u/isnt_easy

So after identifying a very cool looking "Daemel's Spiny Ant" about 10 hours ago during the afternoon I decided to head out at 1am & have another look to see if anyone different might be inhabiting my vines in the dead of the night...

I came across this little fellow.

- Northside Brisbane QLD

- Coastal area

- inhabits: Passionfruit vine

- time of day: 1am

- estimated <5mm long

I'd love any interesting information, as well as an ID if you guys don't mind.

Firstly the formalities...

Northside Brisbane, Coastal area, passionfruit vine, probably in the ballpark of 8mm long.

Okay, so I have myself a few passionfruit vines in thier second year of flowering currently... around early to mid spring when the first hot & humid days took place I had aphids move in & naturally the common black ants are protecting them & collecting thier dew etc...

Last year I had a thriving ecosystem of jumping spiders, lady beetles etc to maintain a balance... however this year they have been completely absent... so I created a few little habitat style areas for predators of the black ants to live/nest/hide, & created a shallow water habitat to give the lady bugs no reason to leave.

Immediately I have had many lady bugs move in, & while I have not seen any jumping spiders, I have seen these large ants moving in over the last few days.

My query's are;

- what's is he?

- will he fill the role of predator of the black ants?

- is he going to do damage to my passionfruit vine?

- is he going to damage my passionfruit once my vines begin fruiting?

- are there any other concerns I should have about these guys moving in?

Thank you in adv-ants

...

🫣

Had this sprocket laying around & decided I want to run it, but it looked kinda trash so I freshened it up.

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I'm pretty happy with it, whats everyone think?

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- Was originally gloss black.from manufacturer

- then... I did a faux patina finish; gloss black underside, gloss black exterior mating surface & drop out locator, with raw/rusted outer curved guard surface

- now... I sanded back the rust from the curved exterior guard surface, worked up to 2000grit wet/dry, before finally applying metal polish paste & working it to the finish shown here.

Pretty happy with the results personally.

I just did the guard as a bit of a test run before I try it on more complex parts. In the worst case scenario the hub guard can easily be resprayed black if I didn't get a good result.

Cheers 🤙

I have this Tech-77 brake lever that I have had stored away with a bunch of other old miscellaneous parts U def my house...

I was going to try fix if up & respray it just because why not, then I saw a video about how to tell old levers from newer production levers.

Anyway the video basically looks at the underside of the lever having one of two stamped markings;

- the older having 'DIA-COMPE'

- the newer having 'DIA-COMPE TAIWAN'

But my Tech-77 lever has no stamp in that location...

Does anyone know what this means?

The masking took longer than I care to admit.