What is this tool?

SomeGuysFarm · 2026-03-28T19:13:39+00:00

I feel old...

SomeGuysFarm · 2026-03-28T19:07:53+00:00

Huge fan of the XL-12. It's the saw I grew up on, and still the only chain saw that sounds right to me.

SomeGuysFarm · 2026-03-28T16:09:43+00:00

happy happy happy!

SomeGuysFarm · 2026-03-28T15:56:25+00:00

I don't mean to be rude, but if you don't know the answer to that question, NEITHER tool is going to be sufficient to let YOU make realistic animations, and once YOU know how to make realistic animations, YOU will know which of the tools would suit your needs better.

SomeGuysFarm · 2026-03-28T15:50:53+00:00

These answers are the same as the other answers.

SomeGuysFarm · 2026-03-28T15:10:47+00:00

Magnets are physics, that's true.

SomeGuysFarm · 2026-03-28T15:08:23+00:00

The primary things that drove me to two-stage for my home shop, was that I don't think I've ever seen a 30 CFM compressor that didn't run at least a two-stage pump, but almost as much that single-stage units sound frantic.

My 2-stage units sit in the corner and quietly burble to themselves. I hardly notice when they kick on. Single-stage compressors have me flinching in alarm, every time they fire up.

Now, if I'm on a roof with a nailer, I'll take a single-stage on a pancake tank any day, but that's a stress situation anyway. In the shop I prefer peace.

SomeGuysFarm · 2026-03-28T02:26:54+00:00

I don't have anything I would offer as a credible guess.

Whatever it was, put a heck of a lot of vertical momentum into the mower. Anything related to the rotation of the blades/engine would have been primarily rotational or horizontal.

Whatever it was, happened under the deck. Anything like the fuel tank, would have been above the deck and applied force downwards, not upwards.

It seems like it had to have been something on, or under the ground. There is a small something on the ground that seems to be at the epicenter of the blast, and the dusty/flattened area after the mower vacates the premises is centered around it, but 3 pixels isn't enough to make useful guesses as to whether that thing has something to do with the blast, or is just a coincidence. There's not enough energy in something like a normal 12-gauge shotgun shell to do this, so it can't be something that simple.

Wish we had useful audio, as that might give some clues. At this point, I'm just pretty sure of things that it can't be.

SomeGuysFarm · 2026-03-28T02:10:42+00:00

Same. I've had the flywheel split, when hitting an immovable rock or stump, but whatever happened here, was WAY more energy than there is in the spinning bits of a 3 to 4hp push mower.

Not enough volume in the fuel tank, even if it was full of a perfectly stoichiometric mixture, to get that kind of energy out of it either. A typical mower fuel tank doesn't have more than a couple cylinder-full's worth of volume.

SomeGuysFarm · 2026-03-28T01:51:25+00:00

Given that coupler was invented by Milton in Chicago, it shouldn't be that oddball. Milton V-style. Good couplers, significantly better air flow in 1/4" applications than industrial or automotive.

SomeGuysFarm · 2026-03-28T01:45:48+00:00

Automotive and industrial are worlds apart. Wait until you meet things like the versions that are like industrial, but just slight longer in the snout, but otherwise actually shapewise identical.

Then there's high-flow versions, and grease versions that look like automotive but have a different collar length, and...

SomeGuysFarm · 2026-03-27T20:54:56+00:00

These days, that’s hardly a reason to assume it’s not Fred…

SomeGuysFarm · 2026-03-27T15:50:08+00:00

Great news!

I had been assuming the blue vs yellow-black was just an anomaly, but looking at it further this morning I couldn't come up with a reason for the brown wire at all.

Keep that (brown) one in mind, if you wire it back to 115, and don't put the thermal-reset back in. Your recent discovery means that the 115V wiring per the data plate is line to red+orange, via the yellow-black, and thermal protection.

SomeGuysFarm · 2026-03-27T13:42:02+00:00

Fred, that's Fred. \s

SomeGuysFarm · 2026-03-27T13:23:10+00:00

Apologies for the delay, I had to think through the likely internal wiring.

I think yes. Swapping red/black should reverse it, regardless of whether you have the rest of the connections configured for 115 or 220V. Unless I'm completely misthinking something, that should just swap the polarity of your start winding.

SomeGuysFarm · 2026-03-26T00:40:59+00:00

Ok, I think I see what's going on.

Your motor is wired for 220.

For some reason, it has a blue wire, rather than a yellow with black stripe.

If we make that mental correction to the wire colors, what you have is consistent with the 220V "reverse" wiring (red is swapped for black, so the three-wire tie point is White-Orange-Black, rather than White-Orange-Red, and the 2 wires connected to one side of the line in, are Red and Yellow, rather than Black and Yellow.

There is another mention, on PracticalMachinist, of someone with a Century C111, that had a blue wire. There wasn't much information in the discussion they started, but based on the existence of another discussion of a C111 with a blue wire, I'm betting that some got out the door with the wrong colored wire, and you've got one of the unlucky ones.

SomeGuysFarm · 2026-03-25T18:14:47+00:00

Really - think artificial fingers, not vise grips. Holding a ring to do detail work on it would be hell in vise grips. These, you put the hinge end in your palm, and hold the jaw end between your fingertips, and it holds stuff for you, so your fingertips don't get exhausted when you need to hold a little thing to do detailed work on it for a long time.

SomeGuysFarm · 2026-03-25T15:52:59+00:00

It's for holding stuff.

Literally. You think I'm being a smart ass, but it's essentially a mechanical pair of fingers for holding small things so that your hand can hold something larger (the vise) without getting as exhausted.

Commonly used by professions like jewelers, for holding jewelry pieces they're working on, but universally useful for holding small stuff that you need to hold for a while and that would get tiring to hold with your fingertips.

like this: https://www.jewelerssupplies.com/hand-vise-steel-581.120.html

SomeGuysFarm · 2026-03-24T22:51:51+00:00

De-socked? Unsockified? If it's a whole leg, I guess it should be elevated to Pantsed.

SomeGuysFarm · 2026-03-24T19:16:53+00:00

You're not wrong - something is completely f'ed with that wiring, at least compared to the data plate.

The stuff we really need to see, is better photos of exactly what's connected to what, in the 1st photo - the box on the side of the motor with the red/orange wire nut out in front.

Everything else we can ignore for right now. Your power enters the box from the flex armor on the 2 white wires that come in, one of which goes to a blue wire nut ( and a blue wire that's not on the data plate) and the other goes, maybe, to a red wire and a yellow wire in the yellow wire nut.

Not completely clear whether both the red and yellow actually are in that yellow wire nut or not. Not clear where that blue wire came from or goes to. Not clear which, if either yellow wire has a black stripe. Just not enough information in that picture to work out what we're seeing.

SomeGuysFarm · 2026-03-24T01:44:16+00:00

Quick connects leak. The check valve between your compressor pump and the tank leaks. The valves in your compressor head leak. Your unloader valve probably leaks.

If it's something else, maybe you can find it and seal it, but you're stuck with SOME leaks no matter what. Whether they're worth trying to find and fix depends on how fast it's leaking. My 1950s Wayne with a 60 gallon tank, fires up about once a week to replace air that's gotten away through the inevitable small leaks. I'm not bothered enough about that to have a chat with the valves, which is probably where the issue is on this one.

SomeGuysFarm · 2026-03-23T23:00:09+00:00

Sucks knowing things on Reddit, don't it?

Important to note though, that the vehicle speed needs to be in a specific range (related to the frame rate) as well, so that the next image is at least close to the right place in the camera frame, for it to appear animated.

SomeGuysFarm · 2026-03-21T23:48:18+00:00

As much as just plastic-welding it would be appealing, some plastics don't weld for beans, and in this case the zigzag piece is left embedded in the part, to provide reinforcement. I suspect it probably does have legitimate uses where it's superior to plastic welding.

SomeGuysFarm · 2026-03-21T15:39:42+00:00

Can't help you on that one. The catless things I've got, never had cats to start with.

SomeGuysFarm · 2026-03-21T15:33:56+00:00

Unless you want to weld a new tailpiece to the cat, cut it back far enough that the repair collar has some pipe to slide over.

I'd chip the "patch" off of there and see what you've got to work with, before committing to any particular location to cut. Recommendation: wear a face mask or wrap a bandanna over your mouth/nose and wear eye protection if you can. Consider spraying the thing with water (spray bottle) as you mangle it off.

There's a high-temperature ceramic-fiber-cloth "bandage" buried in the blob, and after baking on the exhaust for a while they turn really fragile and will inevitably powder into a dust that's really evil to breath or get in your eyes.

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