Last night I attended Nova Labs "Metal Monday", which I do most weeks if robotics isn't too demanding. It's the metal shop's office hours. People can drop by (or, ideally, sign up in advance) to get advice, project help, or just chat. We almost always get a few people stopping by, with any variety of busted tools, interesting things they're working on, and ideas to discuss. One of these was how I got involved with the Hunter Ranch sign.

Last night was no different. Unfortunately, I didn't get any pictures of the things people brought in (I get too caught up in things sometimes to remember to take them) but we had a guy come by who needed help pressing a bearing onto a shaft for his pool pump, another who wanted advice on stripping down and refinishing a camera stabilization mount, and some impromptu conversation on how to hold an aluminum plate for CNC machining.

Since there are occasionally lulls in the action, I generally bring something of my own to work on. My home shop is quite well equipped, but Nova Labs has space to work, something that is sorely lacking in my shop. This time, it was the Vevor Six-Jaw Lathe Chuck I picked up recently, after being made aware of the incredible price on it.

Of course, like many low-price import tools, it arrived in less-than-stellar condition. It's not that it's damaged, but it was still covered in grinding dust, and basically zero effort had been put into removing burrs and otherwise taking it from "done" to "operates smoothly". But this was expected, given the price, so I knew I was going to have to put in a few hours with some files and blue shop towels.

It's nearly done now, so pretty soon I'll be able to toss it on the lathe and see how accurate it is. Frankly, it doesn't need to be particularly so: on the lathe, if a chuck holds something off-center, it still gets round due to the cutting action, as long as you don't wind up needing the portion that was in the chuck. And that often gets parted off. Anyway, we'll see. For just north of $200, if it works reasonably well, it'll still be a bargain.

There are a couple other, smaller spaces that I'll have to take pictures of some other day.

My task for today was to install a utility sink. It's meant to go here

but as you can tell by the lack of a completion picture, I didn't get it done. I got the sink assembled easily enough, but then it was time to hunt for the tools and fittings that would be needed to tie into the existing plumbing, some of which you can see has been cut. So it was off to Lowe's, where I spent a good hour looking for the combination of sweat fittings, SharkBite fittings, and PVC fittings that a) were actually in the store, and b) would let me complete the job.

By the time I got done with that, it was lunchtime, which Nova Labs generously provided for the volunteers (there was a good turnout today of over a dozen). Then it was off home.

So, much progress today, but nothing finished. I'm sure that will be the case for many weeks to come. Still, I enjoy participating.

I spent most of the day driving the forklift, hauling some one big pieces of equipment over to the metal recycling dumpster.

Only the one photo from the day, but I did get a bit of video (courtesy Heather, my forklift mentor) of the forklift in action moving a particularly large piece:

More weekends on this coming up as the space gets emptied out and the actual renovation work starts.

Steve sent over a DXF to start from. I brought it into Fusion and beefed up the geometry in a few spots that looked underbuilt, laser-cut a prototype from thin scrap to check the collet/tool engagement, and later 3D-printed a second prototype once I was more confident in the final dimensions.

Before committing to material, I had an agent run a strain analysis on the design at the target torque (roughly 77 ft-lb — I believe that's the ER20 spec, though I'm not entirely certain) to make sure the thinner sections wouldn't yield or flex enough to throw off the actual clamping torque. That analysis is what drove a couple of the geometry changes.

Final parts are 17-4 PH stainless, laser-cut to shape on my fiber laser.

They're surface-ground before and after heat treatment (mostly for appearance), and heat-treated to the H900 condition for strength.

I laser-engraved the tool type on each wrench with my smaller galvo fiber laser and filled the engraving with orange nail polish — orange being Nova Labs' color.

Here's a short video of the galvo laser engraving the ER20 wrench.

Wrenches are done and headed to Nova Labs.

The first phase was clearing out what SunDog left behind, and the main space is now largely empty of their equipment. The work has started shifting to actual renovation. I've been trying to get out to help every week. So far that has included general cleanup and installing a utility sink. Walls, floors, electrical, and whatever else it turns out to need will follow.

The main space on October 4, looking one way down the room.

And looking the other way, with volunteers at work.

If you look very closely, you can see some misalignment in the holes. That was operator error, where I did not correctly recover my position after pausing the job.

The guy made it for a friend to thank him for letting him use his ranch to hunt on. It's about 4' by 3'.

Here's the prototype just after I finished it in December 2024, laid out on the floor: the black gear with the orange light bulb, and the layered orange, black and white lettering, held together with standoffs.