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.

Category: Home Ec

Things around the home & hearth

  • 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…

  • Counterfeit Memory Stick from eBay

    Bogus Memory Stick - Front
    Bogus Memory Stick – Front

    Last year I bought a “generic” Sony Memory Stick using eBay’s Bidding Assistant to get one of a whole bunch of similar items. Got it for a reasonable price, opened it up, and it turned out to be “too good to be true”: it looked to be a genuine Sony stick in sealed Sony packaging.

    I checked the “how to identify a counterfeit Memory Stick” sites and concluded that it really was genuine, what with good printing and laser engraving. Sometimes these things happen; maybe the seller got a pallet of leftovers?

    Bogus Memory Stick - Rear
    Bogus Memory Stick – Rear

    It failed a few months later, I mailed it to Sony for a warranty replacement, they concluded it was a fake, and sent it back. Huh. Those cunning Chinese are getting really good at making fakes; maybe this was a “fourth-shift” product from the real Sony factory.

    I contacted the seller, who said he sells “generic” products. I pointed out that “generic” means a second-tier manufacturer’s correctly labeled product, but that he sold a falsely labeled item. He offered a refund, I asked for money to cover my shipping, and he agreed. Knock me over with a feather.

    So I sent it back and he actually refunded my money, plus shipping both ways. More feather toppling.

    Sony Warranty Rejection
    Sony Warranty Rejection

    The term “fraud” did not enter the conversation, but I think he knew he was on thin ice and was willing to do whatever it took to make me Go Away.

    From what I can tell, reporting this to eBay has no effect, because they already know and simply do not care.

  • Database Follies

    My “biz” (I use the term loosely) credit card statement had a $7.25 mystery charge from “NEWARK US CHICAGO IL”. I have done biz with Newark Electronics (and their HQ is in the Windy City), but not recently. Soooo, I gives ’em a call to ask WTF. Got passed from ear to ear, eventually reaching Jolanta in Credit Card Billing.

    I described what I knew, she tapped in my credit card number, paused for a moment, then said “Oooooh, I know what happened!”

    Turns out that they use “general account numbers” (or order numbers, or some such) for low-budget customers like me and that they recycle those numbers. A while ago it seems “the computer” started

    1. Assigning some no-doubt-carefully-chosen general account number to the new transaction
    2. Reaching into the database for, um, data
    3. Sending the bill to the old account holder

    Oops.

    She says “the programmers are working on it right now” and she’ll refund the money muy pronto.

    Wanna bet that a few somebodys got mystery charges for a few kilobucks apiece?

    Uh-huh…

  • Replacing a Refrigerator Bulb

    Chandelier Bulb in Refrigerator
    Chandelier Bulb in Refrigerator

    Subtitle: ya gotta have stuff!

    Our refrigerator went dim; poking around inside revealed one of the two bulbs was dead.

    It was obviously a replacement: both are 40-W flame-shaped bulbs that I bought for the chandelier that might still hang in 89 Burbank Road. I intended to leave them for the new owners, but they got swept up in the moving frenzy.

    Being the sort of bear I am, I had written the replacement date on the bulb’s base: May 01. So that fancy bulb survived only six years!

    Nothing lasts!

    I picked the next-to-last flame-shaped bulb from the “Decorative Bulbs” box in the basement storage room, wrote the date on it (with a notation that the last one lasted 6 years), and screwed it in. Problem solved!

    Being the sort of bear I am, I can do all that with a completely straight face…

  • What Every Christmas Tree Needs

    Santa's Magic Water Spout
    Santa's Magic Water Spout

    … a urinal?

    … a way to flood the floor while standing?

    … a dipstick!

    Saw this one at Adams. Judging from the display, they’re not rushing right out of the door just yet.

  • Retirement Locations: How Can This Be?

    Came across one of those “best places to retire” planners and tapped in a few reasonable-sounding numbers & preferences for our alleged lifestyle of bicycling and low-stress living.

    The top ten results of a nationwide match:

    1. Wayne, NJ
    2. Jersey City, NJ
    3. Edison, NJ
    4. New York, NY
    5. Newark, NJ
    6. Uniondale, NY
    7. Hempstead, NY
    8. Monsey, NY
    9. Long Beach, CA
    10. North Laurel, MD

    As nearly as I can tell, the fix is in.

    Words fail me.

  • Shower Drain Stoppage

    A while ago the shower drain in our black bathroom stopped draining. I’d noticed that the adjacent (and upstream) toilet was sometimes flushing strangely, although we attributed this to our darling daughter’s habit of occasionally emitting an incredible pot-clogging ceramic turd. Perhaps she inherited that ability from me?

    So I was prepared for the worst: an accumulation of, um, stuff, at the right-angle bend just downstream of the shower. My IR thermometer showed the heat from the shower water dropped off right around the bend, suggesting that the flow wasn’t so great. Tapping the cast-iron pipe wasn’t conclusive as it all pretty much sounds like it’s solid anyway… built to last a thousand years, as the saying goes, with hammered-lead joints.

    The other bathroom had no problems and the pipes down there (some newer PVC from the tub & sink) were not full of drain water. So the stoppage was between the shower and those inlets.

    The line has a convenient 3″ brass (!) cleanout plug upstream of the section in question, so if I got the plug out I could see the kitchen & black bathroom inlets, as well as the offending turn. Of course, the plug was firmly stuck and didn’t yield to main force (me hanging on the end of the mighty 3/4″ socket wrench handle), the application of penetrating sprays, or a brutal hammer-and-chisel assault.

    So I biked off to Lowe’s for a pair (there’s a second cleanout plug far downstream and you just never know) of 3″ PVC plugs.

    Returned home, deployed the 3″ hole saw, and drilled a neat hole in the middle of the brass plug. This being plumbing, a 3″ plug is actually 3-1/2″ OD and the saw left a 1/4″ ring with the threads. Another application of the chisel folded the ring in on itself and some wiggling pulled it free.

    We’d used no upstream water so I didn’t expect much in the pipe but nothing came out to greet the saw. In fact, the pipe was clean & clear all the way around the bend, with only a nasty, slimy hairball hanging from the shower/sink drain inlet.

    So it was just a glob in the shower drain, not the main line, after all. Sometimes I’m really glad to be proved wrong! Why the IR showed heat stopping at the bend I do not know, but it goes to show you never can tell.

    Screwed a PVC plug in place, ran some water into the shower, deployed a Plumber’s Friend with a vigorous up-and-down motion, and after a few strangled hoosha-woogas the drain went BLORT and all the water exited as usual. I’m afraid to find out if the entire hairball is hanging in the main line, but I suppose I should take a peek.

    Now, if I’d tried that before examining the inside of the big pipe, the first hoosha-wooga would have affixed a ceramic turd on the ceiling.

    Depend on it!