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

Model M Keyboard Surprise
A friend gave me a New Old Stock IBM Model M keyboard, built by Lexmark on 1/30/96. Although I intended to try it out, I first showed it to Mary and it immediately ended up at her desk:

IBM Model M 1996 – media keys

I favor off-lease Dell boxes intended for office use, so the PS/2 plug on the end of the (permanently attached) cable slid right into the PS/2 jack on the back panel. Gotta love it.

She’d been hammering out testcases and doc on Model M keyboards basically forever, so her fingers snapped into position and the room sounds like her old IBM office.

The “101 key” layout predates frippery along the lines of multimedia keys, so I gimmicked the top row of the numeric pad to control the mixer volume and muting toggle:
- / ⇒ amixer sset 'Master' 10%-
- * ⇒ amixer sset 'Master' 10%+
- – ⇒ amixer sset 'Master' toggle
While doing that, I found the semicolon key fired at the slightest touch, so I popped the keycap to see if I could frighten it into compliance:

IBM Model M 1996 – dome switch

Huh.

It seems Lexmark replaced the classic buckling spring mechanism with less clicky rubber dome switches, even back in 1996, perhaps for use in libraries & suchlike. Come to think of it, this place is more like a library than an office, so muted clickiness seems appropriate.

For completeness:

IBM Model M 1996 – label
2017-10-31
Hickory Shells for Bacon Smoking

Hickory trees run on a triennial cycle and 2017 produced a huge crop of nuts. My trusty Vise-Grip makes short work of the otherwise impenetrable shells:

Hickory Nuts – cracking in Vise-Grip

A nut pick extracts the good stuff:

Hickory Nuts – cracked

In round numbers, you get twice as much shell as you do nut meat, so there’s plenty of shells left over.

I wrapped 10 ounces of shells in a double layer of aluminum foil, poked two rows of air holes along the package, dropped it holes-up atop the “flavorizer” bars in the propane barbie, and smoked 5 pounds of cured pork belly into some of the finest bacon we’ve ever eaten.

Heated and starved for air inside the aluminum wrapper, the shells became charcoal:

Carbonized hickory shells

Yum!

2017-10-29
T-shirt Shop Rags

Small wipes made from worn-out cotton t-shirts absorb most shop liquids, don’t overstay their welcome after short projects, and prevent the deep emotional attachment leaving swarf in the clothes washer. Scissors cutting gets tedious, so mooch a rotary cutter and slash away:

T-shirt shop rags

Synthetic fabrics don’t work nearly as well as cotton, so pay attention to the labels.

2017-10-28
Bathroom Sink Stopper Rod

After swapping the corroded steel rod end-for-end twice, I expected this would happen:

Bathroom Sink Stopper Rods

So now we know a chrome-plated steel rod will survive 16 years in a bathroom drain, at least if you’re willing to coddle the fool thing far more than seems reasonable.

I eased a slug of epoxy into the brass tube to seal the wet end. Given how little use the stopper gets, I hope it lasts forever …

2017-10-14
Epson R380 Continuous Ink Supply: Tubing Failure

After 4.5 years, one of the silicone tubes on the Epson R380’s continuous ink supply system broke:

Epson R380 – broken CISS tube

The yellow smudges in front of the tubing clamp and across the top suggest the total mess lying in wait between the cartridges. Donning my shop apron and wielding damp paper towels cleaned things up well enough.

I cut through all the tubes a few inches back from the clamp, pulled the stubs off the elbow connectors, reinstalled the fresh ends, and re-repaired the clamp with a new cable tie:

Epson R38 – CISS tubes

Although the failing yellow supply surely contributed to the problem, the printhead seems to be on its last legs after nearly nine years. IIRC, I got the printer for $15 after rebate, spent maybe four times that on CISS tanks, and perhaps $200 on good-quality ink in pint bottles, it doesn’t owe me much.

Maybe I shouldn’t buy ink in pint bottles any more.

2017-10-11
Sunglass Earpiece Trimming

Mary doesn’t like wearing the wrap-around-her-head earpieces found on sunglasses these days under her bicycle helmet, so I must trim them to fit:

Sunglass earpiece trim

Perhaps I won’t need an old pair to prepare the next set: a scant four inches from the hinge.

2017-10-08
Cheese Slicer: XTC-3D Epoxy Coating

We have, as you might expect, a Favorite Cheese Slicer of no particular provenance. Being made of cheap pot metal, it left black smudges wherever it went and, decades ago, I coated it with bright red rubbery grip material. Recently, the coating became lumpy and peeling off the loose sections revealed a definite problem:

Cheese slicer – aluminum corrosion

Vigorous scrubbing with a foam sanding block and a Scotchbrite pad, interspersed with rotary wire brushing, removed the corrosion and left a slightly pitted metal frame. Protip: scrub under water and wire-brush with a vacuum hose to keep the dust under control.

A pair of 6-32 screws, nuts, and brass sleeves, with two oil dots protecting the frame threads, provided hand grips while I wiped it down with denatured alcohol and coated it with XTC-3D epoxy:

Cheese slicer – epoxy curing

Turns out the mixing stick worked quite well to cover the entire thing, as the epoxy does a great job of leveling itself. I suppose wasting a tiny brush would be more professional, but …

It quietly dripped excess epoxy into a strategically placed trash can for about ten minutes. I wiped off the final drip before the epoxy solidified, leaving a smooth layer over the end of the handle:

Cheese slicer – reassembled

It’s back in service and works as well as ever, with a handle now smooth to the touch. I suppose I could have tinted the epoxy to hide the metal, but we regard those corrosion pits as beausage.

I’ve slathered XTC-3D on some 3D printed parts, but have no idea how durable it is; this should serve as an accelerated survival test under rather harsh usage.

The instruction sheet says XTC-3D isn’t the most transparent epoxy they make and, indeed, the layer left in the mixing pan came out more hazy than I expected:

XTC-3D Epoxy – thin cured layer

They point out the haze doesn’t matter for thin surface coatings, which is certainly true.

2017-10-06