Plans, projects and How-to's for Home Machinists and Other Makers
RobI started taking a 10-night, 30-hour TIG welding course this week at a welding supply company. I enrolled partly because I enjoy learning new skills and partly because TIG welding is especially useful in a machine shop. You can use it to weld almost any kind of metal and it can make very small, precise and neat looking welds with very little heat distortion. … Read the rest
I took a week of vacation time just to work on my Solsylva CNC router. My goal was to spend at least 10 hours a day on it and try to get it finished. I had a very productive week but I spent most of it working on other things instead. … Read the rest
I’ve been away on vacation which is why MachinistBlog.com has been so stale. We only went away for one week this year but I always seem to spend the week before running around like crazy getting ready to go and then the week afterwards working like crazy to get caught up at work and with chores around the house. … Read the rest
I tried making some machinable wax last night. It’s supposed to be harder than plain wax and mine wasn’t, or at least not noticeably. But I believe I can fix it by re-melting it and dissolving more plastic into it.
Machinable wax is made from ordinary paraffin (candle) wax that has HDPE or LDPE plastic added to it to make it harder, more dense and to raise its melting temperature. … Read the rest