Bodging, fudging and making do

[TakeawayParticipant @takeaway]

Wood doweling

[TakeawayParticipant @takeaway]

Some time ago we scrapped some old beech conservatory furniture. The chair and sofa backs were made up from equi-spaced vertically fitted 1/2" dowels approx 18~ long and I saved the lot (about 30) for a rainy day.

Since then this dowelling has come in handy on numerous occasions for all manner of machining ops. Chucking a length and turning it to accommodate the bore of a component allows me to turn the OD and retain concentricity – I did it today to trim up the slip eccentric on my nearly complete Opus Proximum. Using the dowelling to make these sacrificial stub mandrels gets me out of trouble time and again.

And the rest of the beech wood frame? Sawed into smaller pieces, placed into a biscuit tin with a few holes bashed in the lid with an ice axe and placed on the hot end of our gas BBQ. Fillets of fresh salmon (salt, pepper and lemon juice of course) are rested on the food warmer at the other end. Result? Very tasty hot smoked salmon. Pass the champagne dear!

Stuart

[Sub MandrelParticipant @submandrel]

> sacrificial stub mandrels

I hope this is not some sort of Wiccan New Year ritual!

Neil

[TakeawayParticipant @takeaway]

Wiccan, pagan, druid who knows but excersise caution and neil!

[Author]

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