iEngineer - handy pocket reference

...because you have your iPhone in your pocket, don't you?

And when you stand there wondering about what the recommended torque for a M12x1,5 grade 10.9 bolt is, whip out your iPhone and start iEngineer:

Start-up screen - iPhone 5s screenshot

And then select your bolt size:

Easy selection of screws - iPhone 5s screenshot

Hey, it even shows the pitch diameter! Nice! But swipe sideways on the top half, and soon you'll see

Ahh, there's the torque - iPhone 5s screenshot 

There! Now just oil the threads, set your wrench to 92 Nm and pull. What are those funny numbers instead of the signal strength bars? Field test mode!

Interesting that a bolt of this size and thread clamps five tons!

I find this app well worth having, packs a lot of useful info into your already crowded iPhone!
Couple this with MechTab if you need more thread data, like if you need to cut a thread in the lathe and don't have dies or taps. Those two apps can really make mechanical work easier.

Fun stuff! Old gentleman's cow clipper...

Yup, time again for one of those fun little jobs. This old gentleman came into the shop with an old clipper machine. It had this brass adjusting screw that goes into the gear housing and pushes on a bow-shaped spring that in turn pushes the moveable clipper blade against the fixed one. On the end of the adjusting screw there is a small shouldered steel screw that holds the spring and screw together through a hole in the spring. That small screw was broken off and the gent had tried to drill the remains out.

Well, brass with a bit of steel stuck in it is not that easy to drill, so now the thing was messed up with a hole poking out the side of the brass screw. As we talked, we arrived at the price of the repair. Sadly, the size and the price of things like this seldom match. This nice old man understood that I charge for my time, and replied that this repair would be cheaper than a new clipper anyway so go ahead and fix it. Man, I like to hear that!


So, here is new screw assembled with the spring:

That's fun & done! - iPhone 4s

Unfortunately I don't have any pictures during the making of it, but it involved turning and knurling the brass stock, turning the major screw diameter, single point threading it M6x1 (IIRC) to a nice tight fit for the locking nut, drilling and tapping the end for a M3 thread and then parting off the screw. For the securing screw I took a shortcut, I actually loctited a nut on a M3 screw and then turned that into a shoulder that fit the hole in the spring. This is hidden inside the gear housing so it was function before looks on this one and it does the job just fine.


I really enjoy these little jobs that comes every now and then, especially when the customer is as nice as this old man was! Now cows, you better watch out...