Ed Nisley's Blog: Shop notes, electronics, firmware, machinery, 3D printing, laser cuttery, and curiosities. Contents: 100% human thinking, 0% AI slop.
The six sticky traps guarding Mary’s onion beds in her Vassar Community Gardens plots collected this assortment of critter and mulch from mid-July through mid-August, when she harvested the last of the crop:
VCCG Onion Maggot Trap A
VCCG Onion Maggot Trap B
VCCG Onion Maggot Trap C
VCCG Onion Maggot Trap D
VCCG Onion Maggot Trap E
VCCG Onion Maggot Trap F
The labels do not match those on the first set through mid-July, because I don’t care quite enough to keep track of them.
The traps don’t collect many onion maggot flies, which suggests that a little control goes a long way. As far as she’s concerned, these traps work very well, because the crop has very little maggot damage.
Searching for onion sticky traps will produce the rest of the collection. Contact me for the full resolution images, should you need to ID all the critters.
One of the sticky traps absorbed a mighty blow during the season and its ski-pole mount snapped off. Rather then rebuild the whole thing, I decided to just epoxy the pieces together and stick a reinforcing plate on the bottom.
I added a pair of screw holes to the OpenSCAD model and produced a projection of the bottom layer:
You might expect the tang to extend well into the handle, but that’s not what you get in a cheap tool:
Dandelion Weeder – ferrule detail
The Bucket o’ Rod-like Materials had a rake handle about the right diameter, so I sawed off a suitable length, set up the steady rest with a bushing, and turned the end to match the ferrule:
Dandelion Weeder – end turning
Pound the ferrule into place and drill the new handle to fit the tang:
Dandelion Weeder – drilling setup
The handle seemed a bit raw and, as it was already chucked in the lathe, got a synthetic string wrap with clear epoxy coating:
Dandelion Weeder – string epoxy
The pourable epoxy is reaching the end of its shelf life, but seemed entirely suitable for the purpose. I wrapped two layers of string around the dry handle, laid paper over the lathe bed, slathered epoxy over the whole affair, and let the lathe turn dead-slow for most of the day to even out the coat.
The next day: hammer the blade mostly straight again, smear JB QuikWeld on the tang and into the hole, gently hammer them together, chuck the blade, apply more epoxy to the ends, and let it turn:
Dandelion Weeder – end epoxy
A careful inspection reveals my casual disregard of the finer points of tool handle craftsmanship, but it came out surprisingly pretty:
Dandelion Weeder – repaired
The blade remains the finest butter-soft cheap steel and still doesn’t extend the length of the handle, but Quality Shop Time™ is not to be sniffed at.
And, hey, nary a trace of 3D printing or laser cutting!
Six sticky traps have been out in Mary’s Vassar Farm onion bed from mid-April through mid-July, collecting onion maggot flies, other flying insects, and a bunch of shredded leaf mulch. Having just replaced all the sticky sheets, these are the results so far:
PXL_20230711_215255180 – VCCG Onion Maggot Trap F
PXL_20230711_215229538 – VCCG Onion Maggot Trap E
PXL_20230711_215159950 – VCCG Onion Maggot Trap D
PXL_20230711_215129817 – VCCG Onion Maggot Trap C
PXL_20230711_215041012 – VCCG Onion Maggot Trap B
PXL_20230711_215002214 – VCCG Onion Maggot Trap A
Each image is the front and back of a single sticky sheet flipped over left-to-right; I did not keep track of the original trap locations.
If you need the original camera images to get enough pixels for itemizing the smaller dots, let me know.
The Smell of Molten Projects in the Morning 