Dan's Hobbies » CAD

Finished shoe racks

Dan — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 03:25:50 +0000

I finished Rebecca’s shoe racks a few days ago, And tonight, I could no longer smell the finish, so it was safe to bring them inside. I had originally thought about finishing them with polyurethane, but at the last minute, I decided to finish them with boiled linseed oil cut with 50% mineral spirits. They didn’t turn out as nice as I would of liked, but Rebecca loves them none the less. The main flaw with the design is the dado joints used to join the top cross beams to the sides. Getting all of them cut to just the right length and thickness was tedious. Ultimately, I spent more time with chisels fine tuning the fit than I would have liked. If I had to do it again, I would use through dovetails.

Finished lathe chip shield

Dan — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 04:06:42 +0000

The magnets I ordered of eBay arrived yesterday, so this morning I finished up the chip shield. The Neodymium magnets are stronger that I expected, so I decided to use two instead of four. They provide enough holding force, that you need to have a firm grip on the knob to move the shield.

Hopefully this set-up with minimize the number of hot chips launched my way, while still providing an unobstructed view of the cutter.

Lathe chip shield

Dan — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 06:48:01 +0000

I’ve decided it’s time to make some kind of chip shield, so I don’t get burned by flying chips anymore. My self imposed design requirements are as follows:

cheap
easy to install/remove
simple to build

The following renderings show what I came up with.

The design is pretty simple, it’s essentially a bent piece of Lexan, some scrap aluminum, and a few magnets. The Lexan will offer an un-obstructed view of the work, and the magnets will ensure the shield doesn’t move around. The magnets are in the mail, so I can’t start work on the aluminum block until later this week.

Since Lexan is available at most big box stores, I was able to knock out the shield Monday night. I found bending the Lexan to be pretty simple, all you need to do is make a mold to form it against. I used a scrap piece of maple with a 1/2″ radius on the edge as my mold. All you need to do is heat up the Lexan enough to make it malleable, then push it against the mold, and let it cool. The following pictures and video show how I did it. Once I get the magnets, I will post some shots of the finished product.

Ready to be bent

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Heating the Lexan

Cooling down

Ready to be mounted

New shop benches project

Dan — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 06:59:37 +0000

It’s been a while since I posted something so I thought I should share what I’m currently working on. Besides, it’s to cold in the garage to work even with the propane heater running full blast. I’m Making 2 utility benches for my workshop. I want them to last “forever”, so I have over engineered everything. My design requirements where:

They must be open underneath for role away tool storage.
They must be easy to disassemble if/when I move.
They must be able to support a high static load, in case I want to mount machine tools to them. I chose 1000 pounds as the target load.

It took me awhile to finalize the design, but what I came up with should be easy to build and not cost to much. The overall dimensions are W 72”, D 30”, H 40”– 44” (adjustable). I plan to make the top 4″ thick out of laminated hard maple. I might make it thinner depending on how much maple costs per board foot when I go to purchase it. The legs & horizontal cross bracings are 2.5” x .12” square tubing, & the rear diagonal bracing is 1-1/2” x 3/16” flat bar bolted to the legs.

I’ll post some more pics in a day or two.

Cad doodle (1/2-20 bolt)

Dan — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 05:10:48 +0000

I’m still waiting for some parts to arrive for my next project, so I’ve been spending my “goof off” time playing in cad. My latest project is this 1/2-20 bolt designed to class 2A tolerances. If you want to take a look at it in 3D you can download the RhinoCad file here.