The Smell of Molten Projects in the Morning

Ed Nisley's Blog: Shop notes, electronics, firmware, machinery, 3D printing, laser cuttery, and curiosities. Contents: 100% human thinking, 0% AI slop.

Author: Ed

  • Oven Tube Burnout

    Burned Oven Tube Overview
    Burned Oven Tube Overview
    Burned Oven Tube
    Burned Oven Tube

    So the oven made a weird whooshing noise every now & again, but nothing we could pin down or duplicate to debug. Then it sort of stopped heating, even though the ignitor was glowing, and the kitchen smelled of unburned propane and hot plastic.

    Emergency stop, shut off the gas valve, finish the chili and cornbread in the ‘waver and toaster oven, let ‘er cool down, dig out the repair parts manual from the file cabinet.

    Dismantled the oven and found a weird encrustation on the burner tube. I wasn’t sure if the tube was supposed to have a dingus that meters the ignition gas at some known rate, but scratching at the lump made it look as though the tube simply burned through and corroded. The size of that hole would certainly make the gas whoosh a bit.

    Note the soot lines. The heat shield over the tube had a soot smudge, too, which I think caused the “plastic” smell.

    The replacement part from Sears is $80. It’s $50 from RepairClinic.com and they throw in the ignitor module that’s $70 from Sears. Judging from their picture the burner tube has three little holes that blow gas over the ignitor, no metal dingus. You can see the holes in the second picture.

    So a new burner tube (and ignitor, which I’ll zip-tie to the back of the oven) is on order.

    Update: of course the new ignitor doesn’t fit on the old tube, nor does the old ignitor fit on the new tube. And the connectors are completely different. Had to dig some ceramic wire nuts out of the parts stash; I knew I’d been saving them for some good reason.

    Grrrr & similar remarks…

  • Just Guessing: They’ve Never Owned a Fiat

    One of Italy's Greatest Products
    Fiat: One of Italy's Greatest Products

    This from the halls of Arlington Middle School, presumably from Social Studies or Italian Club or some such.

    Somebody needs a course in auto wrenching, methinks.

  • Patroon Parking Only

    Patroon Parking
    Patroon Parking

    Haven’t seen any patroons around here lately, so they must be keeping a low profile. Used to be a bunch of ’em in these parts.

    There were a bunch o’ cars in the lot, come to think of it… maybe they were all in the liquor store.

    Who knew?

  • Pimp His Ride, Economy Division

    Pimp a Van
    Pimp a Van

    Saw this one in the Wal-Mart parking lot. Doncha think the rusty drums provide an understated touch of elegance to the overall effect?

    Yup, it’s a Plymouth Voyager…

    On the way back I witnessed a tricked-out sporty black BMW with low-profile tires doing a slo-mo U-turn on Rt 9 with a dead-flat, rolling-off-the-rim, right front tire. I figure he was heading for the Mobil a few hundred feet back on the corner, but the requisite three left turns would be good for, oh, 800 bucks worth of tire & rim damage.

    On the other paw, stopping & jacking & re-tiring in the middle of Rt 9 wouldn’t work well, either.

  • Ya Gotta Have Tools, Mobile Division

    Once upon a time we delivered a van full of composted leaves to Mary’s Vassar Farms garden plot in the evening.

    There’s a gate at the entrance that was half-closed, but Mary’s never seen it closed & locked, so we drove in and parked by the plot to toss bags. We were done in about 15 minutes, drove back to the gate, and found the Vassar security folks had locked it… with the van in plain sight.

    My guess is that they were busting our chops, but one should never ascribe to malice what can be explained by stupidity.

    We had a phone, but none of the bystanders knew what number to call. The ladies reported that the other gate was also locked. A chain-link fence surrounds the plots.

    What to do?

    The gate hinges were plain old 1″ bolts and nuts, so I figured I could just dismount a gate, drive out, then put the gate back in place. Non-destructive and easy to explain if The Man arrives while I’m at work. Plan B was to just cut the padlocked chain holding the gates together.

    The back of the van has a small “tool” compartment for the jack and suchlike. I long ago added a multi-bit screwdriver set, a medium adjustable wrench (not quite big enough for a 1″ bolt, alas), a Vise-Grip, and similar odds & ends.

    Fortunately, it turned out that the chain around the middle of the gates had two links held together with a 1/4-20 bolt and two nuts. I suspect this sort of thing has happened before, perhaps to someone else with a Vise-Grip.

    Five minutes later, we were outside, the gate was closed & locked, and the tools were back in place.

    Memo to self: add a bigger wrench.

  • Spots on the Windshield

    So a while ago we stayed at Mary’s folks’ apartment in Saratoga Springs.

    We parked in the Visitors section of the lot in front of the rental office and, the next morning, the windshield had a bunch of whitish water-droplet-sized spatters. The previous day had been a bit rainy and we drove home over some wet roads, so I thought nothing of it; that’s what windshield washer juice is for.

    But the spots didn’t quite wash off: most of the white center went away, leaving an oval outline with a line across the middle. The spots now looked like a Greek capital Theta, as though each droplet had landed on the window, slumped to the bottom of the wet area, then evaporated.

    I discovered that diligent rubbing with windshield washer juice and a soft rag didn’t remove the Thetas. They looked, alarmingly, as though they’d etched their way into the glass: thin lines emerged from the rounded outline, with a sort of crinkly surface finish.

    Running up the hazmat scale, I applied homebrew glass cleaner to no avail. Then I deployed denatured alcohol. Ditto.

    Finally, I had a bright idea: glugged some vinegar on a rag and wiped those suckers right off, leaving the windshield sparkly clean!

    As nearly as I can tell, the apartment watered their fancy new sod overnight with genuine Saratoga municipal water through below-ground sprinklers. Yup, water straight from the same aquifers supplying the local mineral baths. Maybe cleaned up a bit, but certainly not softened.

    Hard water spots on the windshield, indeed!

    And, yup, soap doesn’t lather worth a darn in their shower…

  • Steel Preservation, The Good Old Days of

    Cadmium plated hangers
    Cadmium plated hangers

    Last year I geared up for scraping the soffits and figured I should put a piece of plywood across the windows so I couldn’t possibly have the ladder fall into a window. The storm windows are big, awkward inserts that hang from hooks atop the frames, so I planned to cut a plywood blank to match the opening.

    Gene left us a cigar box of “Storm Window Hdwr” containing this card of hooks-and-eyes that looked just like the ones on the windows. Alas, they’re not quite the same and don’t quite fit, a fact I discovered after mounting them and manhandling the sheet out the window. So much for “standard size”.

    But I’m sure the hardware on the side of the house looks as good as it does because it’s cadmium-plated, too! None of the hooks & eyes have a hint of rust, other than where the edges scrape together, after half a century.

    I heroically refrained from sucking my thumb afterward…