What's New at 120studio.com

2018 September 20

Thursday

Metal & Shop

For the time being, the bench grinder project is on hold. My Taiwan-made bench grinder seemed to work great a couple weeks ago, but today it wasn't working at all... after I'd gone to the length of making a painted particle-board platform and drilling the bolt holes for it. Since the bolt holes wouldn't line up for another brand of bench grinder, that pretty much has to be done all over again. (Next time I'm using 3/4" ply, not particle board.)

Bench grinders are one of those items that's better purchased brand-new, because the used ones can have issues. This is the second used bench grinder I've had go bad in two years.

One of these

is on the wish list... in fact one of these

would be even better... although in the meantime it'll probably be a WEN or a Skil, just to get something that works for now.

A bit of safety advice: if you buy a bench grinder online, take off the grinding wheels and inspect them. Ring-test them. Make sure they are intact. Some shippers basically throw the item in an empty box full of air space, so that it can slam into the sides of the box (and the ground) during shipping.

Next up...

What is this galvanized metal, and what project is this? New Article: Copper Rivets and a Galvanized Funnel.

I wasn't sure if I'd done an article on copper rivets, but this is such a useful shop skill. Riveting stuff is kind of satisfying, I'm not sure why. I almost want to build a steam locomotive now.

2018 September 16

Sunday evening

If Diameter Exceeds

Fujichrome Velvia 50

(35mm)

This is something I've been planning to weld together into a grinder stand or a vise stand (not sure which yet; leaning toward "blacksmith vise stand" at the moment). The larger drum is quite heavy and bulky, which it has to be if it's for a vise stand base. (A lot of people weld sections of rebar into these, then fill it with concrete to add another 90 or 100 lbs to the weight.) It's made of cast steel, I think, which is weldable. The automobile brake rotor on top of it is cast iron (fairly sure it's G3000 gray cast). Because of the weight and size of the pieces together, this would be tough to preheat much.

There's a way to weld these with no preheat... actually, a very low preheat (150 to 250 degrees F). The idea is to run short beads with the arc welder, then tap-tap-tap the beads continuously with a hammer or a needle scaler while they're cooling. Or, heat the piece immediately after the welds and use a welding blanket to slow-cool it.

The upright is going to be a piece of square tubing, which I got for a low price because the place had it left over from something else.

I don't say this whole idea is safe, necessarily, so try it at your own risk. Welds on cast iron can give way, so make sure it's not holding up something that could be dangerous if it fell off. There are alternate ways to make a stand without using a cast iron brake rotor, but generally you need to get a piece of steel plate cut into a perfect circle (plasma cutter usually required). This link

should take you to one of the lowest-priced plasma cutters that's supposed to be any good; haven't tried it yet, but if I went with a plasma cutter I'd probably want that one.

The film: You can still buy fresh Velvia 50

in 2018; check that link and you might even find it in 4x5 directly from Japan. Large format Velvia 50 is one of the greatest things in all of photography.

2018 September 12

Wednesday

A reader, inspired by the article on pushing HP5+, tried developing the film for 2 hours in HC-110 Dilution B. Agitation for 10s every 5 minutes.

These were shot on 645 format (120 film @ 6x4.5 cm). Looks good!

Ilford HP5+ pushed to 12800

2018 September 11

Tuesday

Here was a photo I took that evening; digital, but only because I wasn't thinking there would be anything good to photograph. Cheap plastic film camera was in the glove box, and I should have got that out instead.

2018 September 6

Thursday

Another one I'm adding later, but I took the photo on that day. Bench grinder. This was just a quick snapshot; I liked the color and the paint texture, and the vintage Taiwan industrial-machinery aspect of it. (Does that price tag remnant kind of bug you? More "unintentional use of artistic tension" I guess.)

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