Today I MADE

[Moneybox]

My brother and I helped do a five year refit and sea trials on a trawler in Fremantle in about 1977. We learned how to do those knots to repair holes in the nets but I can't remember how it's done.

 

[Noreasterly Bloke]

Firstly just amazed by the craftsmen and women on here. The stuff this community makes is amazing and I've really enjoyed perusing the pages!
A couple of weeks ago I adapted a beach scoop with some poly pipe, jointing cement, over handle bar grips, zip ties and a bit of bunnings spray paint. Haven't put it through a beach session yet as I haven't yet got a detector ha ha, (c'mon tax rebate ) . It isn't the biggest project I know but was fun to do even something hands on again as it'd been a few years since doing any really.

 

[Mackka]

A few new acquaintances. I took some things including my Timber Sampler Collection to my local Men's Shed and had a cuppa with a couple of old mates from Church. Great to catch up and chew the fat and what a fantastic place for Men's Mental Health and Wellbeing. A great morning.

 

[Jaros]

Well done Mackka.

 

[Pirate pete]

today I made a 240v Rock crusher really happy with the end product .PP

 

[Martin]

today I made a 240v Rock crusher really happy with the end product .PP

Great work Pirate pete, love the slide out drawer for it. Will work a treat!

 

[Hippyty79]

Has anyone ever made a lazy man scoop, I was having a play around and thinking of sacrificing a swing stick, but I’ll try out I bit of dowel for now.
Just need some nylon bolts I noticed jaycar sell.

 

[Hilux]

Has anyone ever made a lazy man scoop,

It's not lazy - it's smart.

 

[Hippyty79]

Years of wading though mud concreting wasn’t kind on the knees, been thinking about for a while, the back of those cheap fiskar scoops fits the dowel perfect, but a little loose for the gpZ swing stick.

 

[Pirate pete]

today I made this what is it I hear you say , well nothing to do with gold it's a knife makers vice , just thought I would show you all something different. PP

Mod edit: Advertising/self-promotion removed.

 

[davsgold]

not sure how your knife makers vice works pete, but I made a couple of these the other week.



cheers dave

 

[Pirate pete]

not sure how your knife makers vice works pete, but I made a couple of these the other week.

View attachment 11628

cheers dave

They look good Dave , the vice has two dowl insertes in the centre tube the blade or tang can be inserted tighten the scew and its held firmly while you work on the knife i will put a couple of photos up later .PP

 

[SmokeyStu]

Today I made a Clarkson style riffle tray for my DIY highbanker project. I've found TIG welding aluminium to be challenging, but the satisfaction of working out how to build my own set-up is almost up there with finding the gold itself

 

[Moneybox]

Today I made a Clarkson style riffle tray for my DIY highbanker project. I've found TIG welding aluminium to be challenging, but the satisfaction of working out how to build my own set-up is almost up there with finding the gold itselfView attachment 11649View attachment 11650

I've not done any TIG welding since back in the 80's when I used a high frequency unit attached to a stick welder for the power source so I'm no expert however I would suggest you need quite high power for aluminium. Pulse TIG can give you that quick burst of power and then a cooling period to prevent meltdown. If you are taking it easy you'll find all your heat dissipates more than it would in stainless steel or steel where you can easily run a moulten pool.

 

[SmokeyStu]

I've not done any TIG welding since back in the 80's when I used a high frequency unit attached to a stick welder for the power source so I'm no expert however I would suggest you need quite high power for aluminium. Pulse TIG can give you that quick burst of power and then a cooling period to prevent meltdown. If you are taking it easy you'll find all your heat dissipates more than it would in stainless steel or steel where you can easily run a moulten pool.

Yes! I've found the thermodynamic properties of aluminium to be quite different from steel!
I have fairly limited TIG experience, mainly on steel using the button on the torch. But I have found that pedal control is the way to go on aluminium. Give it a bit of amps to heat the workpiece up, then back off a bit once the pool forms, and then continue to monitor. When I was doing longer runs to weld up the sluice box, I found at a certain point that the sheet had all the heat it needed, and if I kept the same amperage it would get out of control rather quickly.

 

[sand surfer]

i had a go at tig welding as the new welder came with the mig, tig and stick torches
i had a go with steel and aluminium tig welding
but the set up being lift tig start it was quite trying on me the new operator
and having to weld a quite a lot of aluminium , i bit the bullet and got one of these to protect the mental and physical safety of the user and and anyone nearby

the box states push pull and spool gun but i only got the spool gun
with a couple of hours of practice on scrap ,my boiler maker mate was right ,i will definitely keep my sanity
it took a little bit of adjusting the heat and speed to get it right for my personal speed of travel (that the eyes can keep up with the puddle )but once set it is a breeze to use

 

[davsgold]

yes that's spool gun is a good idea, way better than trying to push the aluminum wire through the long liner and having it wrap around the rollers in the mig box housing

 

[sand surfer]

that's right on the money of what the boiler maker mate said dave
the hand piece that came with the mig has a ball end knuckle at the torch, so you can weld at any angle
which would cause major problems with bird nesting at the spool and rollers
he said a push/pull gun is the best but at $2,500.00 to $3,000.00 for one, at that price it is way out of reach for a on and off user of aluminium welding

 

[SmokeyStu]

I had considered buying a spool gun for the MIG (one to suit my machine would probably run $700+) or running Teflon liners in the standard MIG torch, which I'm told makes aluminium welding feasible with a standard MIG setup.
But I had an inoperable AC TIG unit sitting in the shed which once belonged to a good mate. He's gone now, but I figured I might be able resurrect his welder before lashing out big dollars on MIG mods.
It turned out that a $50 gas solenoid fixed the problem After that I just had to figure out how to use it, haha

 

[SmokeyStu]

Made some progress on the grizzly today