Despite unseasonably nice weather, the members of OMG continue to work on their projects at the Makery or in their garages at breakneck speed. January is traditionally the perfect month for shunning the outdoors and basking in the glow of your computer monitor or, perhaps, the piercing UV glow of an arc welder.
Here’s a quick rundown of what’s in the works among the members of OMG:
Alex has made a LED matrix, for some arcane artsy purpose.
The Makery now has new modular workbenches for your hacking pleasure.
The aluminum forge is online, and continues to be improved. Excerpt from Dave’s explanation,
“…welded together a frame for the tippy-forge last night. I still need to build the stationary part of the frame and put on a handle. What is pictured here is the moving part of the frame that lifts the forge to pour the metal.
After the welding was done we decided it was time to test the new concrete and the lid that Brandon installed recently. We had a couple of minor issues with the burner. There is some leakage of fuel around the input tube that we temporarily sealed with some duct tape. That lasted just long enough to get the aluminum to melt. The propane bottle was nearly empty and started to freeze up on us at the end, the gas pressure looked to be dropping off. We didn’t have time to get the aluminum up to proper pouring temperature, but it was hot enough to at least dump it out of the crucible. The clearance between the inside of the forge (a large soup can) and the crucible (some iron pipe) is a bit narrow, somewhere around 1cm, but the flame swirls around the body very nicely, and when the lid is on the hot exhaust flows over the pouring spout, which is welded to the crucible, which should help keep it hot so that the metal stays warmer when pouring.”
See something here that interests you? These projects and more are in the works at OMG. If you have a project you’d like featured on the site, send a photo and description to info@omahamakergroup.org. Of course, if you’d like to get involved in a project, or need help with something you’re working on, check out the forum.
Until next time…