Show us something that you MADE...

My flower pot smoker: not something I "made" but assembled. Mine is charcoal and electric capable. I added a side door for fire tending so i don't have to open the top. It works pretty well, but I'm still sorting it out. It holds heat pretty well and is plenty big. What you don't see is the cast iron wood box I sit on top of the coals or the electric hot plate. I had to tweak the hot plate's high temp spring to allow it to get hotter, so that now it won't turn completely off....
Future changes will include a PID controller for set and forget type electric smoking.





~Bill

Very cool. What did you use to cut the side door?

Get another top pot, cut the bottom off of it, retaining it for a lid, and make it the top. Insulate it and you've got a homemade tandoor oven, something I'm going to make in the next month or so. Love tandoori chicken and naan.............

http://www.instructables.com/id/Garbage-Can-and-Flower-Pot-Tandoor-Oven/

I used a 1/16" masonry wheel in a 4 1/2" Mikita side grinder. Worked good, a little more gap than I'd like, but I'll seal the gaps eventually, - not much is lost around the door gap. Of course, right after cutting the door out, I dropped the damn thing on the ground, making three pieces from one. I had to epoxy the thing back together.....

Oh yeah, I used a 1/8" masonry drill for hinge screw holes and for the candy thermometer to stick through the top.





My heat deflector/drip catcher is a planter saucer, drilled around the edges and safety wired to hang below the grill pan (which is a Webber 18" ).


~Bill

One day....it will be done!

thanks for the tip - What did you use over the hole on the bottom (if anything) ?

Not thing, open for air. May even need more for using charcoal -time will tell. Plan to add a damper too. Rock over the top hole - high tech solution!

That's very cool Bill!

a 2x2 piece of pine and LOTS of sanding

The boy's CO2 powered car for shop class


Gonna haul ass

You made your kid's CO2 car? Cheater!

That is beautiful! Many years ago we used to make them but used an ether cartridge instead of CO2. One guy would hold the car and a lighter. A second guy would use a hammer and nail to puncture the end of the cartridge. Nice flame shooting out of the back and the car would haul butt!

I built a table for a lathe I recently bought.

I used a sheet of 15/32 sanded plywood. I had home depot cut it in four pieces, of 2'x4'.

I set the lathe on a sheet of ply and set it in a locale that looked right and traced the holes and measured twice and drilled once for the lathe location. I sunk 4 1/4"-20 Tee Nuts in the bottom of the first sheet of ply to hold the lathe in place. I screwed and glued the four sheets together, capturing the tee nuts in place and making a 2" think Glu-lam of sorts, of 2'x4' dimensions.

I used four carriage bolts to hold the motor in place, pretty much only because I didn't have any extra tee nuts when I screwed and glued everything in place.

To hold the legs in place, I cut the sheet of ply it was being held to into 8 1'x2' triangles, to support the 8 3' 2x4s I fashioned into 4 4x4s.

I left a 2" space at the top of the triangles to nest the table into the legs and supports and screwed everything together.

I had two extra pieces of cull lumber left over, so I used that to support the table legs and make a base for a shelf in the future.

Not bad for $25 worth lumber, $4 in glue, some screws, manual labor and part of a day off of work.


Blah, blah, blah pictures...

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As well...


I found a front seat in the dumpster at work, about a year ago. It looks like it came out of a newer BMW. It's a heavy-ass seat, so I stripped off all the wiring and brackets and seat belt tensioner and lumbar pump and blah, blah, blah.

I wound up with some other dumpster fun stuff, including a couple backboards from our local CHP who was moving location and unloading a bunch of good stuff.

A free computer seat base from a coworker and the idea hit.

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Whammo, new german luxury computer chair.

Looks comfy. And it should hold you in well while cornering.

Mine was similar way back when. Held the school record for a while, IIRC scale 212 mph. Mine was ugly though.

My buddy's was beautiful, perfect mirrored deep red paint. They had sanded it for days, and wet sanded and polished...

It took off and went about 3' before flipping onto it's top and sliding down the floor (track) scratching it all to shit...

I was the "head overseer" and consultant- he did countless hours

He spent most of thanksgiving day on my father in law's workshop shaping it, and days sanding it.

He polished and then made the center of the axles concave to reduce friction.
He ground down the wheels (save a 1/4 inch ridge) at the school on a lathe

I did spray it .... I managed to spray a bad combo of primer/paint that reacted to create a goo :huh...Much sanding and stripping later we were back to wood... then just quickly threw on the gold

Each year my school does a Pinewood Derby as an 8th grade project. Every 8th grader is given a kit and about a month (with deadlines) to build a car. Along the way we work in various 8th grade standards and the kids all build their own cars along the way. One fun part is that as a teacher, I get to build a new car each year to compete in the "teacher race." This is my submission from this year. The body shape is based on the 1931 Miller V-16 race car. I ended up winning the teacher class for the second year in a row by employing a number of speed tricks that I have learned over the years.



-Connor

You have the VERY old school wheels , excellent


We've had local dads make cars and run a separate competition when the boys rent the track. Good times - nad the boys get to do more of their own car

-Simon

A few I helped my son when 2nd place in his pack a couple of years ago were:

Polish the axles on the lathe. Make sure to ream the seams out of the insides of the wheels. Also the axles (nails) have flashing on the backside get rid of this and polish them up real nice. Also remove the flashing on the outside diameter of the wheels.

Do not use the pre-made axle holes/channels. Drill them yourself, make sure they are all straight and stuff. If you use a mill, it's really easy to set up the 3 of the axles holding the car up, and the fourth not dragging the car down. Balance it on 3 wheels

Weight as far back in the car as possible (greatest gravitational influence, in the front once the front of the car gets to the flat gravity's done, with the weight back even when the front of the car gets to the flat the weight is still pushing)

Wear in the wheels on the belt sander with copious amounts of dry graphite.

Work the insides of the wheels where the get up against the car, polish this up really good, and make sure the wheels are up against an area without paint. Use the graphite here in excess.


The more accurately you can weigh it the closer you can get it to the heaviest you can run. If you're lucky they will have a weigh in early, so you can check their scale against yours.

Those are the major areas that will put it in the running.