Laundry Hamper

For a long time I used to put my dirty laundry into a milk crate that lived under my bed but my current bed doesn't accommodate that set up, so I needed a new hamper. I decided that I wanted to come up with a way to keep the hamper in my closet since I wasn't using all of that space anyways.

I found a plain laundry bag sitting around somewhere which was the perfect starting point for this project.

Next I punched a 1/4" brass grommet into each top corner of the bag.

Then I fashioned two little hooks out of coat hanger which I put around the closet rod.

Finally, I hung the bag onto these hooks. This is actually an old project, but I liked it a lot. I've been using this for three years or so, and it's pretty stellar. It hangs high so I can keep some boxes of stuff below it, and I put the grommets both slightly towards the back of the bag so that the front lip hangs out. This makes it easy to toss things into it from across the room... a very important feature of a hamper.

Coldset Kabuki

I present to you my Kabuki. I pulled this bike out of a dumpster in 2002 with downtube shifters and a 5 speed freewheel. I put around 4000 miles on it in this setup. It was my transportation, recreation and I even toured a little on it. About two years ago when I was waiting for the fork on my track frame, I decided to strip down this bike and make it fixed. I took off the freewheel and threaded a track cog onto the hub secured with the old lockring from my bottom bracket and Locktite. Because of the vertical dropouts I sawed off my axle so the only thing going through the dropouts was my QR skewer and used a ½ link to achieve perfect chain tension. This clever set of hacks came to me courtesy of the late Sheldon Brown. When this setup finally failed during a skid and my cog popped off I destroyed the threading on the rear hub. Fortunately, after I changed to my winter gear ratio, my rear axle was actually centered perfectly in the rear dropout and so I was able to use the wheelset that I had been saving for my track frame. At that time I decided to strip it down and paint it black which it still is. Once I had the fork for my track frame, I put all the parts on that and haven't built up this frame since.

I decided about a year ago that the next life of the Kabuki would be as a touring bike. I currently lack a good touring bike and this would make a very sweet one. It's got perfect geometry and the frame is pretty light. I can't think of a better frame for the job so I've started getting parts and prepping the frame.

The first step in preparing this frame to be built up is to re-space the dropouts. It was 122.5 mm and I need to get it out to 130mm to accommodate a modern 9 speed hub.

 

First I ran a string through the dropouts and up around the head tube to check that the frame was starting aligned symmetric.

 

I accomplished this alignment check by measuring the distance from the seat tube on each side out to the string. Indeed, the frame was in good shape to start out, so all I had to do was bend out each dropout the same 3.75 mm.

 

It looks barbaric but this delicate task is best accomplished by jamming a 2x4 under the drop out and prying up just a little. Then I re-checked the alignment to make sure that I had gotten it symmetric.

Finally I would check to see if I had gotten it out to 130 mm. I was being pretty careful not to over spread the frame, so it took 3 or 4 increments to get it there.

Although my paint job was pretty decent, I decided that I wanted to get a professional job that would last a little better and look a little nicer. The last step in prepping the frame for painting was to pop out the head cups from the headset (which desperately needs to be replaced).

 

And now it's ready to paint. I've already got some of the components and but I still have a bunch of parts to get together. It's going to be very pretty. You'll hear about it when it's done.

Almond Milk

I had been drinking almond milk for few months before I got so fed up with those obnoxious little hard-to-recycle 1-quart cartons that I decided to try making my own. I found a recipe and gave it a shot. It turns out that it's really easy and comes out very good. Now I've been making my own almond milk every few days for the last 4 or 5 months. I get my almonds in bulk and use a re-usable cheesecloth (see note at bottom). I use the leftover almond pulp in other baking I do, so my almond milk production has reduced my contribution to the waste stream by a significant margin - and that makes me very happy.

I start with 1 cup of raw, unsalted almonds.

I soak the almonds for at least 6 hours to soften up.

I usually just let them soak overnight and then I make the milk fresh in the morning for my cereal. (I took this picture of the full moon rising over the Atlantic on Jekyll Island, GA)

After the almonds have soaked, I give them a quick rinse...

...and toss them in the blender with 3 cups of water for a total of 4 cups of stuff in the blender.

Then I blend the almonds into the water on the highest setting. I've found that by leaving it blending for a full minute or longer, I get more milk out of the almonds and end up with a finer pulp.

Next I pour the blended almond mixture into a cheesecloth...

...and squeeze all of the milk out through the cheesecloth.

I pour the milk into bottles to store in the fridge. Even my finest milk will start to settle out pretty significantly after 4 or 5 days, so I only make two liters at a time so I don't have to store it that long.

Assuming that I've soaked the almonds overnight, making the milk takes me about 5 minutes in the morning. It is super easy and accomplishes all of my original goals - to have tasty non-dairy milk without all of the packaging. I highly recommend it!

Some final thoughts:

• I've found that my almond milk has a slightly nuttier taste than the commercial stuff. I happen to like it but there are a few things I've tried to play with flavor. I tried substituting about 1/4 of the almonds with cashews. This seemed to mute the almond flavor without adding much from the cashews. I've also added small amounts of vanilla extract, agave syrup or molasses to flavor the milk. I found the results pleasant but I just prefer the plain flavor. I also made chocolate almond milk by adding cocoa powder and agave syrup. That was mighty tasty.
• I now use a muslin cheesecloth that I made. This small change of equipment has been a dramatic improvement for several reasons. The first is that I have much smoother milk with virtually no detectable particulates. Second, it's a much tougher material so I can squeeze a lot more milk out of it without worrying that it will split open and dump almond pulp into my milk. Third, the coarse cheesecloths that you can buy in the grocery store cost about $3 for a square yard or so. I tried washing and reusing one of these cheesecloths once and it completely fell apart. In contrast, I've been using my muslin cheesecloth for a few months and it's holding up very nicely. It is just a funnel shaped piece of unbleached cotton muslin. I just rinse it out after each batch and let it dry in the sun.
• I found a place I can get raw almonds for $3.99/ lb. At this price, I can make a quart of milk for about $1.60. In most stores a quart of almond milk is between $2.50 and $3.50 and comes with all of that horrible packaging. Given that I use a quart of milk in my cereal almost every two days, that small savings adds up pretty quickly. It's also very convenient that I never have to worry about running out of milk. Because the raw almonds store very well, I can get a month's worth of almonds at a time so if I'm out of milk, I just have to soak some almonds before I go to bed and then I can have fresh milk in the morning.
  
• After you've squeezed the milk out, you're left with about a cup of almond pulp. I still haven't figured out exactly what the best thing to do with this is. I put it in all of my bread and into my pancakes, but that doesn't use it up at nearly the rate that I produce it. I tried making crackers with it but because I didn't want to use any flour, they were all crumbly. Recently I tried making cookies by adding banana, peanut butter and honey. These were pretty good and had a much better consistency, but were still a little off. If anyone has any suggestions for almond meal based recipes, I'm all ears. I did find that by blending the milk longer, I got a finer meal which was better to bake with. 

Pack Straps

I have far more packs than I can reasonably justify owning, but I must honestly say that this one is amongst the best. It weighs just 11 oz and I can do a 4 day backpacking trip out of it. The framesheet is the perfect density of HDPE so that it is thin and light but still stiff enough to carry a fairly large load well. Overall, this pack does what it does better than any comparable pack I've ever seen.

All of that praise notwithstanding, this pack was designed with one major flaw. The straps are extremely thin and cut into the shoulders with almost any amount of weight in the pack. I usually just stuff my extra socks/mittens under my shirt to pad it out, but I decided it was time to take my improvement to the next level.

I decided to add some padding to the straps. For the padding I used 1/8" closed cell foam and cut out the shape I wanted the straps to be.

  I doubled up the foam to make a 1/4" sheet and then sewed the pad between two layers of nylon.

I then cut out the pad and singed the edges to keep them from fraying.

Finally, I sewed the pads under the existing straps.

Here's the result. The day after I finished this modification, I got to field test the pack. I had an alpine rack, harness and a full days of layers, food and water and after a tough 12 miles, my shoulders were NOT where I was sore.

Bumper Sticker

This is the back of my bike trailer. I've wanted to put a bumper sticker on it for a long time, but I couldn't find the one I wanted to I decided to make it myself.

I started by tracing the lettering in pencil to make sure that it would be straight and well spaced.

Then I painted in the letters. I used a stencil with a little spray guard I made.

Of course it won't be visible when the trailer is really full and the tailgate is down, but everyone will still be thinking it.