Category: Projects

June 8, 2022 – The Calm Before the Storm

June 8, 2022 /

I am not sure when this changed exactly, maybe when I went back to work last year. But, it seems like our house is in a state of constant evolution. This job was originally scheduled late summer last year, then my father-in-law died and we have had a year of unplanned activities.

This week, we begin the journey of new countertops and replacing the faux brick paneling with subway tile. Since I am not doing the work, I guess what I think doesn’t really matter. Despite all of that, we will be inconvenienced without having a proper kitchen (as long as the job takes).

What bothers me about the process is what seems like the constant piling of cast-off housewares and furnishings and boxes or stacks of things sitting around. Ultimately, even though I am not doing the work, I end up having to deal with the job waste. Trips to the dump and donation centers, listing items for sale, etc. It seems like the ultimate wasteful, consumerism type behavior that is actually beginning to bother me.

We have shifted from the buy-once, cry-once mentality of furnishings to an evolving cycle of cheap(er) decor. Beds last five years, couches are three, chairs and rugs are replaced annually. The items don’t come in a truck anymore, they arrive in boxes that require assembly. This means that they are less durable. Then the old ones have to be moved out to the garage to become my problem. It seems so wasteful to me.

As an example, our first bar stools we bought were by IM David. Looking them up for writing this, I see that they are retailing for nearly $1500 a piece. We replaced them with $150 chairs a couple months ago. One of the two chairs didn’t swivel properly, so now we have three chairs. Our old chairs are dirty and worn by they are still very nice pieces that we could have invested the $300 into restoration. I am debating whether to sell them, restore them or donate them.

I am not against engineered furniture. Some of it can be very nice and there is a place for it. For one, they provide good value. For instance, my kids will likely be out of the house in less than three years. So furniture that doesn’t have to last a lifetime is probably a better deal. It also appears to scale properly. It seems like a lot of today’s furniture is so grotesquely sized. I am not a fan of wood/metal/glass integrated pieces either. I don’t like the ascetic.

I think this will be nice when it is done. It was my idea in the first place. But, was it necessary? No. is it really worth it? I guess we will see.

End Your Programming Routine: Where this is all going is that I am sure that once that work is done, there will be a whole bunch of other changes that will happen as a result. We were discussing hardware changes, our range is ailing, the cabinet finish is worn, my wife hates the lighting and false cealing and things like that. Expect more changes to come.

June 7, 2022 – Is it Good? Check

June 7, 2022 /

So, I mentioned my Adirondack chair idea recently. Before I fully committed, I wanted to see if the wood was even viable. I pried a couple representative boards off the fence to see what they would look like if I cleaned them up.

The fence is made from Western Red Cedar. I don’t know how long it has been up, but I would guess 30 years at least. While that is a familiar wood, it is not something I have done any kind of ‘fine(r) woodworking’ with. What I mean is as rough as the boards were, I wasn’t sure how good of chair they would make.

I think the nominal fence picket is 5/8″ thick. Once I surfaced the boards, they were more like 3/8″. Laminating three boards together, gave me approximately one inch of thickness. That means for the structure of the chairs, I will probably need two or three boards per piece. That is time to surface more boards, glue and clamp and waiting for them to dry.

Doing things in this way, means that the overall construction process will be much longer than the half day I was talking about when I introduced my thoughts. So, the initial idea was inspired by having the materials and the time investment is low. This gives me pause in actually committing to this. I really want to do it, but honestly, I cant invest the time (this summer).

There is a secondary concern as well. Since I am paying someone to dismantle the fence, I will only be able to get the boards if I am available when the work is done. I could ask to have them save panels, but I don’t want to end up with a bunch of extra waste either. Based on those factors, the go ahead with this project is still to be determined.

End Your Programming Routine: If this were strictly a business decision, the answer would be no. Time is too valuable and the timing is wrong. All things being equal, If I had a stack of lumber I would make time later. It is going to boil down to whether I am around to get the boards in the first place and then it will happen some time after I finish the siding this summer.

May 31, 2022 – She’s All Mine

May 31, 2022 /

I got my bicycle back last week from the shop. This time, it wasn’t just a tune up but changes that I have been wanting to make for the last 30 years. I started researching bicycles in 1993. I wanted to get involved in a new-ish phenomenon called mountain biking. I was a high school athlete that fancied myself an outdoors enthusiast. This seemed like a perfect combination for me. I did quite a bit of research actually and talked to all of the local bike shops before I made my decision.

My first bicycle I bought in April 1993. I had it until it was stolen in the first of May 1994 (it was fully locked in front of the dorm). I had done a little bit of mountain biking through the year, so I decided to upgrade to a better model. This is still the bike I have now.

At this time, there were very few bikes with suspension. Front suspension had just been invented and there were only a handful of full suspension bikes. The arms race was not all the things you could add to your bike but how well built it was. So, for instance, this is a steel bike that weighs in at 24lbs. There were a few Aluminum frame bikes and there were also a couple Titanium frame bikes as well. Believe or not, I saw a couple carbon fiber frames even.

I think now, most of the performance bikes are Aluminum, not steel. Thoughts on that type of metallurgy is that it is more prone to stress cracking because it is more rigid than steel. I would say that is much more likely when you are riding over bumps and causing additional unintended force. I think if you add suspension, then some of that potential damage is mitigated.

It was always my intent to buy the best bike I could, then upgrade it as time went on. Interest and use had waned over the years. There was a time when I got my bike ready to ride as my kids were of the age of but after using it a couple of times it sat for another season and stopped working again. Another way of saying it was I couldn’t use it when I wanted to without another trip to the bike shop.

One of the things that I wanted to change were the pedals. Mine originally came with what are called toe clips. They were supposed to partially lock your feet into the pedals and give the rider the ability to get power on the pull and the push stroke. The problem with the casual rider is that you needed to wear full shoes, so a casual ride with sandals wasn’t possible. You could flip the clips upside down, but then the clips were frequently dragging, It was annoying and therefore, I replaced them.

I would call my bike ‘higher end’ at the time. Being so, it was intended for more rugged use. This also meant that the rider geometry was aggressive. Conventional wisdom at the time was that a rider would get used to the position. I definitely never got used to it and it wasn’t comfortable to ride over longer distances, even when I was young. I changed the rider positioning with the neck and new handle bar so that I was sitting more upright. Lest be honest, I will be lucky to ride the bike, let alone race it.

I have always enjoyed riding my bike. It needs to work in order for me to do so. My kids are of the age that they will be driving soon so it was worth it to me to spend some money on it.

I am considering possibly making some additional changes (but not this year). I always wanted to upgrade the front forks to a suspension setup. I am also waffling on having a bike that I can use around town to pick-up a few items at the grocery store, rather than driving. That would mean the ability to carry things and probably have some rain protection and less aggressive tires.

To me, the question would be buying a separate bike to setup for town use or modify this one some more. I am leaning toward buying a cheaper second bike and setting it up for around town use. I like the idea of riding my bike to the store rather than driving. It is not about the effort, but the time even though the store is only a 1/4 mile away and a bike would go along way to eliminating the time factor. However, let’s not put the cart before the horse and see how this year goes.

End Your Programming Routine: There is no doubt that this was an expensive job. I spent $350 on the total project. My wife thought that I should have bought a new bike instead of spending the money on all this. In my mind, the changes were worth it considering the quality of the bike ($800 in 1994) to begin with and at least in my mind, a $400 bike is probably a two year bike. Most of the labor cost needed to be done anyway, I added $100 in parts. I hope to get some use out of it this year.

May 25, 2022 – I Don’t Need Another Project

May 25, 2022 /

I am mulling around an idea (I will get to in a minute). I have talked about how we are paying to have our fence replaced. We have signed the contract and put down half of the money. I think it is going to be another month or so before it actually happens.

Switching gears for a minute, we were at our wine pick-up last weekend and sitting in some plastic Adirondack chairs enjoying the weather, music and some samples. We had one (or two chairs) of our own that lasted about a year. I think they came from Dollar General and the sun will destroy that cheap plastic. The chair broke and it went to the landfill.

My wife was talking about how she likes the wooden ones, but that they were expensive. That got my mind working. If I salvaged some of the fence boards, I would have a good start on material to build my own chairs. Ideally, I would be selective and take the best ones. But this all depends…

The whole deal includes tearing down the old fence. If this happens while we are home, then of course I don’t think they will mind me taking some of the waste (and picking my boards). If it happens while we are in Spain, I may miss the boat on this whole thing.

The truth is, I would like to do some test work and see if the boards can even be salvaged, but, I don’t want to tear the fence down to do so. I think I can run them through the planer and resize and they would be fine for making plenty of chairs. I do have some reservations however.

Looking at the fence, none of the boards are clear (knot free). Some of them are pretty rough. I suspect that there is going to be a high degree of waste due to wood failure or brittleness and deep weather wear. But, I won’t know that until I do some test work.

The other thing I am not sure of is they are cedar. Depending on the grain pattern, cedar can be rough. So, I am concerned about the possible splinter factor. Some species can have pretty tight grain patterns but I think this fence started out rough sawn which make me think that there is a smaller probability that these boards will make good chairs. Once again, I would like to investigate.

As woodworking projects go, this is a pretty simple one. I would guess that I can knock out a chair in a couple of hours. It means that whatever plans I have wouldn’t be derailed significantly to build a couple of chairs. I am thinking that I would use a semi-transparent stain as well. This project will require some new wood as the structural pieces and I would like to blend the overall look to something more uniform.

I suppose the other option is that I could laminate pieces to make thicker stock, but again this would be another experiment. I am not a huge fan of glues and outdoor exposure, but it would be an option and require less new material. Maybe I will selectively remove a couple of boards to check for viability before I commit to this.

End Your Programming Routine: I hate the idea that all of this wood will simply go to the landfill. I would rather see it turned into firewood rather than simply hauled off to the dump. The real problem is that time is money. Nobody from a job perspective has time to break all the panels down, pull the nails and stack it, cut it, store it and market it or even give it away. To top it off, cedar is not the best firewood by a long shot. That being said, if I can efficiently use it that would be my preference.

May 23, 2022 – How the Heck does a Toaster Work?

May 23, 2022 /

The truth is, I am not really sure. I have the fairly expensive toaster that has been around 15 years or so and it stopped working for some reason. I am going to take it apart to try and figure it out.

Our first reaction was to replace the toaster. I didn’t do any of the looking but my wife said that reviews were all over the place and generally bad. That got me wondering if I could figure out the problem. To first understand what is wrong, we have to understand how it works.

I can’t speak for all toasters, but it appears this one has got some electrical and electronic components. This one appears to lock the mechanism down with an electromagnet (white circles). When the mechanism gets to a certain depth, it triggers a switch that turns on the coils for toasting (yellow circle). Additionally, it seems that there is a temperature sensor on the side. Just guessing but either the electronics run a timer to release the magnet or the temperature sensor acts as a cutoff switch and once power is removed to the magnet, the mechanism pops up.

Our particular problem was that the mechanism did not lock down and therefore there was no toasting. After taking the cover off, I found tons of crumbs on the inside. I am speculating that a cleaning would remove obstructions from the magnet holding and the switch making a connection. So, first I set to clean it out.

From what I learned with chainsaws and other things, it is best to test it without fully re-assembling, if possible. In my case, after blowing all the crumbs out with compressed air, I plugged the toaster in and everything worked like it should. So, I diagnose the problem as crumbs interfering with the magnet. It is possible that I could have soldered a broken connection but something like a faulty switch or electronic component would probably have been too much.

After I verified it was working the way I wanted it to, I reassembled and tested again. The toaster was still working as I expected. Success, I saved $10-hundreds of dollars. We weren’t going to buy a cheap replacement.

End Your Programming Routine: Before this date, I had never seen inside of a toaster before. I have my doubts that they all operate as electronically as this one. I figured, worst case scenario we going to throw it away anyway so it was worth a try. When it comes to junk, don’t be scared to try and figure it out. You might just save yourself some money and who knows, maybe disappointment too.

May 4, 2022 – The Details Matter

May 4, 2022 /

Do you know why I am skeptical about all of those makeover shows on TV? It is pretty easy to make something look better but have be done poorly or improperly. There have been a number cosmetic improvements made to my house that did not have sound building practice implemented. This one is a continuation of my apartment remodel I talked about in 2020.

This leads me to my summer project. I have a major problem with my siding on the garage and it looks a lot like what lead me to a summer rebuilding the cottage. I guess we will see when I get into it.

The first problem is visible on the left. The facia is rotting to pieces. I cant claim that I didn’t know about this. In fact, I saw signs of the problem before the house was painted in 2016. They of course painted right over it and didn’t say a word. This one I cant really claim is an improper technique but a failed material since I can only assume the pair were applied at the same time and have the same exposure.

My biggest challenge with this part of the project is going to be how to attach the facia again. I can only assume that it is nailed through the decking at the edge since there are only two attachment points sticking out of the structure, at the ridge and at where it meets the side facia. This may mean a roof job as well, it wouldn’t hurt but we will see.

The far more insidious problem is the one on the right. From what I know, this garage was built in the late 1990s. The pictures we have of the house, the band of lap siding was added by the previous owner (not the one that built the garage) as an attempt to spiff up the place. They only owned the house around a year and he claimed that he got interested in airplanes so this wasn’t a flip. But let’s be honest, T1-11 was an inappropriate siding choice for a Victorian.

The construction detail problem may not be evident from the picture but I will cut to the chase. The Hardiplank was applied over the T1-11. That bead of caulk hanging down was on top of the edge. That was the single line of defense for water getting behind the lap siding. Once water got behind the siding, it was trapped.

I suppose the good news is that it lasted at least 17 years. The other good news is that this is the last place I have to deal with this problem. This detail has failed everywhere else on my house, my apartment and the garden shed. The bad news is I really don’t know the extent of the damage. So even thought I knew about this weakness I think good advice is don’t go looking for problems that you don’t want to deal with.

Also worth noting since we are talking about good practice is if that detail was sufficiently protected (as in an eve or overhang) it would have never failed. The two sides of the garage look rock solid because they don’t have the same exposure to wetness as the face that I am showing.

Another thing that you can see from the picture is that there is drywall behind the panel. Interesting… this may be a code requirement. I notice that on the inside of the garage, there is drywall on the exterior that is facing the house. I am sure that the intent of this is as a fire barrier between the two structures. However, I find it curious that the exterior wall perpendicular to the house also has it. I think what is worse is wet drywall is a sponge for water. I am concerned about structural damage.

End Your Programming Routine: Now you can see why I am not going to work on the fence. The fence needs to be done and quickly. This one also definitely needs to be done, but I can use the warmer and drier months to do it. I also want details that I would never get from a contractor like back priming all of the siding that replaces it. I want proper flashing and I want to solve this problem permanently. I hate to say it but hiring it out will get me another 17 years or less.

May 3, 2022 – Knowing When to Say Uncle

May 3, 2022 /

I come from a long line of never give up, I can do it men. It kills me to pay for something that I can do. But, it is a matter of my time and what I can do (efficiently). For years our fence has been in poor shape and inexplicably part of it fell down last week.

This is a topic that has been coming up about once a year for the last five years or so. My neighbor has done a lot of shoring up in that period. The truth is, he is the cause of much of the damage anyway as there is a lot of weight against the fence so he has a vested interest in keeping it functional. There are wires anchoring it to trees and sistered posts. This is all on his side, so I cant see it.

In fact, I had spoken to him about a month ago that we planned to replace the fence this summer. I wanted to get a rough lumber cost to see if I wanted to do the job or not. After I saw it was $6 a fence board, I was hoping it would last another year. But, now that the fence has fallen down, we need to get it repaired quickly.

We are looking at getting five bids (still waiting for the first one however). What I can say is that five different people showed up to take measurements. Almost all of them we have some kind of affiliation with. Even so, I was surprised to get attention and action so quickly. Maybe it is the season is still slow or maybe things have cooled down quickly? I can’t really say.

The heart of what I am trying to get at is that while I can do it, I cannot do everything. We have a trip planned for Spain after school is out and I have another problem (project) that I will talk about tomorrow. In addition, with all of the family activities and business travel plus we need to keep our animals in the yard as well as the neighbors animal out. Plus, the weather is not great right now anyway.

Some times I do things because I want the experience. Other times I do things because they are in my wheel house and it is cheaper and faster for me to do them. Lastly, there are times when it is far more economic for me to do them because there is no real deadline. I know myself and my commitments and things always take significantly longer than I expect because I do not spend the time I would like doing the project. There is also the opposite opinion of what would you rather do?

With the price of materials, most of the cost is going to go to that. I have a feeling that labor is going to be a relatively small portion of the bid. There is also the factor that it will probably get done in a couple of days and I think all the debris will be removed. For me, I wouldn’t be surprised if it took all summer. If I had nothing else to do, I would love to do the job and save the labor cost. But the reality is I don’t really want to spend my entire summer doing this job.

The economics of the situation says in theory, if I can pay someone less than what I can earn with the same time, then possibly you save money. There is also the potential of having to buy single use tools and even skill deficits. I can’t use those excuses nor will I have another job to do instead of building a fence. I would say it is more that we need it done sooner rather than later. The truth is the adjacent fence has been broken for at least seven years as well. It has literally been sitting on the ground for years hanging on by a nail. So, it is time.

End Your Programming Routine: Maybe it is getting older and wiser or maybe it is becoming more confident that I am having a slight mindset shift. I would never consider paying someone to do something that I could do. But, since we have paid for yard maintenance, I have come to understand that I do things that I want to do rather than out of obligation. Hiring someone to replace the fence is not because I can’t but because I want to spend my time elsewhere.

April 27, 2022 – My Techno Junk is Multiplying

April 27, 2022 /

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about looking for the right deals. Well a couple of those came along last week. I am keeping a strong eye out for components to build my kids their very own hi-fi systems. There are a couple more things I am looking for as well to finish off my ultimate Techno Junk lab (my office).

A few weeks ago, we were moving my mother-in-law into our small house. She thought that her TV was too big. So we swapped a 40″ TV that we had for her 55″ (?) TV. Along with that, I re-wired the area. My wife has been using a Fire Stick instead of the X-Box 360 to stream for the last six months.

If anyone is still using a 360 for that purpose, then they will know that the support window is waning. Applications are starting to be discontinued. The forced obsolescence is another reason why I hate technology. That being said, I do like to do some racing every now and then. So, I took the X-Box down to my office.

The problem is really how to connect it to my current technology. I explored the idea of capture cards to run it through the computer. At some point, I am going to add a TV as a second monitor. But in the end, I decided that I had an open slot in my analog KVM switch. I just had to adapt the HDMI to VGA and get sound at the same time. I bought an adapter and it works pretty slick. I decided long ago the video games were a waste of life force and false achievement so the reality is that I will not use it much, but I can.

My Linux experiment kind of stalled. The reason was that I had no reason to have two computers right next to each other. The challenge with the Linux system is that it is 32 bit and using today’s software is kind of a project for each item you want to use. I thought that I might try moving it over to the loading bench where I might use it for electronic logging of load data, research or streaming while I was working.

My main setback was that I didn’t have another monitor for it since I was using the KVM originally. I have been on the lookout for a used 27″ monitor and I can shift everything down on my work setup. I struck gold on one at Goodwill for $15 last summer but haven’t found another deal like that. Well, I happened across a free 24″ monitor last week. I am not saying this is how it will stay as I still wanted a same size monitor, but really it works and the price is right.

I have had it setup for a couple of days and we will see how well it really works. I noticed streaming some music that it was sometimes choppy. I wonder if I am reaching the hardware limitations as I think there is only 2GB of RAM and the processor is from 2005. Since the computer was slated for recycling, so far there is no cost in trying out the setup.

Now that I have two turntables, I have stepped up my scanning for deals on receivers and speakers. My plan is to have a setup together by my son’s birthday in July. But, I guess I can’t control my cheapness mantra on the project. I scan Craigslist every couple of days as well as stop into second hand shops when convenient. These speakers I saw in town for $30.

The other thing I was thinking about was having a second set of speakers so that we can setup music for family events and not have to move everything. I really haven’t decided if these tower speakers I will use or I will swap out for the existing bookshelf speakers or even keep both. Ideally, I would find bookshelf speakers for my kid’s setup. Ultimately, it is going to depend on where my stereo system eventually lands.

End Your Programming Routine: I suppose that there are more harmful things in life then buying used junk. But, everybody needs some purpose in life. Mine seems to be collecting stuff that I don’t really need. That being said I guess I find it fun. It appeals to my thriftiness and sense of environmental conservation. If I can get something that should last my lifetime for 5-10% of its initial cost, it is preferable by a long way to simply purchasing new things.

April 19, 2022 – Frugal or Cheap or Foolish?

April 19, 2022 /

Our electric range is on its last legs. We have rebuilt the cassettes, replaced circuit boards etc. Not only does the electronics randomly fritz out but parts are starting to become not available. We have been talking about replacing it because it has been loved to death.

There are two issues, it is a downdraft and therefore needs to be replaced with another of the same style (or completely remodel the kitchen) and it is built into the cabinets, so measurements are important. With that, we have been dragging our feet because it is going to be an expensive proposition.

The two eight inch burners (the big ones) have become very spotty lately. Both of them are crap shoots as to whether they will work this time or not. Sometimes, I will spend five minutes jiggling the burner until it finally works. They also sometimes cut out while cooking, this is very difficult to deal with because everything is hot for so long afterward.

I decided to order some generic replacement coils because we needed our range to prepare Easter dinner and I was tired of gambling. It turns out that this was also a gamble because the coils did not fit into the stove. I didn’t have time to return them and see if I could find something else, I went to modifying the setup so that it works.

While this was nearly an exact match of the old one, there were a couple of differences. One, the tabs where the burner plugged in was about a quarter of an inch longer than the last one. This pushed the support structure too far out. I decided to cut the support structure rather than the plug in ends. This I did with a hacksaw. I also had to grind the notch deeper after I cut off the excess.

That burner fit. The second one, I also had to cut off a quarter of an inch off the plugs. Before I did all that work, I plugged them in to make sure they work, which they did. Otherwise, I would have had to return them before modification. Now I have working burners again.

This was less than ideal. Obviously, I didn’t want to spend a hour modifying these burners when they were supposed to fit in the first place. However, I was tired of the old ones stopping while I was trying to use them. Was it worth the effort, probably. Was it worth the cost savings, probably not. An hour of my time more than paid for the difference between generics vs Whirlpool/Jenn air burners.

End Your Programming Routine: People forget that there is also a cost in returning items. For me, the return point is almost half an hour away. I am generally an OEM guy for these reasons, it is cheaper in the long run. My logic was that I didn’t want to invest in something that was going away. But, what is the cost of not being able to cook? Certainly a few meals out would recover that anyway.

April 6, 2022 – Leak Testing

April 6, 2022 /

When I worked in environmental chemistry. We has an entire lab filled with instruments that used scientific grade gas 24/7 whether we were running tests or not. We had an entire bank of cylinders because we wanted redundancy and not to come in on the weekends.

A leak meant lost analysis time, wasted money and potentially even a compromised sample. They weren’t common but they did happen. When we changed cylinders we did them three at a time. Leaks are serious business in chemical manufacturing but they are something the regular person should know about as well.

What is driving this today? This is triggered by my keg testing. One of the simplest, cheapest and best ways is to do this is use a soap solution. Of course, the this is only works when the piping is under pressure. The good news is that vacuum lines are pretty rare.

When new plumbing is installed, the system is first sealed and pressurized. The system is left overnight and pressure loss is measured overnight. Any amount of loss is clearly a leak. What happens next? You have to find the leak.

The first place to check is all of the fittings or joints. Ninety-nine percent of the time, a leak is sourced from a poor connection. Glued in joints have to be cut and replaced. Screwed in fittings may have too much tape or not enough or are not supposed to have any thread sealant. Compression fittings may be tightened to much or not enough depending on whether they have rubber o-rings or not. Ferrule type fittings sometimes the ferrule is not seated properly. Those have to be replaced.

There are gas detectors for propane or natural gas. Liquids are often observable as drips. As I said above, my go to is a soap solution. The one in the picture below I purchased because I wanted some kind of applicator so I didn’t make a mess all over the place. You can look up recipes online but essentially is is a very dilute soap and water solution. Escaping gas forces bubbles to form at the location of the leak.

To use, open the bottle. It has an applicator brush like PVC cement. You simply wipe the solution around the fitting or suspected area of a leak and look for bubbles. I wanted to check all of the fittings around the regulator and gas lines because I was unsure as to the viability of all the gaskets and O-rings. Turns out that I didn’t find any leaks.

End Your Programming Routine: Leaks can be expensive. But more so than that they are inconvenient. Gas suppliers are open Monday through Friday, 8-5. Imagine that you are in the middle of your party and you lose your CO2. That would be a bummer. It would probably be a good idea to get a second tank for that reason. But again, this is still an experiment at this stage. If I decide to make a full commitment, then I will definitely get a second tank.