Behold! Yet another strange contraption!

This is a modified arbor press, which we are going to use to crimp electrical connectors onto brass tubes (yes, the same brass tubes that we previously powder coated).

These arbor presses are great. ENCO sells them for $25.95!! Seriously! Being so cheap, they make a great starting point for any number of different types of assembly tools, as long as they require a pressing motion. Also, they are made of really cheap Chinese cast iron, so they are really easy to mill and drill into!

The red-handled gizmo is a toggle clamp. Toggle clamps are really neat. That little clamp will exert 100 lbs. of clamping force, yet only takes a couple of pounds of force to lock into place. The other great thing about these clamps is that when you open them up they swing completely out of the way, making it very easy to load and unload parts.

And once again, I still cannot yet tell you what this is for. I’m sorry. It won’t be too much longer now.

Here’s the whole soldering jig for the big Studio1Thousand project, finally!

Sometimes it seems easier to just cobble things together, or do things the shady way. When it gets to the point where you have to do something over and over, thousands of times, you have to make fixtures or jigs to help you get it done. It’s not only important to help you do the work more quickly, but also to help ensure that errors are reduced to an acceptable level. You really don’t want to get 1,000 pieces into a manufacturing run, only to find out that one person has been doing their work in a slightly different way than everyone else…

Again, can’t exactly tell you what these are for yet, but we will definitely post up some photos when the project is public!