Once someone realizes you’re a Mechanical Engineer with welding and CNC machining skills, the next words seem to be “hey, I had this idea once…can you help.” Of coarse, I love to help. Next, off I go designing for a friend or family member. Here are a few of those projects.
On the plus side, timelines are generally flexible, but any negative end-result will be reminded next time you see them.
Neighbor Gate, No Sagging
My Neighbor noticed my propensity to overdesign things and insisted I build him a gate on the side of his house. Even though I made it clear I don’t build gates professionally, informing him it’s cheaper through a gate-builder, he insisted. So, being a nice neighbor, off I went designing, fabricating and installing.
“Cypres” Automatic Parachute Activation Device Test
So, you have a friend who buys a device for the sole purpose of saving his life in an emergency. This friend willfully and repeatedly jumps out of a perfectly good airplane for over 10 years with a Cypres style automatic device. The device deploys his emergency chute IF the main chute fails to open at the set altitude pressure.
The wonder, does it work? Would it have saved his life?
Well, we found out (safely).
Retirement Sign
My neighbor had a co-worker retire. He needed an awesome farewell gift. I was able to create this in less than 3 days.
Extra Large Capacity John Deere 1024R Bucket
My Dad uses his John Deere to haul wood and remove lake-weeds at his lake-home cabin in Minnesota. The factory bucket is designed to limit the load/volume capacity based on density of dirt, but not lake weeds. In summer, he can fill up the factory bucket four times in just one day. Thus, I designed him a larger bucket which fits inside the factory one, pins holding in place. This expanded the bucket volume to carry all weeds in one trip.