A three-part series from Mikey over at MachinistBlog.com. Mikey has been a machinist for 15 years, and has come ’round to the belief that high-speed steel (HSS) cutters, rather than the pricier, lower-maintenance, carbide-tipped bits, are the way to go on a hobby-sized metalworking lathe. He also makes a compelling argument for using a belt sander, instead of the traditional bench grinder, for making, shaping, and sharpening HSS lathe tools.
Quick, handy video tutorial from Jeremy Bloyd-Peshkin of tiny workshop, demonstrating a fast method of centering a piece of round stock in a 4-jaw chuck using a magnetic-mount dial indicator and a pair of chuck keys. If you’ve never seen this operation before, Jeremy’s video makes it clear and simple to understand. [Thanks, Jeremy!]
Our own inimitable Laura Cochrane spotted this clever trick over at The Craft Patch. It may not be glamorous or sexy, but I love insanely simple stuff like this born of paying careful attention to what’s right there in front of you.
Great pro tip for meticulous pumpkin-crafters who just can’t get the level of detail they need with knives. Courtesy of Instructables user Brna.
If you’ve ever wanted to experiment with aluminum anodizing but were put off by the conventional requirement for concentrated sulfuric acid, you will be very interested to read of Ken’s successes with an alternate process using the acidic sodium salt of sulfuric acid. This salt, sodium bisulfate (NaHSO4) is much safer to transport, handle, and dispose of than the strong acid, and appears to give anodizing results that are just as good or better.
Clever idea I first saw in a recent issue of The Family Handyman. The flat-folding “cone” style filters will be easier to handle. It’s similar to the Post-It note trick, but less likely to leak out the sides. See also, e.g., the coffee cup trick for catching debris while drilling overhead.
Here, automata guru Dug North rounds up four expedient methods for improvising a worm drive given an on-hand spur gear. Digging through our archives also reveals this interesting method for coming at the problem from the other direction, i.e. improvising a spur gear for an on-hand worm!
