homemade tools

Parts Tray + Fruit Wedger Blade = Sorting Parts Tray

Parts Tray + Fruit Wedger Blade = Sorting Parts Tray

I love magnetic parts trays. When I’m taking something apart, using one for the screws and other tiny metal bits is one of the best things I can do (together with taking pictures as I go) to make sure that it all goes back together again more or less as it’s supposed to.

So the last time I was disassembling an appliance for repair (a video projector, in this case), and I was carefully arranging the screws for each subassembly in a separate little pile in my parts tray, it occurred to me that it’d be nice to have a magnetic parts tray with compartments for this purpose. And when I was imagining what the dividers would look like, a shape like the blade of a fruit wedger occurred to me.

For some reason, I have two fruit wedgers. I never use a fruit wedger, but when and if I ever do, I am confidant that one will meet my needs.

So I busted the plastic off ring off of one of them and, with a bit of filing to round the ends of the blades, discovered that the blade assembly fit pretty well into my 4? magnetic parts tray. And actually works pretty well as a divider, too.

Make: Projects – On-Demand Benchtop Gas Generator

Make: Projects – On-Demand Benchtop Gas Generator

Being made of glass, however, a proper Kipp generator is an expensive piece of apparatus, with new models costing upwards of $250US as of this writing. However, as the useful gas-generating reactions are usually aqueous, rather than organic, an all-plastic Kipp generator is almost as useful as a glass version. PVC pipe is inexpensive, durable, ubiquitous, and easily and securely joined using cement made for that purpose. Demountable PVC fittings are available in a wide variety of shapes and sizes and can be used to provide the necessary “dismantlability” for loading solid reagent into the device. Presented here is my design for such a low cost Kipp-type generator, with instructions for its construction.