Metro Detroit Metalworking Club

April, 2006

PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE: Spring is here, finally. I hope everyone’s life will change for the better. I know mine will. Working in the shop when its cold and snowy outside is satisfying, but I have done that for so long, I want to get outdoors for a while. Welding, sawing, grinding and painting have to happen in an unheated garage, for me anyway. Now its time to clean that garage, but also roam around Greenfield Village, barbeque stuff, get out on the water, go camping and things like that.

MINUTES: There were 21 members and one guest attending, John O. and Emil C. presiding. John talked about dropping his regular phone line and using Skype for free computer to computer calls anywhere in the world and Tel3advantage to call regular phones at 1.9 cents a minute. He also talked about the CNC workshop in May. Others brought up N.A.M.E.S., which is coming up not long after our next club meeting. We went right to Show & Tells after that.

Bob Fuhrman built this handy carriage stop for his South Bend lathe. He worked on it for about a week, going from plans he found in the Home Shop Machinist magazine. Very nice work, sir.

Here are some regulars like Adam, Joe, Ron, etc.

Adam Hermann showed a finely finished hot air engine he built according to plans by Philip Duklos. Took him about 6 months to make it. Adam lit the alcohol burner and showed it running. Emil noticed the burner was made from a brass doorknob and just like several times before, wanted to know how hollow brass doorknobs are manufactured. We need to get an answer for Emil, or stop bringing in items made from them. Doorknobs seem to be perfect for making burners, but Emil, it’s the engine that counts, not the burner.

Emil Cafarelli brought in a power hacksaw that he designed and built 35 years ago. He has waited patiently since then to show it to us. Not really, he rebuilt it two weeks ago. This is a clever arrangement of stock parts assembled to solve a problem. Having it on wheels makes it easy to roll out of the way for storage. You just don’t spend as much time on it as you would a mill or lathe. Before you think this is a poor cousin to a band saw, remember that hacksaw blades are available at any hardware store, are cheap and come in many styles. Its slower than a band saw, but so what? Start it, walk away, come back when it shuts off automatically.

Brian Lawson showed us his bad luck. He broke his 5-step pulley and looked for a replacement – for about 10 hours – but found none. So he worked for a ½ hour to make it into a 4-step pulley, but just when he thought he was home free, he discovered a void in the casting right where the setscrew needed to go. I think he said “oh, shucks, isn’t this amusing…”, or something like that.

Joe Pietsch always has something to show. This time it was a nice set of honing stones in various shapes. I think he picked it up at Harbour Freight.

Larry Williams brought his big gun to show. Its not really a gun, but a full scale model of one, a 50 calibre machine gun of the kind mounted in WWII bomber aircraft. It has several moving parts made from scratch out of wood, sheet metal and pipe. Drilling the cooling holes in the barrel jacket was one of the challenging issues. Larry worked out the math, then built a fixture to get the staggered spacing right. Larry make a few of these for the Yankee Air Force because is not legal to have old aircraft with real guns in them. It took about 40 hours to build and Larry kept one for himself. I saw him lugging this into the school, and caused me some alarm until I realized it wasn’t real. It sure looks like it from a short distance, though.