Injection molder frame w/ piston

That’s the arm and piston mounted (clamped) in place, and the center cross member bolted in. This thing is pretty solid, and pretty heavy, but I’ll still need to bolt it down eventually.

Alas, it was not to be… Somehow, nobody heard me jumping up and down, saying that I wanted them, and so they ended up going to the Goodwill. That was the bad news… the good news was that there was another set of them in storage, and those are the ones that are now living in my shop:

Man, it was blurry in there when I took this picture...

These are actually better than the ones I’d originally wanted, as these are from the ’80s, when office furniture was made to last… It took me three trips to get these things home, and I did some damage to my back, but when I dropped one right on its corner while moving it, the floor came away dented rather than the cabinet. A drop like that would twisted a newer cabinet beyond repair, but this bad boy just shrugged it off. I also snagged an old cutting mat (shown on top of the cabinets above) and a weird old work desk/rack thing:

Seriously, super blurry that day

This is another extremely solid piece that is definitely going to see some use. The work surface is in great condition, so this guy might get brought inside, rather than staying in the garage. Not too bad, for stuff that was headed to the heap.

Wired up, and powered on.

Yup, all wired up and working. I’ve got it heating the chamber and have had it all the way up to 400 degrees. I’ve got a good part of the frame built, as well, but I still have the welding to do. I also have to figure out how I’m going to mount the heating chamber to the frame:

The frame, so far

I’m getting there, if a bit slowly.

Made by Hand / No 2 The Knife Maker from Made by Hand

You can also read all of Frankie’s blog posts about the process.

Injection molder controller box

Pretty sweet, right? I still need to reconnect everything and find a power supply connector, but that’s all of 30 minutes work. Next post will be the dang thing wired up and working.

A special note to Michael: I changed my theme again… just for you!

For his 5th birthday, he settled on a music themed party (the “Punk Rock, Rock Punk” party). For this one, we built a low stage, dragged various instruments out into the yard, and shaved some heads:

We even had a visit from the last remaining member of the Mongrel Bitch fan club:

Yup... that's Grandpa.

For the 6th, a pirate-themed party, we went a little further, and built a pirate ship in the back yard, complete with cargo nets for storage, old sheets and velcro for the hull, and a sweet engraved bell from the god-parents:

1/2 way through the cleanup

This was awesome, and served for 3 more summers (Rockets & Robots, and Explorers, then we switch to sleepovers). Then, this spring, my daughter came in with the bad news: There was a hole in the pirate ship. It seems the choice to use untreated plywood for the deck (a decision made in the interest of expediency) had not been the most durable. The Pirate Ship Collins was now the Plague Ship Collins, and the kids were not allowed to play on it.

A few weeks later, planning to strip off the rotted deck and install a new and proper one, I discovered that a number of the structural pieces had begun to rot as well. Now we were looking at a total rebuild, and if you’re going to bother to rebuild, why not redesign? Once I got the Plague Ship stripped to its bones:

Man, it was sunny that day

I took some measurements, Collected some requirements from the administrative committee (Molly), and whipped out the large moleskine I’d been saving for a good project. Between my paper sketches and Google SketchUp, I managed to cobble together a reasonable plan for rebuilding that would add a second level, a climbing wall, and monkey bars.

The implementation has included some changes from the initial sketch, but the spirit of it is still alive. Well, the party was 2 weeks ago, and I didn’t quite get it all done. but what was ready was very well used.

Still lot's to do, but it was playable... though not the safest piece of equipment ever

Michael raised the point that I need to add a roof of some sort, and I have a plan for that. In the mean time, we had another bunch of people over to celebrate Enkutatash today. Here’s the current status:

Molly stained and sealed everything this week, so all of the untreated wood went on yesterday and today, as did all of the rope and netting, the back, and the steering wheel. The netting was salvaged from the previous incarnation of the “ship,” and the central rope “railing” is temporary. The back of the structure is fit with climbing holds (you can see the extra bits of scrap I had to use to back them, and the piece I used for the back was too thin to support them well). The wheel was stripped, stained, and finished, but came from the original ship. You can see the bell mounted there, as well.

So, we’re getting there. Next up: Cargo net, climbing rope, permanent center rail, cannon.

Wrecked Metals from Josh Clason.

Pretty slick…

Hexagonal Pewter Stool from Max Lamb.

Thanks, Jemiah. I didn’t even know this was a thing!