Mini-lathe for xmas!

Bought myself an early christmas present:

then I figured I needed a project to start to learn how to use it, so I made an adapter for my vacuum.

Started with these parts:

Then I bored out the threads from the coupling so it fit snugly on the vacuum hose:

Next step was to thread the outside of the smaller piece of PVC to fit the coupling:

Then I bored out the small end on a taper to fit the crevice tool snugly:

The whole thing took forever and a lot of screwups, but that's kinda the point.  The taper isn't very cleanly bored, and while the threads work, I definitely didn't do them quickly or efficiently.  Anyway, fun stuff :)

metalworking cart

My welder and plasma cutter have lived under my bench for a long time, while the angle grinders and other welding stuff (extra wire, gloves, etc) all lived in boxes in storage cubbies.  It worked out OK for welding at the bench, but wasn't very efficient in terms of storage space, and it was a huge PITA if I wanted to do any metalworking either on cars out in the driveway, or on larger projects in the middle of the garage.  Then a friend send me a few pictures of nice self-contained metalworking carts, and I had to have one.

I started with a cheap harbor freight cart:
http://www.harborfreight.com/24-inch-x-36-inch-steel-service-cart-5770.html

Cut the top down to fit under the bench, added hooks for cable management, hung a bottle caddy off one side, and put a heavy plate top on one side for a work surface.  Looks pretty good so far...

Piano bar: finally done!

I've owned this damn piano longer than I've owned my house, but it's finally done!

Blog posts from the whole process:

Post 1: http://mhkaufman.blogspot.com/2013/08/piano-bar-get-it.html

Post 2: http://mhkaufman.blogspot.com/2013/08/piano-bar-2-harpectomy.html

Post 3: http://mhkaufman.blogspot.com/2016/02/piano-bar-update.html