For a variety of reasons, Patrick and I took it upon ourselves today to build a new aluminum-melting furnace based on some old refractory (insulating) firebricks we had in the shed. I’d watched a few videos on Youtube and sort of dove in. Here’s some photos of the results.
We did eventually replace the ziptie on the lower course of bricks with more plumber’s strap, and build some legs for the burner that aren’t made of clamps. We also need to finish up the lid and finish tidying up a bit, but I’m super happy with how it turned out for 3 or 4 hours of work. The biggest time-suck was recutting all the bricks to make a 6-sided structure (the original kiln was 8-sided, so the angles needed changed). The most entertaining part was learning to use the plasma cutter to cut out the steel base plate.
A big thanks to Tech Omaha for recording a local meetups talk. Several organizations around Omaha gave their pitch at a OJUG/WITH co-sponsored event, including ours truly! Sarah Kladstrup stepped up to get our name out there. Here’s a good overview of our organization:
A few years back, Brandon made a giant wooden mallet from a piece of butcher block counter top that was laying around the space. This was a 9pm, make-it-right-now sort of project. He’d repurposed a chair leg as the handle, but it was a bit too short and bent, making the mallet awkward to use. We dubbed this bludgeoning device “The UnMaker”, and used to “unmake” things that needed unmade. Eventually the handle failed and the head was lost.
Fast forward to August 2018 – Eric and Kevin were cleaning out the shed a bit and decided to build a new UnMaker. We turned up some maple planks for a head and handle and started piecing things together. The head was going to weigh about 15 pounds. About that time, we noticed that we had “just enough” material to build a hammer that matched the proportions of the bright orange Dead Blow (shot-filled) hammer hanging on the pegboard across the shop, and an idea was born.
After some quick math, we ended up hollowing out several layers of the head using a router, and purchasing 4 packs of 6000 steel BBs from Walmart to fill the void. It turns out that lead shot, while ideal for this application, is expensive and difficult to find. We ended up with about a 60% fill, and a total head weight of 34 pounds.
Ben helped out with the handle design (using a taper and a retaining pin) to make it replaceable in the future, and Eric put a coat of orange paint on the finished product.
The result speaks for itself. You don’t so much swing the UnMaker 2.0 as you do lift and drop it. My form in the video below is sub-par, based on our later experiments.
In an ironic twist, this giant utility knife hit Hackaday shortly after we finished up our hammer.
Once again, members of the Omaha Maker Group participated in the Kansas City Maker Faire. Due to a general lack of interest, we forwent an “official” OMG booth entirely this year, focusing instead on the Power Racing Series. Garrick and the Tesla coil crew had quite the show, though, and even got a photo of their setup in the Make Magazine article.
After the Faire on Saturday night, most of the gang went to the new Hammerspace, the local Makerspace which is “like a gym for people who like to make things. WITH ROBOTS! AND LASERS! AND 3D PRINTERS!”. Their new location is HUGE, and it sounds like things are going really well.
We did a lot of things “right” this year, staying downtown (the new Home2 is an easy walk to Union Station, as long as you’re not carrying a cooler), skipping the booth (so everyone gets to hang out together and no one is “stuck” for their shift) and not waiting 3 hours for “pretty good” barbecue (Sorry guys!).
Our amazing Power Wheels crew scored a FIRST PLACE in Moxie for the Amazon Box Car this weekend in KC!! With strong driving and an almost unbreakable car, we came home with a 3rd-place overall for the weekend! WOW! Great job to everyone who had a hand in it!
The BMW car had a very respectable finish, too. Again, great driving and a great design proved their worth – 90 seconds to change a tire? That’s amazing! The body, unfortunately, did not fare too well – it stayed behind in KC, destined for the trash bin. But the car is home and is a ready platform to build on our successes.
Thanks again to everyone for a great weekend.
Our embroidery machine can embroider text and borders very easily thanks to our wonderful donor.
If you are unclear at any step, please consult the babylock manual for the machine. It’s in the drawer labelled “Embroidery Machine Manual”.
You will need at least the medium hoop for our standard patch.
Cut a piece of fabric about 3/4″ larger than the hoop. Cut a piece of embroidery stabilizer that same size. Place the stabilizer over the inner portion of the hoop. Place the fabric over both of these. Then place the outer portion of the hoop over all of that, ensuring the post holes are opening towards the floor and the right-side of your fabric is on top. Flip this over and gently tug the fabric and stabilizer taut. Cinch down the hoop and tug fabric and stabilizer even more taut.
On the machine, ensure the embroidery foot, embroidery needle and embroidery arm are attached. Turn on the machine (do not attach the hoop to the machine yet). When prompted, click/press the “Check” button. The machine will do a calibration.
Hit the white “Embroidery” menu button on the screen.
Click on the on-screen button with a bunch of shapes. This will allow you to create the border. Select the rectangular option and then the solid bold line. On the next screen click the “layout” button. On the layout screen, click the size button, and resize the rectangle to 4.5 cm x 6.3 cm. When you’re finished, click the “End Size Changr” button. Then orient it however you’d please. You’ll need to match this orientation for your words.
If you have not done so, thread the machine with a bobbin matching your fabric (or your top thread) and the top thread in the color of your preference. OMG’s official patch has a dark purple border with a white fabric background.
Now, attach the hoop to the machine.
Lower the presser foot and click the green back-lit “Start/Stop” button. If this is not green, stop, something’s wrong. Consult the manual or Sarah if she’s available.
In about 3 minutes, you’ll have a border.
Clean up the extra few stitches the machine puts in the middle with a seam ripper.
Click the white “Embroidery” button on the screen. Click the letters with the serifs. Assuming your border is the OMG dark purple, click on the “L M S” button until “S” is highlights, and then type in “Group” (lower-case letters are in the visual tab below the upper-case letters). Now click “Layout”. Orient the words with your border. Next, position the needle near the bottom middle of the interior of the border. If you’re doing math, it’s 0.2 cm from the bottom.
Again, lower the presser foot (if needed) and click the green back-lit “Start/Stop” button. If this is not green, stop, something’s wrong. Consult the manual or Sarah if she’s available.
In about 3 minutes, you’ll have the word “Group”.
Switch the top thread out to light purple. Click the white “Embroidery” button on the screen. Click the letters with the serifs. Click on the “L M S” button until “S” is highlights, and then type in “Maker” (lower-case letters are in the visual tab below the upper-case letters). Now click “Layout”. Orient the words with your border. Next, position the needle near the bottom middle of the interior of the border. If you’re doing math, it’s 1.5 cm from the bottom.
Again, lower the presser foot (if needed) and click the green back-lit “Start/Stop” button. If this is not green, stop, something’s wrong. Consult the manual or Sarah if she’s available.
In about 3 minutes, you’ll have the word “Maker”.
Switch the top thread out to bright blue. Click the white “Embroidery” button on the screen. Click the letters with the serifs. Click on the “L M S” button until “S” is highlights, and then type in “Omaha” (lower-case letters are in the visual tab below the upper-case letters). Now click “Layout”. Orient the words with your border. Next, position the needle near the bottom middle of the interior of the border. If you’re doing math, it’s 2.25 cm from the bottom.
Again, lower the presser foot (if needed) and click the green back-lit “Start/Stop” button. If this is not green, stop, something’s wrong. Consult the manual or Sarah if she’s available.
In about 3 minutes, you’ll have the word “Omaha”.
Lift the presser foot and pull up the hoop. You now have a completed embroidered pattern! Remove the fabric from the hoop. Removing as much of the backing as you can. Cut a piece of iron-on adhesive to fit the size of your patch. Attach this with an iron per the adhesive’s instructions. Peel off the paper backing from the adhesive. Carefully cut out your patch!
Now, clean up the extra stitches the machine added between each letter and you’re done! Iron-on that patch wherever you please!
As promised, we tested some drills. The testing wasn’t exactly scientific, but the results pass the smell test and provide some interesting insights as to the relative value of different drill types.
Spoiler alert, no equipment was visibly damaged in the collection of this data.
Read on for all the gory details. Continue reading
Last Thursday, Ben and Kevin started experimenting with a proper closed loop cooling system for the laser cutter. This is something we’ve wanted to do for some time, as it’ll make the laser easier to move and less likely to spill coolant all over the floor (again). The big push now is that the existing coolant pump is getting noisy, so it’s an ergonomic consideration 🙂
Most of the parts for this build were sourced from the junk pile, including the reservoir, fan and pump. We bought a cheap ebay radiator and a bunch of plastic fittings.
At this point, we’ve got a few slow drips to chase down, and need to figure out how to enclose the system, but as evidenced in the picture, it cools pretty well. Ben is using a blowtorch on that piece of copper tube (our stand-in laser tube), and it’s cool to the touch immediately after removing the fire.
My wife ask about me lasercutting a sign for some friends, but at the time she ask, our laser was still down for repairs. I remembered Ben doing a toner transfer project several years ago, so I googled it up, and it turned out to be easier than I remembered.
This isn’t intended to be a tutorial, but the general steps are as follows:
This was my first try at toner transfer ever, and the photo below wasn’t my final product. The toner doesn’t soak in very deep, so it’s easily sanded off for another attempt. I ended up resanding and transferring 3 times, due to incomplete transfer or smudging (as below).
Lighter weight paper seemed to work better (the paper at OMG was quite a bit lighter than what I had at home, and worked great) as it didn’t want to soak up so much acetone, and transferred more completely as a result.
Once I was satisfied with the transfer results, a quick coat of spray lacquer finished the project. Setup, drying and cleanup took the majority of the time and effort here. Total hands-on time was about 15 minutes.
