Thursday 31 January 2013

Small mods, Big difference

A few years ago i bought a band saw, brand new.
It's a vertical/horizontal unit and it does what I need it to do.

One thing I always hated was the Phillips screws that held in the table. Never could get a screwdriver in straight enough to put enough torque on them. The table wobbled and the heads stripped after only a few uses.



Lucky for me the threads were M6 and I got some M6 countersunk cap heads from work and they dropped right in.



Much tighter, more stable and I'm actually happy to use the existing table when I need that kind of thing.

Just shows how a small mod can make  a huge difference to a machine!


Another thing I did to this bansaw was to connect a socket to the output so I could run a vacuum cleaner while its running and stop it when it stops.
I use it to cut wood and plastic at times and the constant running Vac was annoying.


thanks

Saturday 26 January 2013

hobart RC-300

Well finally getting into the "Hobo". When i picked it up, the guy said he never had it plugged in(!) but was told it wouldn't adjust wire speed.
I plugged it in and indeed any speed you wanted so long as it was full speed.
A little metering and the potentiometer was the culprit.
Bought 2 replacements for $10 and now it is regulating wonderfully.

Then it soured. The gas line to the handpiece has perished and the control cable has broken as well.
The unit is a push pull type with a feeder built into the handpiece.
I need to find some options on the hose type.probably just blg some air line from work.

I do have a spare tweco gun and wirefeeder but i like the push pull thing. I'll need it working eventually!

Friday 25 January 2013

Gumtree ettiquette

a small rant today
had a bloke arrange to meet me yesterday arvo to buy one of my welders.
spent a couple of hours getting a space and a bit of steel ready so he could try it  out
the time came- no show.
waited, cursing, for him to at least call.
NOTHING
is it so hard to ring and let me know?
this isnt the first time its happened. must be three or four wankers who have wasted my time and several of my friends have had similar experiances. it isnt that bloody har dto send a text, is it?
jokes on them. i work nights and someting round 2 am on a wednesday i'll make my call- from a blocked number of course