Sometimes a surprise dawns on this old brain. Maybe we can build on these tiny, but useful tips. This one worked for me yesterday.
Yeah, we have plenty of 1/4" male to 3/8" male adapters, but to convert a tripod mount from male 1/4" to female 3/8" ? Or 3/8" male to 1/4" female?
A coupling nut can do it. Visit your Ace Hardware fasteners section. Look for the drawer of nut extensions, AKA coupling nuts. In one bin is an extended nut with 1/4"x24 female on one end, 3/8"x16 female on the other.
I think the person who did the drawing doesn't know much about mechanical stuff. It looks to me like the 3/8-16 threads are left-handed!
When redoing plumbing for the darkroom, use sawzall to cut out old pipe.
Saves a lot of time and aggravation.
Tin Can
Told you it was peculiar! Good eye!Originally Posted by Steve Goldstein
Oi! And to think that illustration is used so widely!
Det Cord is more fun, and it's great for unclogging drains.
I'm sure you meant 1/4"x20, not 1/4"x24; just a nit.
The workers in the pipe manufacturing plant where my dad was superintendent used to send rookies to fetch a left-handed monkey wrench, just for amusement.
If you need one pipe fitting you need 2.
I used to send workers for pipe to our tool crib which had more inventory than Home Depot. During training I told them get 2 or 3 of anything as a trip to the crib in our million sq ft factory could take an hour, if the line was short.
But ingrained parsimony is hard to overcome. The worker would bring one piece occasionally, I would grab it and immediately declare it useless. I usually quietly told them, 'Go get 2 more and inspect them first! While you are walking.'
We had a 5 year problem with a bean counter that brought in a new supplier, who filled our bins with off shore crap. Bolts were snapping, pipe castings leaking, orders were to use the stuff up.
Finally somebody got permanent disability from a machine that failed from fake Grade 8 bolts.
McMaster Carr was quietly brought back, the stock was replaced and for years we were still finding those naughty bit's
Tin Can
I've thought of converting a monkey wrench to left-handed just as a conversation piece. It's been done in fiction if not in real life by Richard McKenna of Sand Pebbles fame. There was a time when creative people worked hard at being pranksters instead of merely repeating old tricks.
Preventing oxidation/corrosion on aluminum by very carefully cleaning it after finishing the bare metal, then while wet, dripping nitric acid into overlapping circles on the surface, then rewashing... This changes the bluish/blackish oxides to a natural clear whiteish oxide, and the surface then becomes the analog of stainless steel protective oxides, and stays looking like it was finished, for many years to come... I still have some parts that were treated treated this way 25ish years ago, and they still look like they were cut yesterday!!! (I learned this from a old technical book "Metal Seaplane Construction", and this was the process for corrosion proofing...)
I'd still be using this, but my local source for nitric acid (Tri-Ess Sciences) is now long gone... :-(
Steve K
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