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"It doesn't matter what you make, and it doesn't matter why. The importance is that you are making SOMETHING."

 

Love this.  Wife and I were talking about something the other day that made me remember this post I had started a long time ago.  We like to think we've done okay for ourselves.  Our conversation basically boiled down to the wondering why we were relatively "stable" in our lives.  What we decided is that because we know how to "make", create, build, DO- we've been able to save ourselves a LOT of money.  I was looking at a diagram the other day that showed what basic repairs on an average vehicle would cost.  This isn't the same diagram but you get the idea:

FOUR HUNDRED AND SIXTY THREE DOLLARS!?!?!  For an ALTERNATOR?!  Holy cow.  The alternator all by itself is usually less than a hundred bucks, and unless you're working on a foreign car they aren't that hard to change.   I just replaced the starter in Mrs. Punches car.  Took maybe an hour, and the starter itself cost something like $65.  Not to mention we purchased the car for under $1,000 in need of some work, with low miles, fixed it, and have put almost 70k miles on it in the last 5 years. 

Moral of the story- everyone, man-woman-or child- should now how to weld and sew, and everything in between.

2015 School Year!

So at the end of last year a fellow / former student (I think) came in and spent a day shooting random little clips. This is what he put together. Freaking AWESOME!

There are a few clips from my shop and some of my students projects and even my ugly mug in there for a second or two.

Ready or not, here they come.  The 2015 school year is here!



Students show up tomorrow. Think I'm ready, but it seems like there's always SOMETHING that didn't get done on time.



The entire shop in panorama:



And mega kudo's to our tech guys for updating / expending my "computer lab". Sweet!




On your marks, get set, GO!

Thoughts on bein' a teacher.

Well, here we go again. Starting year 7. First item of business at the faculty meeting: Anyone wanna take an early retirement package or do we have to lay off 4 teachers? It seems that our brilliant former superintendent overestimated the demand for this year. Not that he's around to have to clean up the mess.

Long story short, we start the year in the hole, again. Hoping I still have any type of budget to play with but we'll just have to see how it goes. At least I still have a job for the time being.

On the positive end. Its going to be a busy full year (thats a GOOD thing, right?!). Going to try a few new things, hoping to be able to get lots done with my (very large) new classes.  Several new teachers to meet and get to know.  Lots of old timers back at it still and I'll enjoy working with them for as long as possible.  We've got a PHENOMENAL administration/support team and great faculty. Onward and upward! Students arriving in 5, 4...

Sixth Grade Shoe Day.

My son had to "invent" shoes for Sixth Grade assignment. He got to my shop after school, I left for a meeting, and here's what he came up with.  Should have taken more pictures but I wasn't even in the room for most of his build!

One minor problem here... Can you see it?



It was pretty funny. I was out back observing the woods teacher and some students finish up for the day on a shed they are building. He came out and said "I've got 2 left feet"... Took me a minute to figure out what he meant!

I drilled the rivets out for him and he finished them up.







They have to wear them all day tomorrow at school. Should be interesting to see how well they hold up! I see a couple of potential fail points- the rivets holding the leather together are probably going to pull out but he'll live and learn.

Only one smushed finger out of the deal too!



I'm pretty impressed. I was worried he was going to cut himself on the metal, but he cut out both soles all by himself with the aviation snips. I sanded off the edges but other than that he designed and built them all by himself out of scraps from the shop.  Took him maybe an hour yesterday to get the soles cut out and he spent almost 3 hours tonight cutting leather, punching holes, and riveting it all together.  I think it took him a while to figure out a latch mechanism on the first one, but the second one seemed to go faster.

7th graders can break ANYTHING...

Okay, so maybe it wasn't a student... The woods teacher was using at the time!



Obviously the poor hammer has been through the wringer.  Looks like it had started cracking a long time ago- Thinking that this must be the weak spot and it has fatigued over years and years of constant (miss)use.







It's been sitting on my desk for a day or two- Every. Single. Student.  has to ask me how I broke the hammer.

"I got a little upset with (insert students name here)..."

Valentines.

Yes, March is nearly over and I'm posting about Valentines day...  Made this for Mrs. Punch.







Doesn't really show well in the pics but I managed to get some neat color patters in it with the torch.  A student of mine wanted to try making something a little different.  She got on Instructables and found a copper rose, but we didn't have any copper.  We experimented with some 22g sheet metal and her's turned out so good I had to make one of my own for my wife.  Must have turned out okay, because she was impressed with it.

I used to always think that my dream "job" would be to be "retired" and be able to just putter around in a shop all day and make whatever I wanted.  I've been thinking about that a lot lately.  I really think that teaching has pushed me to try a lot of new things that I would never have wanted to or even known about had it not been for students asking some silly question or wanting to try something new. 

Its pretty amazing, the things that you learn when you teach.

Mendelmax 2.0. Still Chuggin' Away!

Ran several batches of student projects the last couple of weeks...








Decided it was time to figure out why my prints seem to have pretty poor quality. Found a neat little calibration widget to try different settings on, and proceeded to try a BUNCH of different things out...





First and last. I'm almost positive I have a thermistor that is acting wonky on the hot end- supposedly I'm printing PLA at 174 deg. C.



I still think there is room for improvement on the quality of the print, but I'm pretty happy with the results. This is a replacement cone for the cooling fan in the background.



Going to attempt printing an e-nable hand, sort of for fun but maybe for someone that might want to give it a try. We'll see how it turns out!

Student Projects.

Lots going on in the dorkpunch garage lately, both mine at home and the school shop.  Students have been working on all kinds of things.  Been fighting the 3D printer lately but it seems (knock on wood) that I have it figured out.  Had some issues with a sticky z-axis and loosing steps in the y-axis.  The y-axis thing as been going on since nearly the time I built the printer- I had it narrowed it down to a bad control board but thought I would try a few more tests on the y-axis stepper driver.  Tried lowering the voltage- that seemed to work great for about 3 days.  Adjusted and tested it at several different voltages and it seems to be working very well at a slightly higher voltage than its supposed to be at.  Suppose that means it's going to melt here any day now...

Anyways, here's a couple of recent prints with several more to follow.  A headphone stand, and a piston / connecting rod.


Our school has been doing a "FLEX" program- kind of a recess on steroids where the kids that need help can go see their teachers or go do something fun if they are all caught up.  I've had several kids coming in to weld and do lots of other things like these custom Hot Wheels.



The silver one is just a paint and wheel swap- but it's a replica of one of the cars in a Fast and Furious movie.  The other one had the roof chopped off and a new paint job.  Didn't quite get the tape stuck down for the stripes, but not too bad!

Have another kid working on a new body for his R/C truck-


And then there's the welders...



They're getting better.  Have some really good welders- for sure all of them are WAY better than I was at that age. 

On another note, January is almost over.  Time to shave the beard and get ready to drag the bikes out- as long as we don't have the nasty fog / black ice covered roads we had today...

Hot Wheels mobile Workshop.

So I've been indulging myself further into my custom Hot Wheels building addiction and figured it was time for a better "workshop". I go back and forth between my home shop and the school shop so I needed something mobile. Here's what I've been using: A cardboard box lid.



As it happens, I'm teaching a class on sheet metal working and we are building toolboxes right now, so instead of demonstrating how to do things on a bunch of scrap metal or one of the students projects, I built my own.

I changed the dimesnions of mine a bit though, the smaller boxes are demo's from another class I teach and I've got DOZENS of them. Made the big box so the little ones fit inside and act as dividers.



I'm pretty limited by the size of the tools in my shop so one way we get around that is by making the sides separate pieces and riveting them in.





Piano hinge installed on the lid.



Box sides in with a "butterfly" (?) bend. This acts both as a handle on the outside and a ledge for the tray on the inside.



Lid installed. Glad I went through this again- forgot to make allowances for the hinge on my box so I had to do some adjusting. Students won't have that issue now.



Primer.



Blue.





Hardware. I mounted my little vice to the top of the lid. We'll see how I like it but for now its on there.





Inside was left grey to make it easier to see bits and pieces.



And hey, its for my Hot Wheels, so may as well put a big 'ole sticker on there, right?!





Not real happy with how the paint came out but that part was a rush job, and its a tool box so it's going to be getting bashed around anyways, right?

Starting on the "organizing" part of it.





Eventualy, I'm going to build a tray for it as well. All of the supplies will go underneath, and the tools will go on top. MUCH better than the stupid cardboard box lid I've been using!