Let’s Build | The Arts Mechanical

Make Your Own Spot Welder, A Let’s Build Project.

Posted on October 28, 2016 by jccarlton

When I was working on the sheet metal post, I had forgotten this article in Make Magazine on how to make a spot welder. Having a spot welder is very useful when working with sheet metal and small parts. It’s also a good start project to develop skills that will help you later.

Designing, Forming And Joining Sheet Metal, A Lets Build Resource.

Posted on October 27, 2016 by jccarlton

I want to talk about sheet metal and making sheet metal parts. Now for a variety of reasons the maker community has avoided using sheet metal in their project and that’s a mistake. I see a lot of maker designed machines that use thick plastic panels where I, as designer would have used a formed sheet metal panel.

The Hazards Of Kickstarter And Planning, Let’s Build

Posted on October 24, 2016 by jccarlton

One hazard for a design is that once it’s released to the world, somebody, especially in Shenzhen is going to try to copy it.

One Of The Best Catalogs For Making, Let’s Build

Posted on September 8, 2016 by jccarlton

For long time, one of the best catalogs for inspiration to me was the catalog from Small Parts Inc. This was a great small catalog of the kind of stuff that you might need for making. The catalog had small bearings, gears, heat shrink tube, wire and small tubing, along with a ton of the little things that you might need for a project.

Understanding Scale In Manufacturing Let’s Build

Posted on August 18, 2016 by jccarlton

This post is going to discuss the important issue of scaling the amount of product you produce. Hackaday had a recent post about OtherMill. But before that here’s a short video from Tested.

My Hardware Favorites Folder, A Let’s Build Resource

Posted on July 18, 2016 by jccarlton

Over the years, I’ve accumulated the websites of a bunch of stuff that I’ve used or might need someday. This my file of the engineering odds and ends that I can go to when I need to find something or look for a vendor for a part. It’s a rather eclectic collection, but saving stuff like this can save you time when you are pushing for that special part or machine element. It’s one of my more useful tools. At one time I kept most of these places as paper catalogs, but it’s easier to keep weblinks. So there are the links from my IE favorites folder.

Why Do You Strive For Quality? A Let’s Build Essential

Posted on July 7, 2016 by jccarlton

At the least place I worked, a senior VP posted on the company intranet, “Lets talk quality.” Now I came into Big Co, when small Co owned by jackass that I had made the mistake of working for had been purchased by Big Co. Now from what I saw in Big Co’s products, employee meetings and just in the grape vine, quality was a big issue. When an engineering team get a technology award for increasing the yield to 85%, quality is a huge issue. From what I could see, that one laboratory instrument was not an outlier. The general attitude seemed to be that as long as production targets were met and profits looked good, quality was a manufacturing issue and not that important anyway. Sort of the same attitude that all too many companies had in the 1970’s and the same attitude the Japanese Zaibatsu had per WW2. Of course one would think that getting your butt kicked one way or another would change things, but while the Japanese did change, Big Co USA is still stuck on stupid.

Dimensioning And Detailing Your Parts, A Lets Build Resource

Posted on June 29, 2016 by jccarlton

This is a follow up on the designing machined parts post. The drawings that I did are for examples and not to be taken as the proper practice for doing drawing.

https://theartsmechanical.wordpress.com/2016/05/31/designing-machined-parts-a-lets-build-resource/

I’m going to start off with this image.

This is a drawing sent to a jobshop in England(http://www.wilsontools.co.uk/) that I ran into on Linked in and as far as simple goes, it has just about everything needed to make a simple part like this. Well almost, there are a couple of missing dimensions and there needs to be a material and expected finish. But something like this will get the job done.

Laser Resources, Let’s Build

Posted on June 24, 2016 by jccarlton

First of all, let me say that dealing with LASERS is serious business. I have an old sign that was copied from a laser company ad that says; Dang!!! do not look into laser with remaining eye. A LASER, even a low power one, can blind you and you don’t get a second chance with blindness. Always wear eye protection with correctly tinted lenses when working with lasers.

Prototyping Techiques, Let’s Build

Posted on June 23, 2016 by jccarlton

Here’s a cool site for prototyping and modeling techniques for design.

http://www.judepullen.com/designmodelling/techniques/

One thing is that you don’t need fancy tools like 3D printers for prototyping. You can go a long way with just simple tools and materials. Yes, a 3D printer makes wonderful shapes and stuff, but you can do the same thing with knives, balsa wood and clay.