Friday, December 23, 2011

Cord Wood Saw

Yesterday, December 22, a 1/10th scale model of my father in law's cord wood, or firewood saw was completed. This was a rather simple model that was under construction a day or two less than a week.
In order to make the blade a blank disc of about 20 gauge sheet metal was clamped between a couple supporting discs and 80 teeth milled in with a "V" shaped cutter bit as shown above.
As a point of interest the blank was cut from the same piece of sheet of metal as was used to make the whimsical leg that I made and put in the flower bed last year, and originally it was the bottom of an evaporator cooler. (swamp cooler) I cherish every piece of metal I can get hold of to make things out of. The material for the angle iron and flat bar in the frame work was cut from the metal from an old washing machine or drier. The brass bolts that fasten together are a tiny size"0" and were ordered from Micro Fasteners in New Jersey.
Shown below is the father in laws original old saw that is now peacefully retired in the yard and only serves as a decoration, and reminder of days gone by.

Monday, December 12, 2011

8 Pound Baby Engine

Yesterday, December 11 2011 a new baby engine came to life at our house, and started chugging away. The engine was built from plans published in Popular Science Magazine in 1947, the year that I turned 14, but of course I did not have skills or equipment to build engines at that time.
The author of the plans was CW Woodson who was a prolific contributor of machinist articles back in the forties. He was an artiest by trade, machining was his hobby. Apparently iron castings were available for the engine at the time of the printing, but certainly not now. So I made wood patterns and poured castings in brass. This model was under construction for 5 weeks.
I worked from plans copied from original magazine pages, but believe it or not those old Popular Science magazines are still available for viewing on Google Books. To look it up if you are interested, type in Popular Science 1947, CW Woodson. You even get to see all the old ad's etc., a wonderful place to reminisce.