My Projects

Yamaha YS-828W snowblower

admin — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 04:44:24 +0000

Painting my Yamaha Deluxe Fairing – 2010 Grizzly

admin — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 01:02:00 +0000

I found a used Yamaha Deluxe Fairing for my 2010 Grizzly on kijiji.ca with the intention of painting it as the colour didn’t match.

After stripping the fairing I gave it a bath in dish soap and warm water.

After drying I wiped the fairing down with plastic prep which is basically rubbing alcohol. I then scuffed the surface with 1200 grit and wiped the surface again with plastic prep several times.

I followed the directions on the paint can and things turned out well.

Once the paint is cured I will reassemble the fairing and attach to my Yamaha Grizzly 700.

Paint is dry and its all assembled. Looks great. I hope the paint holds up.

All installed and looking great I think!

Rebuilding an impeller.

admin — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 03:59:13 +0000

The impeller on my YS-624 was in bad shape. It looked like it was used to blow gravel then welded to allow it to blow more gravel!

I decided to rebuild the impeller.

First step was to figure out how it was made in the first place. I found that the blades were made from three separate pieces welded together. I started with some 1/8th inch steel plate. I blued the surface of the blanks I made and scribed the layout. I used a hole saw to cut the arc then used my trusty Ryobi cordless jigsaw to cut the pieces out.

I clamped all the like pieces together and filed them to ensure they were the same size.

Pieces are coming together. The holes are for plug welding the pieces together. Once the lower four holes were plug welded the upper part of the brace piece was bent to fit then welded. Once the blades were completed I tacked them to the backing. I clamped the backing to a steel plate to help limit warping.

My completed impeller after welding, balancing and painting.

Yamaha YS-624T snow blower

admin — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 21:46:09 +0000

I picked up a Yamaha snow blower last weekend after looking for one for a while. It is a late 80′s early 90′s model with tracks.

Phottix battery grip

admin — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 21:30:11 +0000

After many months of use the Phottix BG-E5 battery grip and batteries are still working very well. No regrets with that purchase.

Canon Rebel xsi (450D)

admin — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 09:14:15 +0000

I’ve had my Canon Rebel xsi for 7 months now and really enjoy it. It’s my first SLR camera and I’ve had fun learning the basics of photography.

Last week I picked up a battery grip and two spare batteries off eBay. The grip and batteries are Phottix brand. I have read a lot of reviews and comments about aftermarket battery grips and felt confident in the Phottix brand. This is the link to the manufacturers website. I couldn’t pass up the deal as the grip and two batteries was $62 shipped to my door.

I’m very happy with it so far and plan to take it on our trip to Quebec City. We’ll see how well it holds up.

Only 100 more cans to drill and clean…

admin — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 21:17:36 +0000

Nice weather and some spare time pays off as I was able to cut holes into 140 cans and clean them yesterday. I hope to get another 100 finished today.

I picked up two tubes of high temp silicon to stick the cans together.

Problem with using fins in the cans…

admin — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 03:00:48 +0000

I came across this Hungarian website http://www.sorkollektor.hu/ today and after doing some reading (the site does have English information as well) I’ve decided to try my first heater without fins. From the experience of some builders using fins or blades will create much more air flow resistance requiring a larger fan. The larger fan uses more power and produces more noise.

I’ve also noticed some builders painting the entire inside of their heater box black and not painting the cans on both sides. Why go through the trouble and expense of applying foil to the inside of the box just to cover it with paint? The inside of the box should be covered in shiny foil and the back of the cans should be painted. Any radiant heat escaping from the back of the can should get reflected back into the can by the foil.

Weather is getting warmer, time to get back at it.

admin — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 22:29:52 +0000

With the warmer weather coming around the corner I hope to spend more time working on my heater. It’s ironic that it’s too cold in my garage to work on building a heater for my garage…

Wiring single phase motor to drum switch

admin — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 03:07:18 +0000

My Standard Modern lathe originally came with a 3 phase 240 volt, 3 HP motor. As I do not have 3 phase power in my garage I bought a 3HP single phase reversible motor. My original drum switch was missing along with the original 3 phase motor. I bought a Square D drum switch off eBay.

This is how I wired my motor to my drum switch to allow me to reverse it.

These are the basic wiring diagrams of the motor and drum switch.

Motor and drum switch basic diagrams

These are the wiring connections I used. The only issue I have with doing it this way is that L2 is always connected to wire 4 on the motor. Because I have a motor contactor and overload between the L2 to wire 4 connection things should be fine.

Single phase motor to drum switch