In my last intro to metal shop class at 3rd Ward I was
introduced to the plasma cutter. In the metal shop I knew as a kid there were
two ways to cut steel. A ginormous cast iron power hacksaw, or an
oxygen/acetylene torch. That was it.
The plasma cutter works on pretty much the same principle as
MIG welding, only without the filler rod. An electrical arc is struck that
essentially melts a continuous hole through the materials as you drag it along
the surface.
I’m almost dumbfounded by how easy this tool is to use.
You can pretty much turn any freehand doodle into
a cut piece of steel.
I have a couple of more shop passes to finish-up my course
allotment. I’m sure I will find some way to squeeze in a few more passes with
the plasma cutter before it’s all over.
One of the skills I'm working on in December is soldering. After a failed attempt at making a Minty boost, I opted for the far more beginner style project in the Times Square watch.
The watch come as a kit from Adafruit. The kit includes:
The components are solder through on the PCB. As usual the tutorials Adafruit provide on-line are a perfect step by step instruction for assembly. I inventoried the pieces got set-up with a third hand, and went to work. With the magnifying visor I recently acquired, what once was a dreaded job, actually became kinda fun. I could see what I was doing, I could sandwich the lead and the iron, and the gently melt a perfect hershey kiss of solder into the hole.
It almost seemed too easy.
The last step of assembling the watch is attaching the 8x8 led matrix. Aka the lights you see on the front. It comes as a square cube like object with 16 pins on the back that get soldered to the PCB... almost too easy. I had been following instructions, soldering in each component in turn just as I was told. To that point the components had all been arranged on one side of the PCB and soldered in on the other. When I got to this last step I sort of, well, didn't finish reading the instructions. It was obvious which way it went on. So I put it on and soldered in all 16 pins, quite tidily too I might add.
Then I started looking at my finished product. I realized, unlike the rest of the components, this one was supposed to have had its pins pressed through from the opposite side, and THEN get soldered to the board. All 16 solder points I had just made, while pretty, were wrong. I did not panick, I did not curse, I didn't really even stop.
I decided if this was going to teach me to solder than it may as well teach me to desolder too. At this point I had no expectation of saving this project and I was simply learning a skill. My "goal" was to remove the solder from the 16 points, flip the led matrix to the right side of the board, and solder it back in correctly.
Most of desoldering is using copper mesh (think paper towel) to drink up the lower melting point solder (think spilled glass of water) that's on the PCB (think time counter top with holes drilled into it for water to seep into). After poking at it for more than an hour, I was able to melt, sop-up, and free all 16 pins, still in tact!
I flipped it over, got the pins reinserted correctly, re-soldered it, put the battery in, and wham, hello world.
Two things I think made the desoldering job tolerable:
1) Magnification: the geeky head-set is not just for show. It's like being able to visit that tiny little city on the PCB. Do yourself a favor don't be afraid to magnify.
2) Enough heat: I had the iron set just a little over 410C for the non-lead solder I was using. Having that much heat and fine control was invaluable. Do not scrimp on a cheaper soldering iron. It pays for itself in frustration.
The most important thing I learned? There's no shame in desoldering. In fact it's a skill all unto itself. Plus, it can be done successfully.
One last thing, with all this new found proficiency; after working on it for another 30 or 40 minutes yesterday, I still haven't got that pesky piece of solder out of the minty PCB. I think I may give that first attempt up as a lost cause.
Over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend we hosted a pie party. The idea was bring your favorite pie, or bring whatever left-over pie you want gone. My friend Alex showed up with a tasty homemade chess pie. I hadn't seen him in a while and he asked what I'd been doing lately.
I told him, amongst other things, I had recently started writing a blog about making. He asked why he hadn't heard about it. The answer was quite simple. Having developed user generated and social strategies for getting the word out for the better part of 10 years now, I keep reminding myself, there has to be a there there first.
Eight posts does not make a blog on making, fifteen simply states that I have been able to stick with it for two whole weeks! Needless to say my aim was to get some variety and girth behind this project before tooting my horn too loudly.
One of the things I've wanted to do since the start is share not only what I've been doing, but what others have done too. To that end I am looking for a few folks that want to testify on making. I've approached a couple of ringers to get started on a various topics. But I wanted to offer you, the hand-full of casual readers, an opportunity too.
What's your passion? Cooking, knitting, auto restoration, beer making, Rasberry Pi, wood-working, welding; what gets you going, and what is it that keeps you there?
Testify on the art and love of making. Help me breathe more community into these posts.
Drop me an email, let me know what you're making, we would love to hear from you.
Since 2009 I have been a part of a collective of folks that produce a theme camp for Burning Man that goes by the name Things That Swing. The event is held in the high dessert a couple of hours outside of Reno NV. It takes place in the week leading up to Labor Day each year.
For the past two years we've stored most of the camp components in a storage facility in Reno. After shipping for a couple of years we decided it was cheaper just to leave that stuff out there. This year we erred on the side of leaving even more stuff there than usual. That included, I have determined since September, a number of useful tools that have found more stress free and climate winter accommodations.
Since starting to write this blog, aka really focusing making, I've noticed about a half dozen things that, "gee, I really could use that ______ about now". Today was no exception. I needed a hot glue gun. As a rule, the hot glue gun is a tool that I tend to avoid. Smacking too much of half-baked, ill-fitted craft, it has its cliché, but occasionally it is the janky tool of choice.
So joining the ranks of bi-coastal tool duplication is the hot glue gun. Long may its steamy adhesives flow.
To get a better understanding of using shop-tools at my place you have to understand how the house is laid out. The first floor has the dining room, bathroom, kitchen, followed by back yard/patio (it's fully cemented). the remainder of the house is two additional rooms, the living room and the studio/sleeping area stacked neatly over the dining and bath room. It's a lot of room for New York, it's a tiny house with far too many stairs between things by comparable standards.
The house is especially tiny when you consider it contains a full wood and costume shop packed into it. We also have a basement. Interestingly, it is the largest room in the house, it is the full footprint of the house. It is stuffed to the gills with tools and maker bits.
The trick is, all of the tools get used outside on the slab behind the house. That means anytime you want to use the tools, you assemble everything you need, haul it up through the house, out to the back yard, work all day, and then pack it all up at the end of the day, and do the reverse.
Because of all of this back and forth we never invested in a table saw. I had always thought that any saw that could be moved that easily was probably no more accurate than a rotary saw. I had grown up around huge cast iron shop monsters that you could pus 4x8 panels through with room to spare.We cut a lot of the cabinetry in this house using a circular saw and carfully placed guides.
Over the summer our friend Jeff wanted to make some custom-sized dressers for his apartment in Manhattan, a job made much easier with a table saw and fence. This coincided with us deciding finally make a tool locker in the back yard and empty the basement while removing the dreaded tool schlep every time you need to use them.
One thing led to another and we ended up with this DeWalt Job Site Table saw. Although we were still getting a portable table saw, somehow not having to move it so much seemed appealing? I was still a little skeptical. Jeff and Micahel used it out of the box and seemed to like it. I didn't try it until I was helping Michael rip a 45 across huge piece of IKEA butcher block counter last week.
We installed the extender arms before starting, something I expected to be rickety at best, but they were fine. Since we were cutting it on the diagonal there was no way to set up a fence to steady against, nor were the angle adjustable push sticks long enough to reach under the width of the plank. After much deliberation we decided to free cut it to a line we had scribed. It work amazingly. Skeptic no more.
The cut was so much easier than anything I could have done with a rotary saw. While it may not be the cast iron monster of my fantasies, I do think there is a place for it in our collection.