Making your own lathe

Following an earlier post about our new little spear and jackson oil free compressor, this blog has been hit with a continual stream of visitors google searching this exact topic. Our new Spear and Jackson compressor I think there is something about this unit that appeals to the compressed air new-comer. The plastic body has that look of low maintenance and user friendliness - the same hallmarks perhaps that would turn a veteran towards a more industrial looking machine. In hindsight, the spear and jackson is still meeting expectations. It never boasted about having any sort of serious capacity but its great for small short bursts of air - cleaning down tools witha spray from the air wand, inflating tyres, driving a small brad nailer, it all works. As compressors tend to be, its still a pretty noisy thing when its running and I guess it never promised not to be.

Recently I found a bottle of homemade wood ebonizer that had been stored for a few months. What was once a brialliantly clear solution had turned itself into a murky mess with a hard crystalline crust on the top and a fine powdery sediment on the bottom. The crust was so hard I had to shake the bottle to get the liquid out thus stirring up all the sediment and making the solution far less attractive and I suspect likely to cause unwanted rust stains. See recipe for homemade wood ebonizer I am gussing I've used too much rust and too little vinegar here. Next experiment will be to take a small quantity of this solution and dissolve it into a bottle of vinegar, then checking if the end result is still potent when applied to the timber we want to turn black.

A nice little compressor! The chief technical officer's latest acquisition is the very neat looking Spear and Jackson oil free compressor. Scoff you may - but it was purchased for a tidy $150 (ish) with the following considerations in mind: 1) A small unit is never going to be big enough Every online forum discussion about which is the right air compressor to buy leads inevitably to the conclusion that such and such a model is not big enough. Until you get into serious belt-drive models with enormous storage tanks you won't have enough air to run 500 air-tools simultaneously. 2) It is only required for small, intermittent jobs The air gun will be used for cleaning saw dust off tools, and blasting crud out of the crevices in the back deck. Once in a while, a little bit of nailing and framing, perhaps the odd car tyre or lilo inflation. If these take a few seconds extra while it catches its breathe, its acceptable. 3) We really really wanted one At this price point, we can satis...

r A quick update on a previous post, showing the 5 minute clamp installed between the wall and garage roller door. A quick tightening of the clamp using a shifting spanner pushed the track back into alignment. Partly thanks to the split ring washers used, the clamp locks firmly in place and shows no sign of movement as the door operates. A very quick and effective solution that cost about 50 cents all up.

Here is a sample of wattle, also left overnight to soak in ebonizing solution. Not an outstanding example of ebonizing but creates an interesting effect nonetheless. Wishing you a productive weekend...

This is an offcut of (I believe) Merbau decking, also known as Kwila. This is a species known for high tannin content which would explain the very strong reaction seen in the ebonized sample. This piece was soaked overnight in a jar of ebonizing solution. Wishing you a productive weekend...

The Tasmanian Oak reacted quickly wherever the solution was able to soak into the grain of the wood. This sample was simply dipped into the ebonizing solution, allowed to air dry and the process repeated. Wishing you a productive weekend...