Recent content by Stuart Samuel

My usual practice is to work with a bend allowance of 1.5 x metal thickness per 90 degree bend. So, on a piece with four bends, add up all outside dimensions (or inside, but needs to be apples to apples), and subtract 6 x MT (add if you're using inside measurements). It's less and less accurate...

Same, on all counts!

Never had a chance to weld stainless with stick. My current job is all tig, haven’t run any stick in over a decade. I’d probably fail a flat test.

Sold!

I had the most trouble learning vertical, honestly. Just couldn’t figure out what I was doing wrong. One of the other students was a really phenomenal welder who’d worked in the shipyards inland from Shanghai. He let me watch him weld, I had sort of an epiphany. After that, overhead was totally...

I do remember noticing that if my plate was really, really hot, and I wasn’t 100% sure of a stop, I could, uh, edit it a little with a knotted wire wheel.

Hey Dan, I have an extra set of these from trade college, let me know if you want them.

The switch on the left was installed by the previous owner. I bought it from his son in London, in 2019. I got the impression the fellow had been concerned about power surges, but his son might have misunderstood. I chose to leave it installed, as I liked the ability to switch the machine off...

It was hard letting it go, I’d always wanted a lathe in my kitchen. :p (It got moved there to make room for the new one)

Just had to buy some new-old-stock screws off Ebay for work (Centre Block restoration stuff). 12-24 is still stocked by most hardware companies, but 12-24 brass oval head slot drive? Good luck.

Man, they sure make some tiny parks these days…

Honestly, other than the smooth spaces between punch marks, the biggest giveaway for me is that the texture is all indentation, with no ‘outies’.

They were just shaped on the sander with, say, an 80 grit belt. Started out with a radius, then decided a bit of variation would be better.

Hilarious. I did exactly the same thing at work a few months ago. We provide a cast aluminum table base for an interior design company (we order the castings and finish them, resin top cast by someone else). The original intent was to highlight the sandcast texture. Well, somebody forgot to...