Eye Bolt

Ok, So thing like this are why I really started this blog. My physics teacher needed a long narrow eye bolt, for his bridge breaking apparatus. The old one worked fine but was a bit to short for some bridges.

Sure he could just buy a longer eye bolt off the internet, but that's expensive and not nearly as fun, as you will find out. Also you cant customize it to the specs that you want. What one is left with is a prime time to DIY.

I went to the local hardware store and found a long threaded rod, basically the same thing as the eye bolt, just really long and straight. So I bought it and took it home with me (besides the point but I think there was a glitch in the computer because both cost me a penny...). Now I had to contemplate how to form this into the shape I wanted.

It's time for that fun I mentioned earlier. I got my oxy-mapp welding torch out, and all the safety equipment required as well! As well as some pliars. I secured the rod in my table vice, and proceed to heat it up with the torch. Once it was glowing hot, it was plenty malleable to bend the end into a loop. Presto! Custom eye bolts!

Toothpick Bridge

Well jumping right into the blog, today I made a toothpick bridge. It's for school, but why not share my findings with the world.

We had strict guidelines to follow: no more than 50 toothpicks, only "woodglues" so only PVA's and aliphatic resin emulsion, and other various building restrictions.


I decided on Titebond 2 for the glue to use on this, Titebond seems to be the leading developer of glues and this product was best for this instance. http://www.newwoodworker.com/reviews/titebond.html that site helped a lot in deciding which glue to decide on.


Basically my bridge is two beams of interlaced toothpicks, very simple and they seem to be strong. The construction of each beam is 5 toothpicks interlaced halfway on the other and a 6th toothpick, broken in half, to fill in the gap. Do that 2 more times and glue those together. At this point I put all of that in my table vice to apply even pressure. Then I made another. These will be placed over the 15cm gap and a block that the weight is mounted to will keep the two in place, or so I hope.

I'm hoping my simplicity wont cause me to fail this whole project but if it does, I will have learned a lot, and in the end that's what really matters. Or so I'm told... The goal is to have the highest efficiency, the weight carried divided by the weight of the bridge. Results will be reported on Tuesday.