What was the last thing you made?

[Nitro]

Boiler drool cup mount on a 1927 Peerless stationary steam engine.
A weep hole under the firebox was dribbling liquid combustion byproducts onto the tow hitch and trashing the paint.

Two scrap angle iron pieces were welded together to produce a platform.
A holesaw was used to cut the needed radii to nest it on the pipe hitch assembly

Trial fit to check the level of the mount.
Was set up within one minute of accuracy.
Probably level enough
The extra holes were plug welded shut and the assembly was ground all over to remove any sharp edges.

Blue, custom fitted brass retention posts
Yellow, brass spittoon
Red, brass drawer pull to use as a knob
The stainless steel stud was set up at just the right length to prevent damaging the spittoon base.
The knob limits the amount of torque applied to it.
A custom radiused brass washer was machined just to pretty the assembly up.
An aluminum bar was used for the binding stud attach point.
The entire assembly was painted the matching color to the hitch.

The selected hardware was all brass or stainless steel in order to prevent major corrosion.

A hole was drilled and tapped for an attachment bolt hidden under the vessel.

Final installation completed and ready for the show!

 

[Nitro]

The old '79 Wheelhorse C-111 8 speed had a steering tow issue that needed correcting.
Some clownhead likely fixed it with the wrong parts with little to no skill level.
What was done was done, so I yanked it apart to fix it proper.

Any fool with a welder could have fixed it with a hacksaw, but it could never be adjusted, so scrap it out and start over.
(4) new tie rod ends were sourced from Fleabay.
A piece of 5/8" mild steel barstock was selected for the repair parts.
Both ends were turned to .010 inch under nominal for thread truncation and a 7/16"-20 tpi thread was chased on each end.
All that is left now is a trip to the hardware store for 4 new locknuts and final assembly of one side.
After the first rod is attached and adjusted, a second one will be machined after gaining the proper measurement needed for a final toe setting.
Easy-peasy lemon squeezy

The old girl made her debut at the summer show, but a faulty carburetor prevented her from shining like the star
she really is.

New carbonator sourced from Fleabay:

That is a lot of part for the mere price of $36.
I was just plain done doing battle with the worn out original, so I put it out to pasture as it were.

The 43 year old girl now resides at the shop out on the steam show grounds and will be used as my chariot when I am up there.
150 acres is a lot of walking

 

[Nitro]

The old '79 Wheelhorse C-111 8 speed had a steering tow issue that needed correcting.
Some clownhead likely fixed it with the wrong parts with little to no skill level.
What was done was done, so I yanked it apart to fix it proper.

Any fool with a welder could have fixed it with a hacksaw, but it could never be adjusted, so scrap it out and start over.
(4) new tie rod ends were sourced from Fleabay.
A piece of 5/8" mild steel barstock was selected for the repair parts.
Both ends were turned to .010 inch under nominal for thread truncation and a 7/16"-20 tpi thread was chased on each end.
All that is left now is a trip to the hardware store for 4 new locknuts and final assembly of one side.
After the first rod is attached and adjusted, a second one will be machined after gaining the proper measurement needed for a final toe setting.
Easy-peasy lemon squeezy

View attachment 84733
View attachment 84734
View attachment 84735
The old girl made her debut at the summer show, but a faulty carburetor prevented her from shining like the start she really is.

New carbonator sourced from Fleabay:
View attachment 84736
View attachment 84737
That is a lot of part for the mere price of $36.
I was just plain done doing battle with the worn out original, so I put it out to pasture as it were.

The 43 year old girl now resides at the shop out on the steam show grounds and will be used as my chariot when I am up there.
150 acres is a lot of walking

The steering fix went well and I gained the additional measurements for the second side.
The carb issue had a few snags.
One of them was a missing throttle linkage support threaded hole in the airhorn.

Easy enough to fix in a machineshop setting.
First step was to set the hole location on the casting.
A slight tap with a center punch was enough to get it started.
Next stop was over to a drill press.
Not your everyday electric one mind you, a century old one hand cranked unit mounted to the wall.

This one has power feed as well, so the machine provided all of the added monkey-motion.
A guy can't man the camera during the operation, but I think you can still get the picture.
The thread tapping operation was both easy and boring, so I won't elaborate on it.

The engine fired up without a hitch but still needs the governor assembly adjusted.

Easy enough but it will have to wait until next time

 

[Luca]

^The work you do on these vehicles is really amazing. I love how they look with the fresh coat of paint!

 

[Nitro]

^The work you do on these vehicles is really amazing. I love how they look with the fresh coat of paint!

Sometimes we try to make them shiny, but other times we like to maintain them in as found condition that we call a survivor.

When I perform repair work on our century old machinetools, I go out of my way to preserve the dirt and grime they earned and only clean the areas that are necessary to the actual repair.

 

[Nitro]

This is my early '70s Murray Eliminator 3 speed bicycle survivor project that is in the works:

I found a donor bike from the same era in the trash to provide both missing and damaged parts.

Stripped to nearly her bare bones:

This bike will look like crap when it is finished, but will be in 100% perfect working condition.
I'm still up in the air about re-lacing the crusty rusty wheels to more modern rims, but that has yet to be decided.
If I do the wheels, it would be considered a resto-mod.
If I don't, she will be considered a survivor.

 

[Luca]

It’s not much, but here’s my DIY show lead holder

 

[Nitro]

The steering fix went well and I gained the additional measurements for the second side.
The carb issue had a few snags.
One of them was a missing throttle linkage support threaded hole in the airhorn.

Easy enough to fix in a machineshop setting.
First step was to set the hole location on the casting.
A slight tap with a center punch was enough to get it started.
Next stop was over to a drill press.
Not your everyday electric one mind you, a century old one hand cranked unit mounted to the wall.
View attachment 84770
View attachment 84771
This one has power feed as well, so the machine provided all of the added monkey-motion.
A guy can't man the camera during the operation, but I think you can still get the picture.
The thread tapping operation was both easy and boring, so I won't elaborate on it.

The engine fired up without a hitch but still needs the governor assembly adjusted.

Easy enough but it will have to wait until next time

Well back at it again.
The second tie rod was made and turned out really nice.

Fear not the stress riser highlighted in blue, it was done with a radius nosed cutting tool to minimize it's chances of failure.
A catastrophic steering failure from it at 5 miles per hour in the dirt shouldn't be unmanageable in a "situation", so I ain't skeered.

Pretty nice considering that it was machined out of a rusty piece of concrete rebar I hacked a piece off of to make it out of.
Sometimes ya gotta do what ya gotta do, ya know

 

[Catherine Read]

My friend recently got himself a CNC machine and asked me to draw these soul crystal things from Final Fantasy 14.

This is the result...a keychain/ lanyard

I also drew a Mincraft creature for a request that we put on a novelty LED lamp. I didn't take this one home to photograph as it had to get sent off as soon as made.

 

[GrownupGirl]

A painting of a pink elephant from Dumbo that glows in the dark.

 

[Gerald Wilgus]

A painting of a pink elephant from Dumbo that glows in the dark.

And, I like Sun Ra and his Arkestra's version of Pink Elephants on Parade.

 

[Captain Jigglypuff]

I tried making this savory French toast sandwich yesterday from a recipe I found online and it didn’t go so well. I couldn’t get the toast to cook correctly and it was burning too.

 

[Nitro]

I took an old wobbly crappy picnic table apart for the planking then reconstructed it with rough sawn lumber from our sawmill out at the Steam show grounds.
About the time it was finished, so was my steak.
Grab the stool fool and test it out.
It was right tasty if I do say so.
The table was built extra high in order to become a part of my lineshaft component display.

Here is my side of the table with the components sitting on it.

Dirty and crusty, but likely a century old, so please respect the rust and dirt these parts earned.
These are on the spectator side of my barricade.

The 4 step pulley above is actually turned from wood.

The roll of belting pictured above is leather.

We now use a more reliable and less expensive synthetic belting as opposed to skinning a bunch of cattle just for display 5 days out of each year.

Prior to our spring show during the Pike festival, I intend to paint the top just to give it a finished look.

 

[Nitro]

It was a builder Bob weekend for me that began on Friday afternoon.

I finished the construction of a barricade for our 125+ year old belt driven generator display.
The control panel for it is on display too, with one light socket wired and a second one in the works.
When I get back out there with more wire and a dimmer, I will bring the second porcelain receptacle to life.
The control panel itself is made out of slate and wired tube and knob style with cloth insulated wiring.

I will add a mirror to it on an angle so the public can see the Frankenstein looking mess of years ago

 

[Nitro]

Finishing the repairs on my clock was included on the list.

 

[Gerald Wilgus]

This is like the Buckley Old Engine Show. This year is my first visit and I enjoyed a lot of it. My BIL was transfixed by the hit and miss engines, so I got a working scale model for him on his birthday.

 

[Nitro]

Adding the new generator barricade enabled the public to get five feet closer to the machinery on that side of the shop.

In the process of doing that, I decided to move a small horizontal milling machine there from the other side of the shop.

No problem, I have been a rigger since I was old enough to move the rollers.
Easy peasy, just need a pinch bar and some rollers to overcome the physics of it all.

No rollers?
Just grab your socket set extensions.
40 minutes later at just 4 inches at a clip and the 40 foot move was over.

Later that night, I derusted the table and cleaned and lubricated the ways. Then I removed the overarm shaft so I could take it home to dress the noogies on it and give it a polish.
Now it is clean enough to sit on my kitchen prep table:

 

[Nitro]

The old Murray Eliminator got some more attention too.

Two weeks ago, she looked like this.
Several weekends ago, I dismantled her.

I further took her down to her bare bones then gathered some parts from an old 26 inch donor bike I found in the trash.

The donor gave up all of her bearings, both of her brake levers and calipers and a missing shifter part for the Sturmey-Archer 3 speed planetary rear hub.
I used the wheels off a scrapped out Mongoose 20 incher because the Murray wheels were beyond salvaging.
The interesting part was that the wheels had the same spoke count as the 26 inch bike and not the 32 spoked Murray originals.
That in turn led to dismantling 3 different wheels to try to get the correct length spokes.
In the end, the re-lacing of the rear wheel was the hot ticket using the spokes out of another 20 inch wheel that didn't have a crossed spoke pattern the the wheel ended up getting laced as.

The Mongoose front wheel was a 36 spoke unit without the crossed spokes.
So now, instead of my machine being a survivor, she is now a resto-mod bike.

Here she is now with all of the reassembly nearing completion.
The front and rear fenders were robbed from a kid's bike that got squashed by a car.
They fitted nearly perfect.
Both the front and rear calipers were installed now and the rear brake cable and shifter cable have been replaced with stainless cable and lined sheathing.
All of the brake shoes have been replaced with brand new ones too.

The rear cheater slick tire was replaced but I blew it on the front tire by neglecting to check to see what actual style rim it fit.
I chose a 20 x 1.125 inch super skinny tire for the steering tire to maintain the dragbike look, so it will be back to the drawing board to select a proper one.

That kind of put a damper on that project, but it can wait.

The 50 year old seat is still sort of dirty looking, but there were no cracks on it.
I have been conditioning it to soften it up.

When the new front tire arrives, I will yank the fenders off it to give them a faux patina treatment.

The idea behind the project was to mechanically restore a very rare as found bike and leave the most of it in as found condition.

 

[Nitro]

This is like the Buckley Old Engine Show. This year is my first visit and I enjoyed a lot of it. My BIL was transfixed by the hit and miss engines, so I got a working scale model for him on his birthday.

I run just a tiny part of our show.
We are spread out over 150 acres and hold what is considered the largest active antique excavating show in the country.
We may even hold that title for the world.

 

[Nitro]

We held our no show show last weekend out at The Steam Gas and Horse Association grounds.
It was a gathering for all who miss the shows we put on because we are tied up in our own displays.
It was great to be together again on our own terms and we feasted at each meal that was set out at the Whistle Stop restaurant near our steam train display.

I went up there Friday morning and set up camp in the shop again.
Here are my new digs up there:

It's an instant up dome tent.

Yep, that's the Murray sitting on her new front tire, a super skinny one to go with the drag bike theme.
About three hours later, the front and rear brake calipers were removed, disassembled to change out their mounting plated and both of the levers were final assembled with their new cables.
The shift cable got put on hold again due to lack of the proper parts to finish it out.
No biggie, I already made what it needs when I returned home.
Other than that and the final placement of the shifter handle, the old girl is back in service and was ridden several miles over the weekend.
The final step to complete it is a faux patina treatment to the fenders, but that can wait.

The tent idea was capital.
I placed my cot inside of it along with an electric oil filled radiator.
We woke up to a heavy frost Saturday morning, but I was cozy warm all night in spite of that.

The door placement wasn't all that great the first night because to watch my TV with a DVD player, I had to leave the tent door open
Saturday evening brought about a better plan where I rotated the tent 90 degrees which placed the door in a better position to close it most of the way and moved the TV to a better location.
Then I placed my pantry tote inside of the tent to use it for a table and have access to my goodies without leaving the confines of it.
Yep, dragged a 110 volt extension cord thru the back door for the heater and my phone charging plug.
Even had a small led light on the ceiling.
The shop was cold enough to just leave my drinks outside of the tent, but it was generally about 75 inside. (t-shirt weather)
So far, my modern food prep stuff in the shop is a fridge, a microwave, an air fryer, a water cooler and a charcoal grill.

Saturday morning I did more work on our old Diamond horizontal milling machine in order to get her back inline.
She is very close now, only needing the switch and power wiring finished up to make her sing again.
I found out I can get a modern ER-32 collet arbor and collets for it for under $100 for it, but will have to design a cover shield for it to hide the modernistic parts.

I will be making the outboard arbor support back at Dad's shop during the winter.

Yesterday I got more of the genset panel board wired and even added a dimmer switch to it to tone down the brightness of the silly old looking bulbs I used on it.

The several month old battery on the Wheelhorse let me down, but the latest (second) carb I put on it seems to be working half decent when it would start.
I have until mid May to get it sorted out, so it will still happen.

Saturday we had a huge bonfire.
Huge as in used a Bobcat skid steer with forks on it to place the logs on it.
It burned all day and all Sunday.
In fact, we even got it to relight this morning.
Saturday night got a little crazy as the heavy equipment operators decided to hold bulldozer pulls.
Ever see an inch and a half cable snap?
We saw that happen 6 times
In the end, the roughly 90,000 pound D-9 took top honors as it dragged two Cat D-8s hitched together at a time.
After too many cable failures, they switched up to basket chains with three inch links with two hook ends tied to the ripper bars.
When they did the chain pulls, anyone with a lick of sense stood behind a a pan in order to be shielded from stuff flung out from the failures


Ever seen a Caterpiller D-9 stand up on it's tracks?
It's pretty freaking awesome
Another boy hitched his 2022 four door cab Chevy one ton to a two year old Ford with a toolbox body.
Both trucks never moved.
The crazy part of it all was that the Chevy only had about 300 miles on it on tires with less than 50 miles on them.
Big fun, redneck style