Making a Dust Pan (pt2)

Question: How's your project coming along? 

Antony: Well recently there have been some changes in the the model that I originally wanted to make, but at the moment I'm at the last stage metal. 

Question: What changes have you made to your model recently? 

Antony: Well for starters the cover I had originally planned on putting on my dust pan is out. Also the retractable handle is also out. 

Question: Why did you decide to remove the cover? 

Antony: There was no way to keep the cover attached to the body of the dustpan without a hinge. 

Question: What about the retractable handle?  

Antony: I thought about keeping the handle but I changed the model and didn't make it retractable. I felt that there was not really a need for the handle to extend. 

Question: Have you began to make it out of metal yet? 

Antony: Yes actually here's a picture of me cutting the piece that I'm using. 

Question: What are you using to cut the sheet of metal? 

Antony: I'm using a tool called an air drill. 

Question: What measurements did you use when you cut your piece.  

Antony: Here's a picture I took and it shows some measurements. 

Question: Is the dust pan still going to be made out of aluminun? If not what is it going to be made of and why? 

Antony: No I decided not to use aluminum because it would be harder to fix if I made a mistake while shaping it. So instead of using aluminun Im using steel. 

 

Question: Have you finished making your dust pan yet? Or are you still working on it? 

Antony: Up to this point I have cut the piece, filed it, and cut the curves at the edges as well as making it so that there isn't any sharp edges. 

Question: How did you make the curves on your part? 

Antony: Well I placed two points located opposite from each other and then used a compass to make the curve. With the two points being opposite from each other the curves would be closest to equal. 

Question: Okay so what's left to do to your dust pan? 

Antony: All that's left to do with that piece is to fold and bend the edges upwards and weld them together with a spot welder.  Here's a picture of the lines I've made that I'm going to cut and bend upwards. Apart from that I just need to make the handle. 

                                    To be continued...

 

Making a Dust Pan out of Aluminum

Question: Why exactly are you making a dust pan?

(picture of dustpan online @harborfreight.com)


Antony: Well I was told that making a dust pan would increase my knowledge on how to work with certain tools like the English Wheel and just metal work in general. 

Question: Have you started making your dust pan?

Antony: Yes I have started the process of making my dust pan. But not with aluminum first I was told to make a model out of paper as you can see in the picture.

Question: Why did you start out by making a model out of paper? Why not just go and make it out of metal right away?

Antony: If you can make it out of paper then you can make it out of cardboard. Then from cardboard you can make it out of metal.

Question: How did you start off with your paper model of the dust pan?

Antony: First I started off with drawing the body of the dust pan on a piece of paper. There are lines that are perpendicular those lines are there to help me bend the paper.   

Question: So from there what did you do? 

Antony: From there I made a second part that's similar but not exactly the same. 

 

Question: Why did you make a second one? 

Antony: I made a second one because in my design I want to make my dust pan open and close. 

Question: What's the reasoning behind making your dust pan open and close? 

Antony: The reasoning behind having it open and close is so that when dust is sweeped in it doesn't escape. What I want my dust pan to do is to trap the garbage and dust so that is stays in until disposed of. 

Question: So what else does your dust pan consist of? 

Antony: The handle is another key thing that I want to work on. I've already modeled it out of paper. It's a handle that extends and retracts. 

Question: Why do you want it to extend and retract? 

Antony: I want it to be able to extend so that when it's used, the person using it doesn't have to bend as much. 

Question: Why not just leave it extended? Why do you want it to retract as well as extend? 

Antony: I want to make the dust pan retract so that it is easier to store in smaller spaces so that it's not awkwardly standing somewhere. 

Question: Sounds cool. Where are you up to now with your project?  

Antony: Well at the moment I've started making a model out of cardboard. 

Question: Is it any different than the paper model?

Antony: No it's not that much different than the paper model. They seem very similar except the cardboard is a bit different when it comes to bending it.         (I will be posting the rest of my project once it is complete.)

                                To be continued ...

What is a Body Hammer and Dolly?

Question: What are body hammers? 

Antony: Body hammers are special hammers used to pop out dents and creases in metal.

Question: What can you use these body hammers on?   

Antony: Well you can use these tools on anything that's made out of metal. For example my teacher and I were working on a stool made out of metal. 

Question: Are all the body hammers the same? 

Antony: No not all the body hammers are the same. My shop teacher for instance   has a whole body hammer kit here are some of the hammers. 

Question: What is a dolly? 

 

Antony: A dolly is a tool made out of very strong metal. Now there is two ways of using the hammer and dolly. "Hammer on dolly" which stretches metal and "hammer off dolly" which moves the  metal. 

Question: How is it that these tool fix dents in metal? 

Antony: Well as you can see in the picture I put the dolly under and hit it with the body hammer over. 

Question: How do I know this actually works? 

Antony: Here is where one of the stools in my class had a dent popping upwards. As you can see it's not flat. 

Question: Did you fix it with the body hammer and dolly?

 

Antony: Of course with the body hammer and dolly I was able to flatten out the dent as you can see above. To fix this I used hammer on dolly. 

Question: What does each side of the hammer do?

Antony: Well this side of the hammer is used to stretch out metal in a overall larger area. 

 

Question: What does the other side of the body hammer do?

Antony: This side of the body hammer is not as flat and big so it's used to hit smaller areas. 

How to Make a Penny Battery

Question: Whats a penny battery?

 Antony: Its a battery made out of pennies, more specifically copper and zinc.

Question: Sounds cool, so how can I make a penny battery?

Antony: Its quite simple really but before you can make a penny battery you're going to need these materials:

1. Pennies after 1982
2. Sand paper
3. Electrical tape 
4. Vinegar 
5. Salt 
6. Cardboard or paper 
7. Aluminum foil 
8. Wires 
9. L.E.D light (to test your battery) 

Question: Okay so how do I get started?

Antony: Well first you're going to have to sand off one side of your pennies to expose the zinc. Do that with about 5 or 6 pennies.Make sure you sand off the penny to where you will not see any copper coating left. Then you will need to cut the cardboard into 5 or 6 circles the same size as the pennies.

Question: What do I do after I've sanded the pennies and cut the cardboard?

Antony: After you've done that you're going to make a mixture of salt and vinegar. The amount of vinegar and salt doesn't really matter but I used about 1/4 cup of vinegar and a couple tablespoons of salt. Oh and make sure you stir thoroughly until the salt dissolves. Then dip the cardboard cuts into the mixture and allow them to soak it up.

Question: Whats next?

Antony: Well next all you have to do is stack them in the right order. Place a piece of aluminium foil on the bottom then place a penny with the copper side facing down and the zinc side facing up. Then gently dry 1 cardboard cut enough so that it wont drip and place it on top of the penny. Repeat this until you've used all of your pennies. Make sure that the cardboard cuts do NOT touch!

Question: How is it that this will make a battery?

Antony: Batteries are devices that convert chemical energy into electrical energy. When two different metals are connected by an electrolyte, a chemical reaction occurs at each metal surface, called electrodes, that either produces or uses electrons, electrons will move from one surface to the other, creating an electric current.

Question: How will this penny battery light up the LED light?

Antony: Well if you followed the previous steps your penny battery should have at least 3 volts which is enough to power most LED lights. From there its very simple just place the (negative) short leg of the LED light on the aluminium foil and the (positive) long leg on the last penny on the top of the penny battery.

Question: What if the LED light wont stay in place?

Antony: If your LED light wont stay in place then you can simply use the electrical tape from the list of materials in the beginning and carefully wrap electrical tape around it to keep it in place.

Question: Alright so am I done with my penny battery?

Antony: Well yeah you're done with the battery, but how about we take it a step further and add a switch.

Question: A switch? How do I do that?

Antony: Well you're going to need some wire (3 pieces). First you have to connect one piece of wire to the (negative) short leg of the LED light and the bottom of the penny battery. Use a bit of electrical tape to keep it together.

Question: Okay whats next?

Antony: Okay next connect another wire from the top of the penny battery to one side of the switch. From there connect the last wire from the (positive) long leg of the LED light to the other side of the switch. From there your switch should be able to turn your LED light on and off as you please.

Question: That's pretty cool, but is there any way that we can take this even further?

Antony: How about a phone charger? Take a look at the schematics I made for it!

                                                                                                             To be continued....