The Passing of Tom Gaspick

Tom Gaspick sadly passed away today in the early AM of January 14th after a short battle with Cancer. 

He will be missed and remembered by all those who loved him and all those he touched with his writing. 

Details of his funeral will be posted here when available. 

An Atrocious Pair Of Eyelet Pliers

There are cheap tools that are remarkably good value for the money, and then there are cheap tools that ought not to exist. Here's an example of the latter.

It's a pair of eyelet pliers, for crimping 11/64" inside diameter eyelets.^[1] Overall length of the pliers is about 5 3/4". Moment length is about 4 3/8". That moment length is inadequate to yield sufficient leverage to successfully crimp an eyelet. Here's a view of an eyelet 'crimped' by the pliers.

Barely crimped at all. Here's a view of an eyelet crimped by a proper pair of eyelet pliers.

One wonders why the manufacturer of the pliers even bothered to make them.

I've been racking my brain to try to come up with a way to modify or re-purpose these pliers to some useful end, and I've come up empty. I think they're about to go in the garbage.

* * *

Note:

[1] Eyelet sizing is arcane. According to this chart, what I have here are #000 1/2 eyelets. (Between #000 and #00.)

# # #

FEEDBACK

# # #

A Florist's Shears Without A Closure Ring

I'm not certain that these are florist's shears, but that's what they look like to me.

They have a torsion spring tucked away in the pivot that makes them self-opening. What's missing is a closure ring at the end of the handles to close them up for storage. Let's see if I can fabricate a reasonable facsimile of a closure ring.

- - -

And here's the beginnings of a ring fashioned from 1/16" diameter steel rod.

Here's the tool with its ring installed and clamped up in a 'third hand' for soldering.

And here's the ring closed up with 60/40 tin/lead solder.

I used regular plumber's paste soldering flux to solder that.

Here's the tool closed up with its new ring.

And here's a close-up view of the closure ring doing its job.

It's not perfect , but it'll do what I need it to.

# # #

FEEDBACK

# # #

An Ancient Ark-Les Automotive Switch

It's a four-position rotary switch with wire-wound resistors built into the rear of it.

Stamped on the metal shell is "ARK-LES"^[1]. The Ark-Les brand is still with us, though their website is a disaster right now. Every link just brings up a bit of gibberish.

- - -

I suspect that this switch must have been meant to be the heater-blower speed control switch for the cabin of a car or truck.

I'm a bit baffled by the knob. The knob surely has to be removable in order for the switch's shank to be installed in a panel, but the knob is stuck fast. I'll try warming it with a heat gun and see if it pulls straight off.

- - -

Hmmm. That didn't work. There's no pulling the knob straight off, and it doesn't want to unscrew in either direction. This makes no sense. The knob has to come off in order for the switch to be installable.

So ok; let's try this. I'll clamp the knob in my mechanic's vise in such a way that I can pry up on the metal shell with the knob held in place.

Here goes.

- - -

And that worked. I managed to get the knob free.

Now the question arises, should I go further and separate the metal shell from the ceramic base? That risks fatiguing and breaking the fastening tabs, but what the hey, let's have a look inside.

- - -

And here we are with the components separated and lined up.

- - -

Uh-Oh

This switch has a defect. The centre resistors-connection crimp terminal at the rear is flaky. Someone has attempted to solder it in the past.

The solder didn't take to the resistance wire. I tried solder again after thoroughly scraping clean the area, but it was no go. Solder simply will not take to the resistance wire.

So, I centre-punched the connection all around to try and establish a renewed crimp effect.

That may work, though I'm not confident that it's a truly sound repair. I'll reassemble the switch and try it out with a small DC motor. If nothing else, I'll keep the switch as a curiosity.

- - -

It works. Here's an annotated schematic of the thing.

* * *

Note:

[1] A little play on words there, I imagine; ARC-LES = arcless. My schematic doesn't show it, but the switch is a make-before-break type, which I suppose would inhibit arcing as switch position is changed.

# # #

FEEDBACK

# # #

A Trailer Wiring Harness (Partial) And Module

I'd love to know what manner of circuitry is inside these things. What are my odds of opening up that encapsulated module? -- slim to nil, probably. Let's have a go.

- - -

And here we are.

Hmmm.

I did manage to split the thing open, but the component side of the circuit board is encapsulated to a fare-thee-well. So much for that bit of reverse engineering.

Electronics today may as well be magic -- it's utterly inaccessible.

# # #

FEEDBACK

# # #

Electric Scissors

I can't recall ever having had the thought, "Gee. I sure do wish I had a pair of electric scissors." Electric scissors are not something that I've ever felt the need of. But that hasn't stopped some outfit from manufacturing them.^[1]

There's no maker's name on it. It takes two 'C' cells in its battery compartment.

And it's inoperative; pushing the switch button results in nothing. Oxidized electrical connections are the likeliest fault.

Here's a view of the business end's insides.

A little DC motor with a cam at the end of its shaft lends a rocking action to one of the blades, and that provides the scissoring effect.

Some attention paid to electrical continuity got the motor going. Here's a brief video of the mechanism in action.

['Sorry about the very poor video. I could have used some help with shooting that, but there was none available.]

The swing of the moving scissor blade is tiny. Only a very small part of the scissors' blade length is actually utilized. But it does cut paper remarkably well. Here it is in action.

I'm kind of impressed.

The battery compartment cover wants attention; one of its retaining clips is broken and the cover pops open easily.

- - -

And here we are with a fastening for the wayward battery compartment cover.

That's a 4-40 x 3/16" screw with an oversize No. 4 flat fibre washer holding the front edge of the cover in place. That will work fine.

I'll keep the tool handy and see if it makes itself useful.

* * *

Note:

[1] And never mind just 'some outfit'. There are all kinds of the things available, and they're not cheap. Visit Amazon and search for "electric scissors" and you'll see what I mean.

# # #

FEEDBACK

# # #

A GN-38-B Army Field Telephone Generator

It's a little the worse for dust accumulation, but it's in fine condition.

The things were built to last forever. This one still works as it ought to. Here it is cleaned up some.

I may put this up for sale on Kijiji. I can't think of any use to put it to.

# # #

FEEDBACK

# # #