I temporarily converted the woodshop into a metal/machine shop over the 4th of July weekend for the lathe milling attachment project and the garden railroad trackbed. These projects are a little off-topic for this blog, but they are both being produced in my "shop" so they will be included in this blog.
We began to break ground on the new garden railroad. As you can see on the Sanfilippo.info site, we had a garden railroad at our old home, but since we move 3 years ago the railroad has been in storage while more high-priority projects were completed (we run mostly LGB equipment). I intend to start small and get a loop of outdoor track running, and then grow from there.
The test pieces of flexible trackbed that I made a few weeks ago were installed and work great (based on Bill Logan’s design). Stable, flexible…looking good. I now need to make another 60 feet or so of trackbed in the shop before we can hit the yard again. We are probably two weeks or so from running the trains on the new trackbed…I’d say a target date would be the weekend of July 30th.
Additionally, I began to cut the metal rails for the lathe-attachment milling machine. They are made out of 1" square tubing from Home Depot. The tubes cut easily with a metal cutting blade in the reciprocating saw and then they are ground smooth on the grinder. Overall the rail frame will be 36" long and about 6" wide at the base.
Finally, my son and I painted the Adirondack chairs and put them in the yard, they look good.
Three projects going at once! (not counting the desks that are on hold for the moment)….I like it like that.
Like this:
Like Loading...
About mattsanf
Matt Sanfilippo is the Chief Partnership Officer (CPO) for the College of Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) and Co-Director of its Engineering Research Accelerator. In this role, Matt coordinates and enables strategic and sponsored research opportunities across the college, and stewards the development of proposals for major research opportunities along strategic themes. Additionally, he enables collaboration among the college's research institute/center executive directors, and industrial and government relations personnel in the pursuit of opportunities with industry, federal and state governments. Before becoming CPO for the College, Matt was the Senior Executive Director for Research Initiatives, the Executive Director of CMU's SII (Smart Infrastructure Institute) and ICES (Institute for Complex Engineered Systems), and Associate Director of PITA (Pennsylvania Infrastructure Technology Alliance) and RAMP (Research for Advanced Manufacturing in Pennsylvania).
Before CMU, Matt was Managing Director of Applied Technology for Michael Baker Corporation, an engineering and energy services firm. Matt managed Baker's technology division including Geographic Information System (GIS), software and web development, multimedia, virtual reality, visualization, Global Positioning System (GPS), mapping and surveying services. Before joining Baker, Matt was an Innovation Director for Redleaf Group, a Venture Capital/Operating Company focused on information security, supply chain and mobility solutions. While at Redleaf, Matt managed technical due diligence for seed-stage investments and coordinated relationships between Redleaf and their partner companies. Prior to Redleaf, Matt was CIO of GZA GeoEnvironmental Technologies, an infrastructure engineering firm, and operations manager for their Internet start-up that focused on web-technologies for health and safety and manufacturing metrics.
Matt is on the board of Larson Design Group (LDG), past Chairman of the Board for the Pittsburgh Botanic Garden, current board member of the Pittsburgh History and Landmarks Foundation (PHLF), current Vice President of the Sewickley Heights Gun Club (SHGC) and former member of the Information Sciences and Technology Advisory Board for the Pennsylvania State University Beaver. Matt is also former Vice President of the Pittsburgh Chapter of the Association of Internet Professionals and former Vice President of the Board of Trustees for Baker Combined Charity of Pennsylvania.
A Learning Adventure in the Workshop 