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Don’t let the advertising-quality photography fool you: This is the work of an individual maker (specifically Matt of Wood&Faulk) who wants to share it with you just for the pleasure of sharing. Well, that and the traffic, probably. We all <3 the traffic. [via NOTCOT]

Back in January, John Baichtal wrote about the Bolt Depot’s downloadable PDF posters [PDF, 520K] of common (and not so common) screws, bolts, washers, nuts, and other fasteners. But we thought, in light of our Mechanics Skill Set coverage, we’d remind our readers of them. Not only is the PDF great, but the Bolt Depot web catalog offers a much deeper database of these hardware types, with nice, big illustrations of each part, descriptions, common sizing, common alloys, etc.

A big part of learning a skill set like basic mechanical engineering is knowing what parts are available, what they’re called, and how they’re used. A free resource like this goes a long way towards understanding fastening technology, all based around the gloriously simple machinery of the screw. These reference posters are great to keep in your toolbox, on your bench, or slotted into the pocket of your Maker’s Notebook.

Bolt Depot Fastener Type Chart

More:
All of our Mechanics coverage

We have covered the process for drilling square holes (with rounded corners) using the Watts drill before, but in the intervening time some cool videos demonstrating the process have surfaced on YouTube, e.g. the one I’ve embedded, above, from user jacquesmaurel.

The Watts drill is based on the Reuleaux triangle, and this promotional video for the book How Round is Your Circle? (which we covered back in 2009) animates the principle nicely.

Turns out it’s also possible to drill hexagonal hole using a very similar tool based on the Reuleaux pentagon. The video immediately above, again from jacquesmaurel, shows a tool he describes as a “Vika attachment,” mounted in a lathe, boring an hexagonal hole in a piece of stock. The video below, part of the Wolfram Demonstrations Project, illustrates the process.

These Reuleaux-polygon based drilling and boring processes should not be confused with the very similar process of rotary broaching. [via Core77]

We have covered the process for drilling square holes (with rounded corners) using the Watts drill before, but in the intervening time some cool videos demonstrating the process have surfaced on YouTube, e.g. the one I’ve embedded, above, from user jacquesmaurel.

The Watts drill is based on the Reuleaux triangle, and this promotional video for the book How Round is Your Circle? (which we covered back in 2009) animates the principle nicely.

Turns out it’s also possible to drill hexagonal hole using a very similar tool based on the Reuleaux pentagon. The video immediately above, again from jacquesmaurel, shows a tool he describes as a “Vika attachment,” mounted in a lathe, boring an hexagonal hole in a piece of stock. The video below, part of the Wolfram Demonstrations Project, illustrates the process.

These Reuleaux-polygon based drilling and boring processes should not be confused with the very similar process of rotary broaching. [via Core77]

When I’m taking something apart, using a magnetic parts tray for the screws and other tiny metal bits is one of the best things I can do (together with taking pictures as I go) to make sure that it all goes back together again more or less as it’s supposed to.

So the last time I was disassembling an appliance for repair (a video projector, in this case), and I was carefully arranging the screws for each subassembly in a separate little pile in my parts tray, it occurred to me that it’d be nice to have a magnetic parts tray with compartments for this purpose. And when I was imagining what the dividers would look like, a shape like the blade of a fruit wedger occurred to me.

For some reason, I have two fruit wedgers. I never use a fruit wedger, but when and if I ever decide to start, I am confidant that my needs will be served by only one.

So I busted the plastic ring off one of them and, after breaking off some small bits to round the ends of the blades, discovered that the blade assembly fit pretty well into my 4? magnetic parts tray. And actually works pretty well as a divider, too. I knocked the sharp edges off with a file.