środa, 1 listopada 2017

Piston clock

It started as usual: I saw a ready-to-buy piston clock on an internet auction for "silly money" and I thought, why not make it myself? I decided to use a motorbike piston so it would be a gift for my brother who is riding a motorcycle. First I bought a used piston. As far as I remember, it came from Honda CBR 600:


As I'm sure you all well know :-), the piston (the round part) is not connected to the connecting rod (the long part) in a rigid way because it needs to move freely. As a result, when you put the whole thing upside down, it falls over. After having tried different glues and sealants I gave up and asked for help. An apprentice in a local welding workshop (it's amazing but they still exist in XXI century) welded the two parts together for about 2,5 euro.
 Than I decided to paint the future clock black as it's quite universal and elegant color. I started with a spray paint but it turned out no good. The paint was easy to scratch with a fingernail which I'sure my brother would promptly point out (he's 6 yrs older, you know what I mean).
Again, I asked for help. There's a lot of paint shops in any suburbs. I got my clock painted in one of them, again for about 2,5 euro, though I don't know why it took whole week.
The most important part of a piston clock is a clock itself. You need a so called insert of appropriate diameter that would fit the hole in your connecting rod. Luckily, I found one on eBay (https://www.ebay.co.uk/usr/jen1m).
The last thing I needed to do was to apply some kind of a pad, so that my clock did not scratch my brother's valuable mahogany desk :-). I cut out a piece of felt and fixed it with a black silicone to even some irregularities on the surface of the piston.
And this is the final result:



Not bad, eh? 😃

sobota, 28 października 2017

For starters...

Aren't you fed up with all those "oh so cute" tables made from old sewing machines? Well, I am. But when I saw an old Excella portable sewing machine for about 12 euro + pp on a local auction website, I decided to give it a try.
I don't have original picture of what I bought but it looked similar to this:

The wooden base turned out to be great material for a display I always dreamt of.

The 5 mm beveled glass was a costly part. A local glassmaker made it for me and I would always support representatives of a dying proffesion like glassmaking :-)



When put upside down, the wooden top appeared an ideal newspaper holder.





The only problem I have with the machine itself, as for now it waits for the better times in a cellar.