Parts With a Warning

Finally making things at the college. Ever since I started working there I was amazed by the fact that no one was making anything. You would think a community college would know its clientele well enough to realize that many of them are going to be just like the high schoolers I used to get, just older. Not always the best scholars but more than capable of becoming  good craftsmen as long as they don't have to sit in a regular classroom setting all the time. Seems that that is changing finally, at least at our campus.

A couple of faculty members from another department have been coming into the Weld Shop and playing with the CNC plasma we have. I asked them about making a couple of parts for the tail light buckets I want for my hot rod project. I gave them a pattern I made from tracing around the gasket and when I went in the other day, the professor gave me a 3D printed version of the part to check out before cutting it out of steel. While it looks good, it needs to be a bit larger all the way around. Currently, it fits in the gasket but it needs to be large enough that the gasket will fit inside the bucket after I weld the sides together.

Also, when I reported for duty in the lab the other day, the professor there was working on a program to cut the exhaust collars for the 900. He ran into a couple of roadblocks with his fixturing and tooling but as you can see, we've got a part. It looks like next week the whole class will be making exhaust collars for 900 Kawasakis. How cool is that?

I welded this cover up for my buddy who's the Ducati singles specialist. No big deal here except for one very important item. He said he degreased it with brake cleaner. That's a big NO-NO. When you weld over any chlorinated solvent, phosgene gas can be formed. Extremely hazardous to your health! In fact, if you get more than a little of it in your lungs, it can be fatal. If you're working on your own parts or welding things that people bring to you from the outside, be sure to ascertain how it was cleaned before heating or welding the item. That includes chlorine from swimming pools as well. I remember hearing some horror story about guys working in the pump room for a big swimming pool that ended very badly. 

Keep making things but be careful out there.