The Think Tank: 2013

20 December 2013

Rustic Coin Box

Christmas is coming. The Secret Santa theme for our study group was "ethical, reclaimed, recycled, fair-trade" etc. So I decided to build a rustic money box out of relcaimed pallet timber I'd scavenged the year before.

I had some BEAUTIFUL redwood timber of varying red-li-ness that I ripped lengthwise, and sash clamped together to form a workpiece. The alignment isn't fully optimised to "left justify" one edge, as the timber is quite bowed in all directions, and seating them in a best fit scenario was quite the tetris-challenge.

Doweling is for chumps. Just glue together and hold everything down from exploding under pressure somehow. The F-Clamps are used to align the stray ends. Pallet timber is warped like the Enterprise (groan). ...one day I'm buying a thickness planer.

Test fitting, rough n ready.

I've said this before. BUY YOUR MAN MORE CLAMPS. There are never enough.

I decided some coins inlaid into the top would look nice.

A small swinging polycarbonate access door for the base. I've positioned it so that it can't swing out of the user's reach as it bumps against the side in both directions before getting too far away.

I got pressed for time, so took it to work on the day it was to be gifted in order to finish it off throughout the day!! Here I'm about to attack it with my electric planer before routing the edges and giving it a final sand down.

It looks awesome!!

Coins are hot-glued into the top. A few coats of Tung-Oil are applied.

I attached this letter to the box.

I don't know where other people's interests lie, but to me this thing is gorgeous. I was actually quite mortified to give it away, particularly in a random Kringle style gifting method. I got lucky and my boss ended up with it. He lives in Ferntree Gully so hopefully there's some appreciation for that rustic timber look. :)
I have enough leftover timber to make a 2nd one. (as seen from an earlier picture). I may keep that one for myself. :D

Biggest bed in the galaxy.

Beds are too small. "Double beds" are akin to saying a "3 man tent" is adequate for three people camping. I've always wanted a monster bed, and finally did it.

Stage 1 was to prep the bed for widening. This meant raising the existing bed slats to become flush with the top of the outer rim of the bed all round. You can see here I've added an extra runner down the full length of the bed on top of the old one in order to raise those slats.

The intention was to leave the old queen sized bed completely intact. That meant I'd need to cut a new support beam for the new outer-length of the bed. I did this from the last of my leftover reclaimed deck timber.

Here you get an idea of what is actually going on.

New slats in place. This whole new section is quickly removable with 6 allen key screws. (I used threaded inserts, made the job easy)

My queen sized bed is now KING length in both dimensions, making it a MONSTER-KING.

I've had this spare narrow mattress for years. It fills the gap well. I now sleep across the bed at 90 degrees to the old intended direction, meaning my feet are on the new part. This ensures my hips/shoulders etc are on the nice futon part. You don't even feel the break in the bed across your legs. Eventually I'll buy king fitted sheets to stop that extra mattress bit from sliding away every now and then.

18 December 2013

C25K update.

Dave and I have been slowly plodding through the "Couch to 5km", or C25K jogging plan. It's a 9 week plan that we've been implementing between workout days when we decide we need a cardio day. That means we've taken about 7 months to get to the week-6 stage 'cus workout cardio isn't my thing.

The ultimate goal is to run 5km non-stop. With a secondary goal to perform that run in a 30minute or less timeframe. But either goal on their own also qualifies. Today I did the week 6, day 3 plan. Run 25mins non-stop. I got 5km exactly in that time.

In conclusion. I'm awesome. I'd like to thank Cadbury's Chocolate for giving me the remorse I needed to complete this run after having eaten 1/2 a block of their chocolate in about 5 minutes...Also thanks to the swines at my study group for putting chocolate in their secret santa gifts in the first place. :)

17 November 2013

Grampians 2013 Cup Day long weekend getaway.

Our beautiful hut.

Cheeky Cockatoo keeping it's eye on Jana.

Roos in our front yard every morning. An entire mob could be found on the local footy oval each evening munching on all the fresh baby grasses.

Day 1: no cicadas. Day 2: millions of cicadas. They literally came out of the ground en-masse on day 2. Squished all over the roads and footpaths. Birds were having a field day.

Jana before she jumps for it at Chataqua Peak.

She didn't jump, and stuck around to take this shot. :)

We saw perhaps six Blue Tongue Lizards over the weekend. This guy was baking on a dirt road in the middle of nowhere while we were exploring. He didn't move away till I got out to take close up shots. :)

A fun Geocache in town.

Accidental shot. Hiking from Zumsteins to MacKenzies falls. We'd left the bikes at MacKenzies, so enjoyed a long 6km downhill ride down the mountain at the end of our hike. Lots of fun.

11 November 2013

Dave's Firefighter Test

Dave is doing some Firefighter proficiency test thing for work. Part of it is completing one of the actual Firefighter fitness tests. The test is in a week or so, and we got in a practice run to be sure he'd smash it. Turns out he's too fit, and crushed the test no worries. :)

Did I mention we were carrying 20kg packs?? We had to stay within a minimum of 38mins, and a max of 45mins, so locking in a solid pace was crucial. The pace required to meet the 4.83km (3 miles) distance within time was a fast walk, just shy of breaking into a shuffle or a slow jog. About 9mins per kilometer, or ~6.5km/hr.

Sports-Tracker link here: http://www.sports-tracker.com/#/workout/mashee/fsvt2ok3dktqvk2s

20 October 2013

Drum Brake troubles

After replacing this set of pads, I couldn't get the wheel hub back over the brakes. Turns out this piston was bound up, and probably had been for some time.

Fortunately the other side was completely free. I took the right piston head out, allowing access to the backside of the jammed one on the left.

I inserted an aluminium rod in behind the jammed piston, and gave it an almighty smashing with a mallet. Still wouldn't budge...I was at this point quite stuck...

But my incredibly large brain whipped up an awesome press from bits at hand.

An offcut of aluminium tube allowed me to press over the top of the jammed piston, and allow space for it to fall inside the cavity of the tube. Here you can see the piston has been pressed almost completely out.

Large C-Clamps are sometimes better than quick grip bar clamps.

There was evidence of prior damage to the piston. Some workshop clown had clearly dropped this one at some point in the past. It had large burrs in two locations. (not possible for me to have caused these from my previous mallet attempts, the impacts don't match the locations, nor tools I was using. Couldn't even see these burrs 'till I'd partially cleaned the pistons. Honestly I think someone had to use a mallet to get them back in previously.)

Really obvious, ugly prior damage. Remarkably sloppy.

So I cleaned everything up with a sanding disc, deburring the messed up edges, and got it all back together...and then found this spring on the ground that I'd forgotten to reinsert.../sigh. Re-do everything...

Job complete.

19 October 2013

Broken mower handle framework

Like every mower, the handles on mine are made of tube-steel. The ends are pressed flat, and bolted-through where they attach to the mower. These always crack and break off over time.

So I cut the offending (and broken) ends off the handles, and added some serious reinforcement

1/2 pipe aluminium sheathes form large extended washers to prevent the tube-steel from collapsing where the bolts are drawn down tightly. I think they'll work fine.

19 September 2013

Electric Foot warmer

Arthritis in my big toes has become extremely painfull on a daily basis this year. I'm very close to getting them fused, and have been thinking about it for a few years. I tend to have a (very) hot water bottle on my feet 100% of the time at my desk. I need to reheat the bottle so many times per day that I re-use the water otherwise I'd surely use an equivalent bathtub of water. The reused water is less than drinkable...and rubber particles destroy the kettle hygiene so I have a dedicated water-bottle kettle also.

...but I got sick of the endless reheat/refill routine, and the bottle rubber decays quite rapidly with this level of use. So I bought a heat mat for my old man toes. This thing draws ~75watts, as compared to a regular floor heater which typically has 2 settings of 1100 and 2200+ watts. I've seen some that draw significantly less, but they're still in the range of hundreds of watts.

The matt takes a solid 15 mins to get really warm. I was worried that it couldn't possibly compete with the hot-bottle, but once it's warmed up I'd say it's comparable if your feet are planted flat down to it,.

~$35 on ebay. Get one.

11 August 2013

Leaky Toilet

Could hear the faintest sound of both toilets perpetually refilling. So faint that it was only audible during the quietest times of night, or if specifically listening for it. Finally realised what it was, and replaced the plunger seals on both toilets. Took maybe ~10mins each at a cost of ~$2.50. Problem solved. A staggering amount of water wasted...and future money saved.

26 April 2013

~5v USB Battery Pack

My mobile phone can't go geocaching with the display-on and locating for more than about an hour before running the battery low. The phone battery is an impressive 3.6V with 1600mAh capacity, though clearly not enough for extended use. I needed a geo-battery-pack.

So I made this. It's a 4.8V, 2600mAH cell made from old cordless drill batteries.

Construction images below:

An old cordless drill battery pack disassembled with the dud "sub-C" cells removed.

Each cell is 1.2V, 1300mAh. I wired up x2 banks of 4 cells, creating a 4.8 volt, 2600 mAH battery bank.

Sizing up a block to mount them in. I carelessly oriented the grain 90 degrees in the wrong direction. Notice the end-caps have grain across their width, not their length. These are ULTRA flimsy, hence the bazillion screws holding them on in the final-block.