Magnetic Knife Rack

This is not a new trick and not the first time I've used it in my kitchen, but I thought I'd share this slightly novel execution. For the same reasons I like to have my frying pans and cutting board easily accessible in the kitchen, I like my knives to be at my immediate disposal. To that end, I typically mount a magnet somewhere prominent and just stick the knife to it. In this kitchen, I have a stainless steel hood over the range that was the perfect location for the knives.

I stuck little bar magnets on the underside of the hood [one for each knife]


Here's the back view with knives in place


And there's what it looks like from the outside. In my last kitchen, I didn't have the luxury of mounting the magnet UNDER a surface, but it still worked just fine to stick it to the outside of the microwave and put the knife directly on it. I think that I probably covered the magnet over with ducttape to make sure it didn't come off with the knife and also to protect the magnet from rusting [both problems inherently avoided by this setup].

Pin Spanner

I busted my pin spanner working on a freewheel a few months ago.

Fortunately, they make the actual pins replaceable. You just need a 4mm allen wrench to take it out.

I would have done it sooner, but it took me until last week to get my hands on a replacement. None of the local shops seem to carry these.

Et voilà. Now I can go back to hacking apart freewheels.

KitchenAid

I don't own a KitchenAid mixer but I was recently thinking about how having one might serve to expedite a few of my food preparation tasks, so I decided to finally follow up on an idea I had a long time ago.

I went down to the thrift store and after a little searching, I found exactly what I needed; a complete set of mixer heads [$1.50].

The basic premise is that I already have a perfectly good mixer, I just needed the heads. These ones chuck up perfectly in my drill and it's great because I have a variable speed trigger so I can precisely control the mixing speed. The other added benefit is that I can go in either direction as may befit the situation.

Action shot: mixing up some bread dough

It worked pretty well, but I don't know that this method represents a major improvement over mixing and kneading by hand. I'm not sure but it actually felt a little slower. I think the benefits will be more clear with cookie dough and whisking eggs.

Retrodirect I

I've wanted to build a retrodirect bike for quite a while now. I've been planning and collecting parts for about 4 months now and I'm finally ready to build.
To start off, what is retrodirect? This is a two-speed gearing system that allows the rider to engage one gear by pedaling forward, and the other by pedaling backwards. It's elegant in that it eliminates shifting. For a nice explanation of the general principle see the Wikipedia entry. Although they were once commercially manufactured, retrodirect bikes are now just another one of those obscure (although decreasingly so) custom DIY freak-bikes. I would suggest that they are rare in the modern bike world for two main reasons. First is the reason they originally went out of style; highly effective multi-speed bikes became available and still remain the easiest way cover diverse terrain on a bicycle. Second, to manufacture a retrodirect drive train requires modification or custom fabrication usually dictated by the parts available. Because of this second reason, there is no formula to follow, or standard set of parts to use. Each retrodirect bike out there will be different and reflect the unique construction challenges presented by the particular set of parts used.
What I did find when I set out to select my parts and plan my design, was that there was a significant lack of useful information available online. I found that most of the resources I came across focused on explaining the general concept of the drive train, but few contained insightful comment on the details and caveats of construction and how to overcome the common pitfalls. I tried to capture things that I learned the hard way in the hopes of preventing my fellow bike-hackers from repeating my mistakes.

The first part I collected was a frame. I selected an old steel road frame that had semi-horizontal dropouts to allow adjustment of chain tension. I've found that most other folks choose to use mountain frames and for good reasons. As you will see, a retrodirect rear wheel typically needs to be wider than 120mm, so a mountain frame with rear dropouts spaced for a 135mm wheel nicely accommodates the bulky hub. To overcome this challenge, I had to asymmetrically cold-set my frame (more on this later). Wider-set chainstays also help to reduce conflict with the chain. I've seen some folks that actually chop and offset their chainstays to move them out of the way of the complex chainline. I decided that it was easier to move the chain to accommodate the frame... but that's just me. In any case, know that you will probably have an easier time if you use a MTB frame.
The next part that was going to require some special attention was the rear wheel. I wanted a 700c wheel for the 27" frame I had chosen so that I'd have greater clearance for my fenders, but that's not specific to the retrodirect setup. What you will almost invariably need is a hub for a multi-speed freewheel. My original plan was to use a fixed-free flip-flop hub so that I could just flip my rear wheel, pop out a few chain links, and have a fixie. The huge flaw with this (as I immediately discovered upon attempting to stack two single-speed freewheels onto a hub designed for only one) is that the two stacked freewheels extended almost 14mm past the locknut on my axle. I did a little thinking about how I could still use the wheel, but every solution meant re-dishing my wheel each time I flipped it. The point is: USE A HUB DESIGNED FOR A MULTI-SPEED FREEWHEEL. I still wanted to have the versatility of switching to a fixie and ultimately came up with a much better way to accomplish it anyways, so don't despair oh ye of little coasting.

Here's a schematic representing half of a rear freewheel hub as seen from the back of a bike. I've omitted the axle for clarity so all that's pictured here is half of the body, the flange and the threading for the freewheel.

The first thing to assemble onto the hub is some type of spacer. The lockring from a standard English bottom bracket is the typical choice since it has the same threading as a standard English treaded freewheel (1.37" x 24 TPI). The reason for this will become clear soon.

Next, thread on the first freewheel. Because of the spacer, it won't thread all the way on, so some of its threads will still be exposed. Having these threads exposed will become important in the next step. If you were able to find a freewheel that was threaded all the way through, then you probably wouldn't need the spacer. This would be ideal because then the whole assembly would be attached to the hub by more threads. Because such a freewheel is typically unavailable, most people just use the lockring spacer trick.

Because you've used up all the threads on the hub, you need to artificially extend the hub threads THROUGH the first freewheel and beyond so that you can thread on a second, independent freewheel. This is typically accomplished with an adjustable cup from an English bottom bracket that will thread into the extra exposed threads from the first freewheel and serve to splint on the second one.

Finally, thread the second freewheel onto the exposed threads of the bottom bracket cup. In theory, it's very simple.

To review:
1. Multi-speed freewheel hub
2. BB lockring as a spacer
3. SS freewheel 1
4. BB adjustable cup
5. SS freewheel 2

Because the stack of two freewheels was a little longer than the original 120 mm QR axle on the wheel, I replaced it with a longer, bolt-on axle and put an extra 10 mm spacer under the locknut. To accommodate this extension, I used a broom handle to spread the right (drive side) dropout out by 10 mm. By spreading only the right side, I can use the wider axle in the same frame without having to re-dish the wheel. BEFORE ATTEMPTING TO COLD SET A FRAME, READ SHELDON BROWN'S ARTICLE ON THE SUBJECT AND BE SURE THAT YOU'RE WORKING WITH A STEEL BIKE.

Here's the BB lockring I used as a spacer for this setup. Just thread it on the hub.
For my low gear, I got the biggest freewheel I could find (ACS CLAWS 22t pictured here). What I realized when I got it home was that it had a major problem. I was going to need to thread a BB cup out the back of it, but there was a lip that extended inwards from the edge which would prevent me from passing something all the way through. The lip I'm describing is hard to see in the picture below, but is pictured on the second freewheel (#5 in the diagram above). So, my word of caution on freewheel selection is: for the first freewheel (#3 above) BE SURE THAT YOU HAVE ONE WITH NO LIP AT THE END. I've seen some that are actually threaded all the way through, but at a minimum you need to avoid ones with a lip. I think that Dicta, Pyaramid and Shimano all make SS freewheels with desirable properties. The ACS ones WILL NOT WORK.
Well I didn't know any better at the time, so I just figured I could grind away the lip and then go on my merry way. After about 5 hours with my rotary tool, I had removed enough of the freewheel body to get the BB cup through.

This is basically what it looked like after grinding away the lip. I assembled the freewheels onto the hub as depicted above. I got the chain and the floating idler pulley all set up too, but that will have to wait for another post as you're about to find out.

Unfortunately (and the reason this post is just number 1) the removal of so much metal from the FW body weakened it to the point of failure. My first big ride on the bike was a disaster. I had to drop down to single speed on the big freewheel so I was doing about 150 RPM for 30 miles. What's worse is that because the freewheel had broken, it wasn't freewheeling anymore, so I couldn't really coast either. My legs were Jell-O by the time I finally made it to my destination.

Also, because I had to grind away the teeth normally engaged by the FW removal tool, to get this one off, I had to disassemble it as guided by the Park Tool site. Disappointing though it was that I would have to try again to get the RD working, I was now granted the greatly educational opportunity to dismantle a freewheel and see what all the guts look like.

Once you remove the top cone (with a pin spanner) you can see all the insides. The first thing to note is that a freewheel has many tiny bearings, so if you plan to dismantle one to be put back together or serviced, you need to be extremely careful not to lose any of them... it's very easy. The next thing you'll see is the pawls. On this particular freewheel, there are 4 little spring-loaded hinged paddles that engage little teeth on the inside of the sprocket in only one direction. When the sprocket is spun opposite its threading, the teeth just glide over the pawls, but in the other direction, they catch and drive the inner FW body which is presumably threaded to a hub. As you can see it was the inner FW body that ultimately came to grief in my case.

This is just the sprocket part. You can see the teeth that get engaged by the pawls.

Once you remove the sprocket, there's another set of bearings on the other side. You can see here, the little hole that the pivot point of the pawl inserts into.

So that's the end of this sad story. Stay tuned for the report of my second attempt. I promise that I will eventually get it right.

Halloween

For Halloween this year, I went trick-or-treating with my friend Chen. He was the extremely scary demonic scientist and I was the clown.


We got some funny looks but the worst was: "So what school do you go to?" to which I replied after a brief but extremely uncomfortable pause "... Um, we're visiting." Awkward run-ins with the neighbors notwithstanding, it was totally worth it. I think that if you have a good costume, it doesn't really matter how old you are.


Anyways, the point of this post was that I wasn't at home to distribute shots of corn syrup to the other trick-or-treaters so I put this out on the front step. It seemed to work.

Wall Storage Ropes

I struggled to find a good place to store my skis and other long skinny objects that was secure and out of the way but still easily accessible when needed. I usually just leaned them up against the wall between two wall studs, but I decided that a more secure arrangement would be needed. To that end I decided to string up some rope between the wall studs so I could slip these tall narrow objects behind without fear of their falling.

I used my staple gun to tack the rope down. After shooting the staples in, I pounded them in a little more with a hammer to make sure that the rope would hold. For the ends I did 3 staples on the front and then tucked the end around the corner with 3 more for good measure.


To help keep the rope from sliding at the middle positions, I threw in a little overhand knot between the staples. I couldn't really hit those ones directly with the hammer because the knot got in the way. To circumvent this little issue, I placed my pry bar over the staples and then hit that with the hammer. It worked well.

Finished product:

Bowl Repair I

I got a big crack in this plastic bowl that has spread to a point where I can no longer ignore it.

The first step in preparing to glue the crack is to clamp it so that it comes out flush. In addition to just having a smooth product, it will be a stronger repair if the two sides are well aligned.

The next step in preparation for a glue job is to clean off the surfaces to be glued. In this case, GooGone is the solvent of choice.

For this job I've chosen a fancy high-viscosity gel-type super glue so that it won't run all over the bowl and the clamp. My hope is to create a more low-profile repair for the bowl.

After the first half dried, I clamped, cleaned and glued the rest of the crack. I added a little section of coat hanger as a splint to reinforce the repair up at the edge where it will receive the most abuse.

NOTE: I labeled this post 'Bowl Repair 1' to remind me that I still have another bowl waiting to be repaired.

Bike Stand

When I was getting my workshop set up, one of the first things I knew I wanted to add to it was a bench-mounted bike repair stand. I had toyed with the idea of just buying one, but they're pretty darn expensive so the clear solution was to build. I had seen the mechanism I knew I wanted in a stand made by Park Tool, but I didn't know if I would find such a clamp for my use. Fortunately, I'm just down the street from what may be the world's finest locally and independently owned hardware store. As I've now come to expect from the excellent people at McGuckin Hardware, not only did they have the exact piece of hardware to meet my obscure need; I now know that it's called a toggle clamp and they had 6 or 8 different kinds and sizes.

I started by mounting a piece of 2" angle steel (scrap from a modification to my trailer) to the corner of my bench. To that I mounted the toggle clamp, but I had to raise it up on a little block of synthetic 2x6 so that it would accommodate the thickness of a top tube. The little rubber stopper bolt can be adjusted a bit to fit different sized tubes. To cradle the top tube below the clamp I put a half section of pipe.


This is a short galvanized steel coupler about 1 1/2" in diameter cut lengthwise with a hacksaw. The hardest part was mounting the round pipe securely to the flat bar. I put two holes through and used hardened flat-head machine screws and lock nuts. To contour the shape of the screw heads, I tried to taper the holes a little. This helped to get a tight fit, and it turned out not to be a huge deal because the stand doesn't receive much force perpendicular to the axis of the bike. Then to protect the bike from scratches I glued in a half section of thick vinyl tubing with Goop for a tough bond that could withstand some wiggling and impact.


And there's the stand with my bike

The stand works well for bikes with a standard flat top tube that have thinner tubing. My road bike has fat carbon framing and has trouble fitting into the stand. Because I ride the track bike most of the time, it's the one that mostly needs maintenance so the lack of versatility hasn't been a huge problem. I've started to think about other designs that would be more flexible but the only major change in this design would be a wider pipe to accommodate fatter tubes. There's no real danger of going too wide because as long as it's curved it will cradle a round tube. In retrospect it would have been much better to error on that side. The other design flaw I've found is the inability of the angle steel to resist torque. It doesn't make it way harder to work on the bike, but it is annoying to have it bobbing in a see-saw motion around the clamp point. I don't think that a square or round tube would have this problem. I may still reinforce the current arm with a square piece which I expect to greatly attenuate the torsional flexibility. Nonetheless, this stand has made a dramatic change in the ease with which I maintain and clean my bikes which means that I perform those tasks far more often. The materials cost me less than $20 so all things considered, it's pretty sweet.

Shower Spray

Shower scum between the tiles is really gross. As you can see we were having a little problem with some of our own. Scrubbing it off was a very tedious task that I wish not to repeat soon, so the obvious solution was to prevent it from growing in the first place.

It is said that "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure". In this case "32 oz. of prevention is worth 70 minutes of unpleasant scrubbing". I got some Arm & Hammer daily shower spray to mist down the shower after each use and prevent the mildew from forming. This was working for the shower, but there was a problem with the storage of the sprayer. We had been setting it on this little cabinet next to the shower that was made of a cheap veneered particleboard. The nozzle on the old spray bottle would leak a little and the cabinet surface was getting warped and destroyed. The problem now, was developing a new storage solution for the spray bottle. [I later upgraded to the superior spray bottle pictured below, but I still prefer the new storage solution.]

Because the bathroom featuring the shower has an unfinished celling with exposed joists, the easiest solution was to just hang the spray bottle from above. I used a double fisherman's knot to join a short length of 1/8" parachute cord into a loop around one of the rafters right next to the shower.

Now the spray bottle is cleanly out of the way, but easy to get to when we need it. I'm also pleased to report that the shower scum has been growing back at a markedly retarded pace.

Piano

One of the first things I wanted to get now that I lived in a house with some space was a piano. I had been using my keyboard for the last five years or so and it just isn't the same as playing on a real piano. After a little searching, I found I pretty decent one on craigslist. The woman selling it was asking $300 but by the time I responded, she had a moving truck and needed to get it out in the next 3 hours. This worked to my advantage because I got the piano for $150 and we used her moving truck to get it to my house. We just rolled it off the truck into my garage where it sat for about a month until I had a few stout friends to help me get up 6 stairs into my living room. The piano is in moderate condition, but is way out of regulation and needs a bit of tuning too. The first thing I did was to take it apart and clean it out which had probably never been done. I'm posting photos from the re-assembly process but the disassembly was just the reverse. I should add that the all-but-subtle paint job made it a little difficult to figure out the exact order of disassembly but I eventually got it without causing any major damage to the piano.

Here are the guts


Yep... that's the paint job I was talking about

The first pieces back were the blocks at either end of the keys


Next was the lid over the keys

The next piece goes on top of the key-lid and is the base where music rests
Here, I've put back two parts. There are two corner pillars that are screwed into the sides. Once I put those back, the front panel nests between them and is held in place by two little wooden wedges.

All back together with the addition of the lip that goes in front of the keys. This is screwed in from the bottom and was the first piece to come off.

When I had it all apart, I vacuumed up a lot of the dust and found some weird relics of past owners buried inside. Also, I found the missing hammer that had broken off from the high C. The process didn't do that much to improve the piano's sound, but I can tell it's much happier now. I guess more than anything it was just a bonding experience. My next task will be to actually tune it but that may not happen for a little while.