# Non flashlight projects



## KC2IXE (Apr 11, 2009)

first, let me confess - I really have not done much flashlight wise in the shop, as I'm actually happy with what I have (gasp), to the point that oh, for the last year or so, I read this section, the Cafe, and that's it!

Why do I hang here? The people. Frankly, the folks on this forum are some of the nicest folks around lovecpf

Anyway, as I said in another post, for various reasons, I have not had much shop time in the last bunch of years, but it's starting to come back (lot of plastic models to build, and metal projects to make)

Anyway, what non flashlight projects do you do?

I have one "paying" customer I do work for - not a lot of work (a simple lathe job) that basically allows me to buy drill bits and stuff for my own use (say 150/year kinda level)

My BIG project, started 9 years agom and untouched for about the last 8 is a Live Steam engine - a Fitchberg Northern. I have to get back to that. Thing is, I want to build/finish something a LOT sooner than I will with that, so I'll probably build something small for fun soon, probably some sort of all barstock "steam" (I'll run it on air) engine, maybe even a rebuild of the very first engine I ever made, just to see how I could do now - but doing things like instead of holding the head on with screws, making tiny studs, and scale nuts, etc


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## LukeA (Apr 11, 2009)

I'm:

-KG Gunkoting items around the house - stormdoor handles, bathroom fittings and fixtures, etc

-Designing, building, and installing some fixed LED lighting for the steps from the driveway to the front door

-Assembling a Mini3 headphone amp but with a custom current regulator/low voltage cutoff circuit to safely run from li-poly instead of NiCd (giving up in-amp charging for 3x the runtime)

-I've also started cooking again. 

The above in addition to classwork.


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## PEU (Apr 11, 2009)

I like to build stuff, some times even more than using then after done 

I did this some years ago: CNC Router Not so long ago I did this: Turner's Cube and this: Custom rack

I always have two or three ongoing projects, when I get bored or frustrated with something I jumpt to next till I loop to the 1st one.

For example, at this moment I have chucked in my lathe a gear hob (to make gears) its not finished yet and its giving me a hard time, even made a software to generate the code to machine the gears. I also have in the queue a LED ring for my mill, and other stuff I will remember the moment I press submit 

In a nutshell, I have this inner urge to buid stuff, even if serves no purpose other than satisfying the urge itself 


Pablo


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## nekomane (Apr 12, 2009)

I have made a couple of adapters to use wide angle conversion lenses on a compact digicam.

It would be interesting to hear what non-flashlight related pieces all you guys were making. Was about to start a thread like this myself.

I remember seeing some titanium wind chimes on McGizmos's web site though I can't find the link anymore.



PEU said:


> I like to build stuff, some times even more than using then after done
> *snip*
> In a nutshell, I have this inner urge to buid stuff, even if serves no purpose other than satisfying the urge itself
> Pablo


Well said :thumbsup:


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## gadget_lover (Apr 13, 2009)

I make silly things....

A set of delrin plugs for the feet of the chairs on the back porch.

The plumber replaced the water heater and got some gunk clogged in one pipe. I made a threaded plug to replace the aerator in the faucet so we could reverse flush the hot line using the pressure from the cold line.

The steering wheel cowling on my wife's car came loose. The plastic stand-off pillars that the screws went through had shattered over the last 15 years. I turned new pillars from delrin to press fit into what remained of the holes, allowing me to temporarily remount them.

I made 'feet' for my mesh wife's Omochi grill. Little 1 inch high feet to suspend the round mesh above the electric burner.

I made new hinge pings for my gate.

I made a smooth little metal pass-through for the string that activates the latch on my gate. The original design had a hole drilled through the wood and the string caught there often. Now it latches every time.

I'm sure there are other things. I make a lot of tooling ang jigs for my other tools.

Daniel


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## wquiles (Apr 13, 2009)

I work mostly/only on flashlight projects (or parts/tools to use/build flashlights - I love making jigs/fixtures to make things easier to build), but I used my now-gone mini-mill to modify a plastic tool to remove a stock shower handle. The stock tool was not deep enough, so a few "cut & try" game me a working tool to finish the job 

My next non-flashlight project will be to fabricate new mounts for the oil filter housing in my almost 10-year old BMW. In this photo, top right, you can see the metal oil filter housing. It has two rubber mounting points, with a metal bolt attaching to the metal housing, and the rubber press fitt to the mounting bracket. The problem is that with age and vibration those rubber portions shear off as there is nothing substantial to them:






Will


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## Anglepoise (Apr 13, 2009)

Apart from Flashlights, my main project over the last 10 years was to build
a Faceting Machine. These are used by professionals and amateurs alike to turn rough 'pebbles'






into a fully faceted and polished gem stones.






All in all it took around 5 years to design, build and get working correctly.







Click the link if you would like to see some of the individual 
components Click here for Slide Show


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## TranquillityBase (Apr 13, 2009)

Very cool, Mr. D


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## jhanko (Apr 13, 2009)

Anglepoise said:


> Apart from Flashlights, my main project over the last 10 years was to build
> a Faceting Machine. These are used by professionals and amateurs alike to turn rough 'pebbles' into a fully faceted and polished gem stones.



That looks like quite a beautiful machine. Does it use a diamond wheel, or lapping compounds? I'm also curious how they facet diamonds.


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## StrikerDown (Apr 13, 2009)

You Built that? Holy crap! I thought I did pretty nice work... I need to re-think this!

Gorgeous work David! :thumbsup:


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## gollum (Apr 14, 2009)

wow thats a nice looking bit of kit 
did you enjoy making it?


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## Anglepoise (Apr 14, 2009)

JHanko said:


> . Does it use a diamond wheel, or lapping compounds? I'm also curious how they facet diamonds.



For cutting,it uses 6" steel laps with diamond grit electrically bonded or sintered in/on the metal. For polishing, 8,000 ( and above) diamond dust 
and oil are used with various laps. The orange polishing lap shown is phenolic.

Faceting diamonds uses the same principle, but the equipment used is more robust and the laps ( called a scaife by diamond cutters) must spin at over 2000rpm and be perfectly balanced and are cast iron not steel.




gollum said:


> wow thats a nice looking bit of kit
> did you enjoy making it?



Yes....very much, except for the electronics.


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## PEU (May 1, 2009)

Last week browsing CNCzone I found a thread about reducers, it caught my interest, mostly because a new (to me) kind of gears, I've been doing gears just for the fun of doing them, but this new ones were far simpler and interesting since you can achieve big reducing ratios with far less parts and with far less backslash.

Here is the thread:
http://www.cnczone.com/forums/showthread.php?t=72261 

and here is a youtube video of the reducer I made:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vvIyG6DhlZE


Pablo


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## StrikerDown (May 1, 2009)

I did this a little over a month ago, my first project with the mill... Any mill!

I had a paper cutter at work with an almost broken crank on an adjustment handle:





I figured this would be good basic project to get a little practice practice with the mill and the Rotary table:








A quick trip on the sand paper to remove scratches from what used to be scrap aluminum:





Next was installing the handle on the crank and putting it on the machine, good to go!


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## gadget_lover (May 1, 2009)

Nicely done. Getting the holes centered the first time around is not always as easy as it looks.

I wish I had such nice equipment for my first milling project. 

Daniel


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## StrikerDown (May 1, 2009)

gadget_lover said:


> Nicely done. Getting the holes centered the first time around is not always as easy as it looks.
> 
> I wish I had such nice equipment for my first milling project.
> 
> Daniel


 
Thank you, You are right there. I used the indicol to center the RT under the spindle then centered the pre-drilled hole of the part on the table, adjusted the X half the width of the end I was on and turned the table to the side then milled away. I don't know what the best way to do it is but that worked!

I have done a couple other non flashlight projects that I don't have pics for. Like milled a bevel on the Mag Well of a 1911. And I'm In the process of making an auxillary top for the RT.

Here is my first cut (flutes) on a flashlight:






This weekend I need to run a 220V circuit for the lathe that should be here in a week or so! :devil:


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## wquiles (May 2, 2009)

gadget_lover said:


> Nicely done. Getting the holes centered the first time around is not always as easy as it looks.
> 
> I wish I had such nice equipment for my first milling project.
> 
> Daniel



+1 - very nice job 

Will


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## Anglepoise (May 2, 2009)

StrikerDown said:


> I did this a little over a month ago, my first project with the mill... Any mill!



Very nice work.


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