What non foundry project did you make today?

I welded up a shelf for my fish tanks. This rack will let me store 8 x 10 gallon tanks. I'll be making 2 more to store other tanks. I'll coat the wood with polyurethane so it doesn't warp when wet.

Nearly done welding. Next, cutting wood and then the painting.

 

I brewed two batches of beer and smoked two racks of ribs. My aquarium is on the dance card too, but I've got too many other projects at the moment to finish setting it up.

 

I didn't DO any casting but I did use one I prepared earlier:

 

I made a transparent hole in a bitmap image and made the image spin. The ole brain has been too fuzzy to safely cast anything.

 

I welded up a four wheeler seat frame for the neighbor's grandchildren. They're scared of me so they hide in the truck bed and peek out but always shout "Thank You!" as they're driving away.

 

I'll be your huckleberry. After spending a week on the beach in Exuma, I built this in a small useless closet in our home. These spin in pairs on a piece of black pipe. It holds around 70 pairs of shoes. My wife is over the moon with it!

 

Did you bring a few buckets of sand home, it looks like a nice fine silica sand for castings.

 

It's likely rounded rather than sharp, and may be salt contaminated. I'd better go check it before he makes an investment to bring some home.

 

One of the beaches had the softest sand I've ever seen. Microscopic grain size and when wet it was extremely silky. That was the beach in the photo. Not a single shell in sight.
The only sand we brought home was on our shoes. Nice place, only about 7,000 people on that rock. Pretty much nothing there, but good seafood and cold drinks.

 

Built up a few more layers of parge on the pizza oven. Recently yanked the stack and tunnel entrance off. It was too dark, too hard to establish the fire.

 

Call me when ya got an extra large Hawaiian ready!

 

I just epoxy filled some casting defects, gave it an etch prime.......what the hell: throw a little hotrod red in there:

 

Most days I spend 6 hours at Ewe Schwab Machine works , the Home of Stumpcutter King. We re-manufacture and re tip Stump cutter teeth. very Nice work, my own schedule, and a fair wage

V/r HT1

P.S. Uwe is and Old Navy Man also, and a real Einstein, I learn alot from him,

 

WHoA... Look at the price of Glenfiddich there! Even 'ol Johnny is high! Cause a man to drink water!

 

I took a look at the website, those rebuilt cutters are pretty cheap for what they are, I hate to think what the OEM price is for new cutters. There was some discussion over on Practical Machinist about how the US Navy used atomic hydrogen torches to rebuild tool steel cutters for milling machines. Atomic Hydrogen torches are like a cross between TIG and oxy-acetylene, they use an arc to heat hydrogen gas to get a flame hotter than oxy-acetylene that is self fluxing. They can weld aluminium, copper, tool steel etc..

Jason, those prices are $AUD so one Aussie dollar gets you 70 US cents, so more than 40% more expensive than the USA.

 

most customers prefer our re-tips and rebuilds over OEM, we use a Slightly Harder US Carbide , stays sharp longer with a better overall life expectancy .

V/r HT1

 

Mark that's a really nice grinder assembly. I'm surprised how quiet it is when turned on. My dewalt grinder vibrates like mad. What paint is that? It looks really good.

And that's major kudos Jason. Someone has the age old lesson down pat - happy wife happy life.

I put the first coat of acrylic latex paint on after brushing it down with steel wool and wiping off the grease with denatured alcohol. I had to recut the wood shelves so there was enough space for 2 coats of paint on the steel and 2 on the wood. I may need 3 coats?

I'll paint the bottom of the wood white to help reflect light into the tanks. This project has taken me forever. I still need to build another 2 of them to fill my fish room up. I'm hoping tomorrow I'll have it ready to set up. I need to get these damn tanks off the work bench and kitchen counter. The new apartment is a mess!

 

Your little rams will be so happy with the new home, they'll be spawning all over the place! I always wanted to try discus... I hear they are great parents and tricky fish to own. Plus, you can sell them for BIG bucks too!

Happy wife, happy life or it's cheaper to keep her.. Pick one.. If not, you'll be doing the Eddie Murphy thing... the bitch wants HALF!

 

Discus are a pain in the ass. They are princess fish and take any and every opportunity to stop eating because everything under the sun stresses them out. They have been bred for looks only and not hardiness.

I got them to spawn many times and attempted to let them raise their babies - because I wanted to see the interesting way they feed their babies (eating parent's body slime), but they always ate their eggs or wandered off and never raised them. Very disappointing. I could have hand raised them, but that defeated the point of it all.

The same issue has happened with German rams, the breeders kept breeding them for color and hand raised them. They have actually managed to breed the parental instinct out of the fish entirely. The domestic breeds will never raise their own fry now. They lay eggs and then immediately eat them.

I raised some baby apistogramma baenschi inka 50's from quarter inch fry to adult. They are almost breeding age so I expect they'll be pairing up soon.

This is the male baenschi


This is the female:

 

Did you ever try fire mouth cichlids? I had good luck with them years ago..