What I Did This Weekend - In Pictures!

Gramaisc

Forum O. G.
Well, that was less than 100% successful. There is far more 'debris' in it than there initially appeared to be. It will need some filtration before a reasonable substance is produced. I melted about 15-20% of the load and produced enough to fill a large tin can with a bit of string in the centre - as an emergency candle.

Some small lumps thrown into the fire demonstrated just how flammable it is - there may even be some use as firelighters, too.

I may experiment further...
 

littleme

250,000th poster!
Well, that was less than 100% successful. There is far more 'debris' in it than there initially appeared to be. It will need some filtration before a reasonable substance is produced. I melted about 15-20% of the load and produced enough to fill a large tin can with a bit of string in the centre - as an emergency candle.

Some small lumps thrown into the fire demonstrated just how flammable it is - there may even be some use as firelighters, too.

I may experiment further...
I wasnt aware you could do anything with the comb, I should have kept the teeny bit the beekeeper gave me when he rescued our swarm!
 

Gramaisc

Forum O. G.
With a return to the Land of the Living beginning to look possible, I have done a small amount of reorganising in the Shed.

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I can now sit next to the fire and be toasted.

In the original layout, the seat was about in front of where the cooker is now. This was handy enough, but apart from being in the way now, if it was still there, the new location gives you the benefit of considerably more radiation from the side of the stove and it makes it easy to open the door for a quick check of the fuel situation.

The seat is currently raised on a 'plinth', I may drop that onto the floor again, subject to test results over the next few days.
 

Gramaisc

Forum O. G.
Since I plumbed in the Shed cooker 'properly', I haven't been using the gas poker to start the fire. I will get around to extending the gas network for that at some point, but it's not high on the list.

One thing that I am conscious of is that the material of the hose to the poker could suffer, should it contact the hot stove surface. Of course, it should only be used when the stove is cold, but there's always a risk of inadvertent damage at some point. There are various agricultural suppliers here and I have seen long springs on offer a few times, that could provide a practical cover. Yesterday, I popped into one that often has really odd and useful stuff. And, lo, there was exactly the right thing!

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I just needed to grind the rings off the ends and thread the hose through.

That will hold the rubber pipe off the hot surface, with a small air-space - if it does the job just once, then I will have got the €4 back.
 

staffordjas

Well-Known Forumite
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Managed to keep my jumper intact...


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The one standing had just been enjoying having his head stroked , when a more interesting bird flew past and through a nesthole in the wall. Never seen a cow move so fast, it was like a playful puppy as it galloped across the enclosure to chase it!

Said hello to the BIG cows from a few yards away , with the excuse it was a bit too muddy closer up.....

Had a great time on the farm to round off my birthday. :)
 

Glam

Mad Cat Woman
View attachment 11870Managed to keep my jumper intact...
View attachment 11871The one standing had just been enjoying having his head stroked , when a more interesting bird flew past and through a nesthole in the wall. Never seen a cow move so fast,it was like a playful puppy as it galloped across the enclosure to chase it!

Said hello to the BIG cows from a few yards away , with the excuse it was a bit too muddy closer up.....

Had a great time on the farm to round off my birthday. :)
I'll have to take you to the farm where my sister lives. They normally have 2 barns full of calves.
 

Gramaisc

Forum O. G.
Since I plumbed in the Shed cooker 'properly', I haven't been using the gas poker to start the fire. I will get around to extending the gas network for that at some point, but it's not high on the list.

One thing that I am conscious of is that the material of the hose to the poker could suffer, should it contact the hot stove surface. Of course, it should only be used when the stove is cold, but there's always a risk of inadvertent damage at some point. There are various agricultural suppliers here and I have seen long springs on offer a few times, that could provide a practical cover. Yesterday, I popped into one that often has really odd and useful stuff. And, lo, there was exactly the right thing!

View attachment 11860

I just needed to grind the rings off the ends and thread the hose through.

That will hold the rubber pipe off the hot surface, with a small air-space - if it does the job just once, then I will have got the €4 back.
Eager to try the new slinky gas poker, but with the built-in pipe-work still some time off into the future, I rigged it up to run off a Campingaz 907 cylinder that I keep in reserve for the apocalypse.

I let it burn until I could hear wood 'cracking' - about 90 seconds.

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This gave it a reasonable start.

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Five minutes with the door cracked open and it was well away.

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There is another advantage to this sort of start - there is an initial pulse of heat up the flue, and it is largely smokeless. A 'traditional' start sometimes gets the odd smoky blow-back on a windy morning, until the flue is warm enough to overcome that tendency.
 

staffordjas

Well-Known Forumite
Eager to try the new slinky gas poker, but with the built-in pipe-work still some time off into the future, I rigged it up to run off a Campingaz 907 cylinder that I keep in reserve for the apocalypse.

I let it burn until I could hear wood 'cracking' - about 90 seconds.

View attachment 11880


This gave it a reasonable start.

View attachment 11881


Five minutes with the door cracked open and it was well away.

View attachment 11882


There is another advantage to this sort of start - there is an initial pulse of heat up the flue, and it is largely smokeless. A 'traditional' start sometimes gets the odd smoky blow-back on a windy morning, until the flue is warm enough to overcome that tendency.
I remember my gran having one of those pokers.
 

Gramaisc

Forum O. G.
In an effort to start 'doing things' again, after five weeks of lethargy from whatever lurgy I had, I decided to use some off-cuts of plywood to make a holder for the paper roll - this has tended to be 'stored where it was last used', and thus also to be subject to a risk of being squashed flat.

The holder is made from the plywood the bench tops are made from, so, by using a bit of that for the spacer, the holder will slot on almost anywhere along the bench front, along two sides of the shed, and it will also hang below, should that be beneficial.

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Being made from odd offcuts, with six screws, a blob of glue and the end of an old broom handle, it was essentially 'free'.

The holes for the broom handle 'bar' were deliberately(?) slightly misaligned, so the friction holds it firmly in place, without needing any additional component for that function.
 

Gramaisc

Forum O. G.
More plywood upcycling. I've had an old Stanley 702 'table vice' for decades, but never got around to fitting soft jaws, although it is a die-cast thing, so the damage potential is far less than with a steel or iron vice. Flushed with the success of the paper roll dispenser, I looked at finally doing it.

A good look at it revealed that the six pre-drilled holes for the purpose of holding such jaws in place were 5mm diameter, this meant that they could easily be tapped as M6 threaded holes, and they were. This then meant that the jaws could be held on 'from the inside', by countersunk bolts, rather than by woodscrews from the outside, allowing thinner wooden plates to be used, thus saving the jaw opening dimension a bit and averting the potential for the woodscrews to finally poke through, into a workpiece.

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It will be an easy matter to replace these jaws as they get damaged - should that become an issue - this vice isn't in daily use, really, just for odd jobs 'on site'.
 

Gramaisc

Forum O. G.
Time to try doing stuff outside again.

It was around 6 & 7C here today, but, with no wind, it wasn't really cold, so I decided to turn over one of the plots. There has been no rain for a fortnight and hardly any at all for the whole of whatever year it is now. The northernmost of the two beds gets significantly more solar exposure than the other, even more so in the winter, so that one was tackled. It will want another go, but it's fluffed up nicely and should dry a bit more now.

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The far end does still need a bit of further attention...

All this was done under the intense supervision of the robins, who were not impressed by the speed I was doing it at, thus impeding their quality assurance and pest control activities.
 
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