OutdoorKing Repair Forum Forums Restoring, Customising and Modifying Tech Talk A Couple More Jiggers

G'day folks,

Here are a couple of useful gadgets I've made up over the years!

1. Parts washing trough



This was made from an old home heating oil tank, using the original legs cut shorter. By cutting the tank on a slant [using a jigsaw with metal cutting blade], it has a built in 'splashback'. I actually got 2 troughs this size from that tank, and the hinged lid that's on this one too.

The drain is via a ball valve, screwed into the original threaded outlet fitting. I drain the dirty fluid into a homemade 'filter funnel'; just a cheapo paper vacuum cleaner bag liner, in a 2L plastic bottle with the bottom cut off. That filters the dirt out, and the clean fluid just goes back into the 20L tap drum visible in the pic.

As a bonus, the tank had about 50L of oil left in it when I scrounged it, and I had an Andersen industrial steam cleaner which used heating oil!

2. Aspirator Bottle





This one was inspired by a common item found in chemical laboratories. It has a lot of uses: extracting old fuel from OPE tanks as in the pic; vacuum bleeding vehicle brakes; sucking out old brake fluid from master cylinder reservoirs, are just a few of them...

Pick a thick-walled glass jar for this, so that it will withstand vacuum without imploding.

Hi All

One of my jiggers

Always wanted an anvil but could never warrant spending the money they wanted, for the amount of times I would use it.

Scrap of railway line
2 cuts with a power hacksaw
5 min of welding

Total cost $3.00 in 1992

Plenty of different angles, curves etc for shaping.

Yep; the traditional 'London Pattern' anvil, such as the example I have, has a lot of practical design experience behind it!



https://www.outdoorking-forum.com.au/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/83896/2.html

G'day Gadge and mich,
I used to have foot long piece of track. Man they're heavy. I would hate to drop that on my foot!!

Those sections of railroad rail do come in handy. I only got a 6 inch piece here that once was a door weight that I use a lot for straightening metal. I have never got around to buying myself an anvil yet.

I wonder how handy a piece of grooved rail used for light rail vehicles would be?

Hi MF,
Yep, the standard 'critical measurement' for conventional railway rails; is the weight in pounds, per yard of length.
Older branch lines in Vic were 50-70 lb/yd; mainlines could be up to 130 lb/yd rails.

It's all spelled out in most of the Vic Railways 'Track Charts' at this link! https://www.victorianrailways.net/grades/gradehome.html

Hi Gadge,
I remember a news report covering floods showing a 44 class bullnose locomotive very slowly going over tracks suspended in the air from track bedding being washed away! Some were a few metres long from memory and visibly flexed but held. Can you imagine them allowing that these days?

I never knew there were different thicknesses of track itself for railways. I have seen thinner rail used for secondary uses in boat ramps and mine shafts but never knew the same rail network used varying grades of track.

Hi MF,
No way known! But things were very different back then - no mobile cranes, except for rail-mounted ones...

Yep; here's a pic of a piece of 10 lb/yard rail, from one of the many 19th century abandoned gold mines, in the hills North of where I live.

Wow Gadge I would love that. Several would be nice for my yard .