.

[ThePog]

Actually its tonight

[anglia4]

That’s awesome!

I’ve got a freebie spa that im Working on at the moment. Planning to put a heating loop of black pipe on the roof to supplement it. Maybe some kind of fire also.