kraffft work

[mark33]

i just HAD to subscribe

[kraffft]

Had to check out Emeka's talk this morning.. worth it. He elaborated more on his take on the lack of an industrial base in Africa, and his preference for small, organic, bottom-up approaches to improve things.

Then he showed a lot of sweet photos of different makers and their projects that they found across Africa and brought to the Maker Faire in Ghana. A machine for processing a previously unusable tough hulled local grain, A modified cell phone for finding fish, a fabric recycling method, a multi-machine all-in-one shop tool made from an engine block (designed by a Texan actually), an evaporative cooler, furniture made out of bottles, A windmill generator built from scrap by a 14 year old.
Maker Faire Africa - Aug 14th - 16th, Accra, Ghana



There was also a "petting zoo" display of various "green materials".. Only a few very hard materials. One looked promising for slide pucks:

Paperstone. Made from recycled paper and non-petroleum phenolic resins, used for countertops and cutting boards.
http://www.paperstoneproducts.com/



Sunday bonus video:

YouTube - Lawless Zone Playground

[benmasters]

hey kraffft, what is the huge hall youre always riding in? looks like a fun test location.

[kraffft]

hey kraffft, what is the huge hall youre always riding in? looks like a fun test location.

That's the hallway outside my workshop. The building initially had a huge open warehouse layout, and it got split up into smaller spaces a little funny, leaving that oversized hallway. It's actually been an ongoing problem with the management since they put video cameras everywhere.



This still looks like it's from the retrofit kick video shoot:

[kraffft]

subscribed. i might have a project for you down the road a bit. i gotta figure out how to rock a knee pad with my newly necesary knee brace

Missed this one from a little bit ago..

Very doable project. Pretty common type of thing for inventors to get into.

One example that I learned about over the weekend:

This industrial designer marine had his arm blown off in Iraq. He discovered when he got back that the demand for specific prosthetics was too low, and the development cost too high, for medical companies to want to develop them, so he developed his own arm, made the design available to anyone, and helped start The Open Prosthetics Project.

The trickiest part is realizing that an invention could help you.. I can't think of any really great examples in your case Kai.. Maybe some kind of local muscle relaxant that would keep your body from reflexively tensing the muscles in your leg while you were doing street luge..

I can only focus and sit still when I'm being taught things that:
A) I don't know already
B) Interest me...
..if I had the space I bet I would collect stuff like you do,..
I'm interested in (wheels/barter). Moar info please!

Had an interesting conversation the other day, remembering the huge waste of time that was public school.. realizing how completely obsolete most of those teaching models are now (because of the internet), and wondering if public schools have changed much. (The internet started being mainstream while I was in high school, and it was just static pages for a while.)

I never stopped collecting junk, moving it repeatedly, in and out of ridiculously unsuitable spaces. Definitely something I'd do differently, as it can burn you out pretty bad. One major refinement I've made is getting rid of large things and keeping small ones.

Time to make some wheels..

what about a sort of toe-stop in the front, made the same way... piece of deck on top of the deck. Wouldn't need to be kicked, but a little overhang on the front would be nice... you'd have a board that's great for standups and freeriding, but trick-capable too.

A skateboard deck is a nebulous shape.. anything you can imagine that fits between feet and wheels..

[ghost_rider_x]

subscribed.

i wish i knew this was going on 10 minutes from me before i moved.

keep up the good work man.

[speshlspeclsteak]

thanks dude that would be rad. im off skating for between 4 and 6 months. while thats goin on ive got alot of pt to get through so i dont tighten up when i need to be loose and all that. ill try to come down some time during the winter so you can take a look and hopefully give you some ideas

[benmasters]

haha oh noes. dont get evicted. is this workshop dedicated to your wacky projects or is it for a diff. job

[austinn]

Like deez?



YouTube - Skate wings: v2 9/24/09

Rough specs on the two different designs:
-Single fin: <3 lbs, ~12sqft surface area.
-Wings: <1lb each, ~9sqft total surface area.

maybe u can do a double sided wing like a kayak, have them at different degrees, like one at 0 and other at 90 .

[kraffft]

Rough day for slide wheels. Finally killed the motor on this old drill press I've been using, and my slide deck got stolen out of my car! along with another favorite board.. oh noes.

So the original prototype slide wheels are gone.. and whoever tries riding that board is in for some laffs...

Planning to try out some different things to see what range of grip is possible to get out of the material. Next up is super wide wheels.. the originals were 1.75", these new blanks are 2.5" (that's almost doubling the contact patch width when you subtract the radiused lips).



2.5" x 4" x 29" Block of UHMW was $28.64. That could make 4 sets of 60mm by 2" wide wheels for roughly $7.50 material cost each.

12" x 2.75" diameter Delrin rod was $29.84. Tempting to make wheels out of that too (~$20 material per set).. though they'd definitely flatspot a lot quicker than the UHMW. Very easy to slice them into slide pucks when that happens though..

At Wheelabrator two weeks ago folks had a flurry of ideas that I didn't quite catch on how to increase grip.. I'd appreciate hearing em again (or any new ideas).. Been considering Pigmoder's idea of sandwiching urethane and UHMW..

is this workshop dedicated to your wacky projects or is it for a diff. job

I do part time handyman work for money, so the shop and tools get used for that.. but it's mainly for doing whatever I want.

maybe u can do a double sided wing like a kayak, have them at different degrees, like one at 0 and other at 90 .

The single wing paddling that you see in the vid is only really possible at low speeds.. which isn't my ultimate goal with the wings.. At high speed flapping is best.. though it definitely doesn't have to look like bird flapping.. You could be flapping one arm/wing down while lifting the other up.. or even using muscle power to power a propeller.. (a propeller is analogous to flapping.. you wouldn't want to orient a propeller like a water wheel for high speed propulsion)

[kraffft]

[Wolfin]

Not for Luke!

xD

[livehard365]

That looks like Delrin, is it a homopolymer (just Delrin) or a coplymer (delrin with other polymers) ? I found this stuff it is glass filled acetal (generic name for delrin) it is the toughest most abrasive resistant plastic i've ever layed my hands on, it is just a major pain in the a$$ to machine the stuff. straight delrin though is not so bad

[botofusup]

[QUOTE=kraffft;1297771470]Had to check out Emeka's talk this morning.. worth it. He elaborated more on his take on the lack of an industrial base in Africa, and his preference for small, organic, bottom-up approaches to improve things.

Then he showed a lot of sweet photos of different makers and their projects that they found across Africa and brought to the Maker Faire in Ghana. A machine for processing a previously unusable tough hulled local grain, A modified cell phone for finding fish, a fabric recycling method, a multi-machine all-in-one shop tool made from an engine block (designed by a Texan actually), an evaporative cooler, furniture made out of bottles, A windmill generator built from scrap by a 14 year old.
Maker Faire Africa - Aug 14th - 16th, Accra, Ghana


This website is really inspirational, amazing ingenuity. I have not gone through everything yet. Can less really be more?

[kraffft]

Been setting up a lathe to make a bunch of slide wheels.. Shown in the chuck was UHMW that had been hole sawed out of a block (just using round stock from now on instead). Here's the first wheel out of the lathe:

I found this stuff it is glass filled acetal (generic name for delrin) it is the toughest most abrasive resistant plastic i've ever layed my hands on

There's some tough stuff out there.. one consideration is expense, and another is how bad the dust is to breathe. Fiberglass is one of the additives I shy away from. Even Corian fumes kind of bother me (having inhaled too much melting plastic over the years).

[CarlTheSmokingCrab]

The nano-tubes that the guys at Insect work with every day is TORMENT on the lungs.

[livehard365]

There's some tough stuff out there.. one consideration is expense, and another is how bad the dust is to breathe. Fiberglass is one of the additives I shy away from. Even Corian fumes kind of bother me (having inhaled too much melting plastic over the years).[/QUOTE]

A few years ago I was trying to lathe this stuff down into wheels myself. I had 4"diameter rods and I wanted them to be around 70MM, The waste would just pile up on the bench in a long string of debris, there were close to no airbore particles. However, I worked on one wheel for over a month about an hour or so a day before I went to work and only got it down to 3.25", I abandoned this project because I broke my wrist and was unable to operate the lathe safely. I ended up selling off my largest rod of stock for over double the market price for it, some dude just had to have it.
Now because of this thread I started looking to aquire some more of it, and I found it in the right rod diameter ready to be cut down to length and bearing holes drilled. I was hoping you could help me with the drilling part, but I heard about the demise of your drill press.so I'll go it alone. it is true about the price though, it equals out to about $25 per set.

[jmasta]

haha I've always wanted to try some UHMW slide wheels

props for putting them into action


*subscribed*

[kraffft]

Finished the UHMW wide slide wheels, and made the Delrin set as well. That lathe is set up nice. Got the spacing of these perfect. 0.395".



The UHMW wides weren't worth it.. Being used to the narrower versions the wides just slide slower, and don't hook up that much better.

The Delrin wasn't as silly as I expected, but still crazy slick. Same thing happens with both UH and D.. the road gives them a rough surface (much rougher than slide pucks get) and that gives them a little more grip.

YouTube - Slide wheels v2+v3 testing 10/8/09

Gonna see how many UHMW sets I can make tomorrow and bring em to the Broadway Bomb.

Some business thoughts..

Sharing designs freely. Creating a huge catalog of many peoples designs that anyone with a decent shop can make. When you want something from the catalog you make it yourself or get in touch with a builder and have them make it for you.

This model works best with very specific types of items.. Things that relatively few people want. Things that don't require a lot of set up or specialized tools to make. Things that both maker and buyer can be happy with the price of.

Something that irks me a little bit is the idea that I could make a set of wheels, sell em for ~$40 and make a ~20$ profit.. or I could buy wheels wholesale, sell em, and make the same profit.. One of the idealistic goals of the small builder model is to cut down on that middleman merchant nonsense.

I'm ok with working for the rest of my life doing manual labor.. This whole country is a scam.. I'd like it not to be.

(get a lot of thinking in hunched over the lathe)


Also got this 'like new' mountain board today for $100.. my only idea for it so far is to put some longboard wheels on it!

[Wolfin]

got this 'like new' mountain board today

Damn non-standard truck mounting patterns.