iPod Case

When I first got my iPod about 4 years ago, I almost never used it because I was afraid of damaging it. It wasn't until I found a sturdy case for it that I felt comfortable taking it out and using it. I found this burly thing from OtterBox that is completely submersible and will protect my iPod from a good drop or what have you. Now I have it on every time I leave the house, so it gets a lot of use. It's important for it to be waterproof because I hook it on my belt sticking out exposed to rain and snow.

This post is about a repair job I did a little while ago so I don't have any pictures in progress. Here is the back of the case and the removable belt clip that cracked.

In red, I outlined where the crack occurred, although you can see the repair on the other side.

My first attempts at repair were with super glue. I just glued the seam and clamped it. Those repairs were brittle and didn't hold up very long. I realized that I would need a more resilient solution. Goop is a strong glue that cures firm but still slightly pliable, so my next attempts were just with some Goop. The Goop repair held a little longer, but ultimately came apart too. Finally I decided that I would need to reinforce the crack with another material in addition to gluing the two pieces together. I bent a small section of coat hanger to exactly contour the outside curve of the top of the clip near the crack. Then I glued it on with Goop. That repair has been doing very nicely for about 3 months now, so I will consider it a success.

P.S. I tagged this post 'bikes' because the iPod has become an essential part of my riding experience. More to come on that subject and how Colorado state law views it.

Shabbat Candle Sticks

About 4 years ago, my Aunt and Uncle gave me a nice travel set of artsy Shabbat candle sticks. For all of their aesthetic value, they seem structurally deficient. One of the welds that held the little retaining walls down came apart and now wax leaks out over the table and makes a big mess, so I needed to upgrade.

I got two 1/2" hex nuts and a small 1" x 2" steel shim. I filed down the corners of the shim so there wouldn't be any sharp edges. Then I attached the nuts with a little J-B Weld.
**It's important to note that not any old adhesive will work in this type of application. I've tried to use superglue for things like this but it just comes apart at high temperatures. J-B Weld is rated to 600 °F and was therefore the obvious choice for creating a metal bond that would withstand high temperatures.

There it is with candles in place. I sized the hex nuts so that the candles would just thread into them. They go in pretty easily and do a nice job staying put. It's also a very compact and rugged solution making them ideal for travel (the original intent of the set I first had).

Mailbox

I got home and found my mailbox teetering on top of the post had been firmly mounted to when I had left in the morning. It turns out that the man who perpetrated this act of mailbox decapitation had left a note with his contact information, apologizing and offering to pay for the damages. I told him not to worry about it and that I would take care of the repair.

There's the headless stump that had once borne my mailbox.

The bottom of the mailbox has a lip that extends down about 1" around its perimeter. A small sheet of wood that nests into the space created by this lip had been mounted to the top of the post. The lip of the mailbox then fits snugly around this piece of wood and can be attached by driving screws into this sheet of wood through holes in the lip. Here is pictured the fraction of this sheet of wood that remained attached to the mailbox.

I had to cut a length of board that would fit just inside the lip of the mailbox.

Then I mounted the little section of board to the top of the post with 4 lag screws.

The board I chose was a scrap of synthetic 2" x 6" I had lying about. I think it's just made from recycled bottles and things like that. It's great to work with because it doesn't splinter, it's weatherproof (highly relevant to this project) and it's soft to cut and drill through. You can see that even if it looks like wood, it still drills like plastic.

Finally, I set the mailbox on the block I had mounted to the post and attached it with a few 1 1/4" drywall screws.

Homemade Newsprint Pad

Happy Pi Day!

This post concerns a large pile of newsprint I aquired as waste from the relocation of several refrigerators at work. The freezers and refrigerators had been stuffed full of news print so that they could be moved without being emptied. I didn't know exactly what I was going to use the newsprint for, but I knew I could do better than just recycling it, so I took it home. It sat in an awkward roll in my garage for a few months before I was finally motivated to come up with a better way to store it. I decided to make a pad out of it.

For some reason, there is an extensive collection of yard sticks lying around the house, so I didn't feel bad about committing one of them to becoming the spine of the newsprint pad. I lined up the top off each page along the yard stick.

I bound the stack to the yard stick with staples.

There's the finished product. I've mostly been using it to sketch out designs or record ideas, but it's much easier to store this way.

Extension Cord Management

I keep a 25' extension cord around for things like my drill that have short plugs on them. The problem is that I use it so often that it's a big pain to coil it back up and put it away each time.

I put a little hanging hook (like the ones I use to hang bikes) under my work bench and leave the extension cord plugged in and coiled onto it. This is kind of like the fancy retractable ones that you can buy for lots of money... without a complicated mechanism to break.

Milk Box Spout

There was this big box of dry milk sitting in our kitchen for months. I asked my roommate if I could have some because I had finished my little box. She said that she hadn't been using it because she couldn't figure out how to open the box, but that I was welcome to have some. The problem was that the new box didn't have a pouring spout so I decided to install one.

I took the spout off the old box.

Then I cut a flap in the new box to match the shape of the spout.

The spout has two little teeth that stick through and fold over the flap to secure it on. I had to cut two little slits in the flap to accommodate these teeth.

Next, I mounted the spout to the flap by inserting the teeth through the slits I cut and then bending them over to secure the spout on.

I had to bend down the corners of the spout to catch the inside of the box so that the spout wouldn't just articulate all the way out of the hole.

Final step: Pinch the two sides together and insert through the hole.

In conclusion, the spout it works alright. More careful construction would have resulted in a tighter fit, but it still pours fine.

Twine Dispenser

I decided it would be great if I had a little twine dispenser on my work bench so I could quickly get a segment for all of the many little things it might get used for.

I got a 1/2" x 6" hex bolt to serve as the spindle


I used my 1/2" paddle bit to bore a hole in one of the wall studs in front of my work bench. [When I started the upper hole, I was unpleasantly surprised by a nail so I had to try again]

I poked the bolt through and added a washer to go between the twine spool and the stud.

Next I added the twine and another washer

Because I wasn't going to tighten the bolt down very hard, I applied some thread locker so that it would stay put once I had it to the right position. The idea is that it should be tight enough so the dispenser doesn't wobble, but shouldn't create friction to make it difficult to pull twine out.

The nut is only finger tight

I used a little angle joist hanger as the guide for the dispenser

Here's the finished product in place. I might mount a little razor blade on that corner so I don't have to pull out a knife to cut it each time I want some. My original idea was essentially a big dental floss dispenser anyways.

Retrodirect II - Teaser

After my first build of the retrodirect came apart, I decided to make a few improvements and have another go at it. I did get this one working a little better and I'll post the details of a few clever improvements I made but for now, here's a quick video of it in action.

Compost

I wanted to start composting in my back yard, but I needed the right container for it. My ideal setup was a plastic 50-gallon drum, but after weeks of regularly checking all the best dumpsters in town, I had turned up nothing. I was ready to give into the man and actually BUY one. No sooner had I given up, I was out on a ride and happened upon one in a ditch along the road.

I didn't have the right bike to carry it at the time so I sped home to grab my hauling bike and retrieve my new compost bucket.

To keep it from tipping over, I tied it to the fence in the corner of my yard with an old inner tube. I just leave it open to the air which seems to work pretty well. I also got a little hoe that I keep in there so I can turn it over each time I deposit new material. My understanding is that by keeping the compost aerated, it will go a lot faster.

I found this little 1.5 gallon ice cream tub (also along the road) that we keep in the kitchen to collect food scraps. I make a habit of thoroughly washing this each time I empty it to keep it from getting too manky.

Color Coding Tools

I had the same problem that faces many folks using tools, especially in a bike shop: the 14mm and the 15mm box wrench look the same from a quick glance.

The simple solution is one made famous by Sheldon Brown. A 5-color system gives wrenches a color based on their size in mm. Because only 5 colors are used to label more than 5 sizes of wrench, the mod 5 value of the wrench size is used.
0 = red
1 = white
2 = yellow
3 = green
4 = blue
For example, 13 mod 5 = 3 so the 13 mm wrench is green in my system. For more detail on the mod operator, see this link.

I also color-coded the hooks to make it even easier to get my wrenches back to their appropriate hooks, especially when I have more than one down at a time.

Ahhh... much better. This is particularly helpful for double ended wrenches (of which I own none).

It looks great and really does streamline things when you're working. More than 5 colors is unnecessary because it's easy enough to tell a 10mm wrench from a 15mm even if they're not next to each other. I think I'm going to get about labeling my allen keys next.