/202509151210

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The laser welder is hooked up and emitting lasers and melting things and welding things (except copper because fuck copper). And burning a hole into the side of The Shed. Oops. All good, clear, etc. Turns out my old argon tank was borked, so I got one of those big ones that a little shorter than me and all was well. Repaired an earlier lamp project, so it's back to a full strength weld. Also learned that the cleaner function on this thing is insane – though I'll still use the flapper disc and angle grinder for larger cleans and the laser for details and those hard-to-reach spaces, as the soap commercials would say. Might do a little metal piece this afternoon to get acquainted with the thing, then see how I'll use it in conjunction with my baby MIG welder. Probably the MIG for initial assembly, and laser for adding details and cleaning up. TBD.

/202509131102

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Wee baby welding cart has been modified (see Principle _02) to fit the decidedly not baby laser welder, primarily heavier-duty wheels that aren't held on with pins. Still waiting on the new argon regulator so I can either get an argon flow going from my wee argon canister or upgrade from the wee to a non-wee. While I wait: determine if I can move the welding table to The Shed porch and use metalshack as metal storage (though I’ve given the cart heavy duty wheels, moving a 40-lb laser welder down my little alley path between fence and shed isn’t going to happen). There will be lasers, eventually.

🔗 Doctors Modify Hot Glue Gun to Stick Broken Bones Back Together

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via Futurism:

As detailed in a new paper published in the journal Device, the team came up with the unusual device to skip the need for prefabricating complex bone implants. In experiments involving rabbits, the researchers created 3D-printed grafts on the fly, allowing fractured bones to heal and regrow naturally.

Within 12 weeks following surgery on rabbits with severe femoral bone fractures, the researchers found no signs of infection — and better bone regeneration compared to control rabbits, which received more traditional bone cement grafts.

Conventional metal or donor bone implants have to be custom-fitted and manufactured ahead of time, making the new solution quite a bit more straightforward and therefore much faster.