fast's geekhouse in progress

[mjmjr25]

Once you do the same math problem a few hundred times you just remember where to go. The thickness of the wood your piloting through combined with the thickness of the wood your going to connect to. After while you know to start here and go this deep for 2x2, 1x2, 2x3/4, etc. It's a great jig and foolproof, but I just don't use it anymore. I'll pm you on it. I sorta regret getting it - the drill bit is by far the most needed part of the kit - it's really really well made. I have no idea how many holes i've drilled, but easily over 1,000, and it still just plows through everything like day 1 - no matter the density of the wood.

http://www.amazon.com/Kreg-KJD-Replacem ... +drill+bit

We had our best garden year ever - by far. Apples were crazy this year too. 700+ apples between 2 trees (less than 200 last year).

We did peppers for the first time and made mistake of keeping them too close and we guesstimate there was some cross pollination or something. Jalapenos are mild, bell peppers are spicier than they should be.

We had ZERO deer issues - mostly we think because we stayed in the driveway where it's wide open and asphalt - not ideal deer territory. We had netting around to keep rabbits and chipmunks out - mostly successful.

Only thing that didn't go as planned were the pumpkins - everyone told us they are the easiest, hearty, no-work...we planted 6 and went 0 for 6.

[fastbilly1]

Our pumpkins got eaten by rabbits early. You win some you lose some.


No big update today, had to repair both a VHS vcr and a beta VCR last night. But I did get my shelf pins made. Since they are a nonstandard size, even for dowels in my podunk town. I went to a neighbors house and used a strip of 2x4 cut down to 2x2 in his his giant lathe. I know that he is what I will be in fifty years, a crazy old man who repairs random equipment, makes BBQ as big as possible, and does large scale woodworking projects when he doesnt need them. We have helped eachother on projects on and off since he moved in, so when I asked to use his lathe he had to know what I was doing. Now he wants one, even though he does not have a pc... He is getting a tombstone radio for Christmas.

Pin in place:


Test fit:


Next time, I will just drill standard sized holes. Lathe work is fun, but this was stupidly over the top for this.

In remeasuring this, I have around 6 3/4 inches/171mm of space for each pc. Most towers are 7-9 inches wide, so this is alittle smaller than a standard case, but I think the exposed front and fan based back system should make up for it. It will also allow me to mount the PSUs vertically, giving me alittle more space for heat management. The shelves are getting a second coat of flat black paint.

I am waiting on the rain to break before I do any more big cuts or sanding.

[fastbilly1]

Rain broke enough that I could blow some sawdust.



Cloth area measured out and cut with a jigsaw, buttons measured and marked, then I realized that I have five shelves (one unsuable), and three pcs. In all my measuring and figuring, I somehow forgot the bottom floor will work as a shelf. So I moved the cloth area down a couple inches, so it is more inline with the design of the original radio, and dropped it to three buttons instead of four. Cut it nice and slow with my jigsaw with a scrollsaw blade then cleaned up the one issues with my 3inch skillsaw. Sadly I did have a blow out in the bottom right corner, but I can fix that with some wood puddy or bondo.

Now I have ran into a real issue. My plan was to use the original door hinge, but mount the door on the front of it, instead of in the slot. If you have never seen one of these glass door hinges, they are just a U of iron that the glass sits in. They have a simple pin system where the bottom one goes into a hole in the wood, the top one goes into a thin metal catch. Simple and effective. So I drilled holes threw the original brackets so I could screw would in. But when I did my mock up door, I could barely open the door. That is ofcourse not good. So I played with moving it further out, gamed it back and forth. Not until I put the door outside of the frame, did it work. As you can imagine, that is not acceptable. So today my game is finding a surface mount hinge that fits the space and opens on itself.

Still to go:
Hinge
Power buttons
Erasing all the pencil lines
Staining
Cloth
Wire raceway

[mjmjr25]

Nice. I might become a sucker for this new (to me at least) product; UV pre-finished plywood. It comes finished and not that faux finish stuff, like a legit finish - if this stuff works out I can woodwork year round (sans glue, but pocketholes can do most of my jobs).

[fastbilly1]

Though I was vomiting my guts out this weekend, last Thursday I cut the sides to the cab out, and over the weekend attached them. Then realized that my top was mismeasured so I cut it down even more, added some braces, and now it will be the bottom:

Table saw desperately needs a new rip fence that can go out past 23inches.

Then my wife told me my woodworking neighbor (the guy who let me use his lathe) passed away Thursday night. We talked to his widow yesterday and he had a commission for some large outdoor benches, which he built three of and cut out the fourth. So all my shop time over the next few days will be finishing those benches.

[fastbilly1]

Even though I have mostly been working on finishing off projects for my neighbor, I did cut the fan for the radio pc:

I also fixed that corner that split out with stainable putty (I will believe it when I see it), bent some meccano/erector pieces to mount harddrives to, and

I also recently obtained the formerly stupidly expensive tupperware I was missing to finally start work on a new friend:

Luckily, the Tupperware Floraier fell out of fashion so what use to sell for $300-400 I got for $30.

[fastbilly1]

Crow is done had his first public appearance, then broke. Now he has been repaired and is about to go to his place of honor.

In my rush of Holiday stuff I did not get a much done as I hoped and I worked on everything at the same time. Coupling that with losing my cellphone in the middle of the holiday, so here is a confusing post about several projects mixed together

Kitchen Cart:
My wife was baking up a storm in our kitchen before the holiday and we kept running out of space for everything in the pantry and on the counter. So she asked if we could go buy a kitchen cart. Well the prices of them were outrageous so I asked if I could whip up something with leftover wood from some previous projects. So a bit of 2x4 work, a few runs on the table saw, and some complicated screwing thanks to the upgrade from Mjmjr25 and we have this:


Small but functional. It holds all of the baking materials, the bulk dry goods we buy, and our bulk can goods, and store them under the shelves in our closest pantry. This way I dont have to fight off ten types of flour when I just need AP and the extra 10+ cans of tuna are out of site.

But it was not all rosy. Being that it was my first experiment with the Kreg Jig it ended up causing me a good bit of frustration and wasted wood. It wasnt until the sixth or seventh set of pocket holes I drilled that I realized that it was set for the wrong size of wood. So I had a bunch of pieces of 2x4 that were screwed up.

Pump Panel:
So for the last year I have had the Fire Engine Pump control panel sitting in my workshop just waiting to become something new. Due to how the Fire Engine works, the pump was not usable when we got it (it builds pressure by parking it, flipping power to the pumps, then putting it back in first and sitting there, the drivetrains propshaft is redirected to pumps instead of drive). Since I first saw the panel I wanted a coat rack. Then I realized it would be five inches deep and weigh close to 150lbs. So it needed to become an outdoor towel rack. Queue those screwed up 2x4s.

Note - The mitered corners were filled and fixed after this picture was taken.

Hot Wire cutter:
Occasionally I work with a puppet master and help her build puppets for a variety of theaters. Her work is mostly rod and hand (Muppet), and we have built small and large puppets - largest being Audrey II for a production of Little Shop of Horrors in South Alabama. Recently I found out she cuts all the foam for her small puppets by hand, which is simply ridiculous. So take one broken toaster, some scrap wood, and a pegboard and you end up with something like this:

It will only cut a 12inch circle (on deck), but it should be sufficient for 90% of her cutting. Once the train transformer arrives I will start cutting. Pegboard was chosen for the deck for two reasons, I had it on hand, and it allows for a bench dog like system of stops when cutting larger projects.

ATAT:
While at my parents place, my family tosses ideas around like they are going out of style. So my older brother made an off hand comment about how we should add an ATAT to the lineup of Wisemen in this wooden manger scene that my mother has. So a couple quick sketches and my little brother cut this out on a scroll saw.


We then quickly made six more. He cut while I sanded and stained. When we were with my wifes family I mentioned it to my uncle in law (a professional woodworker) and he said come by and I can have of his scrollsaws. So now we will be making more and an Echo base for the window above my main door. The UPS man last night tried to buy it off me.

Workshop after holiday:
Thanks to our stupidly warm Christmas, we got some extra painting in between Christmas and New Years.

So my wife chose a color for the Kitchen Cart which turned out to be Princess Purple. Its not a bad color in our grey blue kitchen, covered in 60s Orange and Avocado tupperware, with red and black appliances, but in the garage it was stark.

You can see the PC radio laying down, where it will remain until it is warm enough to stain again - Atleast the door is attached now. The Pump Control Panel is also laying down, and the bot bases are drying their basecoat of flat black.

Fire Truck Pump Control Panel front:


Bot Bases:

Simply side table tabletops, with lengths of PVC with slits cut and attached. Slits are for the control cords to slide out of. The short base is for one of my Cambots to sit on. He use to hang in the corner, but its more fitting for him to be with Crow.

But wait theres more:
Finally after many months of waiting, the Dalite 24inch projector screen holders were back in stock at B&H. So late last night mine arrived and after a frustrating install, this is what my Den looks like with the lights on:


And with the lights off:


I have to rerun a bunch of cables, and get a runner rug, but my wife watched all of Phantom of the Opera last night and claimed it was almost as good as seeing it live in the theater. I threw in the Hobbit Five Armies, Casino Royale, and a couple others and all were just stunning. For those who love specifics:
the sweetspot is exactly 7ft 11inches away from the screen giving you roughly a 38degree range (just shy of THX recommended and within Electrohomes).

[noiseredux]

so jealous of the projector setup, man.

[fastbilly1]

I finally go the cables for the projector in a raceway:

The projector power supply will get some sort of box on it in the near future, but the wife is ok with it for now, so it stays.

On Saturday I ended up with alot of outdoor grade lumber (pressure treated and cedar), and moments after we finished unloading the last 4x4, one of our good friends called to ask if we have any spare gunracks they can borrow for the next few years (yes that is an odd request). She will soon be holding a collection of guns for one of her service friends who is being deployed to Kuwait. Turns out the guy is a hardcore bolt action fan, and has 30 Mosin–Nagant. So WW2 gun range styled Mosin holders are being built out of some of the lumber right now:

I need a hole saw to make the barrel holders, and need some 30+ degree weather so I can use the table saw to make the rest of the stock rest.

For those who worry, they are going into a sealed room on monitored by a ups based security system with someone on site at all times (they operate a horse farm). While they are fully functional, they are simply someones collection.

[noiseredux]

raceway looks slick.