Laser Cutter repairs

When cutting a thick piece of clear acrylic the laser cutter at work managed to set itself on fire... It turned out not to be as bad as it first looked & I was fortunately able to carry out a cost-effective repair with the help of the suppliers (www.techsoft.co.uk)...
All working fine again now...

Ford Fiesta 1.8D '94

Well... the disapointment this week was that it failed its MOT test. The guy at the garage hinted that it wasnt worth doing etc etc.... however having rescued it from a broken pump drive belt earlier this year we didnt feel inclined to give up quite so easily!
So, having bought a gas-less MIG welder a few weeks ago (for something else) we decided to tackle that part of the failure list first! there were two rust holes, no more than 2" dia each side on the front part of the floor near the door hinge. not enough to weaken the structure but as they are within 300mm of a suspension mounting point, they were a failure item.

This is what we found when the carpets were taken up...

 The other side cleaned up with the angle grinder, ready for welding...

& this is the patch welded in place, ready for painting... as MIG welding skills are still at the development stage I decided to weld it on the inside rather than try to weld upside down!!

Now we need to do the other failure points... drive shaft boot, servo & indicatators...



A week later & the fiesta is ready to hit the road again for another year... total cost about £25...

Sandwich Windmill

A varied morning at the mill today...

We're still deciding what to do about the heating oil tank that was holed by thieves who stole the contents a few weeks ago.

Before we can do anything we have to empty the remaining oil from the existing 2,500l tank... so far we've pumped out 550l & there is still some more left... we filled up all the available containers today...

 We now have the use of a De walt thicknesser too


















A large heavy vice was also in need of attention.... this originally had a quick release mechanism, but this had long gone, so I made up a steel strip (the bit diagonally accross the vice near the mounting holes). This effectively keeps the half nut engaged perninantly with the thread byforcing it upwards, which is what the spring in the original quick-release would have done...



Honda Deauville NTV650 exhaust

I dont know why this is taking so long.... but it is, I finally managed to remove the chrome cover that Honda put over the joint between the downpipes & the front of the silencer (presumably to hide the fact that they couldn't be bothered to chrome plate it? or that they had cut corners by making it out of mild steel!). This unfortunately involved grinding off the heads of the bolts which had rusted in.... Anyway more rusty mess was revealed... which will have to be "repaired" with some tape...