I'm Guttered

We've had a gutter on the back veranda that for the last few months has been hanging halfway off, then propped up with a stick. What remained of the down pipe was also pretty much blocked up so as soon as any leaves from the neighbor's trees that overhang the roof got washed down it would clog and over flow.

That is now fixed. Below is a few of the steps that I had to go through to get this finished. Unfortunately I didn't get all of the steps as this because one of those projects that just needs to get done and I forgot to take any photos.

This was the most interesting part of the whole process really. What I should've done is bought an appropriately sized hole saw when I got all of the other parts from the hardware store. I forgot so I had to make do.

The fist thing I did was to trace around the outside and the inside of the down pipe insert. This let me know how far I had to cut out the hole in the middle and gave me a distance that I could go until it wouldn't seal. You can see a little scratch from where I tried to drill through with my biggest drill without a pilot hole. That didn't work very well so I went around the outside with a smaller drill then opened out the holes to the size of my largest drill.

Who can see the mistake yet?
With all of the holes opened out there was only a little metal holding the centre of the hole in place. To punch through those I put a house brick underneath and used a chisel to punch through the holes in the brick. What I should've used is a cold chisel. However I only had an old half busted wood chisel that needs a fair bit of time on the grinder before it will cut anything. Anyway because it was no good I just used it to punch out the little tangs that are left.

My mistake should be very apparent now. And it wasn't long after I took this photo that I realised it too. I chain drilled on the inside line. This meant that the material left by the round holes encroaches on the space the insert takes up. The right tool to fix this would be a half round file. I don't have any files in good enough condition for this much work so I had to find an alternative. What I ended up doing was using the brick as an anvil and with the ball pein on my hammer I rounded the edge of the hole so it opened up enough for the insert to be forced through. Never though I'd be using blacksmith techniques to put up a gutter.

Of course this took a bit of time which could have been avoided if I'd drilled the holes a little furthur out rather than right on the line. However I did get a good bit of practice doing this and next time I have to peen something over like this I'll probably be a bit better.

This was the end cap before I riveted it in and added the silicone.The edge of the gutter pulled in with the rivets and the silicone filled the rest of the gaps.

Here is my ultra safe and accurate measuring system for where to put the first bracket in. I held the gutter with 1 hand, then pushed the blade into the board until it would hold then pulled the blade out of the knife. Then I sat the bracket on top of the blade and put the nails in enough to hold it, then removed the nails.

Next steps here is to get a thing to catch the leaves as they come out of the gutter, then connect this up to some kind of tank so I can water the grass here without worrying about how much water I'm using.

If you want more details, have any suggestions or questions please get in tough or leave a comment below.

Cheers,
Rex

Re-Waterproofing an oilskin Jacket - Part 2

At the end of the last post I had a bucket of a beeswax mixture that was cooling to be used to re- waterproof my oilskin jacket. Now this jacket has over the last year or 2 become very much noticeably not waterproof. To the point where I have been considering it a good solid canvas jacket and not really a waterproof jacket.

This is where I started, It's a bit difficult to tell but the jacket feels dry and without any waterproofing to it. To apply the waterproofing I let it cool fully overnight, then with a rag I rubbed it onto the jacket then went over it with a hair dryer on hot to soften the mixture and help it run into the fabric.

This is what it looked like after putting the mixture on, but before running the hair dryer over it.

Here you can see the difference between treated (top) and untreated (bottom). It needed this pretty badly methinks.

When I was doing the seams I scooped up a small amount of wax with my finger and worked it into the seam by rubbing it against the seam so a small fillet built up along the whole seam. These took a little longer the melt in with the hair dryer, but I think it will help in the long run.

And here we are, finished. This took, probably 2 hours and the bucket of wax mix is still very full. As you can see from the last photo it looks like the wax is cracking where the material has bent. It isn't flaking off or anything, but it may reduce the waterproofness. To stop this happening I think I will add some more turpentine to thin it a little and see if that helps.

A quick word on turpentines. I used pure gum turpentine. This is the more traditional product made from the oil of trees. A cheaper alternative that most people are familiar with is mineral turpentine. This is a similar product however it is made from oil rather than trees. The mineral turpentine would probably work and if I had no choice I wouldn't hesitate to use it. However after standing over it for a few hours breathing in the fumes I am very glad I used the gum turpentine as it smells much nicer if the smell is going to be hanging around for a while.

So there you have it. For about $50 and a few hours of your time you can waterproof just about any porous material. The rag I used to apply the mix is a much looser cotton weave than the jacket and it is now waterproof as well.

If you have any questions or tips, please comment below so we can all learn something together.

Cheers,

Rex

Re-Waterproofing an oilskin Jacket - Part 1

In the last post I mentioned that I had some beeswax coming. I needed to get this because my rain jacket has dried out and is no longer waterproof at all. To re-waterproof the jacket I made up a mixture based on this video. Below is how I went about making it, along with some changes that I will be making.

I ordered 1Kg of beeswax as the other sizes available were considerably smaller. They were also much more expensive. This is what it looked like after the packaging was removed.

It has a bit of a funny feel to it when you hold it. Sort of sticky, but it doesn't leave residue on your fingers like a softer wax would. Or the waterproofing will once we finish mixing it up.

Because the wax was wider than the pot I melted it in I needed to make it narrower. To do this I split it down the middle. In order to split it I needed to cut it. I just used a knife that came with my toolbox and was close to hand.

The block was quite firm while I was doing this so I had to score it on both sides as deep as the knife I was using could go before I could separate the 2 halves. Here you can see how thick the block was.

As you can see, not 100% consistent thickness. But plenty good enough for melting.

At this stage I put the wax into the pot I got for this and put that on my bbq grill as that is the only burner I have that is outdoors and wasn't too hot.

What I should've done is also cut the halves down across the middle so they were short enough to fit into the bucket completely. What happened is that has the blocks touched the rim of the bucket it would melt and run down the outside of the bucket. Less than ideal. So I stood there holding them upright with a screwdriver until they melted enough to be below the rim of the bucket.

Here wed can see them melted down a bit more. I didn't need to hold them any more by this point.

Nearly finished melting. It took a while, not sure exactly how long but it felt like quite a while.

This is where I took it off the heat. If you look closely you can see graduations stamped into the side of the bucket. Rather than the 1L approx. that I assumed (With no real basis.). The wax actually melted to a little over 1.5L. This wasn't a problem really as I had 1.5L of Boiled Linseed Oil, however, I only had 1L of Turpentine. I will talk about that more down the track, but I think that is significant.

Here I took the wax off the heat and started adding the Linseed Oil and Turpentine. I added the entire 1L bottle of Turpentine and probably a bit more than that of Linseed Oil. I had a half empty bottle and I bought another full one so I had plenty of that.

This is what it looked like after adding the Linseed Oil.

Then after adding the Turpentine.

As you can see there is still about 0.5L left in the top of the bucket so between that and the stuff I used there will be enough room to make some changes to the mix based on how it went onto my jacket. When I re-melt it to change the ratios I will take another picture so we can see just how much I used on the jacket.

I am going to put how it goes onto the jacket on another post. This one is getting a bit long I think.

As always, if you have any questions or suggestions please leave them below in the comments.

Cheers,
Rex

Warm deal from the markets.

As I mentioned previously I picked up a neat little item for the markets on Sunday.

It's a little kerosene blow torch. I've been keeping an eye out for something like this as I like the idea of having tools that will work with a wider range of inputs than what we often see. Ie. a propane torch will only really run on propane without a lot of work. This will run on any liquid that has similar volatility to kero.

When I bought it my biggest concern was if the leather in the pump was going to be shot. I pulled out the pump and had a look, it was dry as a bone but there weren't any cracks and it seemed like a good fit.

As it seemed to be at least likely to work I decided to just pour some fuel straight down the pump to help moisten the leather and not have to worry about trying to get it back in the body of the pump without damaging it.

After filling it up and pumping it a little, it fired up pretty much straight away without making to much of a mess or smoking too much. I think this was largely due to the fact that the nozzle had some spider webs in it which helped catch on fire before the kerosene started to really flow out the nozzle and did a sort of pre-heat. There is a little cup for putting pre-heating spirit into, but I don't have any and it did start without any today; however it did set most of the top of the thing on fire at the same time.

This was after it had lit and was fully warmed up. You can just see the flame coming out of the end of the burner. I wanted to include this photo to show just how cleanly these can burn.

This photo had a bit less lighting, making the flame stand out more. You can fairly easily see the yellow tongue of flame, but also around that the is also blue flame. Older fuels will still give a clean burn, just not right away.

The beeswax I ordered hasn't been used yet. But keep an eye out and I'll be putting something up about that soonish.

Cheers,
Rex

The Mill moves again

On the weekend I had the opportunity to play with the CNC mill again.

We last left it running, with the power supply integrated into the case. The old computer power supply had enough juice to run the beaglebone, but unfortunately not enough grunt to energize the stepper motors. As soon as I tried to power them up some kind of overload protection would shut the whole thing down.

To help pinpoint the exact problem here I connected my benchtop powersupply in parallel with the computer supply over the stepper driver input. This worked and I could switch machine power on and off without issue. To see if the problem was just an initial surge overloading the PSU I unplugged the benchtop supply to see if everything would still run. It did; but the PSU started to make a funny sound and I'm sure I could smell something wrong. I plugged the benchtop supply back in and the noise went away immediately, with the smell disappearing shortly after.

So it looks like I don't have a big enough power supply. The solution? I've ordered a 240V to 12V 20A swichmode supply from eBay. At the price I decided to get the 20A model as it might be a little marginal at the rated power. By getting well over I should have plenty in reserve, particularly if I want to run the spindle off it as well.

Hopefully this will arrive by the end of the week and I'll be able to install it either next weekend, or the weekend after.

Busy times at the moment, I've got something else on order from eBay that should arrive early this week. That will be an interesting little project. And I picked up something interesting from the market today which I'll do a little post on as well. So keep an eye out for those coming up.

Cheers,

Rex

Network Sharing - Samba, Linux and Macs

Just a quick one today. I've been having issues with my samba server here at home recently and I finally had to fix it today.

Problem:What was happening was my computers running Linux would be able to connect to the smb shares on my server and I have put my movie collection onto it that way. However my girlfriend's Mac could get onto the shares but could only paste small files. Nowhere near big enough for a movie.

What was happening is samba was sharing /media which has /media/part{1,2} in it which are both mounts to large hard drives that the movies are on. I have also set up the root partition to be very small and it has relatively little space left; which is fine because almost everything else is on other partitions.

When you tried to copy across a movie on the Mac it would say there was no space left on the device and it can't copy the files. When I turned on the status bar on finder I saw that no matter what folder I was in the space it was reporting free was small, about what df -h said was free on the server's root.

The solution? Share /media/part1 & /media/part2 separately so that the free space is reported correctly.

Why:It seems that samba only shares the free space for the root of the share. Unfortunately in this situation because there were partitions mounted within the share the free space was wrong. This wasn't an issue with my linux computers because they seem to just copy until an error is given, rather then testing for free space first. The problem with the Mac system is that because it seems to be testing to make sure it can copy first and it was seeing the incorrect size it just gave up at the beginning.

Sorry for the wordy post today. Hopefully this will help someone. Probably even me if I remember to look this up here.

Cheers,
Rex

It doesn't matter what you know

It only matters what you do. With this project I was reminded once more of the difference between being around and helping someone do something; and actually doing it yourself. Although just because you don't know exactly how to do something including all the little trick, that doesn't that you can't do it or shouldn't have a go at it.

I recently installed our clothes line properly. Before the socket for it was just put in the dirt and packed a little. This meant that there wasn't much holding it straight up. To fix this at the time we just put some rocks and sticks against the base which kinda, sorta helped. It still lent over if you didn't load it evenly and didn't spin very well.

The solution? Use that dodgy old bag of rapid set concrete that's half open in the back shed and dig a hole that's actually deep enough. Believe it or not, it worked fine. Even in the absence of PPE, qualified people or even properly stored materials. It only matters what you decide to do.

The first thing I did was to dig a hole and actually check that it was going to be deep enough. I checked it a number of times just to be sure.

After I'd dug the hole to the required depth I looked at the bag of cement, back at the hole then back at the cement and decided it probably wouldn't all fit in that sized hole. So to ensure no wastage and also to help stabilise the block of cement in the ground. I "belled" out the bottom of the hole a little so that if you were to look at the cross section of the hole the bottom has an outward flare like a bell, rather than straight sides.

After I was happy with the hole I put some water in there, more than I needed planning to let it soak into the walls of the hole so it doesn't dry out while the cement sets. Unfortunately because it's been raining recently and the ground is nice and moist it didn't soak in very well so I probably had more water than I needed for the amount of cement. I think this is what cased some of the concerns I had later.

With the water not soaked into the walls I added the cement to the hole and started to mix it through with a shovel. This was a mistake. I should've put the socket in before I put the cement in which would've saved a bit of futzing around trying to get it deep enough in the cement. Also, with hindsight it may have been easier to just mix it up in a bucket with the correct amount of water, put the socket in, then pour the cement around it.

With the socket worked deep enough that it wouldn't be sticking up out of the ground I put the rest of the clothesline into the socket so that I could get it vertical. I don't have a spirit level so I just eyeballed it from a few directions. Then to make sure it stayed there while the cement set I put a few of the blocks that were holding it back around the base.

At this I left it overnight. Then when I came back the next afternoon to have a look at it I started to get a little concerned. The concrete hadn't set yet. Apparently this stuff takes more than the 15min it says on the packet. This could've been because it was old or just as likely because there was too much water and it was taking too long to dry out. So after that discovery I left it until the next day.

After the second day and it was firm, but not set I figured it probably wont set properly; but it will still hod as firm or firmer than rammed dirt. So because I mis-judged how big the hole was I filled it the rest of the way with dirt and rammed it down. I don't have any proper tools for ramming dirt so I just used a brick I had lying around from building the forge. This packed it in plenty nicely enough for my taste and with the dirt the clothesline became much more stable.

So now it's completed and I've even got a load on there at the moment that is only on one side so it's about as unbalanced as it will get and it hasn't swung to a low point or lent over. Looks like my eye is calibrated fairly well. 

So remember, just because you've never done something or even been shown how to. It doesn't mean you can't. Just remember what you need to finished product to be and be prepared to change the plan to get there if things don't happen how you'd expect.

Cheers,

Rex

P.s. Sorry about the bad photos. I had a shocker while taking those.

Night and Day

Christmas has come early for some of us it seems.

Last weekend we visited my girlfriend's parents to have our Christmas with them as we are going to be away and with all of us being busy we won't get to see each other again until next year. I was very lucky and got a very nice gift from them this year.

Mill Woes

Just a quick update on how the mill is going as that's the only thing that's actually had anything done on it recently. I finally got the software issues sorted and worked out a display, then when I pressed the go button to power on the motors they hissed like they should for a fraction of a second. Then.. all of the power died to the board.

A second test confirmed that this is consistent behavior unfortunately. I think what is happening is that the turn on current draw of the steppers is too high for the computer PSU and it trips the overload protection. To test this what I'm going to do is connect my bench power supply in parallel with the computer supply and then after starting the motors wind down the current. That should tell me if the computer PSU will handle the base load current.

If it will then I will probably put some kind of large capacitor across the 12V rail and GND to help minimize the surge. I may do a quick writeup on the display arrangement I finally got working, particularly if there is some interest there.

I'll report back how I go with this.

Cheers,
Rex

Brain Bender

All week I've been trying to work out what this is supposed to do all week. It came from the base of the my vertical HF Antenna. It's some kind of inductor that has one end connected to the shield and the other end connected to the actual antenna. The centre of the coax is connected to the same point on the antenna through the middle of the inductor. To see me dis-assemble the antenna or if you have any suggestions keep reading past the break.

Right down to earth

So this afternoon I finally thought to check on why my HF radio isn't working very well. I finally had the great idea to check the resistance between the actual antenna and the bracket that holds it's base. This bracket is what I've connected all of my earth wires to and should be separate to the rest of the antenna.

Guess what...

It aint... Looks like the reason I've been having such poor reception is because the antenna is actually being held to ground. So it turns out that any reception has actually been the result of a bad thing. Keeping positive though. I am going to say it's something to do with the impedance at RF being not = to 0 ohms.

So over the course of the week keep an eye out for how I fix this problem with too much grounding as opposed to my original theory of not enough.

Cheers,
Rex

I've got the power

I've finally got more work done on the Mill. I was hoping to get a shot of the control box powered up with the laptop running the control software next to it for the cover photo. However it seems that I need to keep playing with the software a little longer.

Instead you get a photo of the finished product as it stands. I know the wiring isn't the neatest or prettiest. But you can take my word for it that it does work now. Follow on after the break to see how I got to this point.

Marble Madness

During my cleanup the other weekend I found this old Logitech Marble Mouse among my collection. I have used this in the past and I vaguely recollected that it was fairly nice to use. To see if that was still the case I have been using it at work for the last week or so. To see how I've been getting along with it follow along after the break.

Turning a new leaf

I got some good work done on improving the flora at home today. The driveway where I had been parking the Jeep has pretty much completely lost any grass cover it had. Also any water that had been getting on it has pretty much been running straight off. To help reduce this hydrophobic effect I have turned over to soil to about half a shovel blade. This is as far as was easy so I am going to leave it there for now.

Once I'd turned it all I watered it as much as I could for now. Currently the rain in finishing the job somewhat. The plan is to keep water up to it for the next week. Then next weekend I'll turn it again, but this time turn through some manure to help improve the soil and make it easier for grass to grow again. Then I'll keep water up to it for the next week and if there hasn't been any grass start to grow, I'll turn it again and then buy a bag of seed. From then on it should be just looking after it like any new lawn.

This was how it was about 1/4 of the way in. As you can see it went from being solid, reasonably packed, to big clumps, then I broke it down further to much smaller pieces. As the grass begins to grow I'll keep updating here.

Cheers,
Rex

Testing a car stereo

I have been cleaning up over the last few days and among the stuff I found this car stereo in my collection. Now my brother has some issues with the stereo in his car so I figured that seeing as I don't have an immediate use for this one I could probably pass it on if it worked. Follow on after the break to see how I tested this head unit to see if it was worth using.

It works

No more leaks.

A huge thank you to my brother today, without whom the Jeep would still be parked in Mum and Dad's driveway with a line missing. As I have been a bit unwell the last few days

As you can see from the photo it is in a new spot. Actually nearly the same spot we first saw it in on this blog. Which is rather fitting as this is likely going to be the last we see of it as I am now looking for a new owner so I can focus on other projects that will take me in the direction I am hoping to be travelling. Particularly this dinghy that is still waiting for a trailer to be built. Which will probably be happening sooner rather than later as it is warming up nicely, providing good motivation for getting it mobile and sailing.

Cheers for now,
Rex

It's getting better

So you may notice that the Jeep has moved; and there is not a huge stream of ATF leading to it. Unfortunately as you can see there is still a small leak and there were a few little spots on the ground in work's carpark. But I think that s getting caused by dodgy pipe dope that I used to seal the fittings rather than the plumbers tape I used last time which didn't seem to leak.

Eventually I'll be happy with the state of the car... Probably not before I find a new owner though. A little more work and she'll look like new I think.

Cheers,
Rex

Jeep had an oopsie

Apparently there's a leak.

So I took the jeep out the other day and managed to break it. Badly. I think I know the cause and I'll do a writeup on fixing it. But before I do that I needed to turn it around. In that time you can see the ATF that came out while I ran it to turn it around.

Keep an eye out for the fix and the overall solution to make sure this doesn't happen again.

Cheers,
Rex

Apparently I can weld

Not my first weld of the day.

I spent some time down at the local Miniature Train club doing some maintenance on the weekend. This time we were building a frame to hold some spare steel that we are keeping in stock for repairing the track as it ages. Seeing as we were making a steel frame I figured that I would take along my 220BZ Rossi Welder I bought from ebay a while ago. Unfortunately I haven't had a chance to buy gas or MIG wire so I had to borrow some rods to use. This did have the advantage of letting me compare this welder to the tiny bit of welding I have done before which has been predominantly stick welding on older transformer based machines.

Pros:

• This thing strikes an arc much easier than the old school transformer based welders I have used.
• I was using a lower current than the other machine that day (a 20? year old CIG)
• It was light and easy to move around.
• It was easy to remove the spend rod and put in a new one.
• The air coming out the fan at the back of the case never got hot despite being in the sun.

Cons:

• I seemed to get the rod stuck to the workpiece more than I remember doing so in the past.
• The earth cable was so short that it barly reached straight up to the bench I was working on. I don't really like the idea of my welder being too close to my workpiece lest any spatter or slag get into it an short or something.
• Similarly the stinger was a little shorted than I would have liked. However if the earth lead was about the same length it wouldn't be as much of an issue.
• When breaking the arc off it lasts for a long time and often leaves a sooty residue before it quenches. A bit of a nit pick really because it comes of easily enough.
• The earth clamp feels a bit wussy and seemed to have twisted at some point through the day.

Interesting points:

• When the rod sticks to the job there is no buzzing like a the transformer units do.
• Everyone commented on how quiet it was. The only noise that you could hear was the noise of the arc itself. This was in a reasonably quiet outdoors area.

All in all there was nothing that should be a dealbreaker I don't think and hopefully I will be able to find somewhere to get a longer earth lead. If you want to have a look at some of my welds, stick around after the break.

Starting to warm up. Woo

This was the other day around mid afternoon just after I turned on the car.

Time to get everything done outside before it gets too hot I guess.

The death of a wreck

So we finally got the last of the parts I wanted off the falcon and this weekend the scrapper is picking it up. The list is surprisingly long especially when you consider how quickly it all came off. Here it is, along with what I plan to do with each item:
 - Airbag - Set off in the paddock with a plough disk or somthing on it
 - Intake manifold - Scrap?Sell? Whatever. I needed it out of the way
 - Injectors - I'm probably going to put these on the Jeep to see if the more modern injectors give me better economy.
 - Throttlebody - Possibly, maybe, unlike but it may end up on the Jeep. I think it's a bit bigger than stock so less restriction at WOT.
 - Fuel Tank - This is going in the Rodeo which will mean that I can drive nearly 1000km without having to refil.
 - Exhaust pipe - I'm goiung to use some of the bends from the pipe to help me make up the new exhaust for the Rodeo
 - Radiator & Fans - With any luck the fans will fit on the Jeep so I can get rid of the mechanical fan.
 - Air con compresser - This is an exciting one, This will be going in the Jeep for use as an endless air setup.
 - Rocker cover - I'll probably clean this up and paint it then sell it
 - Can Shaft - Either sell this or hang it up somewhere as decoration.
 - Power Steering Pump - This will become an oil pump in some future project.
 - Towbar - Sell, no good without the car it goes on.

I think that's pretty much all that came off the Falcon. If anyone is interested it's a Ford Falcon AU II ute. I will update this page with links when I use any of the above in my projects.

Cheers,
Rex

Green Green Grass at home

Spring has only just sprung; and even just coming out of winter we already have a fair bit of nice green grass in the back yard. Hopefully this year with a little work I can get a nice coverage of the whole yardeven if it is still a little patchy.

Cheers,
Rex

Inception computers

So I managed to get the remote desktop connection working to my work computer. Unfortunately as you can see, that required a few layers. At the bottom of the screen is my Debian taskbar, then running within virtualbox is the windows install on the other partition of this computer. Then within that is an RDP connection to my work computer at the office.

Probably the most impressive thing about this whole setup is how good the performance was. It felt like I would still be able to use it for doing actual work.

I am in the process of finding an alternative that will run natively within my Linux install and I have found this program http://remmina.org/ that will do RDP through a TS Gateway which is causing my headaches. Unfortunately the ppa I found for it is only for newer versions of Ubuntu than the version of Debian I am using. So I can either compile from scratch and probably have to sort out a whole lot of dependencies. Or I can update in place this install of Debian I am using now. Or I move to a distro with rolling updates like Gentoo which I was going to use but then needed a working install far to quickly.

I'll let you know what I end up doing. And particularly if it is a bit interesting I will do a writeup on it. If anybody has a suggestion as to how I should proceed let me know what you think and why.

Cheers,
REx

Clean and Fresh

So recently I ordered some shaving soap because after a perfunctory look around town I couldn't find anyone who sold it. So while waiting for the train I came across http://sharpologist.com/ which at least sounds like they know what they're talking about. They made a recommendation of this http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00914G5LE soap (from a different supplier but they wouldn't ship to me.

It arrived yesterday and I got to use it for the first time this morning; and like when I started using the razor it has made a huge difference in the feel and how nice shaving is. I played around with it a little and seemed to get results that are worlds away from what I was getting before.

I plan to do a followup in about a month or so and see how I'm going with this and the razor. Unless I buy something else different again.

Any comments, queries are welcome.

Cheers,
Rex