Tag: diy

Hooked!

2024 marks our tenth year renting the same Florida house, wherein hangs our Florida boat, graciously placed in our care by the landlord for a modest sum, and which has since consumed many thousands of dollars in upkeep.

And in all this time I’ve neglected to attend a niggling detail, that of a common iron hook upon which the boat was hanging, shedding rust flakes on fiberglass, leaving stains, and giving the successor captain more work to do.

I’d say I didn’t clean up after replacing the hardware so I could take a more evidentiary photograph, but the truth is that rehanging the boat was a struggle and I was tired. In fact, the business of finding a heavy duty SS latch hook was itself a struggle, which is part of the reason why it took ten years to get the job done.

But the main reason is that we’re getting older, and maintenance has become such a dreaded chore that, this time, when I replaced the hook, I wanted it to be the last time.

Is age creeping up on you? What are you doing to deal with it. Tell us in the comments.

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Ludditeticulous!

So, Linda brings home this $5 Hewlett-Packard Deskjet 2772 printer/scanner from the women’s club rummage sale, because my $20 yard sale Canon Pixma IP3500 that I bought for the Florida house ten years ago doesn’t have a scanner.

The HP is slow, ink carts are expensive, the print head is unserviceable but yes, it does have a scanner. For $5 I can run the ink dry and throw it away. Good so far, right?

Continue reading “Ludditeticulous!” →
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Un-Docked!

Following one hurricane and a tropical storm that should have been classified as a hurricane, the dock at our winter residence in Florida was left unserviceable.

Our landlord of ten years was not able to get the dock repaired before our arrival. His favorite contractor has more on the table than he can handle. We’ve been here two weeks. Nothing’s happening.

Continue reading “Un-Docked!” →
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Unfulfilled

It’s Tinkerer Wednesday! Today I’m contemplating the fill port on a West Bend Manufacturing Webalco 17209 liquid-core electric skillet, and wondering where I can get high-temperature silicone heat-transfer oil on the cheap.

Update: A reader recommended DOT5 silicone brake fluid. I tried it. It works!

#saladmaster #regalware #lifetime

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Computerfied

My Dell XPS 8700 is seventeen years old. Anyone else would have given up on it, but I nursed it along, and it sufficed until the release of Unreal Engine 5. You see, I need UE5. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to use it effectively, but right now I gotta have it.

Prophetically, the old girl gave me a goodbye wave during the cutover procedure – a disk drive failed to mount. The backup was three weeks old. I did a restart. The drive mounted. I pumped it. Crisis averted.

Continue reading “Computerfied” →
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Washed out!

The dishwasher in our (rented) winter home quit working. We have a long relationship with the owner, and part of the value proposition is that I fix things.

So, I decided to fix the dishwasher. Off we go to YouTube and other informative sources, where I learned the problem could be as simple as a broken wash impeller. It’s right under the wash arm. The repair video makes it look like no big deal. The dishwasher is perhaps forty-years old, although since it’s installed in a vacation home, it probably has less than eight years worth of use on it.

Continue reading “Washed out!” →
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Plan SSD From Outer Space

If you’re one of the four visitors who read the last post, you’ll know what this is about – and yes, the mission was successful.

I installed Crucial MX500 SSD boot drives in a pair of Lenovo AIO 520S-23IKU computers (2017) and a Samsung 870 EVO drive in a Gateway NV77H23U laptop (2012). On the first attempt, the Samsung went into one of the Lenovo machines, provoking an intermittent failure (No operating system). So I tried the Crucial devices AND I changed my procedure.

Instead of cloning the boot drive using the same machine the SSD was destined for, I used another computer for the task – taking the mechanical drive out and then connecting both old and new drives via USB. Both Crucial drives cloned without incident and I suspect this difference in procedure is responsible for subsequent success installing the Samsung EVO in my geriatric Gateway machine.

Continue reading “Plan SSD From Outer Space” →
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How to build an alien death ray

Another teaser from a work-in-progress novel, demonstrating that it's hard to write hard science fiction. This bit might have flaws, as I've never actually built a laser. Comments from those who have are solicited.

Chapter 167

Titan Pass, Nevada

Lasers are uncomplicated devices, but as one scales them up, they can be challenging to build. Small gas and ruby lasers are easy to make; but if one desires a large-scale diamond laser, he’d better have on hand an assortment of supplies and tooling.

Borosilicate glass pipe, taken off the bill-of-materials of a coal dust combustion reactor (for a never-to-be-assembled abrasives processing line), makes a fine armature for a lasing rod.

Insert the pipe into the chuck of a CNC lathe/vertical milling machine, trickle in refined diamond grit, pulse into a liquid state with an Anye-tech fuser mounted to a servo-driven tool arm, manipulating crystal lattice structure with components made for a quantum assembler (which you will also never finish).

Dope the mix with semiconductor manufacturing chemicals, forming internal optical circuits. Measure with a full-spectrum LED shop light and high-resolution imager (a phone camera).

Mirror coat the borosilicate pipe. Apply a suspension containing light emitting precipitate (Anye-tech homebrew chemistry) to plastic-backed graphene mesh (Japan), and wrap that around your pipe. Tap the graphene mesh for power. Finish the assembly with parasitic cooling tape (from your nanoscale fabricator) and Plasti Dip automotive wheel paint (RockAuto).

Walla! You now have in your possession a thirty-seven-centimeter-long laser core which, when powered, is capable of instantly destroying meter-thick concrete. It’s also past midnight, you’re dead tired, and you haven’t built a flying platform yet.

 

Note – Featured image by Tom Edwards, a UK cover artist.

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Floored.

After refinishing our floors, the metal registers looked shabby, out-of-place, a careless selection made in the haste of building a new house.

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Flush-fit red oak vents from Lumber Liquidators. $21 each. Problem solved.

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But wait – not so fast. A flooring contractor who’s installed hundreds of these said he’s never tried it on an existing floor; that one needs a tracked plunge saw, which he doesn’t have; and even if he did he wouldn’t take the job, because it’s easy to tear up adjacent boards. “You seem like a handy fellow” he tells me. “Why not do it yourself?”

Continue reading “Floored.” →

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And then there was light …

I always liked the cornering light feature on my previous two cars, particularly when negotiating the steep drop at the end of our driveway after dark. It’s not a Mustang option, but my 2014 V6 Pony Edition has (had) amber corner markers in the right place on the bumper.

So, I started shopping for clear aftermarket lenses. I found lots of them for my model — so many, in fact, I was amazed nobody was touting them for cornering lights. Hm. Maybe for good reason, but I had to find out.

I bought fixtures and a pair of five-element LED lamps to replace the stock 194 size bulbs. eBay. Total cost, less than $22.

There are two ways that I know of to get into the space behind the bumper where the lampholders lurk. Look on YouTube for tutorials, but I can tell you (1) ingress through the wheel-well liner requires removal of 5 screws, and (2) the job took 1 hour 20 minutes, and (3) I scraped my arms bloody doing it.

After all that, I would have been disappointed if it didn’t work, but it did – kind of.

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Yes, the mod lights up the pavement in the right spot, but a road test revealed that the LED bulbs I bought aren’t bright enough to make a difference.

I may experiment with another bulb, but I’m not looking forward to sticking my arms in there again. And, I have to wonder if a brighter bulb might be too hot for the lamp holder. OEM cornering lamps only come on when the turn signals are operating, allowing use of a very bright bulb. The stock corner lights on a Mustang are on all the time.

I could wire a latching relay into the turn signal circuit, connect the corner markers to it, yada yada yada. I don’t think that’s going to happen. If you try this setup with a hot bulb, sufficient to throw useful illumination on the road, let us know if anything melts. 

Did you try something cool recently? Tell us about it in the comments.

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