Stories of family, creativity, and diverse distractions.

Category: Shop Projects Page 1 of 5

Making stuff from wood, metal or plastic.

Fix Rotary Cutters with a 3D Printer?

Rotary cutters are used to cut fabric and paper. They are especially popular for quilters. I use one regularly. We recently got a message that several rotary cutters used in a charity quilting group were missing a piece. Walt was able to use one of my cutters to create a 3D printed version to replace the missing parts.

Making a special drying rack

For the last few years, Walt and I have been using waxed cloth wrappers for our sandwiches instead of plastic bags. It’s a small way to reduce our waste, but drying them proved a bit challenging. Here’s the solution we came up with.

Angling for Perfection With A Dovetail Cutter

I have written several prior articles about milling cutters, and today it’s time for another. We’re going to look at a specialized cutter for making dovetails. Once again, the person who named these didn’t waste much time on the task. They’re called dovetail cutters.

Making Curves the Easy Way – Corner Rounding End Mills

I’ve written before about end mills, but so far all we’ve discussed are the straight ones, for cutting square corners. Those are real workhorses, and I use them most of the time. But once in a while I need to make a curved shape. What then? Corner rounding end mills, that’s what!

A Little Straight Talk About Straight End Mills

Last week I wrote a brief introduction to end mills. Big shout-out to the one person who read it! Today I’d like to further test everyone’s patience and go into it a bit further. We’ll start by talking about straight end mills, which are by far the most common.

Spinning Blades Of Death! An Intro To End Mills

Awhile back I made a post about my milling machine. In that post I promised to talk further about end mills and other milling cutters. Well, today’s that dreaded your lucky day!

A Milling Machine Is Never Run Of The Mill

In this post I talked briefly about my milling machine. It’s one of the most important tools in my machine shop. Today let’s explore it a little further.

Let’s Make an Ultralight Lid

A while back I found a really light titanium bowl, and I intended to use it as an ultralight cooking pot for solo backpacking. But it didn’t come with a lid, and you really need one to cook efficiently. So the project went to the back burner, so to speak, and I used the pot I already had. But today we’re going to finish the build.

It Ain’t No Vice to Have a Big Vise!

It’s all very well to have a file, or a hacksaw. If you can’t hold the work tight you really won’t get much done. That’s where a vise comes in. Let’s chat about them for a minute, shall we?

Mama said there’d be days like this……

Sometimes life really does interfere way too much with trying to get things that you want to do done. Today was one of those days.

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