Confessions of a tool junkie

[T42]

Just received the chain-link spreader/squeezer that Rob mentioned the other day...

Tried, works; though jaws a bit too thick to slide easily into just-waxed links.  Might grind them down a little.

[robgul]

Just received the chain-link spreader/squeezer that Rob mentioned the other day...

Tried, works; though jaws a bit too thick to slide easily into just-waxed links.  Might grind them down a little.

Hmm, must have a lot of wax on your chain - mine works fine with 10 and 11 speed waxed chains.

[T42]

Just received the chain-link spreader/squeezer that Rob mentioned the other day...

Tried, works; though jaws a bit too thick to slide easily into just-waxed links.  Might grind them down a little.

Hmm, must have a lot of wax on your chain - mine works fine with 10 and 11 speed waxed chains.

Could be - the chain was an 11s one I waxed ~6 months ago, hung up straight out of the pot and left.  I'll try it again when I'm not labouring under vaccination reaction.  Compared with Park link-pliers there's only about 0.02 mm difference.

[Polar Bear]

Dear YACF, I am a tool junkie.

Having become invested in a milk float after more than 2 decades of a car free life has necessitated a bit of tool acquisition.  Not many mind but as each "job" leers over the horizon I find myself submerged in the interwebby temptations of tool goodness.

I have even bought a new tool bag for those "essentials" when venturing beyond the town boundary ...

[cycleman]

I used to race the local milk float. I could beat it uphill in those days 

[Polar Bear]

Many an early morning cycle commute necessitated weaving through the fleet of milk floats emerging from and returning to the dairy which was on my route.

Ah, happy days.

[Asterix, the former Gaul.]

We used to cadge lifts off an electric float finishing its round.  This would save us enough bus fare to buy a sherbet fountain each if we were lucky.

[quixoticgeek]

I am now the proud owner of a one of these - I did wonder as Makita haven't made one themselves, I wondered why, but I stuck it out and bought one anyway. The one linked to appears to be decent build quality (without any electronic clevers, just posi/negi tives) and the nozzle isn't specially clever, but it works, can cope with a high flow (found out when I trashed one of the inferior glue sticks that came with it) and run time is about an hour an a 5Ah battery. The large trigger gives a whole hand grip and allows excellent control, and the cordlessness makes for a good sticky experience. The battery also makes for an excellent stand. All in all, don't know how I survived as long without, I recommend it to the house (the Makita fanboi house)

(I'm trying to ignore their Makita soldering station)

Makita Soldering station. I can help you there.


It's 2 3d printed parts, an official Makita spare part (battery connector in the red part), 2 usb-c/usb-a power delivery boards, a pair of switches, and some nuts & bolts.

Into this I plug in a sequr P60 usb-c Soldering iron. This gives me a portable Soldering station, with inter changeable nibs.

While in theory there are 4 usb sockets. If you use both the a and the c connector from the same board. It defaults to 5v from both. Two boards are provided so I can plug a usb fan into the second one for fume extraction.

The horizontal gap is due to a maths error. Have updated the 3d model, but not printed a new one yet. The bolts are over long in the picture as I ordered the wrong ones, since fixed.

J

[TimO]

I've got my Advent Calendar for this year. 

[Kim]

Makita Soldering station. I can help you there.


It's 2 3d printed parts, an official Makita spare part (battery connector in the red part), 2 usb-c/usb-a power delivery boards, a pair of switches, and some nuts & bolts.

I did a bodgier version of this some years ago:  The cheap Makita widget that gives you a pair of 5V USB-A outputs^[1], modified to present the raw battery output (via a polyfuse) on a 2.1mm DC jack, leaving the USB gubbins intact because it's bound to come in useful.  TS-100 soldering iron (I think the first of these style portable irons, from before higher-voltage USB became a common thing, and they assumed people would power them with vehicle batteries and laptop PSUs) plugs into that, and the iron's software handles low-voltage cutoff.

Works well, but then so does a suitable USB battery pack.  Which is better probably depends on whether it's primarily about doing a lot of soldering without being tied to a mains socket (eg. when working on vehicle wiring, in a shed, or up a ladder or something) or a neat portable solution you can have with you in case you need to perform a small repair.  The killer feature of power tool batteries being that they recharge extremely quickly, and you can have one on charge and one in use.

Have you considered integrating some sort of iron holder?  That's the thing that I find most annoying about soldering in odd places - very easy to knock the iron off a little lightweight stand when working at floor level.  The battery's enough of a lump that a stand attached to it should mostly stay put.

The other thing that I've failed to research, but is no doubt possible, is some sort of hot air gun that can be powered in the same way.  I'm thinking for heatshrink rather than SMD reflow, without going full paint-stripper.


_{[1] I'm surprised they haven't come out with a newer version that gives you full laptop-spec USB-C PD.  That would be awesome.}

[quixoticgeek]

An iron holder is on the to-do list for this winter. As is an integrated fan for fume removal.

I built this as all of my usb power banks are 5v only. And this was easier than buying a new power bank just for the soldering iron.

DeWalt make a gizmo for the other direction. Charge their power tool battery from USB-c. I'd quite like that to happen some time soon for Makita. Currently I have a mains charger and a car charger, which allows me to charge from my solar setup (12v lifepo and 150w of panels).

And yes. Hot air reflow is on the to-do list. Esp as I'd like it for smd work...

J

[pcolbeck]

Had to replace a radiator for Pcolbeck junior. Bought an olive puller from Monument Tools.



Blooming brilliant !

Why didn't I get one of these years ago. I've always used the keep belting it with a monkey wrench adjusted to be slightly wider than the pipe method but that takes ages, is difficult in confined spaces and is likely to damage things.
This thing pops the olive off cleanly in seconds. Does 15 and 22mm with the same tool as well (it has adaptors).

[Asterix, the former Gaul.]

Could do with one of those before I replace the garden tap.

[Tim Hall]

If you don't have one, I find the best (fsvo "best) method is to cut an oblique slot in the old olive with a junior hacksaw  then prise it off with suitable old screwdriver.

[Kim]

A crank remover for plumbers!  I'll file the existence of such things away at the back of my BRANEZ for times of need.

[Feanor]

Yes, me too. I've always resorted to the hacksaw cutting of a slanted cut then prizing open with a screwdriver method too, but I never overlook the opportunity to buy new tools.

Hacksawing always carries the risk of nicking the pipe, which you don't want to do.

There are always basket cases where it's been horsed up by a gorilla, and the pipe is so distorted under the olive that it's not re-useable, and will need cutting back and spliced. And that's always where it emerges through a wall or something, so that turns into a fractally recursing world of pain.

[Jaded]

I got an automatic centre punch recently, I haven't used one before so didn't know quite what to expect, it's actually quite fun to use.

That's the turkey basting sorted this Christmas.

[JefO]

More often than not, you can get away with gripping the olive with a set of pump pliers and just twisting it off the pipe.

You can re-use them after doing that too. Wrapping a bit of PTFE tape around the pipe then over the olive helps getting a seal without having to overtighten them.

I never trained as a plumber per say, but I had the job of plumbing thrust upon me when I took on the role of mechanical maintenance, for the NHS. Fortunately, I worked alongside some long in the tooth plumbers that taught me all the tricks of their trade.

Always use copper olives as opposed to brass ones. (copper is red-ish  -  brass is yellow-ish)

[mrcharly-YHT]

You might be able to get away with PTFE over an olive for water, but it is poor practise. PTFE is for thread sealing.

[hbunnet]

You might be able to get away with PTFE over an olive for water, but it is poor practise. PTFE is for thread sealing.

^^This^^

[JefO]

Yep, I had assumed we were only talking about water.
Actually, PTFE is a lubricant.
It has the lowest coefficient of friction of any material known to man.
It is used to reduce the friction between the mating surfaces, enabling more of the torque (applied to the compression nut) to increase the pressure at the mating surfaces. It does exactly the same thing when applied to the threads. So if you do that too, it gives the best chance of getting a seal.
Whether or not it is regarded as a good practice, it works in a hospital environment.

[Feanor]

Using PTFE tape on a compression fitting is a bodge.
But sometimes it's a pragmatic bodge.

Where you are replace some fitting, and the in-situ nut and olive are not proving easy to remove, so you decide to try to re-use them.
Then it's weeping. So you tighten it up a bit more that should be necessary for a compression fitting.
And it's still weeping.
And access is difficult to cut the old olive off.
And cutting back a short length of pipe is impossible because it disappears into the wall.

At this point, I'll try PTFE tape or Fernox LSX or whatever I have to hand, before I resort to cutting into walls etc.

[robgul]

Using PTFE tape on a compression fitting is a bodge.
But sometimes it's a pragmatic bodge.

Where you are replace some fitting, and the in-situ nut and olive are not proving easy to remove, so you decide to try to re-use them.
Then it's weeping. So you tighten it up a bit more that should be necessary for a compression fitting.
And it's still weeping.
And access is difficult to cut the old olive off.
And cutting back a short length of pipe is impossible because it disappears into the wall.

At this point, I'll try PTFE tape or Fernox LSX or whatever I have to hand, before I resort to cutting into walls etc.

I'm not a plumber but am fairly proficient with stuff, both compression and soldered fittings - a time-served plumber many years ago suggested that using a smear of Fernox LSX on the olive in compression fittings was a good thing . . .  so that's what I do.

[JefO]

My daughter's house had an outside tap leaking on the olive on the tap, with a slow weep of water running inside the wall. There was no way of cutting off the olive the nut was tight against the brickwork outside, and the other end of the pipe the problem was the same - ie nut on the pipe too close to the wall to get access to the olive. Without getting one or other of the olives off, I was stuffed.

So I used a part of a ball joint splitter (the type with a bolt that pushes against the threaded end of a ball-joint) instead of the bolt, I screwed in an inertia hammer. Placed the prongs of the ball-joint splitter behind the compression nut and hammered it and the olive, straight off.

 

[Giraffe]

I remove an olive by cutting it with a junior hacksaw. The correct, diagonal, angle will do it without damaging the pipe. To make sure, I take it almost all the way through then put a suitable screwdriver in the slot and twist - olive off and pipe intact. First used this when working on rads. where the pipe was in concrete!

For sealing, just a smear of a suitable pipe-sealing compound under the olive, on the olive and on the threads. Advantage: doesn't need FO tight; disadvantage: needs removing every time the joint has to be remade.