The Do-it-Yourself Thread: A Home for Handymen and Artisans - General

[QUOTE=arleitiss;47498447]I use amazon always for everything. A quick question - are those table mounts any good? I mean am I right to think they are just flimsy crap or are they decent? I wouldn't mind getting some table mount that has like a rail upward and two mounts on it, that would save hassle of drilling walls and then arguing with landlord.[/QUOTE] I'm not too familiar on table mounts for multiple monitors, but as long as it's sturdy and cheap I'd say that's easier than wall mounting. I only like wall mounting when I can run the cables through the wall as well, other wise I'd do desk mounts. [editline]11th April 2015[/editline] [QUOTE=thefreemann;47500530][T]http://horobox.co.uk/u/casool_1428726057.jpg[/T] Hey guys my dog likes to chew a stool I have but I want to try and 'repair' it a bit so it's not so ugly and dangerous. I was thinking I could just first sand it down and then apply some type of coat over it to make it smooth like the other untouched parts, but I'm not really someone who has done a lot of this diy stuff so I'm looking for advice on what to do.[/QUOTE] I'd just sand it down the best that you can, and then use a bit of wipe or brush on gloss or satin polyurethane, whatever matches the rest of the stool best. Not much you can do.

I found out that one library on campus offers free 3D printing services. What's the best way to take advantage of that?

You can use printed parts for near anything if you're a good enough engineer, I would really just start thinking of things you could use it for. I love my 3D printer not because I'm constantly using it, but because it's always there when I need a spare part for an RC plane, or when I want a phone case, or a stand, or any number of little plastic doohickeys that I need for other work. It's a tool. If you're into metal casting, there's all sorts of things you can do by creating molds to create wax positives for lost wax casting, like I said I use it for multirotor and plane parts, holders, stands or cases for phones or electronic projects. It all depends on what you're into. [editline]11th April 2015[/editline] You just have to remember to work within the confines of the tool. They don't like overhangs, tolerances are iffy, and parts [u][I]will[/I][/u] fail. It takes a little bit of experience to make good 3D printable parts, I looked for some resources or tutorials to help, but there doesn't seem to be much out there. If anybody else has some material on that it would be useful, all I could find was shapeways' tips on SLA printing, and I'm pretty sure that won't apply.

[QUOTE=joshjet;47506035]You can use printed parts for near anything if you're a good enough engineer, I would really just start thinking of things you could use it for. I love my 3D printer not because I'm constantly using it, but because it's always there when I need a spare part for an RC plane, or when I want a phone case, or a stand, or any number of little plastic doohickeys that I need for other work. It's a tool. If you're into metal casting, there's all sorts of things you can do by creating molds to create wax positives for lost wax casting, like I said I use it for multirotor and plane parts, holders, stands or cases for phones or electronic projects. It all depends on what you're into. [editline]11th April 2015[/editline] You just have to remember to work within the confines of the tool. They don't like overhangs, tolerances are iffy, and parts [u][I]will[/I][/u] fail. It takes a little bit of experience to make good 3D printable parts, I looked for some resources or tutorials to help, but there doesn't seem to be much out there. If anybody else has some material on that it would be useful, all I could find was shapeways' tips on SLA printing, and I'm pretty sure that won't apply.[/QUOTE] You can also make totally functionless tat that looks pretty, which is mostly what mine churns out, novelty items for my friends (and the odd circuit board enclosure) [editline]11th April 2015[/editline] Have a look at thingiverse if you can't think up anything to make of your own

I have a question for the woodworking guys here: I'm building a new desk, and the top is 4 pieces of 1x6x72" oak sandwiched together on the long end with glue and biscuit joints. I'm doing my best to modify the biscuit slots and work with clamps to make the resulting surface as flush as possible, but there are still going to be some lips when it's done. Once the top of the desk is fastened to the frame, what should I use to make the work surface as smooth and true as possible? Just diligence and a belt sander?

[QUOTE=Used Car Salesman;47506569]I have a question for the woodworking guys here: I'm building a new desk, and the top is 4 pieces of 1x6x72" oak sandwiched together on the long end with glue and biscuit joints. I'm doing my best to modify the biscuit slots and work with clamps to make the resulting surface as flush as possible, but there are still going to be some lips when it's done. Once the top of the desk is fastened to the frame, what should I use to make the work surface as smooth and true as possible? Just diligence and a belt sander?[/QUOTE] If you've got a planer wide enough, you could use that. Otherwise, a sander's your best bet.

I don't have anything creative and awesome to post that I've made but [URL="https://www.youtube.com/user/JMEMantzel"]here is a guy[/URL] who hand made a boat that's solar powered oh and also a giant spider robot years back

[QUOTE=woolio1;47506911]If you've got a planer wide enough, you could use that. Otherwise, a sander's your best bet.[/QUOTE] A professional shop would use a $10,000+ wide belt sander, or a cheaper $3000+ Drum sander, but for someone without that, you're basically stuck to using a belt sander to flatten it out, shouldn't be an issue though, should be flat enough. If you have a power hand plane you can use that as well for the first passes.

Ooh, I forgot about bench planes. If you have one of those, it might be worth a shot.

[IMG]http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y99/aqua-lover/20150404_141037.jpg[/IMG] [IMG]http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y99/aqua-lover/20150412_202745.jpg[/IMG] Oh my christ what an exhausting weekend. The pool liner is finally being replaced after 15 years, and that means a shit ton of work for dad and I in getting the hole ready for the new liner. The upper rim of the pool is all galvanized steel that was oxidized as shit, so we had to spend hours and hours with belt sanders getting all that crap off. Then, it was grinding out the worst of the rust, welding up a few small holes, and painting all that galvanized steel with primer and Hammerite. Needless to say, the pool wall will NOT be rusting on our watch. Seriously, we spent two days in that damn hole making this happen. The people installing the new liner will deal with repairing and smoothing out the cement bottom. As for the desk project, I've got the top mostly assembled and the frame is all sanded and ready for stain. I'm still working on the reveal strips that border the top. It should look really nice when it's all finished.

Not many people seem interested in my Tesla Coil build thread. Probably because I don't think many people just browse through GD anymore. [thumb]http://i.imgur.com/2o7eoKy.jpg[/thumb] If you're interested [url=http://facepunch.com/showthread.php?t=1459929]take a look.[/url]

Any projects that I can use a PC power supply with? I have an extra.

[QUOTE=Original User;47571664]Any projects that I can use a PC power supply with? I have an extra.[/QUOTE] There are... But how comfortable are you with risking your own mortality by working around high voltage electricity?

Just spent over 60 hours in the studio since Thursday. All my furniture pieces are finished and sitting in the gallery. I'll post pictures soon. It's nice to basically be done with school forever now.

[IMG]http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y99/aqua-lover/20150330_193504.jpg[/IMG] [IMG]http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y99/aqua-lover/20150412_163729_1.jpg[/IMG] [IMG]http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y99/aqua-lover/20150413_214726.jpg[/IMG] [IMG]http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y99/aqua-lover/20150418_182054.jpg[/IMG] [IMG]http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y99/aqua-lover/20150418_182102.jpg[/IMG] [IMG]http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y99/aqua-lover/20150423_204247.jpg[/IMG] [IMG]http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y99/aqua-lover/20150423_210445.jpg[/IMG] Oh my god, you guys, freakin woodwork. I can't wait to get back to pounding on car parts with hammers and slinging axle grease everywhere. The base is all pine 2x4s. The top is four 1x8 solid oak boards with an oak reveal strip around them. I put them together with biscuit joints and sanded the living [I]shit[/I] out of everything to make it as close to a seamless surface as possible. Everything got stained and received 6 coats of wipe-on poly. The base is less than 1/4 inch out of square, you'd never notice without a tape measure. It sits still on a level hardwood floor, I didn't even have to shim anything. Virtually no creaking, either. As hard as it was, I'm pretty proud of how my first full-scale wood furniture job turned out. When I eventually get out of my parent's basement I really want to build a dining room table that will last until my grandkids are ready to inherit it, and this was a nice bit of practice for when that project eventually rolls around. I learned a lot of great lessons about how to do things right, and what I'm gonna need in terms of tools and infrastructure to do them better.

Looks good, glad to see someone else doing some woodworking here. Also, I used to use wipe on poly quite a bit but I've found that using brush on high gloss poly for the first coat, and then diluting it with 50/50 mineral spirits and then wiping on subsequent coats has an even better result.

I worked with some guy in his garage building kitchen cabinets a few summers ago, I'd really like to get back into woodworking. It's fun stuff.

[QUOTE=woolio1;47573349]There are... But how comfortable are you with risking your own mortality by working around high voltage electricity?[/QUOTE] I don't mind at all

Bit of a bump here, but I have a desk chair which was previously used in our local police station, and only now I realized how accustomed I grew to it, considering it's actually very comfortable. Just after a week of replacing the worn arm rest pads with new ones, my mom snapped them off by slamming the chair against my desk in a hissy fit. Back then I resorted to wrap it in duct tape, but it's really uncomfortable. I just proceeded to get rid of all the duct tape, and start clean. Now I'm mostly asking if there's a way to get the pads attached firmly to their original mount point? [T]http://i.imgur.com/oGrJJDD.jpg[/T][T]http://i.imgur.com/SEveUGh.jpg[/T]

There are plenty of two-part epoxy's that could join plastic and metal together in a way that would never break off within reason. I've used JB Clear-weld to great success. Also, what is in the actual arm rest? Anything solid?

Do you mean the pad itself, or the framing underneath it? The pad appears to be put together using two parts; the upholstery and plastic padding to keep it in shape. It's not exactly solid as I can flex it pretty easily using two hands. [T]http://i.imgur.com/mWG6lod.jpg[/T] And then there's the bottom part of it: [T]http://i.imgur.com/cBfH8oc.jpg[/T] This one is made from plastic as well though. My guess is using epoxy should do the trick then? Problem is I don't know what stuff is available in the Netherlands.

[QUOTE=Merijnwitje;47658980]Do you mean the pad itself, or the framing underneath it? The pad appears to be put together using two parts; the upholstery and plastic padding to keep it in shape. It's not exactly solid as I can flex it pretty easily using two hands. [T]http://i.imgur.com/mWG6lod.jpg[/T] And then there's the bottom part of it: [T]http://i.imgur.com/cBfH8oc.jpg[/T] This one is made from plastic as well though. My guess is using epoxy should do the trick then? Problem is I don't know what stuff is available in the Netherlands.[/QUOTE] Just go to a hardware store and check out whatever section has all of their adhesives, there's bound to be epoxies there.

Well, turns out my dad found some adhesive, which is better than the average. [T]http://i.imgur.com/1HkYAK4.jpg[/T] Put my old shelf on them to make sure it keeps in the same position, and then I'll give it another day to dry to be safe.

Today me and my fiancee' did a couple major renovations. Basically we had to clean up, and we wanted to brighten the living room and kitchen up. So here's a befores so you know what I mean. [IMG]http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e356/serj22/20150504_173240_zpsph7sjkmn.jpg[/IMG] [IMG]http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e356/serj22/20150504_173233_zpsz829w1ye.jpg[/IMG] [IMG]http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e356/serj22/20150504_173251_zpsgjt48ruu.jpg[/IMG] [IMG]http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e356/serj22/20150504_173303_zpsmy54cjdb.jpg[/IMG] We started out edging everything with the new oceanic blue/green we picked out, then I moved the speakers I have from below the projector screen to the top of the walls on each side. I put 2 5" steel brackets on each and secured them each with two pieces of stainless wire to the upper joist in the ceiling. This is just added security if anything happens to shake something free. [IMG]http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e356/serj22/20150505_102543_zpsdqipqq05.jpg[/IMG] We did the whole wall, hung the other speaker up where it goes. [IMG]http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e356/serj22/20150505_115444_zpswkoybmso.jpg[/IMG] The lighting for taking pictures in my place sucks... Then we moved to another project. I didn't like how much space my two lazyboy couches took up, and I always wanted a sectional. No problem I thought - I'll just rip the arm off the little one, and put em together. This was right before i almost rethought about not doing it... [IMG]http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e356/serj22/20150505_124744_zpsdbcqd8uj.jpg[/IMG] Then I said - eh what the hell, and tore it apart. [IMG]http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e356/serj22/20150505_125607_zpsnysr0ap2.jpg[/IMG] I saved the fabric I cut off the arm to use to wrap on the bare edge that would be visible. [IMG]http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e356/serj22/20150505_130637_zpsr8vhzvls.jpg[/IMG] This was at the point of "there's no putting this back together" Luckily I got both couches off craigslist for free a couple years ago (still in the plastic too) from a junky of all people. I tore it apart the rest of the way, removed all the staples, then used the arm rest padding to wrap the excess leftover wood and then wrapped the fabric around to look like a stock part basically, and it turned out pretty good actually. [IMG]http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e356/serj22/20150505_152938_zps0kvgacn3.jpg[/IMG] So if you're wondering if that was possible, I'm going to go ahead and encourage you to go ahead and do it. It was not that bad. No tools required besides a hammer to take it apart. I thought i was going to have to get out the skilsaw to cut something, but it wasn't even necessary. Then I used a staple gun to put the fabric back on, reattached the two legs in closer, and that was it. [IMG]http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e356/serj22/20150505_152945_zpsmebgeuxi.jpg[/IMG] The rest of the room turned out nice too. [IMG]http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e356/serj22/20150505_153121_zpsrh8sxxh7.jpg[/IMG] I also coated my homemade diner table in some high gloss oil based white. It brushed on nicely with a little shot of brushing thinner, and dried real smooth. We're probably going to print out some kind of vinyl that looks like a vinyl record to put on top of it, then I'm building some restaurant booths for it. I built this folding table about two years ago and the kids had pretty much ruined the red stain finish on it, so I went for a plain white for upkeep sake. Ignore the chairs, they're just place-holders. [IMG]http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e356/serj22/20150505_223813_zpsa17gilym.jpg[/IMG] [editline]6th May 2015[/editline] [QUOTE=Ajacks;47471156] [t]http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a345/ajackss/pans_zpsdms7k0p7.jpg~original[/t][/QUOTE] Your woodshop is too clean. Get on my level. [IMG]http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e356/serj22/1947%20Hacker/20150409_124642_zps6yoscvkb.jpg[/IMG] Wood and tools everywhere master race. Actually once this U-26 is all sanded down and we quit making dust, cleanup can happen, as the Hacker in the first pic will finally receive its trailer and go to upholstery, then this one can be flipped rightside up and all the stuff moved around. [IMG]http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e356/serj22/u-26/20150430_151035_zpstvykbknx.jpg[/IMG] It's finally fully replanked with all new wood, and now plugging it, then sanding all of it down. I also need to do some more work on the reverse chine- looking to get as much hull speed out of it as possible.

Serj wherever you are in the states I want to, at some point, find my way there and take in as much knowledge on wooden boat restoration and cars as I can. Really damn cool stuff.

[QUOTE=Ajacks;47670541]Serj wherever you are in the states I want to, at some point, find my way there and take in as much knowledge on wooden boat restoration and cars. Really damn cool stuff.[/QUOTE] If you ever make your way to the eastern bay area in ca, let me know.

Right right right. So I'm currently building a prop minigun, and I need some help with the ball bearings. The barrels are going to be powered by a cordless power drill motor hooked up directly to the driving shaft. However, to help with the rotation, skate bearings (or regular bearing races) are going to be in the body like so. [t]http://cdn.instructables.com/F73/FD0U/GKLJ60U6/F73FD0UGKLJ60U6.LARGE.jpg[/t] However, actually mounting them to the cap is my problem. I haven't picked the bearings up yet, because I'm still working on the barrels. But I'm thinking ahead. Anyone have any ideas?

[QUOTE=Thereddragon;47087174]Jut testing things out for a project I'm working on. [thumb]http://i.gyazo.com/8eb33fdcddfe5da10e35a116ef7054f1.jpg[/thumb] [thumb]http://i.gyazo.com/fa889e03e215deb9676b4af1eab18c27.jpg[/thumb] I think it looks pretty cool[/QUOTE] This is pretty much what became of the project: [thumb]http://i.gyazo.com/3db282c32556f1b5bae1eea2d33e4a72.jpg[/thumb] [thumb]http://i.gyazo.com/b9a617b5435a861e266a45e3c9bf7f01.jpg[/thumb] [thumb]http://i.gyazo.com/af0a3bea739a5a6db34bdfe1821a47ea.png[/thumb] It could be better but I'm happy for what it is. And I wont have access to the laser cutter now so I wont be trying to improve it but maybe I'll try again in the future if I ever get use to one.

I want a laser cutter/engraver so badly. I hope I can buy one within two years.

[QUOTE=Ajacks;47677437]I want a laser cutter/engraver so badly. I hope I can buy one within two years.[/QUOTE] There was a company offering a promo code for theirs that got you $50 off some years ago, so it'd run you $1100 instead of $1150. :v: