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

  • Craftsman Hedge Trimmer: Biennial Laying On Of Hands Repair

    Craftsman Hedge Trimmer: Biennial Laying On Of Hands Repair

    Once again, the hedge trimmer failed to turn on with the switch pressed, so I took it apart, did nothing, and had thing start working again:

    Craftsman Hedge Trimmer - innards exposed
    Craftsman Hedge Trimmer – innards exposed

    It finally penetrated my dim consciousness: perhaps the switch is fine and a carbon brush (or two) has lost contact with the commutator atop a layer of oil and dust.

    So a year from now when this happens again, try jamming a screwdriver through a vent slot and moving the motor a few degrees to jostle the crud.

    If it works, that would be much easier than taking it apart!

  • April Fools Day

    April Fools Day

    These seem appropriate for the day.

    Whoever composed this wall of text knew the next person in line would update the placeholder:

    HelloFresh Intro Offer Card - missed directions
    HelloFresh Intro Offer Card – missed directions

    As you can tell from the prices, this dates back to late last year. Since then, the two red LED panels on each side had at least one pinball panic and were replaced with much dimmer units:

    Mobil gas price puzzle
    Mobil gas price puzzle

    And a friend pointed me at this bit of innocently twisted signage from a Twitter thread:

    Refuse
    Refuse

    Meanwhile, back in the Basement Laboratory …

  • Angel Food Cake Pan Liner

    Angel Food Cake Pan Liner

    Laser cut from parchment paper, no less:

    Angel Food Cake Pan liner
    Angel Food Cake Pan liner

    Radial slits around the middle let it bend upward over the folded aluminum joint around the pillar:

    Angel Food Cake Pan liner - detail
    Angel Food Cake Pan liner – detail

    Ours claims to be a 10×4-½ inch pan, roughly the diameter at the top and the overall height. Your pan will surely be different: this one is, as the saying goes, old enough to know better.

    The SVG image as a GitHub Gist:

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    view raw Angel Food pan liner – 214 mm.svg hosted with ❤ by GitHub

    Made in anticipation of the next time Mary bakes a special carrot cake with cream cheese frosting for my birthday …

  • Garage Door Opener Battery Life

    Garage Door Opener Battery Life

    The keypad for the garage door opener didn’t cooperate one cold evening, so the first thing to check is the battery:

    Garage Door Opener battery change
    Garage Door Opener battery change

    Given that it lacks a scrawled date, it’s the original battery dating back to late 1998 when I replaced the defunct opener that Came With The House™.

    It was down to 8.3 V on that sunny afternoon and, surely, not nearly enough in the dark of a wintry night.

    Even I can’t complain about that kind of battery life …

  • Engineer’s Boot

    Engineer’s Boot

    The rivet holding the lace eyelet in place disintegrated:

    Engineers Boot
    Engineers Boot

    A flat head 6-32 screw fit neatly inside the original grommet, making it flush on the side that matters and putting a stylin’ nyloc nut in full view.

    When the only tool you have is a Basement Shop, pretty nearly everything looks like a project … and is fixable, too!

  • Gidget II Sewing Table: Temporary Juki Insert

    Gidget II Sewing Table: Temporary Juki Insert

    Mary’s new sewing table just arrived, but the laser-cut acrylic insert fitting around her Juki sewing machine is still a month or two away. Until then, a simple cardboard replacement must suffice to fill the gap:

    Juki temporary table insert
    Juki temporary table insert

    The rectangle just to the left of the needle is a hatch for bobbin changes. Sheer faith and an interference fit between layers of Kapton tape holds it in place with surprising force.

    I wanted to tape the cardboard edges to the machine and the table to smooth out the transitions, but her Supreme Slider slippery sheet may solve the problem without adhesives:

    Juki temporary table insert - Super Slider
    Juki temporary table insert – Super Slider

    The “insert” is a 1/4 inch thick double-layer corrugated cardboard sheet, utility-knifed from a huge box. She layers cardboard under the wood chips in her Vassar Farms garden paths to discourage the weeds; this seemed like a perfectly reasonable diversion.

  • Underwriter’s Knot

    Underwriter’s Knot

    Found inside a fluorescent desk lamp being salvaged for possible use as an LED task lamp:

    Fluorescent Desk Lamp - Underwriters Knot
    Fluorescent Desk Lamp – Underwriters Knot

    It’s one of the few Underwriter’s Knots I’ve ever seen in the wild. Many recent (i.e., built in the last half-century) lamps pass the cords through a plastic clamp or depend on simple bushings, with some just ignoring the problem.

    This anonymous lamp sports the usual Made in China sticker, but also features a genuine-looking UL sticker complete with elaborate holograms, so it may well have been sold by a reputable company. IIRC, it came from a trash can in a Vassar College hallway, back when in-person meetings were a thing; perhaps Vassar required known-good electrical hardware.