Bob's Friend's Fan

Bob Zimmerman is no stranger to the Grant St. Garage - he's the Master Electrician who wired the entire garage, adding a dozen 6-bulb fluorescent fixtures, a quad electrical outlet every 4 feet, two breaker boxes, 220V wiring for big equipment, and more. He's also been involved in some automotive projects, and there was this crazy project to rebuild a barn-find cabinet for his wife, Sharon (link).

The other day, Bob sent me this picture, and asked if I could fix that worn, out-of-round hole in the fan:

The Taming of the Screw, Part 2

In Part 1 of this saga (link) I detailed a great online resource called Clickspring, and the "Screwhead Holding Tool" I decided to make. Well, it's done, and I learned a lot of new techniques getting there! Since in the last post I had a picture from the Clickspring site of what it "would" look like, now I'll show that picture (left) vs. my version (right):

The Taming of the Screw, Part 1

Apologies to Shakespeare for the pun in the title - couldn't resist! As I am progressing from beginner to not-quite-beginner in this machinist stuff, I've had two major mentors to follow. The first is my friend Phil Oles, a model engineer whom I have mentioned many times in this blog. The second is a craftsman I'm unlikely to ever meet, since he lives in a remote part of Australia. His name is Chris, and he has a YouTube channel called Clickspring (that's part of a clock) where he demonstrates the most exquisite machine work on clocks and other mechanisms.

Chris has a website as well (www.clickspringprojects.com) and a Patreon channel where I help support Chris' work and as a result gain access to videos and tips not available to the general public. You can do it for as little as a dollar a month - quite a deal.

I decided that a project on Chris' website called a "Screwhead Holding Tool" would be a nice one to have, and push my skill level that tiny notch forward. Chris didn't post a detailed plan, just photos, so part of the exercise is figuring out how to make it. Since mine is still in progress, I'll borrow a finished picture from Chris' site to show what it should look like:

Dealing With Drawer Slides

In my recent second post about my new rolling drill press table (link), I stated that there would be a part three, in which I added a drawer base to the table. I made the base, but it's just a bit boring and straightforward to actually write about. But during that process, I decided that I would figure out once and for all how to space drawer slides without a lot of trial and error. This photo from the rolling cart (link) for small parts and fasteners that I made for Make717 will show the issues involved: