Santa's Heavy Hauler #2

New bed attempts, 1, 2 and 3.



Fenders, attempts 1 through 4.




I wanted to build a complete suspension for this but ran out of time. I did try something new though and made axles and a custom driveline.









Frame attempt number 1.



Attempts 2, 3, and 4...



How #4 started out:





With the driveline.

Pipe dreams: The future dorkpunch Garage.

Alright guys, looking for a little organizational feedback. In a couple of months, if all goes according to plan, this will be the new dorkpunch garage:







Lets assume we are starting with a clean slate- it's sheetrocked / insulated and has a wood stove and thats pretty much it.

Here's what I'm thinking for layout.





The "island" will be on wheels so it can be rolled around. Would like the lift table to be able to stow under the island or workbench so its out of the way when not in use.

Primary use will be fixing small engines in the summer, but I've got my fingers in about a dozen different pots so I'd like to be able to have a welding corner and / or a "paint booth". For the welding corner I'm thinking of building some portable walls / curtains that can be set up where I want them. The "paint booth" will most likely just be a section of wall with a hefty exhaust fan that I could set the welding booth walls up around too.

Any suggestions as to placement of tools? Air compressor would likely live in the back corner, with hard line run along that wall with several air jacks and a drain at the end. My "big" power tools are all pretty portable- drill press, scroll saw, table saw, and sliding compound miter saw would probably all live under the workbench until needed.

What am I forgetting!?

A lift would be awesome but definitely not in the cards anytime soon. I would probably get more use out of a gantry style crane...

As to the placement of the truck- I have a few "project" vehicles- they don't get moved around much. I was thinking I would put two of them back in that corner, and I would still have enough room to park a mobile vehicle at the roll up door that I could pull out when I wanted space to work.

The house also comes with this attached 2 car carport:



and this old chicken coop that I plan on converting for motorcycle / John Deere overflow storage.



In all reality, it will probably look something more like this, but not as clean...

Santa's Heavy Hauler #1

Haven't posted this yet-  here's the build I did for the Christmas build-off.  "Santa's Heavy Hauler".  Probably my most expensive custom to date- just because of the sheer number of WHEELS...

How to turn these:





into this:



in 3,149 easy steps!

This build was really hard. The "castings" are plastic and I quickly discovered that working with plastic is NOT fun.



VERY easy to take too much off using the belt sander, and the hand files just don't work well with it. My little scroll saw would just melt lines in the plastic instead of cut them. Ug...





Headed in this direction.



Motor donor!


Gluing cabs together.



Starting on the bed.













I discovered that the body was built a little off. Turns out one of the rear fenders is slightly further back than the other. Made it REALLY hard to get everything lined up, and by the time I got to this point I was really not liking how it was coming together.





You can tell I didn't get the rear fenders all the same height, so...



Time to try something different.

dorkpunch Engines #1. (re) Learning how to machine.

So I stumbled across this video a while ago.



I've been wanting to try my hand at making some type of miniature model engine for a long time now. I have seen dozens of these cool videos- in fact, here are two more.






I've built a couple of really simple air engines, and even use the one as a project for my Grade 8 students to build.  Here was my first attempt ever at building an engine. This was my test bed for the above engine- basically copied but simplified from one I found on Instructables.





I adapted that one to this one- VERY simple to make and pretty easy to get running decently. ZERO machining- all done on a drill press or with hand tools. Little bit of welding but it could be done without it if you had different chunks of metal.

From this:



To this:







Back to the topic at hand.  I've got my own idea I've been kicking around for a while- flathead with an atmospheric intake valve, 1" bore and I'm thinking either 1.25 or 1.5" stroke. Not sure how I'm going to do the governor but I've got a few ideas. No idea how well it will work, if it ever even DOES. I don't have a real great track record at finishing projects...

Been working on dumping the ideas swirling around in my head out onto paper and the computer.

Here's the general idea.









Currently thinking flathead, with atmospheric intake valve. Main design constraints are the limiting factors of the tools I have, so the goal is to make it as simple as possible and entirely built on the tools I have access to- a Smith 1250xl (?) lathe / mill combo. Been playing around a bit and have made some shavings, will get more pics posted. 

Alphatig 200X Tig welder #1- a review.

Yeah, one of those "Cheap chinsy Chineese crap welders".



I've been sort of looking to upgrade my wicked old Century 5-star welder for about 2 years now. It's an decent welder- AC/DC, with a high frequency box, but its really a stick welder that I set up to do TIG. It simply will not work for what I want to do- weld thin aluminum sheet metal.

Finally had enough money that I've been seriously looking for a TIG welder for the last 2 months. I was hoping to buy used, get a decent older welder that met my needs- AC, foot pedal, and LOW amps. I have had ZERO luck finding one locally. I expanded my search to within a 4 hour drive and still couldn't find anything that fit my needs. Best I could do was a decent Lincoln squarewave 175, both out of my price range and too far away to be able to pic up.

Crusing ADVrider, I stumbled acrossed a post about the Alphatig. First thought- yup, junk. But dang, the price sure was good. Got to looking around and they have pretty darn good reviews.

Meh, I'll hold out for something good... and another couple of weeks pass by- while I'm still researching the Alphatig. Sounds impressive. Oh, the 2015 model fixed a few of the minor issues (not problems, but added more features) from the 2014? And its on SALE? Why not.

$790, ordered on amazon.com late Friday night and it was here Wednesday.

 
This worried me a little...



But everything looks okay.



Included junk.



From the upper right hand corner, going clockwise: regulator, foot pedal, plug adapter to go from 220 style to 110, ground clamp, pack of cups, collets, and torch parts, stinger for stick welding, TIG torch and cable, and the infamous "manual".

The welder itself- LOTS of buttons and knobs!



So far, quality looks pretty good. No loose anything like you would expect from something bought at Harbor Freight. I can tell I'm not going to like the goofy cover for the knobs- but it pops right off so it'll probably just store it somewhere and forget about it.

More to follow!