Good Enough Flywheels, I Guess

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10/2/2021

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A bit of frustration in the shop today.

I got back to two fire-starter/pump drills I'm making, one

as a gift and one for myself. I started worked on cutting

holes out of the fly wheel to attach them to their

respective shafts.

First I decided drill several holes into area I would

eventually clear out with a chisel and files because

removing material makes the process easier. I attempted to

do a bit of drill-ception by using my pump drill, but the

cheap twine I've been using as I prototype broke after a

few pumps -- something I had thought I was mentally

prepared since I thought I was due after using the drill

the night before on my a different project, which I am

keeping secret for now for reasons of me being a dork.

Still, I had a moment of shock when the string broke. I

shrugged it off, and as I am not a purist and didn't feel

like restringing the pump drill in question just so it

could be some kind of ur pump drill (your day will come,

my precious. . . my prrrrr e e e e e e e cious) I hooked my

corded drill up to an extension cord and drilled out the

holes I wanted.

Then came the chiseling. I started with the fly wheel

intended to go on my future fire starting pump drill. I

thought, quite reasonably, it would turn out, that I would

need some practice with the process. I made a real mess

of the first one and had a bunch of blow out on the bottom.

Oh, yeah, I should mention that the fly wheels are made

out chip board, so when I say blow out, I mean large chunks

are knocked out.

Somehow, what I focused on was how bad the lines were

positioned and how they I had reamed out some curved spots.

I managed to improve these on the gift version, but the

blow out turned out to be *worse* the second time. Glue to

the rescue and all of that, but when it has been a long

time between sessions in the workshop I forget that I have

to stop and think about things -- at least what I am making

for other people.

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I'd love to hear from people. My email is the handle minus

"net" (so, a work by Voltaire that starts with "c"), at

sdf.org.

While we're adding boiler plate: this work is in the public

domain. Do what you want with it.