Zed Shed Antics - Something will happen!

[Stutopia]

Are you ok @Keyser? Not had a fall getting out the bath?

[Keyser]

All good thanks @SuperStu

Don’t have a bath in the en-suite just a shower, at my age I can’t get out of a bath

 

A bit late today so it’s good afternoon  

 

I have been working – but not on fun things I can post on here just normal boring “doing my job” work, Friday was a bank holiday so I was out in the garage all day – so no post, same as weekends.

 

But never fear I’m back now

I have been doing lots of side projects at the moment, sorting things that I wanted to do and always thought would be useful but just didn’t have the time as I wanted to get on with the main task at hand. However as I’m down about 40 – 60% of my normal monthly work load I’ve had time so that's bad but also good if you know what I mean.

That has led to the shelf by the milling machine, it wasn’t “needed” to use the Mill but it’s nice to have, I have now started on the lathe, but we will come back to that.

 

For now I have gone back to the blooming sand blaster as it was still bugging me, I need this so I can finish blasting The Bug frame and the first sieve system sort of worked but broke the actual sieve mesh, so it was put on hold. I found some mesh of the right size on good old eBay and that arrived, so I did a bit more R&D to see what would actually work.

So bit of aluminium angle was cut up

 

 

A scrap of MDF

 

 

They fit like so

 

 

Tac weld

 

 

Mesh

 

 

Few holes

 

 

All together

 

 

 

Added springs

 

 

 

Made a box from errrr…. Well box section what else

 

 

Added some bolts

 

 

Then joined them together using just the springs (this is test of concept or a prototype so it is rough I know)

 

 

Attached the motor

 

 

 

The result ……………….

 

FAIL!!!

 

Not a total fail but is sucks as a concept, Now this is where we go back to me proclivity to “over engineer” things, it’s not over engineering it’s just doing it properly IMHO – everyone else says its over engineering but I still think I'm right

 

I did some more research on the Inter Web and looking at commercial as well as DIY sieves I decided to go with a sliding plate design, here is the start of me “building it properly”

 

Some old angle iron from the pile,

 

 

A lot of this old steel is just that, old and rusty, a quick clean wasn’t going to be good enough for my cunning plan so I re-faced it on the Mill

 

 

And made these

 

 

 

They fit together

 

 

And then the mesh was added in

 

 

More of how I built a sieve properly tomorrow.

Stay Safe - or is it stay alert - He confuses me I can tell ya!!!!

 

Keyser - “The road to success is dotted with many tempting parking spaces.” – Will Rogers

 

 

 

 

 

[Keyser]

Good morning,

Checked my diary this morning and I have 2 jobs in it, I’ve done one already and I can’t do the other one which will take about 10 minutes until after 10AM, I’ve never seen anything like it I usually have a dozen jobs on a quiet day!!!!

Of course this does mean I have time to post this morning, unlike yesterday when the bins couldn’t be emptied as the weigh bridge control computer had a hissy fit   

 

What do we have today for your delectable delight?

Some rusty old box section left over from when Beb and I were testing our new pipe bender to make Go-Quad chassis.

 

 

Then some really rusty solid bar

 

 

That had to be re-surfaced but size isn’t important – tell that to ya missus  

 

 

Drilled to 8mm

 

 

Then sliced n diced with a quick chamfer for that professional look  

 

 

Back to the old box section  and a spin through the Mill

 

 

Add nuts n bolts we have these

 

 

Which can be used as in line skates if the rest of the project goes wrong

 

Close up

 

 

Weld those to a cross bar – I didn’t know how I was mounting it at this point so it was just a bit a of bar

 

 

I’m sure you can see the theory here and where I’m going – if not you’ll have to keep reading for the rest of the week   

 

Moving onto the drive system, the nice man I bought the motor from said he gets the motors as spares for exercise machines. Both treadmills and vibrators now I have no idea exactly what they are but he sent a few of the other bits along with the motor “in case they were useful for your project” thanks mate, they are

I was using this to vibrate/shake the tray

 

 

But this, which I must assume is from the vibrator was in the box

 

 

Its built for the job so with some trimming down

 

 

I can use that  

 

First I need a mounting plate

 

 

Another bit from the scrap bin of about the right size, cut it down and squared it up

 

 

Looks good

 

 

It just so happens that the bar is a 15mm diameter and I have some 15mm bearings from the E-Quad R & D

 

 

All they need is some mounts – back to the scrap pile

 

 

I spend a lot of time “cleaning” rust of old bits of metal lately

 

 

Quick line up but just clamped at the moment

 

 

That should work, I need to add some slots so the motor can move to allow the belt to be tensioned and replaced if necessary, I stuck it in the Mill

 

 

Then cheated and drilled a row of holes

 

 

I used the mill to join the dots and finish off, it’s quicker to remove the majority of the metal with a drill, end result is a motor that can be moved and then locked in place

 

 

Now we need a motor mount so tomorrow I’ll show you how I did that – Properly

 

Be Alert – the world needs lerts

 

Stay safe all

 

Keyser - “The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.” – Albert Einstein

 

[Keyser]

Good morning yet again, well yesterday saw a change in workload for me at least, only two jobs in the diary but ended up with quite a few calls and small jobs, it tells me things are starting to move. I also found out that some of the companies I subcontract to are planning to start a return to work, albeit with a skeleton staff to start. Things may be starting to move though, good news for work bad news for the projects  

 

But for those still in need of some light relief from lockdown we have the motor mount and a couple of other bits –

 

The motor itself comes with two threaded holes in the bottom

 

 

This means the motor doesn’t sit well on a flat surface, it would probably be OK but I thought it could be a little better, after a bit of rummaging I found this bit of aluminium pipe

 

 

Which almost fits the motor

 

 

It has thick side walls so I have wiggle room

 

 

I utilised the wiggle room on the lathe

 

 

Now the motor fits

 

 

Quick spin in the mill

 

 

Gives us this

 

 

Cut about 2/3 of the pipe off

 

 

One motor mount

 

 

The plate is now assembled with the motor and vibration bar

 

 

Next I made these links up

 

 

Along with a little quick release pin

 

 

I also added a cross bar to the sieve tray as when testing I noticed it was sagging in the middle, That I think is down to two things, firstly the bolts are only front and back so the don’t fowl the rollers. Secondly the metal plates are not a tight grip on the mesh, I have ordered some 3mm foam tape to put round the mesh to hopefully make the fit tight and stop anything going round the sides.

 

 

I also added a notch so I know which way round the plate fits when changing the mesh  

 

 

Then Tragedy struck!!!!

 

 

The welder ran out of wire

 

Its OK I keeps spares  

 

Anyway I joined the plate to the frame and cut the linkage arms to length and welded them on

 

 

Next up we need to add weight for stability, I found this ridiculously heavy big bit of angle iron at the bottom of the pile, it just happened to almost be long enough to make two legs when cut in half –

 

 

 

I’ll just set the legs inboard to accommodate the lack of length, which gest us to here

 

 

To catch the sieved media that goes everywhere at the moment  we need a funne.  One paper template

 

 

Something like this

 

 

I had these bolts laying around

 

 

Ther weren’t long enough – I used them anyway and just made a hole for the socket so they only go through one side of the box

 

 

Added some guides to the funnel

 

 

Bent the back edge over

 

 

And it looks like it will do the job nicely

 

 

Leaving us here

 

 

Tomorrow the top armour plating – I mean loading shoot and possibly some wiring  

 

Stay Safe – hope things are looking up for you guys n gals as well

 

Keyser - “My opinions may have changed, but not the fact that I’m right.” – Ashleigh Brilliant

[Mikey_S]

I wish I was this skilled, should have seen the mess I made of our basic wooden fire surround 

[Stutopia]

This is EASILY the most elaborate and heavily engineered vibrator I have seen on the internet and I've don't a LOT of 'research' during lockdown.

[Keyser]

2 hours ago, SuperStu said:

This is EASILY the most elaborate and properly made vibrator I have seen on the internet and I've don't a LOT of 'research' during lockdown.

 

Fixed that for you

 

 

 

[Keyser]

Of course it begs the question -

Will it work???

 

- Only time will tell

 

 

[Ebized]

I'm just imagining the reaction indoors when you said you were now making a vibrator

[Keyser]

1 hour ago, Ebized said:

I'm just imagining the reaction indoors when you said you were now making a vibrator

 

What about @SuperStu If anyone looks at his internet search history - apparently he has been doing "A LOT" of research into vibrators - Explain that one mate

 

[Stutopia]

2 hours ago, Keyser said:

 

What about @SuperStu If anyone looks at his internet search history - apparently he has been doing "A LOT" of research into vibrators - Explain that one mate

 

I purge my software and hardware logs regularly, can't be too careful

[Keyser]

Good morning, not sure how you lot are doing but yesterday was definitely a lot busier with work calls as people are slowly heading back into work, but I still spent a few hours in the Zed Shed.

 

Today we are going to armour plate our vibrator  

 

So a sheet of 3mm steel – why 3mm? My thinking is that this is the most likely place to take a beating as you load the vibrator and I want the chute to stay in place under it’s own weight as the sieve itself will need emptying and is obviously below the chute.

Turns out it’s VERY heavy but also effective at staying in place  

 

Started with some marking out

 

 

First bit

 

 

Then a second joined to it, I had a hard time lining these up and wasn’t sure how it was going to work, hence why it is to big at the moment

 

 

Tac welded the bottom to keep it in place

 

 

So looks like this

 

 

Added one side

 

 

Then the other

 

 

All made up – that’s a days work in 8 pictures!

 

 

Then welded it all together

 

 

Now the only clever bit (I hope) is I made the bottom of the chute sit halfway down the depth of the sieve tray, the theory is no more media will fall through until the tray has sieved it down to the halfway point. This should stop it over flowing as it was prone to doing if you just pour the media in as I found out in the R&D phase  

 

 

Moving along we now just have to give the motor and drive some protection, by definition this is going to spend time in a dusty environment covered in the most abrasive materials available so I need to at least try and keep the worst of it out of the motor, bearings and drive belt.

 

At the moment it looks like this

 

 

 

So a tray was made

 

 

And mounted

 

 

It bolts on so I can remove for maintenance

 

 

Top view before

 

 

Another plate

 

 

Now the top looks like this

 

 

Bent the top at a sensible height

 

 

 

 

Now I would have made the cover in one piece but to be deep enough it would be to tall to fit under the chute support – design floor on my part so I had to make the dust cover in parts and the front is welded in.

Then my latest method of box making was tested – strip marked up

 

 

Bent

 

 

Fitted

 

 

Another sheet for the top

 

 

Fitted

 

 

Cut a hole in the back

 

 

For the controller

 

 

Start welding the top on

 

 

Some wiring

 

 

With earth

 

 

And grommet

 

 

Then realise I am only human and forgot about the quick release pin

 

Had to modify the front dust cover

 

 

 

And here it is in action –

 

 

 

You can see from the small amount run through why this is needed to stop blockages while blasting

 

Happy with it but time will see how well it lasts.

 

Stay Safe out there  

 

Keyser - “The surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that it has never tried to contact us.” – Bill Watterson

 

 

 

EDIT -

 

forgot about the foam tape that was added to the tray to keep the sieve sheet in place -

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Works well

Edited May 14, 2020 by Keyser

[Stutopia]

Love it when a plan comes together. Thanks for sharing it mate, still really enjoying these lockdown updates.

 

You know, if there was a little positive air pressure inside the dust housing for the motor and vibrator, it might push dust and media gently out the gaps, instead of letting it in. Just sayin'...

[Keyser]

5 minutes ago, SuperStu said:

You know, if there was a little positive air pressure inside the dust housing for the motor and vibrator, it might push dust and media gently out the gaps, instead of letting it in. Just sayin'...

 

Thanks for the feedback and the comments mate, I like the positive air pressure idea and I have compressed air right next to the vibrator, I'll see how it goes on the first few runs but may do that if the dust ingress is bad - I'm gald we thought of that

 

All comments welcome folks good, bad or indifferent I won't take offence

 

[Keyser]

Morning chaps and chapets,

 

After the recent success of the sand blast media vibrator we need another project, I was supposed to be moving on with The Bug build but as I mentioned earlier in the blog the lathe happened.

I was having my usual tidy up after finishing one project ready for the next and I thought I’d sort the shelves above the lathe, so I cleaned them all up leaving this

 

 

This is what is usually on them (along with loads of other crap that just gets laid on them ) 

 

3

 

 

I have always thought I should make a tool holder for all my bits so I don’t have to keep searching for the right one, I have also been meaning to put a light above the lathe as it is always dark, this is exacerbated by standing in front of whatever you are working on and in doing so blocking what light is available. I was going to just screw an LED light to the bottom of the lower shelf but it is not quite deep enough so I thought I would put up a deeper shelf. First thing was to remove the old shelves

 

 

At some point I suddenly remembered that the guy I bought the lathe from did some great modifications including a conversion from 3 phase to single phase, a new control panel and he added a speed controller.

He also said he had put in wiring for lights and a coolant pump but never got around to fitting them as a pump wasn’t really needed and he had a light above the lathe anyway.

I have never bothered looking at what he did as it just worked but I thought it was time to take a look, so I pulled the lathe out

 

 

Removed the detachable back plate

 

 

Found the wire for the light here

 

 

This is the control panel

 

 

 

 

And the wiring inside

 

 

After some work with the multimeter I worked it all out and found some wires that need replacing before use

 

 

So the at this point the plan changed completely from a quick update to a complete refurb

 

Firstly I needed to make a shelf

 

This box is the only thing I have with the right dimensions, it’s way to heavy for the job but I don’t want to spend money if I can help it and I have this just laying there going rusty

 

 

 

The only problem is it is not long enough so I squared the ends on 2 bits

 

 

Chamfered them

 

 

Clamped them with some large bits

 

 

Decided I deserved to get out my new welding gloves

 

 

Welded them together, linished and checked it was straight and true

 

 

 

 

 

You’d never know

 

45 angles cut and the returns made

 

 

Now they need some supports

 

These now need to take a lot of weight and stand off the back of the lathe, the stand off is for 2 reasons, firstly the lathe can’t sit up against the wall as this door needs space to open or you can’t get to the gears etc

 

 

The second reason is depth I want the tool holder as far back as I can so it doesn’t get in the way of working, so substantial material was chosen

 

 

Cut what I needed

 

 

Overkill again but it’s what I have, I won’t be able to clean these up later as they will be welded to the lathe so I re-surfaced them, which has the added bonus of taking the ridge out of the inside face of the angle iron which stops a clean join.

 

 

 

 

 

24

 

 

 

Tac welded those up

 

 

 

 

Found some uprights and drilled them to match

 

 

Captive nuts added

 

 

Prep the back of the lathe

 

 

Weld the supports on

 

 

 

 

So now we have the first part done

 

 

More on Monday – Have a great weekend folks and stay safe

 

Keyser - “We never really grow up, we only learn how to act in public.” – Bryan White

 

[Keyser]

Morning,

 

Just a quick short and not very interesting update today, work is starting to come back so less time to play, already booked out all morning today, I thought I’d get a quick post up before I head out though.

 

I welded the shelf up

 

 

Added the top – 3mm Plate so it is ridiculously heavy  

 

 

Had to use 2 bits and stich weld them together

 

 

Then just because I could I decided to blend the join from frame to top so after a bit (read A LOT) of welding and some time (read stupid amounts) sanding I made it look like this

 

 

Good practice for body work and show pieces

 

Put some primer on the mounts

 

 

Lined up the shelf supports

 

 

Drilled and bolted

 

 

Gets the shelf to here

 

 

Added these bits of angle as the shelf is so bloomin heavy

 

 

 

Captive nuts of course

 

 

Shelf and mounts

 

 

Mount mounted

 

 

On a side note I made a part for my mates trailer I did post a pic a while back – when he asked me to make it I said angle iron would be stronger but he asked for it in flat bar,

He sent me this pic

 

 

Not saying I told ya so, but I told ya so,

 

Remade

 

 

And some paint

 

 

 

Stay safe

 

 

Keyser - “The best thing about the future is that it comes one day at a time.” – Abraham Lincoln

 

 

 

 

[Keyser]

Hi all,

 

Work is slowly coming back, jobs are starting to come in but they are booked for end of June into July but hey, not complaining looks like we will be back to full time soon

 

For the time being though I’m still getting a couple of hours a day in the Zed Shed so another progress report for you all –

 

So I found a piece of flat bar close to the dimensions I needed – may be a bit long though  

 

 

Cut some short lengths so I can get them in the Mill

 

 

Angle faced two sides

 

 

These will now fit into the slots on my Quick Change tool holders on the lathe

 

 

Like so

 

 

Cut to the correct size

 

 

 

Then another bit of flat bar

 

 

Cleaned up and marked out (getting bored of cleaning rust of steel! )

 

 

Welded the holders on

 

 

Then some holes

 

 

 

Cut outs

 

 

For additional tools I always keep on the lathe

 

 

 

To get this complete rack

 

 

Now I need to join it to the cross bar

 

 

And sand back the weld of course

 

That’s it for now, I have 2 more jobs before I can continue, I want to fit the light but it hasn’t arrived yet and I did want to powder coat the shelf. Now as soon as I extended the shelf to the full width of the lathe I knew that would be an issue as this is my powder coat oven

 

 

This is the shelf

 

 

 

 

 

So looks like paint will be the covering of choice then

 

New Project blog starting tomorrow, the lathe will be on hold until I setup the spray booth and the light fitting arrives.

 

Be Safe!

 

Keyser - “Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.” – Alan Dundes

 

[Stutopia]

What do they say, "Measure twice, bake once?".

 

[Keyser]

Morning all, I’m actually struggling to stay ahead of the posts now, it takes a long while to fabricate some of this stuff but only a few minutes to post the results in a picture, things may start to slow down from here on in, I’m also doing more of my real job and the weekend is looking like some garden chores will need attending to.

 

Now I did say a new project was starting today, well this may or may not surprise you but at the end of my last post you will remember this

 

 

I mentioned this to Mrs K and she said “Why don’t you just extend your oven” I will also say she retracted the statement almost immediately and as I went off to grab a tape measure she mumbled something like “O no, what have I started now”

 

Anyway I thought – what a great idea I’ve had several occasions when a bigger oven would be useful, I have a friend that would like me to do his motorbike frames for example. I would like to do the Go-Kart chassis and just some bigger parts, even the exercise bar I did for my daughter meant hanging the longest bars at an angle and doing them one at a time as they were to long for the oven.

So Lets go have a look at the oven, this was my first attempt  at a powder coat oven it was done in a hurry in the Old Zed Shed, it was really an experiment to see if home powder coating could be done, cheap gun from eBay and a cheap Rangemaster cooker from Gumtree, As a cooker is tiny I acquired a fridge but it is an industrial one from a hotel and as such is fireproof and lined with expanding foam, domestic fridges use polystyrene so are no use.

 

It currently looks like this

 

 

The wiring is scary, I literally took the electrics from the cooker and moved them directly onto the fridge

 

 

 

 

They are so scary that my mate and professional electrician Tim, would not wire it into the Zed Shed 2 – He said he would install the cooker socket but would in no way condone the attachment of “that death trap”

 

 

 

Dunno what he’s worried about been going for at least 6 years and apart from the fan not working, it blows thecircuit breaker if you turn the light on and it has uninsulated 240v AC mains wires all over it, its fine  

 

Like I say this was an experiment – it worked – we never got around to tidying it up.

Another problem was the doors – they are rubber sealed and it melted over time – I was going to replace them with fire rope but never got around to that either

 

No secrets from me it looks terrible

 

 

 

I think we agree an upgrade is well overdue.

 

So lets strip it down and see how it can be improved / extended

 

Electrics out

 

 

The empty shell

 

 

The doors were designed to be a top and bottom separately opening, I joined them together and bolted the oven door over the front during the testing phase I think it had a window in before but can’t really remember, they are looking bad!

 

 

I then sat back and considered options, drank more coffee and eventually decided – this is not worth the effort, I’d have to put right all my bodges and it won’t extend nicely in any direction except cut the bottom out and make it taller, but then the door would have to be rebuilt.

 

Only one thing for it then – To the scarp pile..........................

 

Framework sourced

 

 

Some panelling

 

 

Lets get started cleaning up some metal – AGAIN!, it’s all I do is clean metal  

 

 

 

 

More on the progress of this as it happens, although I am taking a day off work today (emergencies not withstanding) my colleague is covering my calls and I am going to attempt something – I’m not sure if it will work. I’m not sure it’s even a good idea and it is probably dangerous, I may or may not post the results on here – if I don’t post anything it was more dangerous than I anticipated!

 

Stay Alert – The world still needs Lerts!

 

Keyser - “Never argue with stupid people, they will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience.” - Mark Twain

 

 

[scobie140]

I don't know if i'm more impressed with your projects or your never ending scrap pile  

[marzman]

I could read this all day... 

 

I've had my angle grinder out this week and chopped down a store-bought work bench to be narrower so it fits in a small space i had so i can close the door.  Took me about 4 hours. 

[Keyser]

21 hours ago, scobie140 said:

I don't know if i'm more impressed with your projects or your never ending scrap pile  

 

 

Well now I would hope it was my projects, amazing skills, engineering prowess, ability to solve issues, multitude of talents or maybe just my extreme modesty  

 

However as you have posed the question I feel it only fair that I post a couple of pics so you can compare my scrap pile(s) to the projects and decide which is more impressive.

 

The only problem is I wasn’t sure which scrap pile you meant,

 

There is the main scrap pile

 

 

The odd big bits scrap pile

 

 

The sheet metal scrap pile

 

 

The stainless and bar scrap pile

 

 

Then we have the aluminium and stainless pile in the garage

 

 

Or the bar and pipe pile behind the Mill

 

 

Not forgetting of course, the aluminium off cuts pile

 

 

The general steel of cuts box

 

 

And lastly the draw under the big bench

 

 

Which has my “useful” of cuts scrap pile.

 

Over to you  

 

I will say I have put quite a dent in the amount I had before lock down though  

Keyser

 

 

 

 

[Keyser]

Morning all, As I posted my reply to @scobie140 you will have realised that even thought the thing I tried yesterday was both mad and dangerous it was apparently not fatal  

I am actually calling it a success and will be posting that up in a couple of days after I catch you up on the new Powder Coating oven build  

 

Now I started like most normal people would by laying out the frame for the back of the oven, however whatever way I did it, it would not line up as square – I was confused about this for a while but it turns out that as I’m using “scarp” and some previously used steel it was bent and warped

My solution was to build the back the in the wrong order, I cut some strips which will be needed to hold the sides in later and then riveted them through the backplate and into the frame using the backplate which is bang on square as the guide and I literally bent the frame to fit the sheet and welded the corners afterwards, not the conventional way  to build it but solved the problem.

 

The strips

 

 

Bent to 90 in the sheet metal folder

 

 

Riveted on

 

 

To give the back

 

 

I then used my very expensive length set tool to cut 4 pieces that will make up the corners

 

 

OK it’s not really expensive but very effective

 

Then as I’m working alone, I had to come up with a way to hold the corners square in two directions and weld it

 

 

G Clamps and set squares  

 

We now have this

 

 

Then the front

 

 

Add a bottom plate out of 3mm so it can take the hammer it will no doubt get, I’m using Zircotec sheet for the inside because I have it and it shouldn’t rust it is fairly light coloured – useful in an oven and I can’t really paint the inside unless I spend out on high heat paint – stuff that!

 

 

Then I changed the design

 

I was going to have one door but it’s just too big so I’m going 70/30 or 60/40 or whatever fits the hinges I have and looks right  

 

So I cut out the front left bar and replaced it with a bigger one to match the one already fitted on the right – They are wider to take the hinges

 

 

Then I drilled out all the angles I added earlier and moved them over to accommodate the bigger bar – I love to do every job twice, but as I don’t work from plans it happens – A LOT!

 

 

We are now here

 

 

 

Start on the doors then

 

 

Door 1

 

 

Door 2

 

 

I think that’s you lot up to speed with where this project is but I have something special for tomorrow

 

Stay Safe

 

Keyser - “The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity.” – Dorothy Parker

 

[Keyser]

Morning folks – Another bank holiday is upon us so I will at least get sometime in the Zed Shed, but I think Mrs K has ideas about some garden chores that we need to catch up on.

As you will recall I took Wednesday off to try a little something.

 

Back Story –

I recently purchased a bulk load of powder coat as it was ridiculously cheap, mostly because of the colour and there was no choice in what colour was available at the price - but the guy selling it did point out that even if you used it as the primer/base coat it was cheap. As you are following you know I’m currently rebuilding my powder coat oven only this time bigger, I was having a coffee break in the Shed earlier in the week and I realised that the only thing that I would not be able to powder coat on The Bug after the new oven was finished was the main chassis, that seemed like a shame because firstly powder coat is probably the best possible coating for this type of vehicle and secondly if I wet paint it then I would have to wet paint all the other parts to get a colour match.

At the same time, I have just stripped down another cooker from gumtree as I wanted a few bits from it and found it locally at the right price, due to the door hinges being broken and it needs new seals for both oven doors – It was cheap and I just wanted the parts so no brainer really. This meant I had a load of elements laying on the work bench.

The (bad?) idea popped into my head, could I build a temporary oven big enough to cook a car?

Why not I thought, I have a load of sheet steel I’m about to cut up to make the side,back and door panels for the new oven why not use it at full size and cut it up afterwards?

 

Lets gfive it a go,  I emptied the Zed Shed and took The Bug off the rocker,

 

 

 then dug these out of the store, they were on my old compressor from about 7 years ago,

 

 

Bit of steel

 

 

FIRE!!!!!!

 

 

Shouldn’t weld nylock nuts but they were on the axel bolts (they stink when they catch fire BTW) Had to open the windows and go drink some coffee while the shed ventilated

Anyway I soon had this built

 

 

But needed to add some aniti fall off guides

 

 

This allows the easy, well easier, transport of sheets from the store to the shed, as Mrs K can’t lift them  

 

Then I took the Rocker completely apart and used the wheels and support bars as the cross beams added 3 massive box section bars from the scrap pile as they happen to be long enough and all the same size and laid some sheet on that lot

 

 

Then the other side and a front

 

 

A removable door

 

 

Test fit

 

 

Looking good, but I need to heat this behemoth, lets throw 10Kw of power at it, that should do the job

 

 

A thermostat so I can keep an eye on the temps

 

 

Some dubious wiring - Meh it's only 32 amps running 10Kw at 240v - safe as house that

 

 

Then after the application of some powder coat the SHAGGY BEAST was switched on

 

 

 

Love it  

 

Monitoring the temps as I need 180 degrees

 

 

 

 

 

I did it, I did it Took about 40 minutes to get to temp - The electric bill may be up this month

If you need a dozen ostrich, 4 pigs, two cows or all of the above simaltaneously cooked, get you orders in quick

 

Only thing is that after a successful bake it seems the Co-Owner of “The Bug” @Beb is not in touch with his feminine side and disliked the colour – A LOT – no he really, really did not approve (think he secretly admired the oven though  ) An F1 team  has a similar colour but no he wasn’t happy at all!

 

 

 

 

Shame for the Mad Scientis, as I’m the one powder coating it, he's stuffed, although in his defence when my daughter helped me roll the oven off the after the first powder coat bake she did start singing “she’s a Barbie Girl”

 

O I have some great fun here, I actually don’t mind the colour but I will admit that it may look better on a different vehicle, i.e an MX5 rather than a rugged off roader

Anyway after a long facetime chat with the Beb he said he wouldn’t stop talking to me if I kept the colour so I can see no advantage in keeping it anymore.

I cleaned up a few blemishes that stood out now it was powder coated and as I’m not using wet paint and can’t use filler I spent some time on the weld lines where I added the quarter panels.

 

 

 

 

 

Then the BEAST was reborn

 

 

That leave us here

 

 

“A more manly colour” according to my daughter – I have 100 KG   of this colour powder coat so you may see it a lot, mind you I also have 100 KG of the Violet  

 

Just need to second coat the chassis over the weekend and do a final bake. The SHAGGY BEAST will come out one more time before I take it apart and use the bits to finish the actual powder coat oven.

 

Hope this madness cheered you up, I’ve been laughing all week, who does this sort thing? Well me obviously! Do I have issues? Can this kind of behaviour be condoned in anyway? Do I care? Is there hope for me? Answers on a post card

 

Have a great weekend I’ll probably have an update Tuesday for you guys n gals.

 

Stay Safe out there!

 

Keyser - “The man who smiles when things go wrong has thought of someone to blame it on.” – Robert Bloch

 

 

[Stutopia]

WOW

 

I feel like I should notify at least one of the emergency services about this, but I just don't know which one! At least there is now something more dangerous than Covid-19 to worry about out there

 

11 out of 10 for ambition and 10 out of 10 for realisation. 

 

#staysafe