Thread: We Have Skills Too !!

I recently helped my oldest daughter make 20 lbs of 50% ground elk and 50% ground pork into a breakfast sausage and the same amount and % of meat into Italian sausage along with about 15-18 lbs of ground elk.

We used their huge 1.75 HP Cabelas grinder which takes a #42 plate and knife. The plate is 5 inches in diameter. My #22's plates for my 1 HP Cabelas are 3.5 inches across.

I've always used a separate stuffer for sausage, even when I stuffed into the tube bags however they use the stuffer along with a dead man foot switch which came from Cabelas. It worked great, however the switch is very small and lightweight and was easily kicked around and had to be drug back out. I also didn't like the way the power cord plugged in. Here's an online pic of their switch:



It's hard to see but the grinder's cord plugs into the switch's cord.

I also found the $50.00 price for the switch unreasonable. Pretty much paying for the name. I will give them credit in that the housing was sheet metal.

Well being part Scot off to Harbor Freight went I. Their dead man switch was $14.00 before tax. Here's theirs:



It's much larger but the housing is plastic. So I dug out some scrap wood and made a base for it. I found the higher switch a bit awkward so I added a raised 'heel'. I had some 1/8" thick black rubber left over from this project. https://sharprazorpalace.com/finer-t...n-project.html so I used it on the bottom of the base and on top of the heel.

Here's the finished results.





It works great--well it seems to work great turning kitchen appliances on but I will find out how it works with the grinder later.

The harbour freight switch from what I see is 15 amps and from what you say that will be pushing it. The cabellas switch has no online rating.

Empty grinder it would stop and start easily but if loaded?

Good question my friend.

The grinder doesn't have any rating for 'Amps' it only lists the unit at 750 watts.

I also failed to mention that I'll only be using the foot switch for stuffing NOT for any grinding.

The circuit breakers for the wall plugs are 15 amp.

Any thoughts would be very much appreciated. I'm quite ignorant about electricity.

UPDATE!

I finally found what the amps rating for the Cabelas foot switch is:



It's 15 amps just like the HF and we used the foot switch for grinding the elk and pork and both were partially frozen so I 'think' I'll be OK but only time will tell.

Good points, I think you wil be fine.

The thing that made me question it is that while stuffing you will be starting and stopping it at full load. At least the grinder maybe not the motor.

I just replaced the headlight bulbs in my nissan altima. Had to pull the plastic out of the wheel wells to get up in there. Plus it takes those Zenon bulbs that cost 100 bucks each. I found some on Amazon for 30 a set. Made my day and my wallet is much happier too.

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Originally Posted by Gasman

I just replaced the headlight bulbs in my nissan altima. Had to pull the plastic out of the wheel wells to get up in there. Plus it takes those Zenon bulbs that cost 100 bucks each. I found some on Amazon for 30 a set. Made my day and my wallet is much happier too.

Oh how I long for the days when two screws came out of the bezel around the headlight, then the bulb came loose and you unplugged it and just plugged the new $3.00 replacement in and re-installed the bezel.

My mom's car had the fancy dancy headlights and while I didn't need to remove the inner fender well BUT you had to be a contortionist to get the plug out and put it back once you'd replaced the bulb and carefully wiped it off with alcohol to remove any oil so the bulb didn't burn out prematurly.

I was at a friends auto repair shop many years ago and he was using cuss words that would make a sailor blush. He had the front right hand tire off and had a 3/6" hand ratchet with a 3 foot extension with swivels at both ends. He was 'trying' to remove the #8 spark plug without having to unbolt the motor mounts and then lift the engine as the Chilton's manual recommended.

He took a break to just BS and I left him to his task. I didn't envy him in the least.

Wanted to practice my tig welding on thin stuff, and needed to consolidate space so I made up a stand to mount the 3 in 1 on top of the mig welder out of 8 gage, and a drawer out of 22 gage steel. Same stuff I’ll be using to repair my Mg.


Figured make a drawer for the wasted space in between the units, and a handy place for the accessories. Gas Tank sits on the back and this way I can use the wheels built in to the mig cart to haul both units around




Still need to weld on some hose hooks, and a locking bar for the upper unit, but it’ll work for around the house, and I’m out of evening to make it any prettier tonight..
Cheers gents.

During the summer of 2019 my best friend Carl was here for a visit and during that time he and I constructed a new gate to my back yard. While I am a renter 100% of this was out of my pocket book.

The old rickety gate's hinges were mounted on the fence and Carl designed it to swing from the house for rigidity.



Well he had to head back to Southern California before we could figure out how to be able to open the gate from the outside so I drilled a hole and used a piece of 1/16" steel rod to hook onto the latch and I made a round piece to be able to easily grab the rod.

It worked so-so and I kept trying to get it work really smooth but sometimes the clasp wouldn't grab the rod so I decided to have another go with it.

I bought a 2' length of copper pipe, re-drilled the hole at more of an angle and found that for some reason the last inch or so there was a bit of resistance. I used a marks-a-lot to find the angles and removed the pipe and cut them off a bit long, then used my tabletop belt sander to get the cuts smoother then I removed the burrs inside and out and before installing the pipe I annealed both ends.

Once installed I worked to form a 'fish mouth' on both ends to help keep the tube in place. I purchased some 1/16" stainless steel cable with some aluminum pinch clamps and a stainless steel ring to use to release the latch.

Here's what I ended up with:







I'm sure that I'll replace the cloth line with the SS cable and probably use a little heavier weight however for now it works like a charm

Hey Roy - How do you lock it so no one gets into your backyard uninvited? Just curious....