Once again I haven't had the time to follow up with additional posts related to my new cutting machine. Hopefully I'll start to assemble the gas washer I started a few weeks ago, very soon. In the meantime......
SPRAY PAINT - This is a Liquitex can of spray paint I picked up the other evening. It's the first that I'm using this product line. I've used liquitex acrylic paints for years and like them. The spray paint is low odor and while wet can be cleaned up with water. There are a fair number of online reviews relating to the tips clogging. This is common with water based sprays I've noticed. I use a Zinzer water based spray primer and it behaves similarly - clogged tips and sputters if you don't keep the tip clear. As I use these paints, I guess I'll figure out how much of a pain in the ass this becomes. What I do like, is the range of colors, and not typical bright pastel colors, but lots of earth tones and industrial looking colors. The cans are 12oz, which is four times as much paint as the Testors or Floquil cans. The price varies, but figure on around $6, which is slightly more than the Lowes/Home Depot Rustoleum or Kyrlon Cans. I managed to pick up two on sale at Michaels at $5 a can to try. I bought an industrial light green color that I might use on my port crane, and Raw Umber #7 - This second color is the best I've seen to approximate weathered concrete. I do also like the Rust o leum light brown camouflage color for this as you've seen in the past, but I think this is slightly better as it's a touch lighter. You can go online to Blik Art supply and check out there range of colors.
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| One pass made for rabbets - awaiting second pass |
STORAGE - With the limited space I have in my basement, my scratch building supplies and parts are scattered in many plastic bins and boxes. I want to get a more organized system as the one part I usually need is the only one I can't find. Taking a page from the old drawer/bins found in general stores and hardware stores I experimented at my shop with developing a system of mass producing sturdy and cheap storage bins. I'm using 1/2" MDF for the entire drawer and they are roughly 6"x6"x12", but really any size could be made. I want to be able to create some simple plywood shelves that these bins will fit into. MDF is super cheap, but I also wanted to not spend a lot of time on these things. The fewer machines and operations the better - All the cuts were made on a table saw with a regular blade. The only other tool needed was a brad or pin nailer to assemble the drawers (the glue really holds them together. The fronts have a notch, or in woodworking as it's known, a rabbet, on three sides, and the sides have rabbets on the two long sides. The bottom has none. If measured correctly, the pieces will fit together nice and tight, with the glue doing the real work, and the brads just to hold things together while the glue is drying. I fashioned some cheap simple handles from poplar using a few passes on the table saw. Hopefully the pictures tell the story, but if you need more info just drop me a line.
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| The five pieces of a bin/drawer |
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| Assembled - these 8 took about 2 hours from raw MDF to built |
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| Cheap easy handles. I might use the handles typical on the old library card catalogs as they have a slot for a label. |
Getting late so I'll cover the Electrical Poles in detail in a future post. Briefly I wanted a look that you see in a lot of steel mills - tall narrow towers as opposed to your typical hi-tension poles. The BCH towers fit the bill, however, they were slightly short I felt. I added a short section from the Walthers electric tower kit to the bottom of the BCH tower and then added a concrete foundation. Still playing around with the design a bit but here are some preliminary results -
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