One common joinery method used in wood working is the mortise and tenon. A mortise is basically a hole in a piece of wood and the tenon is another piece of wood cut to tightly fit in that hole. The tenon is usually secured in place with either glue or a wooden pin or wedge.
The folks over at [WayOutWest] were building a fence and needed a way to cut a bunch of mortises in 4×4 inch posts to accept 2×6 inch rails. Although they had a chainsaw, trying to cut a mortise with it by hand turned out to be super dangerous because the chainsaw would kick up every time the tip of the blade touched the wood. The team had some parts kicking around so they made a fixture to hold the chainsaw as it is plunged into the 4×4’s.
The contraption’s frame is made from an old scaffolding stand and the slides are just pipes inside of pipes. The chainsaw is bolted to the slide and a lever moves it forward and back. A second lever moves the piece of wood getting mortised up and down so that the mortise can be cut to any width. This is a pretty ingenious build that only cost a little effort and will end up saving a bunch of time mortising countless fence posts.
Continue reading “Massive Wood Joints With Chainsaw Mortiser”
[Morgan Rauscher] is a rather eccentric artist, inventor, maker, professor… jack of all trades. His latest project is called the Art-Bot – and it’s an 8′ robotic arm equipped with a chainsaw. Did we mention you can control it via arcade buttons?
He’s been building sculptures for over 10 years now, and has enjoyed observing the evolution of automated manufacturing – from CNC machines to laser cutters and even now, 3D printers. He loves the technologies, but fears machines are making it too easy – distancing us from the good old physical interaction it once took to make things with a few simple tools. His Art-Bot project attempts to bridge that gap by bringing tactile transference to the experience.
The cool part about the Art-Bot is that it is mostly made of recycled materials – in particular, bicycle parts!
Making a robot from bicycle parts is really not that difficult, and I highly recommend it.
The rest of the robot consists of electric actuators (linear), the control circuitry, and of course — a chainsaw. For safety’s sake, [Morgan] also built a polycarbonate wall around it to protect users from
it going on a murderous rampage wood chips and other debris thrown from the robot.
Continue reading “What Could Possibly Go Wrong Giving a Robot a Chainsaw?”
For his Beyond Unboxing series, [Charles] tore apart a Ryobi cordless chainsaw to get a better look at how this battery powered tool works.
Inside he found a three-phase motor and controller. This motor looks like it could be useful in other projects since it has a standard shaft. The battery pack was popped open to reveal a set of LG Chem 21865 cells, and some management hardware.
With all the parts liberated from the original enclosure, [Charles] set up the motor, controller, and battery on the bench. With a scope connected, some characterization of the motor could be done. A load was applied by grabbing the spinning shaft with welding gloves. [Charles] admits that this isn’t the safest way to test a motor.
While it is a very fast motor, the cut-in speed was found to be rather low. That means it can’t start a vehicle from a stop, but could be useful on e-bikes or scooters which are push started.
This chainsaw a $200 motor, controller, and battery set that could be the basis of a DIY scooter. It sounds great too, as the video after the break demonstrates.
[Thanks to Dane for the tip!]
Continue reading “Electric Chainsaw Teardown”
Ready for another ill-advised tool hack we definitely do not recommend you try at home? Why not take a gander at this man’s home-made chainsaw… made out of a grinder! (translated)
What this (Russian?) man has done is modified his large electric grinder — into a chainsaw. He’s added a weld plate, some mounting locations, and now it can accept either grinding wheels, or after a few minutes of assembly, a full length chainsaw blade attachment. He’s probably pretty proud of himself, but we really hope he doesn’t end up losing a finger… or worse.
Anyway, we’re not even going to point out the lack of safety guarding in this video, because it is such an obvious bad idea in general. That being said, it actually works in the demonstration!
Stick around — don’t sweat too much though, no one gets hurt. There is one thing that can be said about this project though… It’s most definitely a hack.
Continue reading “Russian Man Builds a Chainsaw Out of a Grinder”
We’ve covered weed whacker bicycles before and you can even buy 66cc conversion kits now. [geoff390] posted a few videos over on YouTube about another motor option. In the first video embedded below, he goes over the basic parts of his bike. The chainsaw motor is mounted to the side of the back tire and a metal drive wheel extending from the chainsaw shaft makes contact with it. The motor assembly is mounted on a hinge and the friction between the drive wheel and the back tire is adjusted with a turnbuckle. He posted a more detailed second video in which he goes over some of the finer details of the bike and some of the issues he’s had. Continue reading “Chainsaw powered bicycle”
[SOC] posted this crazy real life Lancer, like those found in Gears of War, on the AR15.com forums. You are seeing it right, that is a chainsaw bayonet attached to his assault rifle. We thought these were pretty cool, but this thing actually works. It can be seen on an AR15, pictured above, as well as a giant shotgun. We think the shotgun one would be better fitting for zombie hordes. Barney Fife seems strangely fitting for this picture. Check out a video of it in action after the break.
Continue reading “Real life Gears of War Lancer for zombie fighting”