The whole point of building this tipping mechanism was to drive a ball through a maze. Now I had to actually build the maze. The first thing I had to do was to sketch it out by hand on graph paper. I had to account for the thickness of the boards, the width of the …read more
One of the most important tools a welder can have at his disposal is a decent welding table. In general you should have the biggest, flattest, sturdiest table you can muster. Of course, shop size can be a limiting factor. I decided to invest in a 4’x4′ table on wheels. We don’t do too much …read more
This is Part 3 of a series. You can start with Part 1 and Part 2. After welding up the basic frame of the Labyrinth game, I took the entire thing outside and gave it a quick coat of primer, so it wouldn’t rust. I knew this project was going to take a while, and …read more
This is a continuation of Part 1 of this series. With all of the pieces cut, drilled, and welded to make the square frames of the labyrinth, it was time to start aligning the bearings that everything pivots on. I attached a pair of 1″ ID flange mount bearings to both sides of the holes. …read more
I finally finished a large project. During the process I was intending to blog about the progress. Instead, I took photos and just let them build up. I’ve got enough photos that it makes sense to break them up into a few different posts. I hope you’ll bear with me. The goal was to build …read more
A friend came across a project known as a Flame Speaker. Â The similarities to a Rubens Tube resonated with me and I was immediately intrigued. Â Some of the best information we could find about it where documented in a 1960s Popular Electronics magazine. Â Apparently hobbyists were making these things in their basements around the country, …read more
In our conference area at work we had a rather interesting table. Â It was a huge poster of James Dean sitting on top of a piece of wobbly antique furniture. Â It was time to upgrade the desk to something more usable and fitting of serious meetings. Â Clients don’t like to sign expensive contracts on a …read more
For the past few years we’ve been dealing with buttons. Â Moving, storing, sorting, picking through, and generally managing a large collection of castaway buttons from a previous company. Â Some were usable, but many lacked the micro-switch that gives the button any functionality at all. Â Why do I mention this? Â Because having these buttons made us …read more
I pulled out an old transformer that I had been saving for probably 10 years. I don’t even remember where I got it from. According to the tag on it, it has a 110V input but the output is 6200V rated at 82mA. I ran the input through a contactor (basically a beefy relay) so …read more
I’m slowly adding my project portfolio to the Cargo Collective portfolio site. I’m hoping to document most of my more impressive projects until they’re all in place. It takes time to dig up those decent photos!