dikman

Well, I've been forced to make an enclosure for the wee beastie. After my effort at engraving bakelite I realised my theory of using it under an overhead exhaust fan didn't work out too well in practice. I knocked this up over three days, it's rough-as-guts and I used whatever I had lying around. Cost = $0 . I had a few constraints in designing it - it had to be removable from the baseboard so I could move things around and also to give me access if I wanted to do anything bigger than the framework (an advantage of the open-frame diode type laser), be as light as I could make it and with a window to see what's happening inside. The frame is welded up from some 8mm rod salvaged from a section of decorative fencing (heavily galvanized so it was a pain to weld!) and fits into holes in the corners of the baseboard. The sides are mostly ply from various packing cases from tools I've bought (lathe, mill, Cowboy 4500 etc), not really good quality stuff but good enough for this. I cut some 3/4" stock and used a nail gun to attach it to the ply so it acts as guides to hold the lids in place. After coming up with all sorts of clever ideas for the top I simply made it in two halves and both are removeable, they simply sit across the rails. The fan needed a 110mm hole and my holesaws are either too big or too small, a jigsaw would have made a messy job and then it occurred to me that I have a laser cutter! Doh! The advantage of an open frame laser, I took it outside and put it over the plywood and cut a perfect hole!! The window was cut out with a jigsaw to fit (sort of!) a piece of smoked perspex I had, and two 2" holes cut in the front to allow air in to feed the exhaust fan. It's a big and bulky lump of a thing, but it works, I engraved a piece of leather (took 40 minutes) and although there was still a faint smell of burning leather I'd say it was a success. I think a short length of pipe over the fan to feed the fumes up closer to the exhaust fan might reduce the faint smell even more, and if I can get a length of flexible tubing I can move the whole thing and vent the exhaust out a window or door (but that means spending money.).

What happens if you only have granddaughters? I am fortunate to have five of them.

I'm guessing that Toxo is talking about making it like a toeplug in a holster, which is usually done by marking out the holes on the outer piece, scribing a guide line on the plug, gluing the plug in and then using an awl to punch the hole so it comes out on the guide line. The spacing on the plug is determined by where you punch the awl through. I think this is what chuck is talking about. His method of drawing out the two circles is probably the only accurate way of doing it, if a little time consuming, but there's no margin for error if it doesn't line up exactly when you assemble it.

Jigga, that was going to be my suggestion, learn the basics first. You don't have to be able to skive to make things.

Hi Bill and welcome mate. You've only got a couple of years on me and I use those head magnifiers a LOT! I find them indispensable.

Handstitched, if you've got a dr. that bulk bills consider yourself very lucky! We don't know any that do, they are (very) few and far between. My dr's clinic used to do it but they stopped sometime ago as they were losing money due to the pittance that the government re-imbursed them. Even with the recent increases from the government (first increases since medicare came in many years ago) they still can't afford to bulkbill because of all their other rising costs. In theory Medicare is a great system, in practice it's struggling, and guess why? The incompetence of successive governments.

The only thing to be careful of as you get older is ladders. Old men and ladders don't mix too well (ask any hospital!!). Other than that, go for it, although things may take a little longer to do.

For something like that I'd be looking for a pre-dyed leather, the coating should be more uniform and durable. Just my first thought.

Well, that makes a change from a plain lining. The whole thing is very colouful, you didn't leave much area untouched.

Yeah, it's all good fun.

I found what I thought was 1/4" thick black perspex to try and make a maker's mark stamp. Judging by the smell it's probably bakelite! Anyhow, after experimenting with various speed/power settings it actually worked - sort of. The image is too small so some of the detail is lost, but as a proof-of-concept it worked, with an acceptable impression left in the leather. Next step is to buy some Delrin, which should work better, and scale up the image a little, which should make the stamp lines more substantial.

Just curious, does it stitch ok without the pin?

My suggestion is heat to remove it. Soak it in a bath of boiling water or use a hot air gun of some sort. Waxes are notoriously difficult to remove with solvents.

It looks very good, but one of the problems with black is it tends to hide the tooling details. In my opinion brown shades always look "right" on a holster, and you can use dark antiquing if you want to highlight the tooling.

This is where I found the image if anyone is interested. I might try one of the comical ones too. https://artincontext.org/dragon-coloring-pages/ Re- Lightburn, I don't normally buy software as I've always found free alternatives that are more than adequate for my needs but I made an exception in this case. It's a remarkable piece of gear with a huge amount of tutorials out there (which is just as well as it does my head in sometimes!).