Wow. I haven't been on Steemit in a bit! Recent travelling really got in the way of my usual routine. Anywho, I wanted to post a little summary of what I've started besides the Quadruped project! Here's a couple that I documented a bit:
One of the first things I did on the makerspace lathe was make a really sloppy ball point pen out of brass, as pictured. (next to something else!?!?)
That was fun, and a friend of mine really liked the size and weight. He also happened to be getting married, so I made him a much nicer pen as a wedding gift!
I made this one with pretty high tolerances, and a much more secure ink cartridge. (The ink cartridge on the last pen can by pulled out the end)
I had to do most of the work for the pens on our mini lathe because the chucks for the engine lathe have a rather inconvenient minimum radius... this added a lot of time to the drilling operations because the mini lathe has a very mini tailstock. :(
So yeah, fun stuff. And that project is actually done! Crazy.
Another fun mini lathe project I've been working on are these hashi (chopsticks).
This is (I think) a bit of an unorthodox project as far as materal/tooling goes. I made them by sandwiching a scrap of aluminum between two pieces of walnut, and turning the whole thing on the mini lathe. The turning process worked relatively well, considering the fact that walnut and aluminum machine extremely differently... Of course, I have no other wood-turning experience to draw on, so I can't say that for sure. Here's one of the blanks before I shaped it:
Since I was able to make two without major difficulties, I decided to make a few pairs with brass and walnut, just because brass is easy/pretty. I haven't gotten very far on those though, and I have been removed from my makerspace for the time being... :(
Here's how the brass and aluminum compare:
To ultimately finish this project, I'll need to use some sort of clear coat to keep the wood and metal sealed off from the world of food and mouths. I understand that metal tastes weird, and walnut can sometimes, rarely be an allergy hazard, so yeah... clear coat.
Another, much more complicated project I started is an aluminum/brass puzzle box. I started doing this project because my Dad made a hardwood puzzle box for me when I was 8ish, and I wanted to try my hand at it. I'm doing it out of metals because I'm really not much of a woodworker at this point. Haha. His box required a combination of physical movements to open, but mine will be a fully-enclosed combination puzzle?? I don't really know what to call it. Basically, you move stuff around to open it, but you never see what's happening. All I've got started so far is the lid, which will contain the puzzle pieces.
There, It's even got a button thing in it! I've actually got the whole design drawn out somewhere, but I'm just going to see if you can figure it out from cryptic part and process pictures. It's going to take me forever to finish, so you'll have plenty of time to figure it out. :)
Well that about sums it up. I won't be home for several weeks, so these projects won't be going anywhere, but I might be able to work on the quadruped!? Maybe.
Later!