The dispersal god is smiling

I'd been trying to sell my car for a month on Craigslist. There were tons of cars for sale, people would call, never show up, then no one would call. Discouraging. Then the gods smiled, four people called, one showed up with cash. Done, done, done.

What does this have to do with metalwork? I've been trying to clean up my shop because I want to invite some fellow machinists to visit and one of them has an immaculate shop. I, on the other hand, have leaves on the floor, half finished projects all over, piles of tools, and even more piles of stuff. I know it is like cleaning before your in-laws visit, but I feel I need to do something before I have them over. And, truth to tell, I want to get a bigger mill and do not have the space.

So under the smiling deity in short order I sold an old welder I never used, sold my old foundry furnace, and sold my old mill. I've got all the space and half the money I need for the new mill. Seems like I am on a roll - but we'll see.

Greeks, Romans, and my welding

I might be making this up but I recall from somewhere that the Greeks sculpted figures so they could be viewed on all sides - even if the figure could not be possibly seen from all sides. For example, the figures on the sides of temples could not be seen from the back but the sculpture was done completely. It had to do with some idea of beauty or perfection.

Not so for the Romans. If a Roman sculpture could not be seen from one angle, they simply stopped carving at the point where it could not be visible. Perhaps practical rather than perfect.

This came to mind when fixing the stand to my 4 x 6 el cheapo horizontal bandsaw from Harbor Freight. There I was sitting on the shop floor trying to weld a brace into a sheet metal corner. My new knee was throbbing, I could not see very well, and I did some of the ugliest welds possible. The welds will hold OK, but they sure are ugly. On the other hand, they were in a position where they will not be visible - unless someone turns the whole saw upside down.

I am a believer in perfection but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do and move on.

Lovin' Lost Foam

While the big piece took an hour to ram up in petrobond the little leaf pieces were just plonked down in play sand. For the right type of piece lost foam is a pleasure!

Here is one of them still hot from the mold. It is interesting to note that the foam leaflets were very fine and fragile yet the cast leaflets are much thicker. The play sand I am using is pretty coarse and very loose so my theory is the aluminum just pushed it a bit to the sides.

Learning Lost Foam

Finally rehabbed enough to trust my new knee to a pour. The technique of lost foam is still a work in progress probably because I keep pushing the boundaries of my technique. As you can see there are holes in the walls - on the inner left side at the top and middle and the other right side. This piece is a 7" cube, hollowed out, and the walls are roughly 3/8" thick. Typically voids occur when the thermal mass of the foam overcomes the aluminum and it freezes before vaporizing the foam.

The pour was made from the top to the four corners so I would expect voids at the bottom. Maybe the voids near the top are due to the colder temperature of aluminum at the end of the pour. Maybe - but why the voids in the middle? Fortunately it works artistically.

Back in the shop ....

I've progressed to the point where I can sit in the shop but not operate any machinery. What to do? Make some sculptures from styrofoam, natch! When I get a lot better, probably in a few weeks, I'll fire up the furnace and cast them in Aluminum.

Ever since I visited the Grand Canyon a few years ago I have wanted to make a sculpture that would convey the incredible feeling of being present there. I have tried a few pieces that have all failed and this one is the latest. It is the convergence of the Little Colorado with the Colorado at the Eastern end of the canyon. Not to scale, not very accurate, just an impression of my memory.

The styrofoam slices were cut on my homemade foam cutter - a piece of MIG wire, tensioned by a spring, and hooked up to a battery charger that you can see in the background. I cut the slices and used dabs of hot melt glue to hole them together.

While I was putting the rejected parts of the slices aside I noticed they had some pretty nice shapes. A little work with the glue gun and I had three more sculptures. These slices might be too thin to cast properly. However, unlike the first piece, I do not have a lot of time invested in them and I can cast them using a quick method with loose sand rather than petrobond which is more time consuming.

YouTube bored

My rehab has progressed to the point where there is not enough pain or books to occupy my attention so I turned to YouTube - for machining videos, natch! The different flavors are very interesting. The fall into amateur, educational, and sales.

In the sales category, all the video sales ads for CNC equipment remind me of a stripper bar - at least the ones I've seen in movies and TV since I've never never been in one. (How did I miss out all these years?) Anyway, the characteristics are pounding rock music, spewing fluids, and smoke. Does this really sell stuff, Matsusura?

Tormach has a much more cerebral approach with light electronic music and commentary on the machine operations, speeds, feeds, and tooling that are being used.

I'll keep my eye out for some other good ones.

My new best friend (s)

While I was in the recovery room immediately after knee surgery my surgeon walked in, said the operation went well, and patted the Continuous Passive Motion machine that had been delivered a few minutes earlier. 'This is your new best friend,' he said.

It seems that bad outcomes from knee joint replacement operations were mainly due to patients not doing the incredibly painful physical therapy. The solution; dope you to the gills, strap your leg into this contraption, and it bends your knee over and over again. There is some kind of mechanism in the plastic base, probably an acme screw, that pulls your foot up gently bending the knee and then pushes it back down. There are fleecy pads that hold everything in place, a nicely finished stainless steel structure for the machine, and controls for bend angle and bend rate.

Marguerite (friend #1), was my recovery room nurse. She got the fleecy pads on but struggled to figure out how to adjust the device correctly. The delivery guy (friend #2) was no help and quickly bailed. Marguerite recruited the occupational therapist (#3) and then the physical therapist (#4). No matter what they did the stainless steel bar at the end dug into my butt, and part of my leg was not supported. The machine was the wrong size they concluded. 'Don't worry' Marguerite said, 'You are moving to a room and I'll have a new one delivered.'

In my room I met my new nurse, Jensine (#5) who, in her way, was just as fabulous as Marguerite. Maybe it was the drugs but I don't think so - they were both fabulous. The new machine was delivered, set up, and I was strapped in again. The fit was much better but the bar at the end still dug into my butt. After a half hour of bending I noticed that my thigh was moving sideways in a weird way. 'It's broken,' Jensine said and sure enough one of the welds had given way. My TIG welding of stainless sure isn't the greatest but I expected a little better from the medical machine manufacturers.

A third machine was delivered, and Jensine recruited the nurse across the way (#6) to help. She took one look and said, 'The pads are on backwards." Sure enough, a little switcheroo, and I was in the bending business with no pains in my butt. Thank you, thank you!!!

Before I left the hospital my surgeon paid a last visit. 'We like patients to use these machines at home for a few weeks but your insurance doesn't cover it. Do you want to rent one on your own or just do the physical therapy exercises?" I demurred on the machine.