I am a total newcomer to the ham world, albeit a longtime electronics and embedded programming aficionado.
This friend of mine had a very old Italian license, but the bureaucracy to make it current and valid in Sweden was overwhelming.
By chance, a HAREC (some kind of EU harmonized certificate) course was organized at KTH, so he brought me along for the ride!
After getting the license, we decided to build our own transceiver, because why not.
So I have not been on the air much! Just a bit with a WSPR transmitter, which was received at about 8500 km with 0.2 W (about one tenth of the power from a smartphone) and an antenna made, literally, from a clothesline.
Rather than the binding posts / screw rivets, i would recommend just going oldschool with some soft brass rod (also sold on mcmaster).
For reference, a year or two ago i replaced the cracked and falling off scales (i think they were hickory) on this ~1940s bridgeport BSA hatchet and i just cold worked hardware store steel rod to make the rivets. I could have done a better job by not cracking one of my replacement maple scalesđ⌠but you would certainly have a better time with soft brass!
I got the hard part of the window bird feeder thingy done today. I filled all the holes before coming inside, tomorrow I pop up the portable paint booth and spray it.
As usual, I bought double what I needed because I usually screw something up, not this time, it went well. Even the plexiglass cut extremely easy with the table saw.
My power tools are not very precision or high end stuff, nothing a little filler canât fix. I almost ran out to buy a small handheld router to make the groove for the plexiglass but I remembered I had a router attachment for my Dremel. I even had a tiny 1/8" bit to make the groove.
The only thing I I have left is paint it and put a skylight in it to let more light in for better pictures of the birds if they show up. And mounting it in the window, I think I have that figured out. I made the top and plexiglass easy to remove for cleaning.
I did run an 18 gauge nail into my finger but that was to be expected. The blood sanded right off.
I remembered to take pictures.
Those set up blocks are new for this project, they are awesome for setting the fence on the table saw and the router bit height. My eyes and tape measures donât work well together, those blocks help fine tune things.
cool! look at that! canât wait to see pictures of the birbs happily munching and the cats freaking out.
btw: love your shop! actual work gets done in there, one can tell.
I love the McMaster-Carr site, especially for finding out what things are called. However, in this case, they donât have the right stuff.
This is the closest thing I could find to the âBoston rivetâ shown in the video, and obviously the head is too thin to grind down to a smooth surface.
Clearly, I have no choice but to purchase a lathe.
Did you pein the ends of the rod or just leave them straight? Iâve had good luck using epoxy and straight brass pins, just grinding the pins flush with the wood scales. The pins are to keep the epoxy from failing in shear. I donât know if Iâd do that with an axe, but it should be fine for a cleaver.
Problems with that idea:
The hole for the original rivet head is wider than the rest of the hole, and wider than the hole in the steel.tang. Using, letâs say, 1/8" (3mm) rod would mean a lot of riveting to fill the gap. Using thicker rod would mean enlarging the hole in the tangânot impossible, but @MrShiv would need a cobalt drill bit of the right size. High speed bits wouldnât touch the hardened steel.
The chances of getting a match with the other rivets is slim, if that matters.
Chicago screws, as pointed out, are too thin to grind away the whole screw slot. The two-part cutlers rivets are probably the way to go. (Donât call them âfake rivetsâ, it hurts their feelings. ) Lee Valley Tools sells them, $12.90CDN for 50, which allows you 49 mistakes to get it right.
Tip: Donât hammer the rivets together, which can bend them. Squeeze them together with a c-clamp.
Looking at Amazon, I found these Corby bolts, which certainly have enough depth to grind away the screw slots. They might be the answer. I would use glue or red loctite to stop them loosening after grinding them flush.
@MrShiv, nice cleaver. I had to clean up a similar one a couple of years ago. I sanded down the handle and gave it many coats of tung oil. It came out looking like new.
Ends of the rods are peened, thatâs how I ended up introducing the split at the one location shown. That was the second side to go on, so it had to be peened enough to tighten everything up while hopefully not splitting the wood. After it was assembled, I sanded the rivets and wood smooth together.
Off topic, but just to show thereâs many ways to skin a cat, hereâs a marlinespike I made from a beat-up old screwdriver of the âperfect handleâ pattern.
Those arenât wood screws, but brass machine screws, with the opposite hardwood scale tapped to receive them. Thatâs so I can take it apart to clean any rust that develops on the tang. Not suitable for most other applications, obviously.
Itâs been too long since my last project some years ago. (a few bucks at the dollar store and some practice crocheting granny squares out of twine and blam! youâve got drink coasters)
I spent all winter wishing I had more scarves and being too picky to buy any, so Iâm getting myself a rigid heddle loom this weekend. (Costs less than a tablet, and provides at least as much entertainment and yields physical goods, to boot.) Spent all week messing around with various weaving structures/designs and Iâm just scratching the surface. I might need to implement a strict budget for yarn.
I decided to use spray paint instead of pulling out my sprayer mostly because spray paint was way cheaper.
I used my homemade paint shaker.
Tha fan to left is key to not getting overcome by paint fumes in such a small space. Itâs my 30 year old floor dryer from our commercial carpet cleaning days.
OMG! that rattle can shaker is genius! brilliant!
do tell how you attached the furniture clamp to the reciprocal gizmo.
iâll be at Harbor Freight later today and will pick up their âsawzallâ type recip saw just for this!
I canât take credit, a few years ago I had to spray paint a bunch of stuff, I checked YouTube and sure enoughâŚ
They do make specific tool for drills and sawzall but I had an extra clamp.
The sawzall blade was harder to drill through than the clamp. The can will vibrate out because you canât clamp down too hard. You canât go crazy with full trigger but it gets the job done in about a minute. I just hold it with the can facing down hanging from the saw. That seems less stressful for the saw.
) Lee Valley Tools sells them, $12.90CDN for 50, which allows you 49 mistakes to get it right.
