Dallas Makerspace Show and Tell - February 2017

Simply awesome Matt. I’m very excited to see it in place in its new home.

I am happy to report I was finally able to get the Gel Electrophoresis to work, after several attempts I found that the best way is to stain the gel before it hardens, I also found that the comb is too close to the edge and the DNA was leaking into each other’s wells and ruining the signal, some protocols say to rinse the gel in a stain after the gel is run, but I have found it just washes out the signal and makes it less visible. I tried to take some pictures with my Canon, but it was still rather difficult, but the ladders and samples are clearly visible to the naked eye, better than this picture does justice.

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After a brief moment of clarity, I was finally able to envision how to make a bracket to mount a (cheap Chinese) dial indicator on my lathe to measure travel of the carriage. I have wanted to do this forever to get repeatability in my small projects.

I leveraged the T-tracks on the lathe headstock, with square nuts to hold the mounting plate secure. The three-bolt design allows me to slide the plate about 1-1/4" in either direction while still leaving two bolts engaged in the track. The thin plate (RHS of photo) replaces the back of the dial indicator (which previously had a big honkin’ lug) with a laser-cut gasket/shim inside the back of the indicator.

The project required the bandsaw, Bridgeport, and the new shear. All of these required either refresher or downright new instruction - so many thanks to @TBJK, @Photomancer, Stacy, and several other people who helped me a bunch! We did, however, prove that the new shear requires two Chris-units of force - jumping on it with all my weight was insufficient to shear 14 gauge (1/16") aluminum sheet :slight_smile:

The most amazing part was that it assembled and worked as expected the first time.

I have a project in backlog that requires this set-up, so now I can move on to making small wonders.

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A small quasi-gauge R&R study was done on the Z-axis of the Bridgeport in the milling of the aluminum plate. Plus, an idea for an adjustable magnetic secondary vertical band-saw fence was also conceived. So good things also accrued to Machine Shop from this project.

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Finally finished the shelving unit at my apartment. 13" wide shelves mounted on 3/4" black metal pipe. The pipe was acetone cleaned and painted with hammered paint. The holes in the boards were CNC cut / counter sunk to allow a large washer to disperse some of the force at the hold points. Also used an anchor on each shelf for extra stability, but it’s more to keep things level and against the wall than load bearing. Boards are lightly stained red oak. And finished out to about 13/16" thick.

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Boycotting the DMS Github site (https://github.com/Dallas-Makerspace)?

Looks good, Ian.

Question: Did you use (tapered) pipe threads for your threaded connections?
I’ve found them to be problematic where precision is concerned.
Wuz wondering how you dealt with the imprecision, if that is what you used.

Oldpro

From : Jewelry/Small Metals
Enameling - Sgraffito & Stamped designs workshop
Here is a picture of my (Kati) demo samples and pictures of folks pieces from the class today :slight_smile:

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Enamelled pieces made by, Jules :slight_smile:

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Stamped and Sgraffito Enamel demo samples by, Kati

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A special symboled enamelled piece by, Jason

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Enameled pendant by, Terry

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Sharon’s enameled pieces :slight_smile:

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Great picture of Jules busy creating :wink:

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For the wife… Two-tone 14K Rose Gold & Sterling Silver


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Got some 6 and 4 ft slings for use when lifting things

Used them for a bad idea I had for load testing bearings, ended up using press instead of trying to use 1 ton crane scale and anchoring to dead weight

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Ha! It looked like the beginning of a pumpkin harness until I scrolled down the photo a little bit. :jack_o_lantern:

I did. I just bought 18" sections at Home Depot (and the connectors as needed). Most of them were pretty close; close enough to throw some threadlock on them without having to totally sinch them down. However by the top shelf I was out of adjustment on the right side and had to add another washer to keep things level.

I made a stamp-alignment jig for leather stamps. I’ve added it to the stamp box for the Leatherworking SIG.

Lasercut acrylic and a 3d printed knob.

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Nesting dice-rolling boxes for RPG and/or board games. Lasercut plywood with fun-foam liner. Made as a gift for a friend.

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