Hi everyone,

A few years ago I tried to melt aluminium using an old steel fire extinguisher as crucible. This was done in a homemade foundry using coke as fuel.

Me having no patience, I tried getting the temperature up as fast as possible and a hole was melted in the crucible, producing a very bright light.

Could the molten aluminum have reacted with the rusty steel fire extinguisher to produce thermite?

Does anyone know what this is and what it turns into, if anything?
The thickest part of the body was about 1 cm in diameter.
Found in a park in Brussels

Hi everyone,

I need to bend some oak for a project. I've done it before but it was a long time ago...

Two questions :

1. my plan is to bend a 40x70 mm (1,5" x 2,75") section of oak to a 500mm (20") internal radius, is that realistic?

2. do I have to steam the whole piece or can I build a smaller steam box to only accept the end that needs to be bent?

Thanks in advance for any help!

Edit: added measurements in inches for universal convenience

Hello everyone,

Sorry I don't have a bird picture but I came here with a bird question ( I'm 99% sure it's a bird question). I hope this is not against the rules but I read them and it seemed ok.

My "backyard" is covered in gravel (intentionally by the owner, I'm just renting) and i've noticed a bunch of little mounds appeared over time.

I've searched a bit online and saw that blackbirds tend to do this while foraging, which makes sense because I often see them there looking for food even though I've never seen them building those.

My first question is, is it really blackbirds that are making these?

For context:

I live in northwestern Europe and usually see pigeons, crows, blackbirds, sparrows, magpies, chickadees, parakeets (their ancestors were released a while back in the city and they've been thriving since), and the occasional bluejay.
I never saw crows or magpies in the backyard though.

My second question is: why do they do it and why do they also drove little sticks into the ground in the middle of those piles?

You can see the sticks on the pictures, I've pulled a few of them out and they're definitely not just plants growing there.
They're stuck what feels like 2 cm deep into the ground.

Thanks you for your time and potential answer.

Looks like something has been cleaning my garden table :)

Any idea what did this? I live in western/central-ish europe.

Hi everyone,

Years ago I came across a video on YouTube (most likely) that was about old (70s/80s?) CGI technology.

IIRC it was basically a very fancy oscilloscope, took up a whole room and was used mainly to produce 3D titles.

I think it was operated using a bunch of knobs.

My apologies for the limited amount of details, like I said it's been years...

I hope you can help me scratch that itch, I've been trying to find it every now and then but no luck :(

Thanks for reading and for the potential help!

Edit: corrected 60s to 80s

Hi, I just received a reward code from Duolingo but I don't play Genshin impact so I thought I'd give it to one of you guys.

First come first serve, leave a comment if you used so we avoid false hopes for others :)

Here you go:
5TZVUVBEY3YH

So here it is: the BBK

All your nice words about my last experiment gave me the drive to get it done, thank you all for that!

I knew I had a "butterfly comb" laying around somewhere.
I cut off the comb part of it with an angle grinder and then cut the knife blade to the right size.
I did not remove the handles though and that ended up biting me in the ass...

Using a magnet, I positioned the blade against and in line with the stub left from the comb and proceeded to stick weld them together.
I was dreading that moment as I'm not good with welding and even worse when it comes to thin-ish material, but it went pretty smoothly and I'm happy how it turned out!

I then went on to grinding. I tried removing the handles but only one came off, the heat from the welding must have something to do with that...

Anyways, the hard part was behind me and all that was left was to grind, sand and polish it as well as my impatient self was willing to.

And there it was:

In all its splendor

The

Butter

Fly

Butter

Knife

Hello everyone,
I'm new to this community, got a suggestion to cross-post this from !imadethis@lemmy.zip , hope you appreciate my rough looking knife :)

For making sandwiches on the job because I don't like spreading stuff with a sharp pointy knife or a box cutter.

I made the handle with a piece of L shaped aluminum profile crudely bent using clamps.

I then pierced a hole through the blade and the handle and test fitted it. I didn't like how it looked when closed so I decided to drill a new hole after flipping the handle around. (Hence the hole at the end of the handle and the second hole on the blade).

I then riveted everything together twice (one smaller rivet inside a bigger one, no idea if thats a good idea or not but it looks better). Cut the handle to shape with an angle grinder and softened the edges with a file then different grits of sandpaper.

I got the idea for the handle from the Higonokami.

Thanks for reading, let me know if you have adidas for the next version!

Pretty sure these are eggs... But what creatures will emerge?

Finger for scale

Hi all,

Do you have some recommendations for a soldering station that would meet my needs?

I've been into hobby electronics for a few years, doing mostly analog audio projects but recently got into repairing and repurposing broken electronics (Bluetooth earbuds, speakers, USB cables and such).

I've been using a cheap Parkside(LIDL)-rebranded "generic Chinese product" (I came across the exact same model on AliExpress, in different colors); which has served me well until now but has a few flaws that I can't be bothered with anymore. Mainly: -it takes ages to get hot. -the cable going from the station to the iron is super thick and stiff, which is annoying as hell...

I would like it to be the least expensive possible, while being good enough I'd be happy with it for the foreseeable future.

I have been looking at these:

Old tech, cheap tips (<1€)

Newer tech, "expensive" tips (8-10€)

And wondering how these "newer" types of iron compare to stations, what are the main drawbacks?

Thanks a lot in advance for any input, Please be gentle if you think I'm an idiot :)

Edit: changed the "Smolderin" in title to "soldering"