This is not directly boat building related but I thought it might come
in handy for a very frustrating situation that you may encounter. I was
tapping some holes for #6 screws this weekend in a piece of aluminum
that I had spend some time machining. I was on the 8th of 8 holes when
the tap broke off below the surface.

To keep it boat related the aluminum was for a very high tech piece of
boating equipment. A pielter effect thermoelectric beer coozy. :-)

A little research and I find that a hot solution of alum will desolve
the tap without effecting the aluminum. I pulled out the old propane
fish cooker/steambox fire and an aluminum pan. Boiled a gallon of water
and added alum until it quit desolving. Dropped in the part and turned
the fire down real low. Six hours later the tap was mush and the
aluminum was bright and shiny.

Like I said, just something to file away in the back of your mind for
that frustrating situation. It works for brass and bronze too.

--
Glenn Ashmore

I'm building a 45' cutter in strip/composite. Watch my progress (or lack
there of) at: http://www.rutuonline.com
Shameless Commercial Division: http://www.spade-anchor-us.com

GENIUS!!!...PURE GENIUS!...I commend you sir.

Now...if we can just formulate H2O into a combustible fuel... :-)
"Glenn Ashmore" wrote in message
news:2Idub.6403$0K4.2832@lakeread04...
This is not directly boat building related but I thought it might come
in handy for a very frustrating situation that you may encounter. I was
tapping some holes for #6 screws this weekend in a piece of aluminum
that I had spend some time machining. I was on the 8th of 8 holes when
the tap broke off below the surface.

To keep it boat related the aluminum was for a very high tech piece of
boating equipment. A pielter effect thermoelectric beer coozy. :-)

A little research and I find that a hot solution of alum will desolve
the tap without effecting the aluminum. I pulled out the old propane
fish cooker/steambox fire and an aluminum pan. Boiled a gallon of water
and added alum until it quit desolving. Dropped in the part and turned
the fire down real low. Six hours later the tap was mush and the
aluminum was bright and shiny.

Like I said, just something to file away in the back of your mind for
that frustrating situation. It works for brass and bronze too.

--
Glenn Ashmore

I'm building a 45' cutter in strip/composite. Watch my progress (or lack
there of) at: http://www.rutuonline.com
Shameless Commercial Division: http://www.spade-anchor-us.com

Glen, you da man. Update your site, will you? I want to see how that
beautiful boat of yours is coming along.

R.

On Mon, 17 Nov 2003 19:21:13 -0500, Glenn Ashmore
wrote:

This is not directly boat building related but I thought it might come
in handy for a very frustrating situation that you may encounter. I was
tapping some holes for #6 screws this weekend in a piece of aluminum
that I had spend some time machining. I was on the 8th of 8 holes when
the tap broke off below the surface.

To keep it boat related the aluminum was for a very high tech piece of
boating equipment. A pielter effect thermoelectric beer coozy. :-)

A little research and I find that a hot solution of alum will desolve
the tap without effecting the aluminum. I pulled out the old propane
fish cooker/steambox fire and an aluminum pan. Boiled a gallon of water
and added alum until it quit desolving. Dropped in the part and turned
the fire down real low. Six hours later the tap was mush and the
aluminum was bright and shiny.

Like I said, just something to file away in the back of your mind for
that frustrating situation. It works for brass and bronze too.

Wouldn't work when I broke a tap 65' up my mast - it was Al all right


On Mon, 17 Nov 2003 19:21:13 -0500, Glenn Ashmore
wrote:

This is not directly boat building related but I thought it might come
in handy for a very frustrating situation that you may encounter. I was
tapping some holes for #6 screws this weekend in a piece of aluminum
that I had spend some time machining. I was on the 8th of 8 holes when
the tap broke off below the surface.

To keep it boat related the aluminum was for a very high tech piece of
boating equipment. A pielter effect thermoelectric beer coozy. :-)

A little research and I find that a hot solution of alum will desolve
the tap without effecting the aluminum. I pulled out the old propane
fish cooker/steambox fire and an aluminum pan. Boiled a gallon of water
and added alum until it quit desolving. Dropped in the part and turned
the fire down real low. Six hours later the tap was mush and the
aluminum was bright and shiny.

Like I said, just something to file away in the back of your mind for
that frustrating situation. It works for brass and bronze too.

I want to hear more about that beer cooler!

Glenn Ashmore wrote:

SNIP

To keep it boat related the aluminum was for a very high tech piece of
boating equipment. A pielter effect thermoelectric beer coozy. :-)


SNIP

That is the main limitation. It has to stay hot so it is not going to
be much help in the places we are most likely to break a tap. :-(

Panama wrote:
Wouldn't work when I broke a tap 65' up my mast - it was Al all right


--
Glenn Ashmore

I'm building a 45' cutter in strip/composite. Watch my progress (or lack
there of) at: http://www.rutuonline.com
Shameless Commercial Division: http://www.spade-anchor-us.com

It was just a lark. One of the flow meters I bought on eBay for the
watermaker project came with this weird contraption still attached. It
was a pair of water cooled heat sinks with a pair of Peilter chips
sandwiched between. I played with it a couple of times and it sat on my
work bench for a month before I had this revelation. I dug out a chunk
of aluminum scrap, set up a fly cutter to the diameter of a beer can and
milled a semicircle down one side so the can would be in good contact.
Carved up a block of scrap Divinicell the same way for insulation and
covered it in glass/epoxy.

Swapping out one of the heat sinks for the aluminum block and I had an
electric coosy! I am going to mount it on one side of the binnacle and
figure a way to pipe a small flow of water to it. The nice part is that
with a DPDT switch I can reverse the voltage and keep my coffee hot in
the morning and beer cold in the afternoon.

The down side is that while standard US beer cans and Heinie bottles
fit, the new Red Stripes don't.

Jim Conlin wrote:

I want to hear more about that beer cooler!

Glenn Ashmore wrote:


SNIP

To keep it boat related the aluminum was for a very high tech piece of
boating equipment. A pielter effect thermoelectric beer coozy. :-)



SNIP


--
Glenn Ashmore

I'm building a 45' cutter in strip/composite. Watch my progress (or lack
there of) at: http://www.rutuonline.com
Shameless Commercial Division: http://www.spade-anchor-us.com

Glenn Ashmore wrote in message news:2Idub.6403$0K4.2832@lakeread04...
This is not directly boat building related but I thought it might come
in handy for a very frustrating situation that you may encounter. I was
tapping some holes for #6 screws this weekend in a piece of aluminum
that I had spend some time machining. I was on the 8th of 8 holes when
the tap broke off below the surface.

To keep it boat related the aluminum was for a very high tech piece of
boating equipment. A pielter effect thermoelectric beer coozy. :-)

A little research and I find that a hot solution of alum will desolve
the tap without effecting the aluminum. I pulled out the old propane
fish cooker/steambox fire and an aluminum pan. Boiled a gallon of water
and added alum until it quit desolving. Dropped in the part and turned
the fire down real low. Six hours later the tap was mush and the
aluminum was bright and shiny.

Like I said, just something to file away in the back of your mind for
that frustrating situation. It works for brass and bronze too.

You can buy or make a little tool that extends 3 'fingers' into the
tap grooves and will (sometimes) allow you to back out the tap
fragment. It sometimes helps a lot to first pour a little acid down
in the hole to loosen things up. Lubricants serve the same function,
but don't work nearly as well.
If the hole is a through-hole, here's another method that nearly
always works: simply press the fragment out. This will tear some
grooves in the wall of the hole, but there is quite often sufficient
metal remaining for adequate threads, and the results won't leave any
trace of your folly to hurt your pride.
Paul Mathews

Paul Mathews wrote:

You can buy or make a little tool that extends 3 'fingers' into the
tap grooves and will (sometimes) allow you to back out the tap
fragment. It sometimes helps a lot to first pour a little acid down
in the hole to loosen things up. Lubricants serve the same function,
but don't work nearly as well.
If the hole is a through-hole, here's another method that nearly
always works: simply press the fragment out. This will tear some
grooves in the wall of the hole, but there is quite often sufficient
metal remaining for adequate threads, and the results won't leave any
trace of your folly to hurt your pride.
Paul Mathews

I have never had much luck with tap extractors smaller than #10 in
aluminum. Aluminum is to gummy and I end up breaking off one of the
fingers. This is relatively painless and leaves clean thread. Besides,
it appeals to my scientific curiosity. :-)


--
Glenn Ashmore

I'm building a 45' cutter in strip/composite. Watch my progress (or lack
there of) at: http://www.rutuonline.com
Shameless Commercial Division: http://www.spade-anchor-us.com

Glenn Ashmore writes:

It was just a lark. One of the flow meters I bought on eBay for the
watermaker project came with this weird contraption still attached. It
was a pair of water cooled heat sinks with a pair of Peilter chips
sandwiched between. I played with it a couple of times and it sat on my
work bench for a month before I had this revelation. I dug out a chunk
of aluminum scrap, set up a fly cutter to the diameter of a beer can and
milled a semicircle down one side so the can would be in good contact.
Carved up a block of scrap Divinicell the same way for insulation and
covered it in glass/epoxy.

A friend of mine got a pile of peltier elements somewhere and did a few
experiments with them. The 'coolest' system was a lid for a cooler box,
fitted with what I remember was 6 BIG peltier elements. The thing took up
so much power that he fitted an old lawnmower motor with an alternator to
keep the beer cold. At the local festival people loved his cold beer but
were not too fond of the noise

A few pictures of the experiments (including an one-bottle version) can be
seen at http://mikavanhala.com/venesivut/kylmakone/

Pekka
--
http://www.puuvene.net/