The Diaries Of An Un-Furloughed Grendel

[grendel]

well i thought i would start a new topic on my day to day activities whilst furloughed. so here we go

Day 1, up late, 6am, downstairs and a coffee was order of the day, then its time to get doing something at 9 degrees the workshop is a little chilly, but i remembered that yesterday i had found a dead battery for one of my 18V lithium drills, a replacement battery had been installed, anyway the offending battery was disassembled and there was an obvious candidate - one cell all brown and discoloured, so the connecting strips were carefully removed and a known good set of cells was put in and soldered into place.once reassembled the battery was tested on the drill, once again it works, so jobs a goodun, battery now on charge.

[Ray]

Good topic Grendel, I enjoy reading your tips and learn a thing or two along the way 

[grendel]

its silly, i want to test charge the batteries, and i have 3 chargers that will do that, i have found 1, but it has the 2 pin plug, can i find the corresponding socket to plug it in, nope, more tidying to find those then.

[grendel]

10 minutes of thorouh searching found the chargers, right behind where i thought they should be, they had been pushed off and dropped down the back, one safely placed in the chargers drawer, the second sitting plugged in charging those cells.

[grendel]

okay so onwards, batteries on charge

back out to the workshop to carry on out there, what else do we need - lighting, i had a selection of bulkhead lights, settling in the end for the two 6W led ones, these were just wired in to a plug each and tested, before mounting them above the table and lathe.

yes they are different heights one had the wire from the toaster that died at the weekend, and that was as far as it reached.

Then attention turned to the lathe, i had taken advantage of an offer for a quick change toolpost and 8 tool holders, this arrived this morning, so has been fitted to the lathe

This is useful as the original toolholder would only take 1/4" tools, and this has wider jaws  (and adjustable height) enablin tooling up to 1/2" to be held, useful as i got a whole lot of 3/8" with the jewelers lathe.

[wombat nee blownup]

and this is broads related?

[grendel]

no, thats why its in the broadscot lounge - a place to chat about non broads related subjects

[ExSurveyor]

2 minutes ago, wombat nee blownup said:

and this is broads related?

No,  that is why it is in The Broadscot Lounge.

Snap, posted at the same time.

[grendel]

to continue, after i had lunch, it was back into the workshop, i got my wet grinder out and sharpened a few lathe tools, then continued on to do the same for a few chisels i had found just lying about on my bench

That done i looked around for another job and spotted this rusty old vice

which was promptly disassembled.

next job will be to clean the rust off.

[grendel]

now to try something i have never tried before, electrolytic rust removal, quick hunt round the house, do i have everything i need, nope, they recommend washing soda, but nope i dont have that, I just need to make the water conduct better, salt would do that, but one of the gasses given off is chlorine, but i did have some epsom salts - bath salts, so lets give that a try, google told me that it is possible with epsom salts so lets give it a try.

power from an old battery charger (after  i had rewired the plug).

[grendel]

well this is a good sign, rust coloured water migrating to the positive electrode, the part being the negative one, we will leave it overnight and see what occurs.

[HEM]

I thought Coca-Cola was supposed to be good at cleaning many things - what it does to your stomach is...

 

[grendel]

its the phosphoric acid does the trick with coca cola, and i ave used it in the past for removing rust, however this was something i have always wanted to try.

[grendel]

Day 2,

And it's time to see how the electrolytic rust removal went, so first thing I looked in the bucket

Urgh I hear you say, that doesn't look pretty but what about the part?

Well that looks different, a sort of before and after, the top rusty one is the half not done yet.

[BroadAmbition]

That's looks like a good result, what's the next stage? Rust convertor? Couple coats of Hammerite or just oil the surface?

Griff

[grendel]

no this process should replace the rust converter stage as thats what it is doing, the rust migrates to the other piece of metal in the tank, next will be a cursory wire brushing and then a coat of  hammerite or similar, i think i have a couple of spray cans of lidls best metal protective paint, i am trying to achieve this without having to go shopping, i had thought of using linseed oil, which would dry out like paint would, but we will see, well i will see what i have in the cupboard.

[Chelsea14Ian]

All looks very good,if I knew what it is.I'm not very good at DIY.Now if its food I'm your man.Weather warning again. It's oven cleaning part two today.You've been warned. 

[grendel]

so after a quick wire brushing the part is back to proper bare metal, then its time for paint, its a dark grey rust preventative paint from lidls, it was sitting in my paint store cupboard (when they have spray paint i tend to buy a selection.)

[Vaughan]

Fascinating!

[grendel]

So continuing the tidying, this corner was piled high, so much i didnt really know what was there, so i went through this morning, finding umpteen multipacks of screws, hooks, rivets fixings, o rings washers etc, they have been put into storage in a cupboard, whats left is a lot tidier, this is a very compact workshop considering there is an L shaped bench, and several large machines, a bandsaw, a pillar drill, a table saw, a thicknesser and a bench drill, we also have a multitude of vices (no the ones for holding things in). anyway once things are tidy, then model work can progress

[BroadAmbition]

then model work can progress

Finally - Glad to hear it 

Griff

[grendel]

I do have to think about what to do next on the model, painting the hull has to be pretty high up on the list, but do i paint it before adding rubbing strakes or after, hmm.

[WherryNice]

Paint first I reckon....

[BroadAmbition]

Same here.  The hull is white and the rubbing strips are varnished

Griff

[grendel]

so spurred on by my exploits it was back to the vice as the second batch of bits came out from derusting, some quick work with the wire brush tidied them back to bare metal, then i got to thinking the clamp on the vice needed a plate to clamp against, so some time was spent fabricating one on the lathe. the liquid in the tank is looking right orrible now, but i have the last few bits in . last is the brass bit i have made for the clamp plate, it does still need the hole enlarging, but its nearly done.