Show us something that you MADE

I enjoy making rings. I've made a lot out of various metals - mostly stainless steel, copper, brass, etc. - but today I thought I'd branch out (as it were). 

I harvested a chunk of mesquite from a dead branch from our tree in the front yard and went to work. I turned the ring and coated it with UV-cured epoxy and then polished it. It turned out extremely well - especially for a first attempt with the material! 

I'd like to work on a hybrid wood/metal ring. That will be a project for another weekend, though. 

I made Dana a shelf to get some of the Harry Potter stuff off the random surfaces. I should have doubled it's size, but it's a good start. 

I wish there was money in woodworking, it's a lot of fun

In reply to brandonsmash :

I made onion rings for dinner tonight...

This is what I do in my spare time, which is pretty much all my time these days. Since retirement this has been my full time job. Our club has a large property and I look after the trails, sometimes the track, and sometimes the property. I'm there every day.

This is a sighting video for the cross country race we're putting on this weekend. I cut most of the trail and did 100% of the layout. Missing is about a km of grass track and what we call the roller coaster. A section of up and down trail on the side of a steep hill. We discovred a big tree down on the first lap, which i cleaned up this morning.

Just after 23:00 is the bridge discussed in the quick answers thread, and about 29:00 I popped over a 3' log. It's too bad it was so dark..

I'm leading on the Oset electric trials bike. Behind me is one of our A class riders on his dad's TTR230

In reply to Peabody :

That's a cool thing to do in retirement.  And you must be in great shape and have good skills to ride like that!

In reply to DWNSHFT :

 I never expected to do this in retirement, at least not like this,  it just happened. I'm on the bike every day and it's not out of the ordinary for me to do a half dozen laps like that, sometimes more, while laying out and cutting trail. Thoroughly enjoying retirement and feeling pretty good these days.

Made a fuel pressure regulator mount to a Ross Machine fuel rail

As a condo owner with limited parking / garage space for projects, I decided to try and optimize my situation using what I already have. The result is wild and I couldn't be happier! 

The lower level of my townhouse was originally partitioned into a small garage port, a hallway off to one side leading to a utility room in the back. It was all very cramped and poorly framed and finished. I wanted more space for working on my Spec Miata and also as a piano technician, I thought I might even be able to build an additional piano shop if I knocked down all the walls. Luckily, the I-beam construction allowed me to go to town and open everything up without taking an unexpected, violent ride to the basement from the calm of a morning shower. 

Here's the evolution of the project below, starting with the original Dexter spray room style upon moving in a few years ago.

Many Home Depot trips in the E34 Truck

Framing, mudding, taping, etc.

Starting to come together!

Here's the side entrance from inside the house. The recessed lighting is where the wall to the side hallway used to be. Room for the piano shop, race car dolly, the car and all the toys. Pretty happy. 

I'll be doing a separate post on the E34 soon!

In reply to Peanu_Keeyes :

Miata to Mozart in less than 10 steps... Very cool!  

In reply to Peanu_Keeyes :

From now on, no garage-mahal will be complete without a grand piano!

In reply to Peanu_Keeyes :

That's cool!

My wife has wanted a butler's pantry for a long time.  We had a nook for one and we only had large standing cabinet there for our bar glasses and liquor. Last October I started work on it. I just worked away as time allowed instead of rushing. Also job uncertainty paused spending on it for a while as well.  

Last October I picked up a couple of base cabinets from the HD. I even borrowed a work truck from the old job for this one :) 

And promptly installed them after replacing all the cheap hardware with soft close. I also had to square up the top with some reinforcements by adding an extra inner frame to the top of the cabinet.

Not pictured, the liquor is on sliding shelves in the bottom of the cabinets.

From here it sat like this with an MDF top until almost February when the countertop could be installed. 

In the meantime, my wife wanted a herringbone brick back wall. I figured I could make it even fancier by opening the back of some cabinets so even more brick could be seen.  When I built my wife's office with used kitchen cabinets, I saved a couple for this purpose.  

I cut the back of the cabinet open and added a frame on the backside. 

But that looked like crap from the front , so I had to put a "picture frame" on the inside to hide the backside when viewed from the front.

Also, both cabinets were different widths and I needed them equal. So on the cabinet above, I added a strip of wood to the right side. The other cabinet, I added a strip to inside the door frame.

This way, both cabinets were the same overall width and would fit the antique doors my wife found from a salvage place in Detroit (pics later for that).

A few weeks ago I started on the brick. But I had to figure out how to hang the cabinets.  The stud placement was not friendly for this and I could not get enough screws in studs if I just mounted the cabinets to the wall alone. I ended up screwing a couple of strips of wood into studs to give me a solid surface to screw the cabinets into, and then started on the brick. I also added an outlet above the cabinets for the interior and under cabinet lighting. 

Completed brick:

With mortar

Today was crown molding and some trim pieces.

And 90% complete.  My wife now just needs to find the right hardware for the door handles and drawer pulls.

I still have a few details to wrap up including putting some kind of shelves between the cabinets with some lighting. I'm very happy with this project!

In reply to PMRacing :

That's cool!

I made this flyer in InDesign last night.

I used a tip from Sarah for the text: If you use separate text boxes for all of the text, you can make lots of little adjustments. 

In reply to PMRacing :

Looks nice! The re-purpose on the top cabinets is neat.

My own mustard.

I feel a bit like this meme, but I'm stupidly pleased with the result.

Once I blended the front container I mixed with the jar in the back so I had a nice mix

Mr. Asa, ever make the mustard from the recipe on the back of the can?   Tastes just like Nancy's Mustard.  Creamy almost Dijon.  

914Driver said:

Mr. Asa, ever make the mustard from the recipe on the back of the can?   Tastes just like Nancy's Mustard.  Creamy almost Dijon.  

Nope.  First time making it.  Didn't use anything from a can, just mustard seed, salt, vinegar, and water.

Let it sit out for a day to a week, blend if you want, stays good in the fridge for up to a year.

The one on the can you saute' finely diced onion in white wine ....

Yeah, some of the recipes I found suggested using various alcohols and aromatics to tweak the flavor.  First one I saw that gave me the idea was some guy using a half-flat half-bottle of champagne instead of water.

I figured for the first try we'd be nice and basic.

In reply to Mr_Asa :

Mrs p sometimes makes mustard with the trailings of my hot sauces. They are very good.

Anybody else ever buy two different oil pressure sensor sockets that didn't work on the tall GM sensors?  Nobody?  Well anyway, it ticked me off and here's the result.  

This sort of random stuff is why having a lathe is so useful.   

Made another tool today.  This is Rev 2.0 of a balancer installer for the LS engines.  

Two M16x2.0 nuts welded on the ends of a piece of tubing.

The nut on one side is drilled through so it's just on there to keep everything centered.  (I had problems with Rev 1.0 binding after welding a nut on each end of the tubing; the weld heat would pull on them and one would bind.)

The tube goes on a piece of M16x2.0 rod that threads into the crank.  The length of the tube sticks out of the balancer so you can get a wrench on it.

It took about four months to complete, but it's up and running, my wire EDM (Electrical Discharge Machine).