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I am nowhere near the same league as DIY geniuses like @Senecio, and in my dotage I have little patience any more for creative challenges, but necessity mothered my invention and I am feeling very chuffed with myself.
I inherited a very old electric grinder that I had waiting in the workshop for something to do. I had tried it to see if it still ran, and it did, but I didn’t try to use it for anything.
Until I remembered it in a fit of exasperation at my very dull kitchen knives. I thought this would be an excellent opportunity to finally put it to use. So I did.
Except almost as soon as I touched a knife to it, the grindstone stopped spinning. So I opened it up and bits of a thoroughly disintegrated drive belt fell out.
Oh well. I did an Internet search and soon discovered a complete lack of suitable replacement parts for this very old tool. But now I was really determined to sharpen those knives.
Although I try to avoid most DIY repair projects in my old age, I still keep bits and pieces in anticipation of future needs. It is just a habit I can’t break. Last year I had to replace a wheelbarrow inner tube so I put the old one aside thinking you never know what might come in handy one day.
This was the day. I checked the inner tube and it looked like pieces cut out of it might fit as drive belts. So I gave it a try.
It took some fiddling. The hardest part was getting an added shim into place to keep one of the belts from sliding off but eventually I succeeded. I have now just finished sharpening all my knives and it seems to be working great. You just never know when an old inner tube may come in handy!
(There are two belts in the device. One was completely disintegrated, the other on the way out. It is at the bottom of the photo. The new belts do slip if a lot of pressure is placed on the grindstone, but they seem to work fine for any need I have, like sharpening things, which is all I wanted.)
Plesse igmore amd axxept applogies in adbance fir anu typos
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Plesse igmore amd axxept applogies in adbance fir anu typos
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Plesse igmore amd axxept applogies in adbance fir anu typos
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Another dreary long weekend has given me the inspiration to have a go at fabricating a bracket/basket for my 2nd Vespa battery. This is made from the tie downs that you would use to erect a pergola. Just belted into shape with a vice and big hammer then fastened with small M5 bolts. Per my earlier posts I was thinking I would need to weld it but this is very strong just with the bolts. Its mounted to the Vespa behind the leg shield where the spare tyre would normally go.
Tomorrow's job will be to finish it off and tidy things up before running the power wires back under the seat. Will be looking forward to 60-65km of range when its finished.
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All done. 2nd battery installed and currently charging. All it takes is a quick stop and about 30secs to change over the connectors and I have another +30kms of range.
Maybe I should now call it the eVespa LR!
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Friends of ours run a charity that helps mothers and families who have prem babies. Recently they were donated a twin buggy/pushchair - but it was broken. Double pushchairs are like gold to them and they wanted to get it operational. They have a young mother who has just had twin prem babies and they want this for her - even though it will be some time before the babies can use it.
Even though IANA engineer, our friends were hoping that I could fix it and sent me a video showing the problem. The front wheels are castor type and on one of these the top-end bearing for the stub axle was missing along with the cap that keeps it all weatherproof. The wheel was loose and would not stay in place and the chair was unusable.
A couple of years ago our clothes drier developed a fault with the two rollers that support the drum when it’s revolving. The F&P service guy removed and replaced both of the roller wheels. I liked the look of the beautiful bearings (which were in perfect nick) so I put the old wheels in my come-in-handy-someday bin.
When I saw the video of the pushchair wheel problem, I thought of these bearings - but also thought that a fit would be too good to be true. However, karma, when the chair arrived to be fixed, I found the OD of the top of the stub axle (10 mm) was exactly the same as the ID of the bearing.
In my CIHS bin I also found a piece of aluminum tube which, more karma, had an OD of 38 mm - close enough to the 39 mm ID of the barrel of the axle tube. I cut down the black plastic moulding surrounding one of the bearings until it was a very tight fit into a 40 mm length of the aluminium tube. Then fitted the tube as an inner sleeve in the barrel of the axle tube. Three pop rivets secured the insert inside the barrel and easily accounted for the 1 mm difference in diameters.
I still had to seal the top of the barrel and the bearing against weather. The soft plastic cap from a Dettol bottle was a fraction too narrow to fit over the top of the arrangement but some warming with a hot air gun got it on as a tight fit. I ran some hot-melt glue around the base of the cap to seal the deal. Fortunately I had a can of matt black aerosol paint so I was able to match the white plastic cap to the frame of the chair.
The chair is now fully functional.
Sometimes I just sit and think. Other times I just sit.
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After the above post, I realised I had forgotten to take a photo of the whole pushchair. Our friends that I did it for took it home and gave it a good clean - then sent me this photo. My repair was to the wheel in the bottom centre of the photo.
Sometimes I just sit and think. Other times I just sit.
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