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.

Tag: Repairs

If it used to work, it can work again

Chair Reupholstering

We were tasked with replacing the foam cushion and seat covering on a pair of kitchen chairs. Removing the existing fabric seemed simple, until I pulled a dozen staples holding the cardboard cover to the bottom of the chair and exposed the fabric stapled to the MDF plate:

Chair reupholstering – stapled fabric

That’s just part of one corner. Obviously, whoever built the chair wanted to be very very very sure the fabric didn’t come loose!

Removing the staples from one corner produced a pile:

Chair reupholstering – one corner of staples

Piling up all the staples from the other chair looked even more impressive:

Chair reupholstering – staple pile

I fired maybe a third as many staples into the new fabric, which seems secure enough.

2018-12-18
Desk Drawer Stops

The stops aligning the top two drawers of an old desk vanished, so I got the job of replacing them. They’re hammered into the wood frame:

Drawer Stops – width measurement

And stand up just enough to engage the back of the drawer face:

Drawer Stops – height measurement

Back in the Basement Laboratory Shop Wing, I harvested steel strips from a defunct PC case, rubber-hammered them flat, sharpened a cold chisel (un-hardened, so it always needs sharpening), and got to work:

Drawer Stops – chiseled blanks

The pointy sides should have sharp edges, which you get for free with a chisel. You also get a bench full of little steel slivers perfectly suited for embedding in human flesh. Wearing eye protection is more than just a good idea, too.

Introducing what will become the visible edges to Mr Disk Sander makes them marginally less hazardous:

Drawer Stops – in progress

A slightly fuzzy picture of a test fit shows the stops should suffice:

Drawer Stops – trial fit

Which they did:

Drawer Stops – installed

Nobody will ever notice the blob of hot melt glue behind each one:

Drawer Stops – glue blob

Done!

2018-12-13
Sterling Table Knife Repair

A sterling knife followed me home after a Thanksgiving gathering:

Sterling knife repair – powdered cement

The original cement, dating back to the middle of the last century, turned into friable dust around the blade tang:

Sterling knife repair – handle socket

I cleaned it out as best I could, buttered JB Quik epoxy around the tang and into the socket, joined the two, and let it cure in the natural position:

Sterling knife repair – curing

The rest of the knives in the set may need similar attention, but I’m not looking for trouble.

2018-12-09
Three Dead Mice

The rodents around here have great trouble with outdoor bowls, but this trio ended in a deep six gallon bucket next to the garage workbench:

Three Dead Mice

Even though mice don’t seem like cuddly creatures, they ended their days snuggled together; we’ll just ignore the cannibalism thing.

Heck of a way to go, even for rodents. I renewed the steel wool blocking a gap in the garage door.

2018-12-08
Imagemagick 6 vs. PDF
Come to find out Xubuntu 18.04 ratcheted the ImageMagick security settings up to a dangerous chattering whine:
```
convert p???.jpg "Machining D-bit Drills.pdf"
convert-im6.q16: not authorized `Machining D-bit Drills.pdf' @ error/constitute.c/WriteImage/1037.
```
Fortunately, someone who understands this stuff encountered the problem before I did and posted a great description of the solution.

To forestall link rot, the process looks like:
```
cd /etc/ImageMagick-6/
sudo cp policy.xml policy.xml.base
sudo nano policy.xml
… change one line …
 policy domain="coder" rights="read|write" pattern="PDF"
```
It is completely unclear to me whether ImageMagick (as of ImageMagick 6.9.7-4 Q16 x86_64 20170114 ) requires or merely tolerates the vertical bar in place of commas, nor whether it’s in my best interest to replace "coder" with "*".

In any event, I can once again stuff bitmap images into PDF files.
2018-12-03
Makergear M2 V4 Nozzle: More Silicone!

A Makergear forum discussion on PETG hair and the prevention thereof prompted me to take a look at the silicone coating I’d applied to the nozzle:

M2 – nozzle silicone – applied

That was ten months ago. This is now:

M2 Nozzle – worn silicone coat

The camera sees the nozzle in a mirror laid flat on the platform, making the image less crisp than a direct view.

So the silicone seems a bit worn around the tip, has acquired a few firmly adhered globs, and definitely isn’t as shiny.

Rather than (try to) peel it off and reapply a new coating, I picked off the globs, cleaned around the nozzle, and slobbered a thin layer atop the existing silicone:

M2 Nozzle – more silicone

Extruding a few millimeters of filament pushed the film off the nozzle opening and it now works as well as it ever did.

2018-11-28
Electrolux Vacuum Cleaner: Cord Protection

The ancient (Came With The House™) Electrolux canister vacuum cleaner long ago lost the plastic bushing around the opening passing its retractable cord, which I’d long sworn to replace. A recent trip around the Basement Laboratory paused near the recently relocated Box o’ Wire Loom & Braid, whereupon I snipped off a few inches of split loom and tucked it in place:

Electrolux Vacuum – cushioned cord cutout

Looks and works better than before, anyhow.

The blue flap dangling off the back should latch over the exhaust port, but failed long ago when the latch tab eroded. I attempted a repair, which never worked quite right, and won’t get around to attempting another for quite a while.

2018-11-27