{"id":37901,"date":"2021-02-18T09:00:24","date_gmt":"2021-02-18T16:00:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/?p=37901"},"modified":"2021-02-16T12:09:06","modified_gmt":"2021-02-16T19:09:06","slug":"making-your-own-injection-molding-machine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/making-your-own-injection-molding-machine\/","title":{"rendered":"Making Your Own Injection Molding Machine"},"content":{"rendered":"

I would like to\u00a0hear from readers<\/a>\u00a0if there is any preference for release dates of this newsletter. As you may have noticed, I first started putting it out on Tuesdays, then I switched to Thursdays. I have delayed the last few to Friday because I wanted to make sure I had enough good material to publish (My goal: All killer, no filler). Does the day of the week matter to you? Let me know.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Making Your Own Injection Molding Machine<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"3D

3D printing the old fashion way.<\/p><\/div>\n

I\u2019ve always been fascinated by injection molding. When I was little, my dad ran a factory that had huge injection molding machines and I thought they were approaching magic. The waste plastic would build up below the machines in colorful, stringy stalagmites. I can still recall the acrid smell. In\u00a0this video<\/a>\u00a0on\u00a0Buster Beagle 3D<\/em>, Ryan shows how he made a tabletop injection molding machine for around $200. It requires two cheap drill presses, some custom parts that Ryan sells, and a cheap\u00a0PID controller<\/a>. It also involves 3D printing a few parts.<\/p>\n

Refilling Varsity Disposable Fountain Pens<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"A

A no-longer-disposable Varsity fountain pen.<\/p><\/div>\n

For the last 8 years or so, I\u2019ve almost exclusively used\u00a0Varsity Fountain Pens<\/a>. I have a mini-freak out if I can\u2019t find one when I need it. When I sing the praises of these pens, inevitably, someone points out that they\u2019re wasteful because they can\u2019t be refilled. Yeah, them and for every other pen on the planet that\u2019s not a conventional fountain pen. But, Varsity pens actually\u00a0are\u00a0<\/em>refillable. It takes little more than prying the nib and feed off with a set of pliers, filling the barrel with ink, and replacing the nib and feed.\u00a0This article<\/a>\u00a0has more info and photos of the process.<\/p>\n

Keeping Batteries Alive Longer<\/strong>
\nRecently, our TV remote stopped working. To see if I could squeeze any more juice out of them, I did what I always do. I twisted them within the battery bay. Viol\u00e0. Batteries back in business. If I recall correctly, this is the second time I\u2019ve done this on this pair of alkaline AAs. What happens is that corrosion\/gunk builds up between the contacts in the remote and the batteries. You can try and revive the batteries by simply twisting them in place or removing them and rubbing the two contact ends of the batteries on your pants. You can also use a rubber eraser to clean the contacts in the battery holder, too. I\u2019ve found that this little \u201chack\u201d works best on things like remotes, which draw very little power. Speaking of which: You can also sometimes take a battery that is functionally dead in a device with a high-power draw (like a motorized toy) and put it into a device that requires lower-power (like IR remotes).<\/p>\n

Toys! Plastic Razor Blades<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"You

You can’t leave this cruel world using these, but they’re great for removing stickers and stuff.<\/p><\/div>\n

A few years ago, I learned about\u00a0plastic razor blades<\/a>\u00a0from Donald Bell\u2019s\u00a0Maker Update<\/a>\u00a0(and wrote about them here). I\u2019ve been hooked ever since. I\u2019ve bought them for friends, family members, and given them away as prizes to promote this newsletter.\u00a0This video<\/a>\u00a0shows a few of the things that they\u2019re useful for. I had not thought to use them as a kitchen scraper, but I will now. It\u2019s a little misleading to say that they\u2019re better than metal razors. They can\u2019t cut, they just scrape. A reader also wrote in to suggest using a\u00a0conventional razor blade scrapper handle<\/a>. It is true that the blades sometimes come out of the cheap plastic handles the blades come with.<\/p>\n

Maker’s Muse<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"MT-M3,

MT-M3, the newest addition to the custodial staff at Hammerspace (hammerspacehobby.com), the KC, MO makerspace.<\/p><\/div>\n

Shop Talk<\/strong>
\nMy piece<\/a>\u00a0on single-use\u00a0CA glue tubes<\/a>\u00a0vs.\u00a02 oz. glue bottles<\/a>\u00a0got quite a response. I had people agreeing with me that the single-use tubes are the way to go and those who shared my frustration with nozzle-type bottles. And I had people saying \u201cHuh? What\u2019s the big deal with glue bottles? They work just fine for me.\u201d Here\u2019s a letter of the latter type:<\/p>\n

Jared K<\/strong> writes:<\/p>\n

I was quite surprised to hear about your woes with super glue, as well as your assertion about its shelf life.\u00a0I am not one to tell another man he\u2019s wrong, but your experience is definitely different than mine. We use the Bob Smith 2 oz bottles of \u201cInstacure\u201d glue at my office, and generally a single bottle will last between 3 and 4 years. In that time, we might go through 1 or 2 extra tips (replacements\u00a0<\/em>here<\/em><\/a>). In addition, we use\u00a0<\/em>these tips<\/em><\/a>\u00a0for precise application of the glue, and generally find those to last 4-5 months each. If they do clog, it\u2019s almost always at the very tip, so we just cut the tip just below the clog and continue using it until the \u201cbore\u201d becomes too large for our use. To delay the clogging of those tiny tips, simply place the bottle upright so that the vast majority of the liquid drains out of the tip, put a small piece of tissue over the end, and pump the bottle briskly to force air (and any small volume of glue) out of the nozzle. DO NOT do this without the tissue over the tip, as it can send high-velocity superglue into places you don\u2019t want it (eyes are especially bad). The best part is that with these thin tips installed, we never have to put the cap back on. It just sits on there until the next time we need to use it (maybe 3-4 times a week), ready to apply in a precise manner. That way we avoid the mess of putting on\/taking off a cap. To be honest, I had never heard that CA glue goes bad.\u00a0It simply hasn\u2019t been our experience at all. Anyway, I just thought it might be interesting to bring up, as it\u2019s so different. Maybe our use of the thin applicator tips is what makes the difference?<\/em><\/p>\n

Again, I have no idea why I struggle so much with this (others too), while some folks deal with these glues just fine.<\/p>\n

I also got a lot of messages questioning my assertion that opened CA glue has a short shelf life. Different manufactures and sites claim different times, from a month or two to a year, but yes, CA glue does have a shelf life. (Look it up to learn more.) I think the confusion is that glue beyond those dates still works, it just begins to lose its rated bonding strength after that point. This is the sort of thing I\u2019d love to see one of my readers actually test out (gravity, torque, and impact tests) on old vs. brand new glue. I\u2019ll give you copies of both volumes of my\u00a0tips books<\/a>\u00a0as a thanks. If nobody is game, I might propose such a test to Todd at\u00a0Project Farm<\/a>.<\/div>\n

 
\nBTW: You can extend the life of your opened CA glue by storing it in an air-tight container in a cool, dry place with some desiccant packs thrown in for good measure.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Gareth’s Tips, Tools, and Shop Tales – Issue #80<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13684,"featured_media":37906,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[2371],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37901"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13684"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37901"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37901\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37908,"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37901\/revisions\/37908"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37906"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37901"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37901"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37901"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}