Kudos to an unknown putterholic pioneer

If you’ve never experienced the site Freecycle.org I highly recommend you give it a try. For one thing it got me some of my used motor oil for furnace fuel. Sometimes though some really interesting finds can be had even when you aren’t looking for them.  Case in point was yesterday. A lady a few blocks away was cleaning out the garage of what I gathered was a deceased relative. She had had a yard sale last week and was now looking to just get rid of what was still a sizeable inventory. I think she posted at least a couple dozen posts on the local freecycle board. I sent out a reply on a couple of them and went there just expecting to get a ladder and a couple of floodlights. Well, there was still quite a bit of unclaimed stuff at the place when I got there and the owner encouraged everyone there to take what they wanted. I took a look around and there was some neat old stuff that many would just consider junk. Most of it I left because I had zero use for them. One thing in particular though caught my eye and I knew I had to have it just for the parts alone! Let me show you what I’m talking about:

You are looking at a home made air compressor!  I just think it is so cool that someone was able to put this together to satisfy their need for compressed air. The drive motor is a 1/3 HP unit made by the Packard Electric Division of GM. So far I have yet to figure out its manufacture date. The compression unit is made from a small engine. There are no identifying marks for me to ID the make or model. The exhaust port has been sealed off with a plug and a small pipe inserted where the spark plug should be. The rubber hose, though in rough shape, still holds air.  Given the whole unit’s overall condition, I would say that it has got to be pretty old.

Does it work? See for yourself:

 

Now, what exactly am I going to do with this piece of ingenuity? When I first saw it, I thought it was going to be parted out for use in other things. But after I fired it up and saw how quiet the thing is compared to my store bought compressors, I may use this as the compressed air source for my Babington burner furnace. I’m going to have to replace that rubber hose and run some tests to determine if it can supply enough pressure and air volume. It will be great if this old find can make its way into my own creation.

The case of the conductive mortar

I’ll expand more on this later, I just wanted to get this linked here before I went to bed.

My (electrical) Connections

Back when TLC actually was a place where you could watch educational programming, they would occasionally run a BBC production entitled  Connections. In it, presenter James Burke explored the often unlikely connections linking the technological advances that make modern life possible.  I make no claim that my connections are as life changing, just that it is interesting how work on one thing can lead to another.

I said in the last entry that I was putting the burner project on hiatus. And at the time, I meant it. But things don’t always work out as planned.  Last week I was troubleshooting my little problem with the Harbor Freight heat gun. Still haven’t figured it out, but in taking apart the donor hair drier it occurred to me to test the resistance of its heating coils. This particular model had three separate strands of heating wire. Lo and behold, the resistance of the two smaller wires put them in the range I needed for ramping up the power of my crock pot heater. Just to review, the first crock pot heater drew about 40 watts. The upper limit for the new and improved model has to come in at under 400W since that is the rating on my car’s DC to AC inverter which will be keeping the unit hot during transport. Using the electrical equations P=VI and V=IR, we input our knowns. 400W=120V x I. Solving for I gives us. 3.33 amps. Then we put that into the second equation and solve for R to get 36 Ohms.  I set a target of 40 Ohms for a safety factor. The final product ended up in the 50-55 Ohm range. Here is a picture of the windings on the crock.

The grey electrical tape was there to hold the insulator strip as I did the winding. The strip allows you to have the connections to a cord be right next to one another. I really like this setup instead of my original idea of buying 28ga steel wire as it accomplishes more resistance in 12 windings than the steel could in 60 (which I was having trouble fitting onto a crock anyway). By the way, this operation was not without casualties. That wire is wavy because it was coiled up like a spring and needed straightening. Evidently, too much of this kind of activity is hard on the fingers:

Only that long one going from top right to bottom left cut deep enough to hurt. Think paper cut only more efficient.

After placing the windings, they needed better contact for heat transfer. That waviness of the wires not only went up and down, but also in and out so not all the wire was touching the crock. My initial plan was to just put a coat of thin set mortar over the wire and call it good. This would fully bury the wire to prevent shorts. But as I was nearly done with that, I found that I had a good deal of mixed up mortar left over. So I thought, aw, what the heck. I’ll fill the entire cavity between the crock and outer shell with mortar.

In this photo we are looking at the underside of the unit minus the bottom plate. I only filled in the space around the sides where the heating elements are. After that cures, I’ll likely stuff some fiberglass batting into the bottom to minimize heat loss there.

Well, that is the extent of my progress. I look forward to sharing more with you all later.

Oil furnace on hiatus

I haven’t posted in a couple of weeks partly due to lack of any real progress (had to start on a new centrifuge bowl), but partly due to other things coming up that need my attention. I’m planning to share one of them here in video format. I filmed a repair job I did on the front axle of my tractor. I’m very frustrated though with either the editing software or the computer not being able to keep up in playing the video while I try to make edits.  Anyway, summer is in full swing around here, and I need to catch up on some other things while I can. The boat and jet ski are out of the pole barn, which means that I now have the room to do some major reorganization. If you’ve studied the backgrounds of the photos and vids I’ve posted, you know I’ve been forsaking neatness quite a bit. Now is the time to regroup.

Though I won’t be working on the furnace project, it does not mean I won’t have stuff to talk about. I mentioned the tractor repair which I hope to bring to you soon, but I also had to do a little bit of transplant surgery on my gas weed trimmer.  A little while back, I made the mistake of buying a heat gun from Harbor Freight. The thermal protection died after the first test! I’m currently figuring out how to wire the heating element from that into the body of a regular blow drier. If I get the wiring right, I can’t see there being much of a problem. The gun was rated at 15oo watts and the hair drier pulls 1600 watts. All a matter of how the heat is distributed I guess. Big plans are brewing at my wife’s office building too. We may finally be getting up the resolve to repaint the exterior. Plus, I’ve begun acquisition of parts to install an underground sprinkler system. Lowe’s had a box of pop up sprinklers on clearance for 75cents each when they were usually $2.17. So I got all the sprinklers I will need for just $6. I’m looking into the possibility of retrofitting an old (30+year) timer/distribution box to use electric solenoids instead of water pressure to open zone valves. I don’t know how farking pleased with myself I’ll be if I can pull THAT one off!:) After that I might try water into wine or a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.:)

Enough dreaming big, I’ve got to get to bed. Night all!

A $350 jigsaw puzzle

This is going to be fairly short since I didn’t do any project work at the shop this week. I did start a small painting project. My wife bought a couple of metal toddler bed frames at a garage sale (where else?), and my job is to paint them pink. Right now I’m just working on sanding the old paint so the new paint will grip.

Anyway, I thought I’d get around to sharing about the mega deal my wife and I scored a few weeks ago. What would you pay for a 1997 SeaDoo GTS with trailer? $1000? $1500? Would you believe $350? You would be hard pressed to find just the trailer for that price! Of course, there is a catch, and you can see what that is in the photos below.

 

Yep, that’s right. Low low price of $350, but some assembly may be required! I’m not too concerned about this aspect. I had to take apart much of our other GTS last summer to replace the starter. What I don’t know is will I be able to find any parts that I will need during the re-assembly. I know that there is a bad bearing on the crankshaft, that’s why the seller tore it up. He just didn’t know how to keep going, ran out of patience, whatever. His loss will be my gain. Even if, for some reason, I am unable to make it run, it is the exact same model as our other GTS (same colors even) and will be great for providing spare parts. And I get a trailer out of the deal. I do not have one for the other GTS, and it is a pain transferring it from its stand onto my flatbed utility trailer in order to get it in the water.

Nothing else to report, except to say congratulations to my brother on his wedding this past weekend.

Wet test, supply runs, and bonus brazing

Big weekend at the shop. The drive motor of the centrifuge was wired up with a cord and a remote switch so it could be operated in its final position. I’ll tell ya, the switch really looks like overkill because I decided to employ an outlet box and switch from what I like to call my “Western Electric Surplus” supply. My grandfather worked there for 30 years as an installer, and he acquired quite a few items over the course of that run. (Let’s put it this way, it has been 26 years since he died, and I have never had to buy zip ties unless I’ve been in need and caught away from home without any on me. He had a LOT of stuff!) This box is the kind you would find on walls in older concrete wall basements. 1/8th to 3/16ths inch thick aluminum, and possibly just short of bulletproof. A little bit of armored conduit so I could mount the thing on the front of the stand and I was all set to go. Drains were also installed on the washer tub to drain the oil. So I guess it was finally time for a test run with some oil. Having learned my lesson from my Babington burner testing, this was NOT going to be videotaped.:) Turns out that was a wise move. Adding the oil into the spinning drum pointed out just how badly the metal ring at the top of the pot was held on. It leaked terribly. Not only that, but the plexiglass I glued into the round hole on the one end of the tub did not stay firmly attached. 

More research was needed to find a better binding agent. Time to head to the Mecca of home improvement junkies, the local home center. In my case it’s Home Depot, but I would go to Lowe’s too if they had one in Houghton Lake. Probably not gonna happen considering two other home centers in the area bit the dust in the last ten years. Anyway, the point I was trying to make before my train of thought was totally derailed is that I don’t particularly like having to go to that particular Home Depot. Why? Let me show you.

A 26 mile round trip is waiting for me every time I need to get anything at the local HD.  26 miles of moderately curvy roads with a max speed limit of 45mph.  That’s what happens when you have a 20k acre lake between you and the main retail establishments in the area. I do have a local hardware store about a 5 minute drive from the shop, but their selection and hours are limited.  I find it much more convenient to try and anticipate my needs while I am still in Midland during the week and go to the HD or Lowe’s there. That way I’m not eating into my limited shop time or driving all that way for one or two items like I did this weekend.

I settled on trying the quick setting version of JB Weld. All I can say is WOW! I had stayed away from JB because its advertising made me suspect that it was way overhyped. I’ll have to hold out final judgement until I can do another test run, but that stuff really seems to have formed a tight bond.

Normally, I would have had to wrap it up now. But my wife was downstate with our daughter and a change of plans meant that she wouldn’t be home until late the next day. So I was able to get in some bonus shop time! And I was determined to put it to good use.  Last week I told you about the cracked well pump I got at a garage sale. Sunday I decided to give repairing it a try. Here’s the results.

This is my first attempt at brazing since Jr High shop class, and considering that I think I did OK. Again, I’ll have to wait until I’m able to re-assemble the pump and test it before I call it a success. But the broken pieces seem to be on there really tight.

No shop time coming up this weekend. I’m going to my brother’s wedding (no one should have to face that kind of torture alone:) ). Next week it might be a good time to tell you all about my next mechanical project.  Till then, bye bye.

The lord of the mayflies and garage sale wars

Greetings! And welcome to June. As I suspected last week, very little got done on the main project over the holiday weekend. But there are still things to talk about. The irrigation pump I was using to move oil up to my rafter barrel needed detoxifying as it was needed elsewhere. Keep in mind that this pump will never be used for drinking water, so my standard for clean here is 'can I see an oil sheen on the water coming out?' A couple of fills with Simple Green and water and some Lysol and water left in overnight seemed to do the trick. With the Simple Green, I also ran the pump with the inlet and outlets closed to get some good agitation going.

The night time work sessions in the pole barn turned out to be quite buggy, and I don’t mean equipment problems. I had the doors wide open because we actually had warm weather. I was under attack from two fronts. Behind the pole barn is state swamp land which seems to supply roughly half the mosquitoes on the planet. The front is roughly 400’ away from Houghton Lake, and this was the weekend that the mayflies chose to rise up from the lake to find mates. By the end of the night, there were swarms of them around every light in the shop and plenty of them covering the floor and other surfaces. In addition, there were plenty of large moths and other night time insects all flitting around and generally making it look like the set of some horror movie. So nobody can say that I don’t suffer for my craft!:)

As most people are aware, Memorial Day weekend is a huge time for garage sales, especially in my area. On Friday I wasn’t even looking to stop at any, but on my way back from town I saw one that had potential. I ended up scoring big time! For a grand total of $15 I got a new captain’s chair for my boat, a box of galvanized pipe fittings, a box of brass pipe fittings, a box of 3” PVC DWV fittings, and a box of miscellaneous electrical items that included outlets, floodlight fixtures, and a motion sensor for an outdoor floodlight. Any one of those boxes had items that would have totaled close to $100 if purchased retail, and I got three.  On Saturday, my wife, child and I all went out together to do the garage sale thing. It was also a very successful day. I scored a utility sink (with faucet) for the laundry room for $12, a well pump and galvanized fittings for $20, and an old style well pump tank for $20. (Old style does not have a pressurized air chamber inside) The pump is going to need some welding to repair a crack, but this was a great find because now my lawn watering pump will not have to do double duty anymore. The tank is not necessary for pumping oil, but I will be modifying it to increase air storage for my air compressor.

As I said earlier, I did not get a lot done on the current project. Partly due to time constraints, but also partly due to some indecisiveness on how to proceed. I could not keep myself focused on either getting the centrifuge set up just enough to see it work, or going forward with setting it up as it needs to be when completed. The two objectives have some overlap, but they are not the same. Eventually, time constraints made me choose work on the permanent setup.  Much of the temporary work would have had to have been replaced or altered so I might as well be patient and do the work once.

That’s about it. Next week I’ll either have some video of a working centrifuge, or the story of a bigger deal I snagged last week.