Repair/mechanic tricks and or tips?
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patrick_g
Elite Member
It will also work well with some products other than latex paint such as "Deft" clear wood coating.
For longer term storage put the whole brush or roller cover in a "ziplock" freezer bag and squish out as much air as possible before sealing and placing in the freezer.
The lower temps really slow down the chemical changes of curing.
A place I once worked bought epoxy in small single use packages, premixed with catalyst-hardener. It was kept in a freezer till used. When thawed out with a heat gun it was fairly thin and easy to pour but you didn't have much time to use it before it started to set up and cure.
Pat
RedDirt
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- Kubota BX23, Wards 16HP HST Garden Tractor, (previous) D2 Logging Cat
Speaking of slowing cure times for mixtures that harden by chemical reaction, usually generating their own heat, I successfully extend working time by spreading the mixture (to be used) thin on a cookie sheet. The thin layer heats up slower than a large mass. This has worked well especially for two part epoxies and I have also used it for fiberglass resin and cementous (sp?) products like "Fix-All" and "Rock Hard" putty.
Putting the mixture in a double boiler type container filled with ice also works.
Putting the mixture in a double boiler type container filled with ice also works.
RedDirt
Gold Member
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- Northern Idaho
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- Kubota BX23, Wards 16HP HST Garden Tractor, (previous) D2 Logging Cat
When I am building anything that requires a constant reveal distance I cut a gauge block on the table saw. This is just a small scrap block of wood with a rabbet cut the width of the reveal.
This works well for woodworking like casing windows and doors or holding trim pieces a particular distance away from "something". A metal working example would be fabricating a "T" structure from two pieces of flat stock. I'd hold the gauge block on the flat horizontal piece, butt the vertical piece and tack the two pieces together periodically. A taller block for this would also hold the vertical piece perpendicular to the horizontal piece.
This works well for woodworking like casing windows and doors or holding trim pieces a particular distance away from "something". A metal working example would be fabricating a "T" structure from two pieces of flat stock. I'd hold the gauge block on the flat horizontal piece, butt the vertical piece and tack the two pieces together periodically. A taller block for this would also hold the vertical piece perpendicular to the horizontal piece.
i did see on one of the pages where somebody mentioned making a tap out of the appropiate size bolt by grinding grooves lengthwise like flutes on a tap. an older fellow showed me that years ago. now i am an older feller..... i havent read all the pages, dont know if anybody mentioned a thread file. with a thread file and the makeshift tap made from a bolt, always use a grade 8 if available, i couldnt begin to count the jams i have dug myself out of in the last 32 years. a metric and a standard thread file are 2 of the best investments one can make. cheap too, probably now in the neighborhood of 15 bucks or so each. although i have a complete tap and die set both metric and standard, the sizes that seem to give the most trouble are the sizes not included in the sets. go figure. on each thread file there are 8 pitches. if you ever use them, you wont be without em. another worthwhile investment are rethreader dies, not for cutting new threads, only for cleaning up or chasing threads, havent bought any in years, but when i bought mine they were cheap. hope this helps somebody in a jam.
RedDirt
Gold Member
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- Dec 4, 2007
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- Location
- Northern Idaho
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- Kubota BX23, Wards 16HP HST Garden Tractor, (previous) D2 Logging Cat
Any (solid feed roller) planer manual will warn you not to feed multiple boards through a planer. The thinner board will not be held by the feed roller and will shoot back at you propelled by the planer knives. Wood shop teachers may cringe but here are two methods to feed two and more boards quite safely and cut your planing time in half or better.
Say you have got a bunch of cabinet face frame material to plane. This stock is going to be 2"x 3/4" finished and you are using a 12" solid feed roller planer (as opposed to a larger segmented feed roller machine purpose built for planing multiple pieces of different thickness).
You have rough cut the stock to rough length and width and now want to thickness plane to 3/4".
Run one board through at the far right and one board at the far left of the table at the same time. The feed rollers rock across their length and will exert even pressure on each board and the "thinner" one will not be spit back as the warnings caution. I'll set up a piece of ply on horses several inches below the planer table to catch the off-fall and butt pieces end-to-end as I am feeding boards though. You'll cut your planing time by 60% 70%.
Now you want to make all these face frames equal width. You have jointed your finish thicknessed stock to produce one straight and square edge and have rough ripped 1/16" over width.
The boards are now stood on edge grouped together, jointed edge against the planer table and you have a group of equal length boards stood up as many as wide as you can firmly grasp with one hand. I can comfortably grasp about 5 or 6 - 3/4" boards. The group is evened up lenghtwise so they all start through the planer at the same time (eyeball even, they don't need to be precise as with a square). Feed the group through the center section of the planer squeezing the group together with your two hands. Don't let go or a "narrow" board will likely creep backwards (I've never had one shoot out). As the boards come through the planer and have reached their lenthwise balance point reach over the planer with your front hand and grasp the group at the out-feed end, then bring your rear hand to the out feed side. At least one hand is constantly squeezing the group together. Continue to squeeze the group until the cut is finished. You've now just planed 5 boards for the time cost of one!
BTW planing a relatively thin board to width is normally not possible on a thickness planer. The board will fall over (or the pressure of the feed roller will slant it out of plumb) being that it is taller than the supported narrow edge. The ganged or grouped method discribed above allows you to plane for board width and the planed edge will stay square. Normally you'd joint, rip over-width, then joint your cut edge. This can lead to slightly different widths of boards (especially if your jointer is not set up perfectly and you are cutting a slight taper). With the ganged width planing all you board will be precisely parallel and all the same width and square.
You'll need to use some discretion for the second method, edge planing a group. You don't want to do this with boards that are too tall as the whole group may want to fall over or slant sideways. This action can be more pronounced if your group is not in the center of the table and the feed rollers are not exerting equal pressure parallel to the table. I want the supported "base" of the group against the table to be near equal or wider than the height.
I've been using these two procedures for over thirty years without mishap but you should never attempt a new process (like these two) unless you are comfortable doing it.
As always, never stand directly in front of the infeed table when feeding a planer.
Say you have got a bunch of cabinet face frame material to plane. This stock is going to be 2"x 3/4" finished and you are using a 12" solid feed roller planer (as opposed to a larger segmented feed roller machine purpose built for planing multiple pieces of different thickness).
You have rough cut the stock to rough length and width and now want to thickness plane to 3/4".
Run one board through at the far right and one board at the far left of the table at the same time. The feed rollers rock across their length and will exert even pressure on each board and the "thinner" one will not be spit back as the warnings caution. I'll set up a piece of ply on horses several inches below the planer table to catch the off-fall and butt pieces end-to-end as I am feeding boards though. You'll cut your planing time by 60% 70%.
Now you want to make all these face frames equal width. You have jointed your finish thicknessed stock to produce one straight and square edge and have rough ripped 1/16" over width.
The boards are now stood on edge grouped together, jointed edge against the planer table and you have a group of equal length boards stood up as many as wide as you can firmly grasp with one hand. I can comfortably grasp about 5 or 6 - 3/4" boards. The group is evened up lenghtwise so they all start through the planer at the same time (eyeball even, they don't need to be precise as with a square). Feed the group through the center section of the planer squeezing the group together with your two hands. Don't let go or a "narrow" board will likely creep backwards (I've never had one shoot out). As the boards come through the planer and have reached their lenthwise balance point reach over the planer with your front hand and grasp the group at the out-feed end, then bring your rear hand to the out feed side. At least one hand is constantly squeezing the group together. Continue to squeeze the group until the cut is finished. You've now just planed 5 boards for the time cost of one!
BTW planing a relatively thin board to width is normally not possible on a thickness planer. The board will fall over (or the pressure of the feed roller will slant it out of plumb) being that it is taller than the supported narrow edge. The ganged or grouped method discribed above allows you to plane for board width and the planed edge will stay square. Normally you'd joint, rip over-width, then joint your cut edge. This can lead to slightly different widths of boards (especially if your jointer is not set up perfectly and you are cutting a slight taper). With the ganged width planing all you board will be precisely parallel and all the same width and square.
You'll need to use some discretion for the second method, edge planing a group. You don't want to do this with boards that are too tall as the whole group may want to fall over or slant sideways. This action can be more pronounced if your group is not in the center of the table and the feed rollers are not exerting equal pressure parallel to the table. I want the supported "base" of the group against the table to be near equal or wider than the height.
I've been using these two procedures for over thirty years without mishap but you should never attempt a new process (like these two) unless you are comfortable doing it.
As always, never stand directly in front of the infeed table when feeding a planer.
BearKiller
Silver Member
- Joined
- Aug 27, 2009
- Messages
- 230
I have a 1985 Ford F-350 that for half-a-million miles was equipped with the I-H 6.9 diesel.
You simply cannot wear those engines out, but they were notorious for the right-side head-gasket leaking at the right rear corner of the block.
I know of many around here that replaced that head-gasket numerous times, trying all manner of fixes, and the leak just kept coming back.
When mine had less than fifty-thousand miles, I dumped in three of the semi-truck sized bottles of the pelleted Bars-Leaks and the leak slowed to a trickle.
A couple weeks later, I dumped in two more bottles and that truck never lost another drop of coolant for the rest of the half-a-million miles I had the engine in it.
The engine was running fine when I pulled it and upgraded to a purely mechanical 6BT Cummins.
Everyone kept warning me of the impossible to clean out mess that Bars-Leaks made inside an engine; I can't say whether it did or did not, because that engine has never had a bolt removed since new in 1985.
On the other hand, I had an inline-six in a Jeep Cherokee to develop a small leak just West of Flagstaff; I dumped in one junior-sized bottle of Bars-Leaks and had to replace a fully stopped-up radiator in Lubbock, so Bars-Leaks is not for every engine/radiator combination.
patrick_g
Elite Member
Punching a hole in a radiator off roading a pickup with camper in Baja but not having any of the famous BARS LEAKS we pinched the radiator tube hole closed with pliers and dumped some breakfast cereal (Farina, I think... like grits but finer but surely oatmeal or similar would have worked as well) and it stopped the leak so long as we didn't put the pressure cap onto the second notch. We made it into a little town with a mechanic shop that repaired radiators and got it fixed like new.
Pat
Pat
Zephrant
Silver Member
If you strip out a small screw head (especially those small Allen heads), take a dremel with a cut-off wheel and cut a notch in the head, then use a flat screwdriver to extract it.
As mentioned already, taping the screwdriver with a hammer can also encourage it to come out.
As mentioned already, taping the screwdriver with a hammer can also encourage it to come out.
DaveOmak
Platinum Member
Ok Egon- you keep driving home the point about someone being a spanner
Never heard the term myself. Must be a Canadian thing, eh?
So...looked it up here- Urban Dictionary: spanner
if anyone else is as unenlightened as me.
Skyco, Love your wit. Can I use the term "spanner" appropriatly without citing credits? I could have used it in the past, many times.
About the proper positioning of a "paralled jaw adjustible spanner". I have been told many times I have positioned the wrench incorrectly. You are the first account of physics that agrees what I have been applying to the use of tools for years. Now there are two people who know the correct positioning of a "crescent" wrench OR we are complete idiots?
Dave
