While Ian is dazzling everyone as he creates a lathe out a bunch of oddly shaped parts made by prisoners in China, I have been busy with more technically challenging machining projects.
First, the wife has this metal drawer/stand for the Keurig coffee machine that holds the pods. The feet are rubber and slide like a concrete block on a lawn. The coffee maker resides under the kitchen cabinets, but must come out to open it, allowing the insertion of a pod to make coffee. Pushing it back under the counter requires I put my shoulder into it. So, after trying moleskin, which kept coming off, I decided to machine 4 little slider feet from HDPE. The challenging part was the piece of HDPE I had was a rough, rectangular shape (sawn on a bandsaw during a trimming process) piece about 3 inches long that came from the HDPE pads I made for the bunks on my boat lift. I needed to get 4 little feet, a half inch in diameter and maybe a half in total in length out of that piece. HDPE is fun to machine but easy to screw up. I was successful and with the coffee maker on top of the drawer/stand now slides nicely under the cabinet when not in use. Ian, eat your heart out.
Next hi-tech project was a crock pot revival. This is the first Rival Crock pot that hit the market back in the late 70's. It was in the kitchen cabinet when we bought our camp back in 1992 so has some nostalgic value... not much, but some. It looks like new, only one of the 3 plastic feet were missing. The first thing I notice (and almost expected) was that it was never made to be disassembled or repaired. But that's never stopped me before. There was one stamped sheet metal nut on the bottom. I loosened it and the bottom went POP! and I immediately knew that reassembly was going to be a mutha. It did come apart and although the wires were very short, I managed to get the controller loose and the ceramic pot out of the sheet metal base.
This was the point where I realized that looks could be deceiving. You see, there were no seals of any kind between the sheet metal housing and the nichrome wire-wrapped ceramic cooking pot. So, during its period of regular use. Anytime something spilled over the edge, a portion of that made its way between the pot and the housing, where it solidified, petrified, you pick the term and remained until I uncovered it yesterday. There was enough greasy residue inside that housing to lube a Peterbilt. It took copious amounts of Spray 9 and acetone to degrease the inside of the sheet metal housing. But I was now more determined than ever to not let this cheap POS beat me.
As I mentioned, a broken foot was the original impetus for the repair. I save silly stuff for projects, and it always pays off. The wood handle from a former windshield ice scraper (remember when the handles were wood?) was my feedstock for 3 new feet. I cut them with a hacksaw and then faced them all to 0.900" long to match the originals on the little Atlas lathe I have in the barn at camp. I hit them with a black magic marker to make them black and then screwed them thru the original rivet holes with sheet metal screws to fasten them to the base of the housing. Original mission accomplished. Now I have to get this fargin' thing back together.
The way it was held together was truly elegance in simplicity of design. A spring steel bale engaged two holes in the bottom sides of the pot. A threaded screw eye was slipped onto the bale before it was installed. The screw eye went thru a hole in the center of the sheet metal bottom and that aforementioned stamped sheet metal nut pulled the pot into the housing and held it tightly in place. Genius!!! But.... it would appear that the screw eye was much longer during the assembly process and once the pot was assembled, the additional length was cut off making it impossible to reassemble with that screw eye. But being somewhat slow-witted, I tried anyway.
I tried wrapping it with wire and pulling it thru the hole. FAIL! Actually, tried that at least 3 times, so FAIL, FAIL, FAIL!!!. Hmmm.... had various designs brewing in my thick skull. One was to thread a cotter pin to accept a nut and slip that over the bail. But I'm at the lake and only have 1/4-20 and 5/16-18 dies in my toolchest. Then I had an extra synapse fire and figured I could drill the shank of a 5/16" bolt, slip on the bale and use a 5/16" nut to hold it all together. Drilled a bolt just below the head and then once on the bale wrapped the threads with the same mechanics wire to guide it thru the hole in the bottom of the housing. Took 3 more tries to get it done. And each time I failed, I had to remove the controller again because the wires were too short to allow me to rethread the wire thru the hole. So, lots of deep introspective talking to myself and providing even more reasons for the neighbors to avoid me. But 3rd try was successful and the pot is now back together, has 3 solid legs and more importantly, IS FRIGGIN' CLEAN!!!
I did plug it in before I brought it back into the house to confirm that I had not screwed up the wiring. No breakers popped so I think I'm good. Now, I just have to wait for the wife to come up with another crock pot concoction. Last one was beef tikka masala, an Indian shredded beef meal that I'm eating tonight as leftovers. It's pretty good. Should go well with the bottle of Chateauneuf du Pape that I opened up a half hour ago. It is the last bottle of wine I have from my 70th birthday party presents back in March. Always save the best for last. right.
Okay, I now return you to Ian's project as he chips away at Chinese bits of metal in his quest for a cheap lathe.