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Labs Projects

A Visual Aid for Bike Design

Thu, 07/23/2009 - 12:24 — Jake von Slatt

short wheel base drawingA visual aid for designing recumbent bikes.

 

Originally published at Bike-Recumbent.com

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Front Wheel Drive Moving Bottom Bracket Experiments

Thu, 07/23/2009 - 12:08 — Jake von Slatt

front wheel drive bikeSome random experiments with front wheel drive bikes.

Originally published at Bike-Recumbent.com

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Foundry Furnace - Part 2

Thu, 06/18/2009 - 20:53 — Jake von Slatt

Part two in my foundry furnace project, click through for more details.

[Yes, I do have a Persian rug in my workshop. What of it?]

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Foundry Furnace - Part 1

Tue, 06/09/2009 - 13:19 — Jake von Slatt

This past Monday I finally got started on my foundry project!  I've been collecting material for some time so I was ready to roll once Maker Faire '09 concluded.  The goal is to built a foundry furnace capable of melting brass and perhape iron, if I'm lucky.  

I'm using Dave Gingery's Building a Gas Fired Crucible Furnace as a general guide, but I intend to fuel my furnace with gasoline and waste oil (both veggie and motor) rather than propane (that would be far too easy!).  The main reason for the use of this dangerous fuel is to gain experience with petrol burners for application in a future steam car project.

More after the cut . . . 

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Car Carrier Trailer

Sat, 12/08/2007 - 00:00 — Jake von Slatt

finish trailer without deck

If you've visited here before you know that one of my long term projects is to built a fully road-able steam powered automobile.  In addition to requiring a great deal of research, such a project requires tools.  I will need machine tools such as a lathe and a milling machine.  I'll also need a flat bed trailer, initially to bring home the machine tools, but also to fetch the donor car that I'll base my vehicle on.

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Gas Mask Sawdust Respirator

Sun, 05/20/2007 - 00:00 — Jake von Slatt

powered respirator made from gas mask and automotive filter

Sometime during the work on my school bus to RV conversion I developed an allergy to pine sawdust.  So I built this powered face mask filter so I could continue to work with wood in my shop without unpleasant effects.

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How to Make a Large Flash Diffuser

Thu, 05/10/2007 - 09:38 — Jake von Slatt

slave flash on tripod

Making nice photographs when all you have for lighting is a bunch of tungsten shop lamps can be a real challenge.  It is particularly hard to photograph polished brass under these conditions.  So this weekend I set out to build a flash diffuser to improve the quality of the photography on this site.

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How to Make a Cheap Lightbox

Thu, 02/15/2007 - 00:00 — Jake von Slatt

lighbox acetate and rear vent holesFor many of my recent projects I have found myself in need of a lightbox so I took a couple of hours from working on my latest project to put together this one.

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Thoughts on a DIY Electro-Chemical CNC Machine Tool

Thu, 02/01/2007 - 05:18 — Jake von Slatt

motors and parts salvaged from HP inkjet printermotors and hardware salvaged from a xerox copier

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Toner Transfer Fuser

Sun, 01/28/2001 - 08:44 — Jake von Slatt

Fuser assembly from Xerox copier

This weekend I picked up an old copier for $10 to strip for parts.  There were lots of motors, optics, and hardware within, but the real gem was this 11" toner fuser assembly.  The heater element is a 1300 watt quartz light bulb and the rollers are coated with a nice dense silicone rubber.  The little motor you see on the left side is actually for an oil soaked fiber belt that has been removed from the assembly.  The belt either lubricated or cleaned (or perhaps both) the fuser rollers.

 

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