AvE

Feeling the holiday post partum? I'm in the shop to fix the better 3/4's food processor. It won't cut the pie crust. Another victim of planned obsolescence.

I answer your questions why I didn't buy a Tormach, or a Mazak, Fadal, Hurco, Mori, Brother. I go over some shitty Haas options you don't need and some you do. Here are other opinions from guys who have sourced a low production CNC mill.

Dicking around in the shop. If you got pics or scans or a spare, please hook me up!

Can you recover a battery with Epsom Salt? Yes kinda, but how and why? Store batteries on concrete? Yes, it's fine. Differences between deep cycle and regular cranking battery. Why batteries explode and how to jump start a car.

I went to the wholesalers and got a low grade charger from a good industrial brand. To my delight, it's not ridiculous junk.

Fun with manual machines. Symphony for Lathe and Mill. *Official nod to Wintergatans.

The tallest trees from acorns grow. I appreciate your help and want to machine your ideas!

We look inside a one way bearing to see how it works. In this case, it's a sprag clutch type.

Sometimes a cheap tool is the right tool. Igauging height gauge for table saws. It's good for woodworking; but machining?

Long term testing of carbide blades for olfa box cutters. In my shop the extra cost of carbide does not increase the longevity.

Disassembly and explanation of a variable displacement vane pump.

Babydoll is under the weather; I step in to pick up the slack. Pork belly is bacon that hasn't been cured. It's delicious and even tho I messed up, it's easy to cook on the BBQ griddle.

This is a full day worth of machining a ram air intake for the townpumpcnc. Programming a simultaneous 5 axis part in Fusion 360 is very difficult. The post processor is only half baked for 5 axis Haas.

Staying warm during a bitter cold winter is more about mental toughness than anything. Here are a few tips when you decide to brave the cold.

Dicking around in the shop.

Testing out a fatbike in the snow.

Cockford-Ollie 2019 Snowboarding team training for the X-Games.

I inspect the build quality and components of a Makita compact recip saw. It's the same length as the Milwaukee Hacksawzall, but 18V instead of 12V.

Filet on the BBQ is a terrible idea. There's not enough fat in the cut to keep it tender. But it's fantastic on a hot griddle; no smoke in the house and no washing dishes either!

I use the townpumpcnc to run a couple proof of concept tests.

In contravention of the prime-directive, I'm taking a-part the milwaukee hacksawzall. During the Makita tear-down I noticed the innards rattling around and wanted to inspect the old girl.

M12 Hacksawzall from 7 years ago vs. brushless Fuel. The fuel is heavier and beefier. Better quality than the older model

The Fuel M12 is a far better tool than the old M12 hacksawzall. But why does it have two gears?

I printed up three warning stickers for tits&pickles. Share a safety chuckle with your buddies. Thank you for your help.

Water cooler discussion of the Lion Air 610 disaster and similarities with Ethiopia's Boeing 737 Max disaster. Your considered and respectful comments are appreciated. The investigation is ongoing and loved ones might be here looking for answers.

Training for mountain biking season; fatbiking in the snow.

Bearbeitung und Musik. Vergnügen. Pure copper has a reputation for being difficult to machine; too gummy. Carbide end mills designed for aluminum run in pure copper at 70% feed of aluminum. Peck thrilling with HSS run in copper at 50% feed of aluminum. Keep the chips small and it'll machine up nice.

I couldn't find friction ratings of jaw materials, so I experimented with copper, aluminum and steel. Steel came out on top, withstanding roughly 1200lbs of pull out on our aluminum coupon. I don't know why steel is best, but I intend to find out.

I'll share a couple mechanic tricks while I fix the small hydraulic cylinder. Mysteriously, it busted during the soft jaw experiment.

Soft metal lead has a very high co-efficient of friction. But does lead grip well in a vise? Sadly, not according to my test.

Easy win with cabbage pancakes. White guy style, with pork belly.

I use a Geiger-Mueller device to test the ionizing radiation from Thoriated Welding Tungstens, USA Aluminum and Japan Steel. Good news; none of the aluminum nor steel showed any discernable Cobalt-60 contamination.

Grinder & Paint makes me the welder I ain't! It's impossible to buy a cool, secure bike rack. So I made one.

You guys in the USA aren't missing much with the China Norinco SKS import ban. (Other good clean fun with dirt cheap steel core ammo.) As a Canadian citizen in good standing with the tax department, I occasionally exercise my freedom (use it or loose it). Rigorous testing of various calibers and countries of origin ensued.

I attempt to repair a non-charging battery. I didn't try very hard. It's stupid to own a single tool that has $250 batteries. update: *speaking of stupid* I forgot I have another battery! The EGO lives on...

On the healing bench: a one dollar Hilti concrete grinder.

Extremely overbuilt and prohibitively expensive? I'll make two! I CNC machine heavy copper for heirloom workshop tools. These are the kind of tools you can't buy; you must make.

Single Point Incremental Forming is an uncommon CNC technique for sheet metal. It is well suited for making prototypes of curved surfaces. I test out the idea and gauge the minimum requirements.

I investigate a professionally abused Harbor Freight Earthquake impact wrench and give it a tune up in an attempt to fix it's low torque.

I made a new batch of OSHA non-compliant warning labels!

Fire up the parts cannon, we're grubbing for a root! The slow death of this harbor freight impact wrench is a novel one. Looks like the heat cycling during use causes the armature to slowly fail. High resistance brush/commutator connection speeds up the process.

Teardown of an angle of attack sensor from a Hercules aircraft. Redux of the Boeing 737 with a discussion on how Boeing Engineers, the FAA and Air Lines are complicit in the catastrophes.

Watercooler discussion of the Seattle Tower Crane that collapsed on Google's new building. It was being dismantled when it collapsed because multiple sections had the pins removed without being supported. Why they removed multiple section pins and why it was not rigged to the support crane remains unanswered.

A multi-meter is a powerful tool, but resistance tests can mislead you. The Ohm scale on your electrical meter only tests the resistance in the circuit under low voltage with tiny currents. In order to get more accurate readings you must use higher current and check the voltage drop in the circuit. I show how to do this on a bad motor using a cheap power supply. The multi-meter showed a resistance of 0.1 Ohm between each commutator bar. It showed the armature is good. But the power supply set at 7amps and 3Volts showed between most bars had a 0.8V drop, but some had 1.4V drop. Meaning some windings have higher resistance under load. This test proved that the armature is weak.

Thanks to everybody that weighed in on the new Google building crane accident I appreciate sharing your insight and photos.

I have a look at the construction and components in the battery power DeWalt air compressor. I wasn't expecting much and this lives up to those expectations.

I made a hydraulic tool to measure high forces in the CNC machine. Hydraulics are great for high forces and I'll show you a few cheat codes to make hydraulics seal without high precision. You can buy drawbar dynomometers for roughly $1000 but you can also make one for "free" in an afternoon out of scrap parts.

I test the Dewalt 60V air compressor. It doesn't blow, it sucks. I couldn't get anywhere near the performance claimed on the box. What am I missing?

Why won't your compressor keep up with a small air tool? Because the CFM ratings are taken at the suction INLET of the compressor, not the pressurized air from the tank. I'll show you how a Rolair compressor rated at 4.1CFM @ 90 PSI only really delivers 0.9CFM @ 90PSI of usable air.

"All you gotta do is bash few buttons. Why are you taking so long?"

A kind fellow on the Patron page shared this little trick with me. It's a gooder. *errata: I muddled my reactivity with electronegativity. They are different things.*

This is a townpumpcnc project to help out a guy making caving lights for his friends.

Quick and Dirty CAD modeling to get you up and running FAST.

Quick and dirty tutorial to set up your Work Coordinate System in Fusion 360.

Basic operation of the most common tool in Fusion 360.

I run through a common 2d Contour toolpath to prep raw stock for the 5 axis trunion. *errata* The shell mill is cutting on center; a terrible strategy. Better to do two passes with 0.5 stepover and increase the feed.

Uggg. Because Fusion is cloud based, it messes up my post processor and tool library at random intervals. Yay cloud!

Fusion 360 makes it easy to do 5 axis positioning moves. It controls 4th and 5th axis with a simple "tool orientation" option.

I run through a very useful 2d Adaptive toolpath with a roughing end mill.

I run through a 2d Profile toolpath to finish the part after roughing.

Making an o-ring groove using the 2d Pocket toolpath in Fusion 360.

Using a slitting saw with Fusion to make cooling fins.

Last step is chamfering your part. It's a touchy toolpath, and takes a lot of tweaking to get right.

This is how to get Fusion to run two different programs; the top setup and the bottom setup at the same time.

Using the ship's rotating portal concept to make a lens that flings droplets off. Unlike existing rotary viewports, this novel integral-bearing design has no central hub to obscure the image.

Dorking out on our family holiday.

I wanted to make a CNC coolant proof camera lens. I tried to make an air bearing and failed, but a clean roller bearing works great!

This old tachometer uses music box type reeds to measure motor RPM without electricity. It's more useful than a digital Tach because it shows you resonant frequencies and can be used to check hammer and reciprocal speeds too.

Your orders from the end of April/start of June didn't get shipped. We're shipping them now and also offering you a full refund for the hassle.

A vessel is just a shell without a captain and crew. With the help from Anton and Simon, I machine a low-poly Sean Connery Bust from his role in the Hunt for Red October.

I take appart a Makita blower vac. This is the unit to replace my ECO blower that crapped out.

I was curious if compliant structures made by Dr. Larry Howell could be adapted to different forms and materials. Yes, as long as the material is plastic. It doesn't work for metal; the geometries are completely different.

How do butane and lithium brad nailers work. This is a Paslode, but Makita, Bostitch and Hitachi gas nailers work the same way.

Clearing cobwebs with the lad on the Trans-Canada Trail. The Similkameen river is a historic gold camp. It's one of the few rivers that not only has gold nuggets but also platinum. We pedal along the old Kettle Valley Railroad; trestles and tunnels.

We take a holiday off-the-beaten track; British Columbia's Kootenay Mountains. Lowlights include: torrential rain, a mortician's uncanny castle (hurr-hurr), Kootenay Glacier hike, arcane parking rituals and run-ins with Black Bears.

'67, '71, '77, '85, '91 Franken-Jeep that the Dewclaw put together with an adapter kit. Do not try this at home.

Letuce, a long time subscriber, asked if I'd machine aluminum blocks for chilling test tubes. Commercially available blocks only accept one size of tube. His idea is to dunk these in liquid nitrogen to keep his, er, samples, cool

I got a box from Abom79 containing the machinist's relay. I'm struggling to adapt a waterjet cut linear stage into a CNC mill-able design. The stage is part of Dan Gelbart's youtube series on engineering and machining prototypes.

I reverse engineer a high-end Radon Bike component and skookumfy it

I do the deed to a Milwaukee Ratchet. It ain't tea bag.

CNC machining a compliant mechanism out of aluminum.

Ticks are dangerous. This outlines the time-tested steps for safe removal.

Comparing the old 3/8" Milwaukee ratchet to a new fuel ratchet. The head on the M12 Fuel is HUGE and consequently, reasonably skookum.

https://teespring.com/AvE-peoplearemonsters Yes, Chickadee gets her cut for beauty school tuition.

Why are trailer brakes such a pain in the ass? Why is trailer wiring so janky? Because money. I muddle through a simple wiring problem on a tent trailer.

I experiment with a chain-clipazine in a SIG P320 (licensed Japanese knock-off .177) . It won't take out a hornet's nest, but it'll sure piss 'em off.

Life is hard. DON'T PANIC.

Fancy pants were getting a little snug around the dick-do. I'm 40 days deep; intermittent fasting and time restricted eating. I'm nearly at my snowboard-fighting weight and feeling great.

Thanks for your help!

I desecrate tree carcass to test a novel mountain bike feature. It's a swinging sled for busting your ass.

Success! We found out what doesn't work!

I inspect a 30 something cordless Makita drill to see the evolution of cordless tools.

Flat deck trailer locked up! How to fix the electric brakes?

Summer is over here in British Columbia.

Pre-winter, anti-cabin-fever routine: GET OUTSIDE AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE. I've been scouting winter getaways and found a nice backcountry skiing spot.

Comparing the internals of a Makita battery vs. Amazon cheapo.

EDM arc supply. Big Clive's King Dick. Hand Tool Rescue's Kanuckistan Dick.

I been using this expensive Hilti and wanted to see how the build quality stacks up to Makita, Dewalt, Milwaukee grinders. Surprisingly it IS brushless and the drive mechanism is nothing like we've seen before. It's got a brushless motor and a chinsy little coupling arrangement.

Novel Fixture for CNC machining of Robot parts.

Inspecting the build quality and engineering of a Glock 17 gen 5.

Inspect the parts of a Harbor Freight cordless ratchet in comparison to the Milwaukee and Snap-On.

The healing bench worked it's magic on the Harbor Freight Earthquake ratchet. It's worse for the experience, but well worth the effort to see how it's made. I tested it's breakaway torque against the Snap on and Milwaukee fuel.

I tear into a shitty stock shock off a Norco bike and discuss the Kashima Coat anodizing process.

Sadly, not as good as they used to be. We also have a look at Wera Joker, Snap-On, Proto and house brands.

I'm not sure what problem this sander solves, but my hand sure are smooth!

There's two main differences between cheap sockets and good ones. The wall thickness and the depth of the hex.

Peek behind the Iron Curtain to see how ammo was manufactured in a command economy. There's a lot of differences in engineering and materials used in Warsaw pact countries compared to NATO.

2 year repair/cursory review of 3D printing in general and Zortrax M200 in particular. She ain't tea bag.

Ensure the security of your desk with this Safety Squint Calibrator! Amaze your frenemies and disgruntle your supervisor! Performs double duty as a pest remover! Order for Christmas and watch your loved one's disappointment turn to joy when they receive it next year!!!! Each kit contains one Cataractapult assembly. That's the basel platen, twang arm, scoop and trigger latch. That's four aerospace grade components all made from high quality FR4! Contains genuine fiberglass, just like NASA uses in SPACE! Pre-famulated with real tinned copper, straight from the creation of the Universe! WOW! Is what you'll say when they solder it all together (prior to yelling "MY EYE!") *DANGER! THIS TOY IS NOT FOR MORONS!* *SAFETY GLASSES NOT INCLUDED, BUT HIGHLY RECOMMENDED, YA BIG SISSY.*

Looking like a grim winter here in BC. Cancel your tickets, go to Vegas instead it's much nicer and waaaaaay more fun.

I had high hopes for this Bosch tool. The double duty 1/2" drive and 1/4" hex is a stroke of genius. The warm glow is short lived after a peak inside.

I had to cut some AR 500 plate with a torch. That didn't happen. Instead, we have a look at the Queen of gases: Acetylene.

A mountain side ramble and rant.

How can a $30 driver have a brushless motor?

Testing 20mm carbide end mills against AR steel. It sorta works.

I took a chance on a sight-unseen 80kW generator. It's got a Mitsubishi diesel, a Generac 208Vac alternator and a nasty surprise.

Our benevolent and merciful Minister Prime has deemed the Devil's Lettuce, legal in Kanuckistan. As a dutiful citizen, I exercise my right to grow crops. It's not as easy as it looks.

Me and the Dewclaw pull the Mitsubishi engine out of a big generator to see what's broken.