Google Sketchup Challenge

I was playing around with Google Sketchup last night and was teaching myself some Techneaks so I wouldn't be so frustrated. It is amazing how if you learn a few things, everything is so much easier. I seem to be in a challenge mood so here is another challenge: create the object below in 3D. Actual dimensions of colors not important, just a piece of pipe with a hole drilled through it and a notch cut out of it. If anybody expresses interest I could post a how to tutorial after. Here is my hint of the day: in Sketchup, sometimes it is impossible to select the center of a circle you already created. Simple draw a guide line from the edge of the circle ANYWHERE across the surface of the circle. Now you can easily select the center... must be a bug.

Anyhow perhaps everyone can post a comment to say if you like me posting "challenges" here.

Trike Jig Revisited

I thought I had better explain my trike jig problem. Observe the picture to the left. Observe that if you were trying to square it up (the 2 tubes relative to each other and the floor) then there really isn't any place you can put a square. And even if you could, it couldn't be near any of the tube bends, because the tube flares out-of-round there too. See my problem.





I did however stumble onto an interesting solution (I hope). I had this 3/4" melamine with copious amounts of holes for shelving. By screwing the 2 pieces to make the corner they are automatically perpendicular to the desk, and the main tube is very easily zip-tied in place via the peg holes. Thus the main tube is now correctly positioned! Now I have to do something similar with the cross tube to level it, square it to the desk surface and to the other tube. This all works nicely for being able to take the set up out to the garage later to weld it without much disassembly. Thanks to Grant for talking me through how to take the next step and Lara for giving me the peg board shelves!

Spring Gleaning #2

Well, it is another garbage eve on Kingston Row. Today's gleanings include one complete bicycle (an old Miele 10 speed) with flat tires, one Peugeot bike frame without tires, a pogo stick that will need a bit of TLC, and a DeWalt saw case which will not yet quite fit my saw. The bikes were within the first 500m!

Contest: Design a Jig

Here is a challenge for you Techneakians!

I need to weld my 2 main tubes for the Ruzter Trike! They have to be aligned square on about 5 different planes!

The contest is to suggest the easiest way to build a jig that ensures the tubes are square to each other and the ground! Assume you have a flat surface to work on.

Here are the 2 pieces and some pics of how they are supposed to fit together (they are not square in the pics). One note that might not be obvious. the cross tube (smaller V shaped tube) has 2 flat plates welded on the ends. Two of the edges of that plate will be perpendicular to the floor when properly aligned (look at the second pic), but the other 2 edges (top and bottom) are cut irregularly and can be used for aligning. The bolt holes in the plates are drilled exactly the same and are at 12 degrees to perpendicular.

Post your ideas in the comments, of if you have a drawing, post it as a separate post!

Thanks, questions welcome.

Tape Measures for Dummies

A friend of mine put me on to the tape measures they sell at Rona. Notice that the fractions of an inch are actually marked so you don't have to count the marks every time... I love it!

Saving Your Photographs

Here's a quick tutorial on fixing faded or under/over exposed photos using a photo editor. I received this photo in a group of family photos. Obviously it's seen better days, and while I can't restore the edges that are torn off I can fix the fading in it. Before I would have probably upped the contrast and tried to fix it that way, but this doesn't usually give you enough control: enter the curves tool. (Curves tools are common in many photo editing packages including Photoshop, Gimp, and PhotoImpact.) Basically what it does is let you control an input tone and stretch or compress it to give a particular output tone. In plain language, you can control if a certain shade of grey in your black and white photograph will become a darker or lighter shade of grey. Or if your photo is faded, if some of your darker greys should actually become black. I've also used curves to fix photos that were way too dark because of not enough light or flash, basically salvaging a photo where nothing was visible to make it fairly presentable. For a much more detailed tutorial you can check out this link. Curves can also be used on colour photographs to change the tone of the picture and the light in it. It's a very powerful tool, one I'm just starting to learn. Perhaps Grant will also be able to give us some pointers in this area?

Have Tricycle Will Travel

On the topic of gleaning, here is a picture of the tricycle I got at the recycling centre for the boys. They now have 3, but you can never have enough ticycles. I think I will weld on a trailer hitch so Jack can pull his wagon, not because he needs to, but because I can.

Spring Gleaning...

No Typo, but a word borrowed from Ruzter via Sox. It's that time of the year where many people do their spring cleaning, which then makes for good spring gleaning, the better term for garbage picking. Sunday we went for a walk, and some early garbage had a long-handled grass edge cutter that needed some TLC but is working again now. Tonight netted what must be an original series Workmate - the thing ways way more than my modern model. I had my workout for the day holding it in one hand riding the bike home for about 2km. Also found an old busted stereo I tore apart for kicks (I am easily amused). I left the metal table legs where they are because I was on my bike. Same goes for at least three vacuums. That part I found kind of amazing. Is there a sale going on? Or have people not vacuumed since Christmas, so at Easter they tried their machines and decided they are no longer good enough?
Either way, here is your reminder: It's spring, best gleaning time of the year, so mind the next garbage day in your area :-)

I Don't Need No Stinkin' Pipe Bender!

Here's how you make a turn in a pipe without a bender:

Step1: cut the pipe at an angle. The angle doesn't matter as long as it is at least 1/2 the angle of the first "step" in the turn.

Step 2: Rotate the end till the desired first bend is made. By rotating the pipe back and forth, you can set the angle of the bend.
Step 3: Tack weld in place. Repeat TACK weld, you may (will) end up grinding the welds off and fine tuning later!
Step 4: Repeat for as many steps as you want so the bend isn't so "sharp". I only did 2 steps to make the bend since it wasn't that big of an angle. The first cut could be any angle but the other cuts must be more precise because you can't rotate the pipe to adjust the angle like you did the first cut. I tried: you end up with a strange goose necking of the pipe. I should have taken a picture.

Step 5: Once the piece has been test fitted, weld away. Ignore the horrible looking welds in the picture. I was having trouble with the feed on my welder. The welds are all solid and I only had to touch up one tiny pin hole after the pipe was installed. I could have ground the welds to make them look pretty, but it was getting late at night and no one but the next person fixing the exhaust would ever see it.

Finished pipe. It's not pretty but it is solid and it fits!

A Question about Pencils...

As I was looking for a pencil this afternoon, something odd struck me. I don't know about your place, but at mine there are a bunch of pencils lying around since I prefer them over pens. Pencils working the way they do, you can get a good idea how much one has been used. And this is what strikes me. I can't think of ever throwing out a pen because the final nib has become unservicable. Further, there seem to be far more greater-than-half pencils around than smaller-than-half. So, then: where are all the pencils? Are they in the same place where all the socks go that are missing from pairs after the laundry? And, where is that place, and how do they get there? Could whatever property allows these items to disappear also be used in other ingeneous, techneaks-like ways?

Flatten Warped Boards

I have some old 9" oak baseboards that came with my house. I toolk them all off months ago to insulate and rewire and am now ready to put them back up. Problem is, the face side is varnished and the back is not, so over the years the back has dried out and the boards are all warped now. This isn't a problem in the center of a wall, but makes it just about impossible to make nice mitered corners. The boards are abou 3/4" thick, so just bending them straight isn't going to happen.

Some book once told me that to bend or round a moulding, i.e. something non-structural, you can cut slots about 2/3 of the way through the material from the back, in parallel with the direction in which you want to bend the wood. The material will then act as if it were only 1/3 as thick as the original, making it that much more flexible. The more slots you cut, the more even your bend will be.

I made 7 cuts along the back of the boards on my tablesaw. At that point I could bent the boards straight, but they wanted to bend into a "W", so I think for future reference there will be more closely spaced cuts nearer the edges. I am sure there would be a way to calculate the ideal spacing, but I won't even go there.

With the cuts spaced as it is I was able to clue up the corners in a decent mitre joint.

New Contributers

Just a quick note to welcome our new contributers, SEO Guru (Carey) and Berserk (Tina). SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization (I believe) and he might give up a glimpse into the esoteric world of getting your web page to the top of the Google searches. Berserk has already (finally) shown us how to more effectively cut ourselves. I am hoping Sox can sometime give us something on wood spirits and Yantski on photography, or whatever they desire!

Welcome to all!

Give Knives a Quick Bite

Well, here I am finally getting around to signing up, since I finally thought of a brief little techneak.
If you have a kitchen knife that just skids off the tomato you are peeling, you can give it a rough sharpening on the bottom of a mug. Turn over your mug, make sure it has an unglazed ring around the bottom. Drag the edge of your knife across that at a ~30 degree angle a few times. This should give you a rougher and sharper edge.
Sharp knifes are less likely to hurt you than blunt ones, but still, don't blame me if this Techneak helps you draw blood :-)

Track new blog posts with Google Reader

Google has a fabulous new tool - go to http://labs.google.com/ and click Google Reader. There's a short tutorial, after which you spend a few minutes trying to figure out how to add blogs. Then it becomes easy.
(1) At the bottom of the "Browse" page, go to the area called "Search and browse".
(2) Just paste the URL of the blog into the field, and then click Search for feeds.
(3) When you see the right results, click Subscribe.

If you have the customized Google home page (requires a Gmail address), you can add a Google Reader gadget to your home page. Then you can see all the new posts to the blogs that interest you without having to visit each one individually.

Thank Google! ;D