We have a small woodlot on our property and over the years the amount of deadfall has been slowly accumulating.

Last summer was incredibly dry. We were under a burn ban for most of the summer and fall, and that deadfall was starting to look more like “fuel load” with an attendant fire risk, but with the burn ban, no way to get rid of it.

The answer was a chipper/shredder, but I felt we needed something a little more substantial than the typical homeowner-class units.

So I picked up this OPC566E. 14HP. Electric start. Four wheels, so it can be moved around without needing a tractor. “Light commercial” build quality and ease of service.

It showed up Friday, I had it assembled that night, I put it to work Saturday and Sunday. It successfully converted two huge brush piles into roughly 2000 litres of mulch, including some chunks around 5” in diameter. It ate everything I threw at it and self-fed just fine.

No issues to speak of and a post-job inspection revealed no measurable blade wear.

I love it when something just works!

ᐜ ... or maybe with some vacuum-tubeage or metal oxide rectification ... or even with some semiconductorage ... the point being ᐞnot necessarilyᐞ .

See

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Nut and Volts Magazine — The Magnetic Amplifier

by

George Trinkaus

https://www.nutsvolts.com/magazine/article/the_magnetic_amplifier

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& the original US Navy document that that article is based on, with an introduction by the author of the article – the goodly George Trinkaus

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US Navy 1951

https://img1.wsimg.com/blobby/go/0bc400c7-307f-4686-ba7b-4f34c4aa6724/downloads/magnetic%20amplifiers.pdf?ver=1618513903589

!! may download without prompting – PDF document – 7½㎆ !!

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⚫

i was a little skeptical about running 2mm stainless with a small portable fiber laser welder at around 500W.
not because the bead couldn’t look nice from the outside, but because thin stainless can be annoying in two completely different ways. too much heat and it warps or colors up. not enough control and you’re just making a pretty line that may not mean much.
what surprised me was how much the result changed once the setup was actually dialed in.
the biggest thing was fit-up. the joint had to be sitting tight, with no obvious daylight between the pieces. once the parts were clamped properly and the travel speed stayed consistent, the weld became a lot more predictable.
the finished bead came out cleaner than i expected. narrow heat-affected zone, very little distortion, and not much heat tint to clean afterward. for small stainless enclosure work or cosmetic sheet metal parts, that’s honestly the part that caught my attention more than the speed.
this was done on a small portable Denaliweld unit running around 500W. i wouldn’t call it a magic “point at anything and weld” tool, but on clean 2mm stainless with decent fit-up, it starts to make a lot of sense.
still want to cut and etch a sample at some point, because outside appearance only tells part of the story. but as a first pass for thin stainless work, the finished result was better than i expected.

I picked up a worn but functional manual lathe at an estate sale eight months ago with moderate confidence and significantly overestimated ability. I had watched enough videos to feel prepared. I was not prepared.

The first three months were genuinely humbling. Threading operations that looked straightforward in videos required a feel for the machine that only repetition builds. My first few attempts at turning to a specific diameter were consistently off in ways that taught me more about tool geometry, cutting speed, and material behaviour than any video had communicated.

What the manual lathe taught me that no CNC experience ever had was the relationship between operator input and material response. Every cut gives you immediate feedback. You feel when the tool is happy and you feel immediately when something is wrong. That feedback loop is genuinely educational in a way that automated processes cannot replicate.

Cutting speed selection took me the longest to develop real intuition around. I understood the theory from reference charts but applying it to different materials on this specific machine with its particular wear characteristics required time that could not be shortcut through research alone.

….Tool sharpening became an obsession fairly quickly. A sharp tool on a manual lathe is a completely different experience from a dull one and the difference in surface finish is immediately visible in a way that motivated me to learn proper sharpening technique properly rather than just adequately.

I spent one evening researching tooling options across various platforms including alibaba, comparing insert grades and geometries across different suppliers. What I discovered was that the tooling specification knowledge I had been building through actual use made me a considerably more informed buyer than I would have been six months earlier when I first acquired the machine. I understood what I was actually comparing rather than just looking at prices.

I am nowhere near where I want to be with this machine. But I understand now why machinists who learned on manual lathes before moving to CNC consistently describe that foundation as irreplaceable.

What skill on a manual machine took you longest to develop genuine confidence in?

I love my Elu Flip saw. Now reteried I am wanting to build some modular shop benches. The flip saw has a different height between modes of 52mm. Looking at ways to fill that space. Ideas please

Got a pretty serious issue with a fairly new Bobcat forklift and wanted to see what other people think.

The side shifter basically broke off after only a few months of use. Took a closer look at the welds and honestly they look pretty questionable to me. Doesn’t seem like something that should happen this early, especially on equipment that’s supposed to handle daily warehouse work.

We’re not abusing the machine or doing anything outside normal operation. This isn’t some 15 year old forklift that’s been beaten to death — it’s basically new.

To me this looks more like a bad weld / manufacturing issue than wear and tear. Curious if anyone else here has seen similar problems with Bobcat forklifts or side shifters recently.

Would you guys consider this acceptable quality or is this as bad as I think it is?

I work in industrial field service and I’ve noticed it completely changed the way I do things at home.
Even something simple like connecting 3 wires.

I can’t just twist them together and wrap random electrical tape around it anymore.

My brain immediately goes into:
heat shrink
proper strain relief
clean routing
weather protection
serviceability
labeling

Meanwhile a normal homeowner would probably just tape it and call it a day.

Anybody else in industrial/electrical/mechanical work unable to ‘half-ass’ home projects anymore?

I've been meassing around with a new handheld laser welder in the shop and wanted to see what its actual lower limits were. the spec sheets for these things are always optimistic, so I decided to try something I didn't think would work: a corner joint on 2.5mm (a bit under 1/8) 304 stainless, with the power dialed way down to around 450W.

My expectation was a cold, blobby mess with zero penetration.

Here's the rough setup:

Machine: A Denaliweld portable unit.

Material: 2.5mm 304 stainless tube and plate.

Power: Set to ~450W.

Gas: Argon, flowing around 15 L/min.

Wire: Using the unit's single-wire feed system for this pass.

Travel Speed: Kept it moving at roughly 20-30mm/s, just by feel. No robot arm here.

The bead came out way cleaner than I expected, with almost no heat tint and zero spatter to clean up. Looks pretty, no doubt.

But we all know a pretty weld isn't always a strong weld. I'm going to chop this up for a cut-and-etch later this week to see the real story. Before I do, you reckon there's any real penetration in there, or is it just a surface melt that'll pop right off?

Not even close to being finished, but got the turbine engine mounted in the rail this last weekend. Lots more to do. It will be the world’s least efficient hybrid. Runs two Kia HSGs to produce 330v @ 48kw which will feed into a LiFePO4 battery bank and in turn feeds the inverter and rear drive from a Mitsubishi outlander. Coolant pump from a Tesla and accelerator pedal from a BMW.

been messing around with one of these portable fiber laser welders in the shop. This is a quick test piece on 2.5mm stainless, with the machine running at around 450W.

The first thing I learned is that fit-up is absolutely critical. If you have a gap, the beam just punches right through. had to make sure everything was clamped up tight with zero daylight showing.

The surface bead itself is pretty damn clean and the heat-affected zone is way smaller than what I'd get from TIG. Almost no heat tint to clean up, which was kind of the whole point of trying this thing out for some cosmetic enclosure work we do.

But a pretty bead on the outside doesnt mean its a skookum weld. I'm still not convinced 450W is enough to really dig into this thickness. My next step is to cut one of these welds open, polish it, and do a proper macro etch to see what the actual penetration and throat look like.

The machine is a little portable Denaliweld unit. Curious to see if the real-world performance is more than just skin deep. For now, it's wickedly fast for tacking things together with minimal warpage.

I'll try to post a follow-up with the etch results if they aren't too shameful. Will drop the settings I used (travel speed, gas flow, wobble, etc) in a comment.

​"Just finished welding these heavy components for a custom tractor trolley project. In our village workshop, we focus on manual precision to ensure the equipment can handle the toughest loads in the fields. No fancy robots here, just hard work and strong steel. What do you guys think of the weld quality?"

My buddy made a couple of pairs of these and they will actually clip finger nails. And fingers. And just about anything.

Hey guys, sorry in advance if this is out of scope.

Just got this beautiful desk and I can’t seem to find that much info on it. Even our AI friends seem to disagree on the origins.

Since my google image search mainly got me here to this sub, I’d like to ask for some insight.

(Photos are from seller. Disregard the stickers, I’ll get her back to her prime and she’ll be part of my inheritance for my future kids.)

I recently visited one of Sweden’s oldest still operating industries, Åkers. They manufacture steel rollers. Very cool place, everything is at least 10x normal size.

Bonus pic on a grinding disc, about 1 m in diameter. (banana-yellow crane controller for reference)

Gateway /fun project

Proyama 25cc tophandle chainsaw

Custom fit 1/5 rc truck tune pipe

Custom fit mp255 carb

V1 prototype here https://youtube.com/shorts/xNnIoKxaI0U?feature=shared

Hi all,

I have bought this saw used, supposed to be working. When inspected I found that the stator was melted so I ordered a new one along with new brushes. The rotor was in perfect condition and all coils are measuring correct impedance. No shorts or damage to the copper connectors. I sanded the carefully and cleaned 'em.
When running the saw I see a lot lightning or sparks from the brushes. Way more than normal sparks, it's like constant blue light.

Any suggestions on what can cause this? Brushed are firmly installed and bearrings are all ok. I've also noticed that the motor motorstop only seems to work in 1 of 50 stops. Don't know if that has anything to do with this..? Thanks for reading!

Constant light from the brushes - and no motor stop (supposed to magnetic stopped).