What I Did This Weekend - In Pictures!

[Gramaisc]

Chilly out again today, so, apart from the bike ride, it's just been little jobs in the Shed.

I broke the spring on one of these secateurs ages ago and just spotted what looked like a very similar one in a pump bottle that was going into the recycling.

Almost a perfect replacement.

Also, the metal shears in the background above also had a broken spring, a leaf spring this time - you can see the remains on the handle. This was replaced with a piece from the end of a broken hacksaw blade - it even had a suitable hole in it.

It's very awkward to use without the spring, so my trusty Mole Supercut is back in action again - we'll see how long the 'new spring' lasts...

 

[Gramaisc]

The year-long-weekend continues, so, last night, I rearranged these cupboards, to place the clear glass items on the (now dusted) clear glass shelves.

Tonight, I fitted three 1 watt LED strips.

It seems worthwhile and provides 'just enough' illumination to the room with no other lights on, so I'll pursue it and establish less obvious access for the wiring next.

 

[EasMid]

Chilly out again today, so, apart from the bike ride, it's just been little jobs in the Shed.

I broke the spring on one of these secateurs ages ago and just spotted what looked like a very similar one in a pump bottle that was going into the recycling.

Almost a perfect replacement.

View attachment 10094

Also, the metal shears in the background above also had a broken spring, a leaf spring this time - you can see the remains on the handle. This was replaced with a piece from the end of a broken hacksaw blade - it even had a suitable hole in it.

View attachment 10095

It's very awkward to use without the spring, so my trusty Mole Supercut is back in action again - we'll see how long the 'new spring' lasts...

View attachment 10096

That must be hard work to use. I’ve got a very similar one made by Sykes but the handles are at least twice as long & even that gets a bit painful after a few minutes.

 

[Gramaisc]

That must be hard work to use. I’ve got a very similar one made by Sykes but the handles are at least twice as long & even that gets a bit painful after a few minutes.

The Mole?

It's definitely an 'exercise' device, but it doesn't get used all day.

The most draining (hah!) thing I've ever done with it is to cut twenty feet of 40mm waste pipe lengthways, to make some small guttering.

I have a few other shears, it's a matter of using the most suitable one for each job.

 

[BobClay]

This is the business end of my living room. It's the computer I use the most, surfing and so on and also it's being used for Microsoft Insider Ring beta testing for Windows 10 (and has been for some years., the computer is 10 years old, but still good being an early core I7.) Another version of Windows 10 installed on Thursday and it's version is DEV build 21332.1000. I've never seen them use the word DEV before.

For some time now I've been annoyed by that 'dead space' below the shelf on the opposite wall. I use that shelf for general charging things like phones and other items. I put the timber (heavily varnished) dado rail in when I did the panelling and put a spur off the ring main to feed those sockets you see. The spur is headed by an isolating switch and a fused power breaker and RCD so it's quite safe. I've marked it 'Low Power Only' for some future user. The worst you can do if you plug a couple of electric fires into it is pop the fuse or pull out the breaker. The RCD is there so you don't fry yourself if you do something stupid.

The dead space however is annoying, so when I saw two self assembly three drawer bedside cabinets for sale, I bought them, became a cabinet maker armed with a screwdriver for a couple of hours, and then put a pine shelf board over the top. So I can shift all the dangling charger leads (every kind of micro USB bloody plug imaginable including magnetics) into the drawers and generally tidy up the whole area.

I put the receiver on the shelf because as is well known, every working position should have an HF receiver !! For now it's mostly decorative because I have to figure out how to get an aerial to it. The other side of that wall is the garage, which suggests going directly through it for a feeder. It's in the planning stage.

Top pix before I started, bottom pix progress so far completed this morning. If nothing else it's less annoying space wastage.

 

[Carole]

@BobClay

I’m beginning to wonder if you and @Gramaisc are twins separated at birth.

 

[Gramaisc]

@BobClay

I’m beginning to wonder if you and @Gramaisc are twins separated at birth.

1, That is libellous.

2, If it wasn't libellous, it would violate the Anonymity Thread requirements.

3, If it was true, it would be widespread knowledge, as a labour period of a decade's duration would have been mentioned in the national press.

 

[Thehooperman]

@BobClay

I’m beginning to wonder if you and @Gramaisc are twins separated at birth.

I was wondering if you turned around 180 deg in @BobClay's room would you see @Gramaisc's workbench and stove arrangement?

 

[Glam]

@BobClay You have the same puta chair as my youngest.

 

[Gramaisc]

A few days ago, I got a couple of clocks to fix, if possible. This one ("It just stopped and won't go at all now") is one from the early days of exports from mainland China, probably late 70s, I suspect.

When I opened it up, I discovered that it had had a fairly catastrophic failure - the axle of the balance wheel had worn to the point that the whole balance wheel had fallen out altogether and was hanging on the hairspring, thus letting go all of the drive chain, which did seem to have survived the event, though.

In a 'cheap' clock, this sort of disaster would generally get a Do Not Resuscitate notice, but, as cheap as this thing was, it was probably a very significant purchase in China at that time and I noticed that the designer had had every intention of it being fixable and working for as long as possible. About half an hour got everything back into the correct place, with the adjustment on the balance wheel bearings still being enough to take up all the wear of the last few decades, and it's working nicely again now, 24 hours on.

The second hand, with the plane circling the dial, is oddly mesmerising to watch.

 

[Withnail]

You never see their garage doors together.

 

[Bob]

I got myself a new cocktail cabinet.

 

[BobClay]

What ? No Château de Chasselas ? .... eeeee when I wer't lad, we used to DREAM of Château de Chasselas.

 

[Bob]

What ? No Château de Chasselas ? .... eeeee when I wer't lad, we used to DREAM of Château de Chasselas.

It’s a work in progress

 

[tek-monkey]

Got some old pallets, made a dog climbing frame!

 

[Gramaisc]

So, I have made some progress on the Greenhouse bench conversion. I've done one side.

It should promote more efficient use of the space.

Well, better than it was, anyway...

 

[Gramaisc]

I have two more 8' x 2' plywood pieces - one will obviously be the counter on the left side - the other will form a 2' square to fill in the gap at the back, giving a U-shaped 2' wide counter all round, except at the door. The remainder of that sheet will form four 2' triangular shelves, using the corner braces for support.

Cutting, notching, drilling and forming the first of the six triangular struts was a bit nerve-racking - three down - three to go.

It is possible that, at some point in the future, I may cut the plywood into 2' squares, so that individual "tiles" can be placed/removed as required - we'll see.

There are supports every two feet, so it should be possible.

 

[BobClay]

Went mad last week as a Flex 6400 radio ham transceiver appeared on Ebay. These are US built bits of kit and rarely pop up on Ebay. I bought it and here it is having just set it up. It's the black box on the right with the blue lines on the front.
It only has one button, the green power button and that's it. It's an SDR (Software Defined Radio) and is controlled from the PC under the bench. The software is visible on the right hand monitor. It covers all the HAM bands up to VHF and can transmit up to 100 watts. The main beauty of it is that it is connected via my LAN network (connects directly to the router) which means it can can be accessed from any computer that has the software installed. It can even be controlled remotely via the Internet if you wish. Sadly Android phones don't have an APP, they only do one for Apple products. I could install it on my Ipad but they want £60.00 for that and on such a small screen that's not for me.
Here it's shown tuned to a German Radio Telex signal transmitting weather information for ships. The RTTY decoding software is shown on the other two monitors.
Bottom pix shows a close up of the SmartSDR software controlling the Flex. This has a gazillion buttons and controls on it, which means much reading up for me.

 

[Gramaisc]

A bit further on the Greenhouse job.

I had two sizes of aluminium angle for the job - 25x25mm and 19x19mm. I decided to use the larger stuff for the more exposed 'front' edges and the smaller for the bracing pieces. I spotted that the smaller stuff, which had been accumulated over a period of time, was of two thicknesses - I decided to use the thinner bits at the back - on the basis that the door end will be the most used. Putting almost my full weight on the joints with the thinner struts was enough to 'start a buckle' - mmm...

So I decided to brace the centre of the compression sections, to take the 'whip' out - and this could also be used to place a half-width shelf in. Screwing the shelf to the new bracing pieces further stiffened things up, stopping things buckling sideways, too - and it's all quite happy with my full weight now - and I have a shelf for the pressure washer.

The other long counter is in now. Tomorrow may see the 2' square above the pressure washer and the four triangular shelves in the corners.

 

[Lucy]

Planted the onions...