Show us something that you MADE

When I made the garage in 1992 I made sure it was roomy.  11ft. ceiling, storage trusses up above.  Trusses have a 10-12 pitch and an opening braced in the center that is 13ft. wide X 8ft of head room.  When they delivered the trusses, they accidentally made an extra one.   "Ah, we'll just stand it up on the end".   Hold, hold on, lets put it in the center please.   They did.

I braced that one and three trusses on each side with cross members after carriage bolting two trusses together.  I actually lifted a Monte Carlo off the =ground once, it's strong.

After hoisting snow tires up and down a ladder for 30 years I bought an electric 880 lb. hoist.  It's plugged in to the outlet for the flourescent light in the attic.

Months later at our son's house, he asked me to help fix his attic pull down stairs.  Those are tough springs and I like my teeth right where they are.  We installed one of these above the drop down stairs, I disconnected the controller and dropped it down into a closet in the hallway and reassembled the controller.

When showing his FIL (a master electrician)  "Brilliant!!! Why don't houses just come with these?"

MAF adapter for Nissan SR20DE...aluminum, cast at home. I had a thread on here about it years ago, but I'm sure it bit the dust when photobucket imploded

DIY belt buckle...also cast in aluminum at home 

The home casting is rad!

Recent surfboard project:

Who hasn't wanted a trolley chain hoist that runs the length of their shop, 16' in the air?  OK, maybe it's just me.  I'll put details in my shop thread.

In reply to Kendall Frederick :

No, not just you, they're super handy.

It's an absolute nothing part.... but its what it's for, that makes it special.  Doing a bunch of work on a Brubaker. 

Measured and printed NLA windshield cowl clips.

In reply to GaryC83 :

Well, what does it do?

In reply to Kendall Frederick :

The heater box hose setup on those (being aircooled VW based chassis with a glass body) is kind of wonky.  These are just little adapters that allowed running new hoses through the rocker panels and to the rear heater vents coming off the heater box with a 1.75" ID / 2" OD hose made with more modern & durable  materials than the old wire and paper hoses they were running. It's a different size as well than OE factory beetle stuff, as these could be ran cleaner and neater through the existing holes in the rockers without being smashed to hell, unlike the factory beetle stuff was.  Like I said. Nothing fancy or special... just making adapters to make the factory junk work better with modern material. Stuff nobody will ever see or noticed, but allowed me to make a much more functional end product. 

In reply to GaryC83 :

I had to Google the Brubaker; suitably odd ball and eclectic for the readership here!  I know you do a lot of work on high end cars; is this at that shop or a personal project?

Tried some fractal wood burning on a shotgun stock over the holiday. I still need to finish it with poly, but I may be stuck waiting for better temperatures. 

Before:

Stripped:

After: (Still wet from the water/baking soda mix for the process.)

Current, until poly:

A pair of nightstands I made. Salvaged hardwoods with a tung oil finish.

In reply to 914Driver :

I'll admit to using one that way

My place is too small to hold a crimmas tree.

Sooooo

There are supposed to be two more levels, but the below happened, so berkeley it.

What to do with a dead 322 Caddy block?  Make a coffee table of course! 

Swapped a box of K-Kups for four BBC +.060 pistons and mounted them so total height is the same as the average coffee table.  After Christmas I will find a glass top on FB or CList and sell it.  I think it's different because the intake and exhaust move through the top of the engine.

In October, I started building out my wife's office with the goal of having it done by Christmas. Today, it was 99% done. Only details and decorating left. It started with a call to a contracting buddy. I was looking for cabinets and asked if he had any coming out soon. Turns out that week he was gutting a kitchen and all I had to do was go get them from his shop. One week later and a rental van, I had a full kitchen cabinet set in my basement.

My wife's office is directly above the basement, so I taped out the layout on the basement floor and started mocking it up.

I had to modify a few of the cabinets from kitchen counter height to desk height.

I had some solid maple desktops made. Then moved them upstairs and started painting.

and staining.

And prettying up the beat up parts of the cabinets and making baseboards.

Shelf layout

My helper

And 99% done.

Thanks for the wiring advice as well.  I changed it up again to have the junction box accessible from the top shelf, no disassembly needed.

I've never made one before but I made a sword for a friend. I quickly realized that I don't have the equipment to properly polish steel. The engravings are Elder Futhark runes and spell out her name and the name of her kids

 There's been an old set of seat belts hanging from a nail in my barn since we bought the place nearly 25 years ago. I pulled one down, cut it off at the joint, cleaned it up, epoxied a magnet on one side and gave it to my son for Christmas. 

He opened it and had no idea what was going on, but if you're of a certain vintage you know that those seat belts made perfect bottle openers. He's a GM guy and avid beer drinker, so once he figured it out he was thrilled. Apparently it's already on his fridge and hard at work. 

My mother is getting remarried this week. I made the wedding rings on my lathe. 

They're 304 stainless barrels with a copper sleeve. The copper sleeve is about 20 thou thick. It's shrink-fitted to the barrels, turned to size and shape, and polished. 

It took me way too long to develop the technique but the rings came out looking good! 

Made from scraps for the porch of the mini cabin. Needs a cushion.

The redish pine came out of a 150 year old house.