Loading The Dehydrator

Loading The Dehydrator

Another load for the dehydrator. Some reduced price peaches (rather squishy), some reduced price strawberries (not quite as squishy), a nectarine (to help fill a tray) and a couple of cherry tomatoes (as an experiment).

Tail-stock Stand

I have a mini lathe and it came with a tail-stock. This is removable and I use the lathe without it quite often. It spends most of its time on a bench somewhere, or propped up against the back of the lathe. The design of the tail-stock means that it can't stand up in it's normal operating orientation and so has to lie on it's side or lean against something. This started to irritate me. I thought of a shelf, then decided to make this:

 The tail-stock rests in it like this:

I then mounted the stand on the side of the shelf unit I built around the lathe:

It's now in a space that I couldn't really use for anything else. We'll see how good an idea this was as I use the lathe for future projects.

Dehydrated Apple

Dehydrated Apple 2018

This year we had a few apples on the tree (due to the harsh winter?) and so i got the dehydrator working again:

The display on the dehydrator shows the relative humity and temperature:

unfortunately, while I was using it, the display corrupted:

I'd noticed a small corruption now and again but the problem seems to be more persistent now. I'll probably have to break out the scope and see what's up. Fortunately the control of the fan and heater appear to be working  so I can use the dehydrator, just operating it a bit blind.

Die Shots

I'm starting to put die shots over on another blog. There's only one there so far.

https://blackrockdieshots.blogspot.com/

Agh! I Got Fed Up With It

I have a woodworking vice on my bench (made from old garage roof bits) and it has had a succession of jaw inserts. Each of them has broken, the last one was a piece of scaffolding board that I didn't think would break, but it did:

So I finally got fed up with this and made a jaw from some bamboo flooring and some plywood:

Of course, the other jaw now looks bad, so I glued up another jaw to match. I had to use a lot of clamps on this, because I could.

 

I now (after sanding and filling and planing) have a pair of nice strong jaws, let's see how long they last...

Of course, I got fed up with the other vice next to this one and made some new wooden jaws for that too:

Hmm, that's better.

Day of Fixes

Today has included a series of fixes to things, all of them successful. This is very satisfying. First, I had a PSU connector on a laptop to install. This went pretty well, and the laptop now charges. The old connector was split in half and had to be persuaded to charge. Not any more.

 It charges!
The case is still broken though, but I don't think I need to do anything about that.

We went out today to get some wool for a fix,see below for that one. While we were out I spotted this camera in a charity shop:

It is a Panasonic DMC-TZ3, which is quite a nice camera, with a big 'Leica'lens and a solid feel to it. It was sold as seen, which turned out to mean broken. I tried it out in the shop and it kept on saying turn camera off and on again, which I put down to mean that the batteries were flat. This wasn't the case when I got it home and charged them, as the message persisted. A quick google confirmed that it's probably a stuck lens, someone on the internet gave it to a camera fixer and got it back a couple of days later with the problem gone. Stuck zoom lenses on compact cameras is a very common problem, so I decided to dismantle the camera and see if I could fix the problem. I did this and found some fluff and dirt in the lens zoom mechanism  Fbut didn't find anything obviously stuck. I put it back together and the message still appeared. Oh dear. While trying to get it to work I noticed that it never went into sharp focus. While dismantled I spotted two stepper motors, one for th ezoom mechanism and one for what looked like focus. I had fiddled with the zoom mechanism, but not the focus. I dismantled the lens again and looked at the focus hardware. It did appear to be stuck, so I took the focus stepper off and the mechanism was them moving. After re-assembly the camera worked. It takes pretty nice pictures too, so it will be put to work taking pictures of the ongoing project.
Incidentally, the focus motor looked very very similar to the small stepper motors that I have bought on ebay for the XY table project, so I think that's what they were originally made for.

The reason for the trip out was to get some dark blue wool for the next fix. A bit of darning:

I think it's come out quite well. (Picture taken with DMC-TZ3).

I forgot, I fixed a zip as well. Four fixes.


So, a busy day, all successful....

Another Vice Handle

 Last year I bought this homemade vice from a treasure shop:

I've used it, many, many times, more than I thought I would, so I was upset when the handle fell off. The original handle was just a nail, and I think the fastening method was a kink:

So, I made a better handle, well, one that didn't rely on a kink to not fall out:

I may attempt something better than a couple of nuts on the end, but they work. (And the diameter of the rod is a bit too small for an M5 thread). Let's see how long it doesn't fall out...