Other What did you fab up today? A thread for the home fabricators!

[OCD Solutions]

I’m turning a bunch of scrap aluminum into a Turtle Death Star.

 

[Turtle]

I’m turning a bunch of scrap aluminum into a Turtle Death Star.

Finish it yet?

 

[aboarder]

Do you use a standard miter saw with a non ferrous blade to cut aluminum?

 

[OCD Solutions]

These days I use the cheapest carbide blades I can find and stock up when they are on sale.

You can trash a good one in a few cuts or a cheap one so why waste the money.

Speed of cut and cooling plays a huge factor. I’m also looking into waxing my blades but any lubricant makes cleaning and welding much tricker. For ripping long sheets, I spray the blade and cut path with WD-40 and then have to clean it all off with acetone and alcohol.

 

[aboarder]

When I made my fuel tank I used a cheap carbide blade on my table saw. I'm glad to see I'm not the only one. Last summer I bought a Skil dry cut saw, which has been amazing for cutting any metal, but I still need the table saw for cutting sheet.

 

[Pro-pulsion]

I’m also looking into waxing my blades but any lubricant makes cleaning and welding much tricker

Where I used to work they used wax sticks for band saws, it definitely works but is very short lived. The blade had to be touched on about every 2 mins and the buildup under the table is just a massive congealed mess.

 

[OCD Solutions]

Pretty much what I expected but I ordered a couple different sticks to test out.

A better option might be to plumb an air line to the saw and use an air blast to cool the cutting area. Plus it blows away the chips

 

[Pro-pulsion]

Another option is to use rubbing alcohol. At the machine shop we were drilling 0.002" holes, we eventually found air to cool was best for the drill size but first tried the rubbing alcohol. It worked, the problem was the fluid weight of it was still too much for the little drill so it would push the drill off center and snap it when it plunged to any below surface depths.

 

[OCD Solutions]

Did you dilute the rubbing alcohol at all?
I have a misting system on my mill that I could try out with alcohol instead of my typical WD-40 and it wouldn’t require any cleaning afterwards.

 

[Pro-pulsion]

No dilution, just straight spray but you want to restrict it down because it is so much lighter than tool coolant and evaporates so quickly you will go through a massive amount in short order. I don't recall exactly how we had it set up, it wasn't my mill that they did that drilling on so I would only on occasion get to see the progress.

 

[OCD Solutions]

Not quite sure how this is going to work out but I had an idea and a stack of aluminum to play with so let’s hope this solves the problem it’s intended to.

 

[Big Kahuna]

errrrrrrrrrrrrr

 

[DAG]

Beefy AF whatever it is. I'm gonna call a platform to hoist the ski's that never hit the water up into the attic. Thats just me being bitter that even during the middle of a project your garage is clean and tidy.

not. one. thing. on. the. floor. how?

 

[Austin_landers]

hitch hauler / cart hauler .

 

[Big Kahuna]

Beefy AF whatever it is. I'm gonna call a platform to hoist the ski's that never hit the water up into the attic. Thats just me being bitter that even during the middle of a project your garage is clean and tidy.

not. one. thing. on. the. floor. how?

Dag, the mats are crooked. Do you see that!!!!! Holy Crap, they are out of place.

 

[OCD Solutions]

Well, since I don’t do anything involving skis any more, the safest guess would be something turtle related.

We have been feeding our turtles daily for the past year and they are wreaking havoc on our shoreline. They’ve eroded away close to a foot already and we can’t stand to lose an inch more. I have been looking at numerous ways of shoring up the bank and it seemed a no brainer to use up some of the free aluminum I have on hand. I have a few hundred feet of 4” channel and it will never rust or rot.

Since we don’t plan to stop feeding our shell babies, I built a feeding ramp that doubles as a shore break and this will be the center piece that I use to add onto as I continue down the bank.

The next step is to fill in and recover the section between the shore and the break but that will be a challenge with so much saturated shore.

We hauled home 1200lbs of gravel to fill the frame.

The little buggers just love their watermelon weekends.

 

[Big Kahuna]

That is pretty cool.
Just add some new dirt in where its eroded. then plant some grass seed.

 

[OCD Solutions]

I ran out of time this week as I head back to work at 3am Saturday morning but I plan to drag home a few buckets of dirt to fill it in next week. Ideally I want to dig up some plugs of established sod about 6” deep and plant those. It’s getting late in the season to start patching sod or planting seed though.

 

[Big Kahuna]

I ran out of time this week as I head back to work at 3am Saturday morning but I plan to drag home a few buckets of dirt to fill it in next week. Ideally I want to dig up some plugs of established sod about 6” deep and plant those. It’s getting late in the season to start patching sod or planting seed though.

I had a bare spot where we burried our dog back in july, never had any luck with seeds. Found a Seed mix that had mulch in the back with it. Just spread it out, did not even water like I was suppose to (it rained 2 days later), Totally covered up after 3 weeks...... Was really shocked. It was Bermuda.

 

[Vumad]

Teach me to weld!