Hooks

One of the things that I’ve been wanting for a long time is some system to hold the air hose on my mini-cart. I’ve looked at some of the air hose rollers at Home Depot, but spending $50 for one of those seemed silly. So I’ve wrapped the hose around the handle for a year, but it kept falling, and it was hard to drag the cart around.

So I had some time recently and decided to build this:

This is the final product where I have six hooks screwed on the back, holding the air hose on the back.

I started by cutting one hook, roughly, on the band saw. I had drawn it, sketched out a rough size that I liked and then cut it large. Here’s a quick look of my first one.

Once it was cut, I then used the random orbit sander to clean it up and round off the rough parts. I then checked the hook against a large coil of air hose to be sure that it would hold it all, with some spare space, and also be as small as possible. I ended up cutting it a couple times more and sanding it to make it better.

Then I grabbed a 2x6 and traced out 5 more copies of this.

These were all cut on the bandsaw, and then rounded on both sides with a 1/2” roundover on the router table. It was a nice day outside, so I spent 20-30 minutes sanding them further to make them smoother and less likely to catch on anything.

Once that was done, I removed the back of my cart, and measured out a circle, marking 6 spots on it. I didn’t try to be exact, but rough guessed where I’d want the three axis to be, drew them, traced the six pieces, and then screwed them in, one at a time with a single 1 5/8” screw.

This was the result, and it works great at holding the hose, and also letting me drag the cart one handed.

Fixing a Chair

I had a number of things to work on this weekend, but with the cold weather, I decided to tackle some inside projects. One of those was fixing a barstool that has had a broken support.

I don’t know what happened, but the kids broke one of the cross pieces in a bar stool that’s in the kitchen. The four legs are each connected by two sets of cross braces, as shown below. The lower one at the bottom of the picture was actually broken and missing, resulting in a creaky chair that Tia was worried about.

I had been thinking about what to do here and decided to make my own new cross brace, after all, I have a lathe.

My first step was to cut a piece of pine down to about the right size. I measured the space, and the hole depth in the chair and added a bit of pad, about 1/2”. I then used calipers to measure the center diameter of an existing brace (1 1/4”) and the ends (3/4”). With all that written down, I put the wood on the lathe.

That’s the square piece of wood on the lathe, and the dust collector behind it, which works OK. Not great, and something to fix. I don’t have a chuck, which is a hassle. I used friction to hold things there and started turning.

Using a lathe is pretty easy, and I made a lot of shavings and dust, as you can see. Once you get the hang of it, the hardest part to me is relaxing your shoulders as I find I tense up with this piece of wood spinning around.

I started working the piece round at the edges.

This is early on, and you can see that it’s still square in the middle of the piece, looking at it sideways (short sides) and in the middle (long ways). It took me about 30-40 minutes, with a few breaks, to round this off. Once that was done, I started to slowly turn the center down to the 1 1/4” diameter.  Once the center was the right diameter, I worked my way towards the edges, bringing those down.

I found that making pencil makes at the center, and the ends, helps me to focus on how much to turn down.

This is near the end, and as you can see, it’s tapered. Not perfectly, and not even, but not bad. I found that I had to take it off the lathe and go compare it a few times with the existing braces on the chair. Once I thought it was done, I cut off the edges (couldn’t turn them all the way down, and tried to fit it in the chair.

It was too long, of course, so I turned down the edges thinner, and then trimmed them again, getting it in the chair, as you can see at the top in the first picture.

Now it’s time to stain it. I glued it in first so it would be in there, and I’ll work on the stain this week.

The Difference Between Male and Female

You’d think I’d know the difference. Heck, I thought I knew the difference.

Actually I think I do know the difference, I just don’t always pay attention. The other day Tia asked me to help her fix some extension cords, which we use for the water heaters in the winter. The horses need water, and it tends to freeze in CO if we don’t add some heat.

I went out, cut the end off the extension cord, which was damaged, and used a replacement from the store to fix it up. Here’s what I ended up with:

Here’s what I needed:

 

As you can see when they’re together, they’re different. Since this end of the extension cord needs to accept the plug from the water heater, I screwed up.

So I had to remove my plug, then wire up the new one. It wasn’t hard, but I had to strip out the insulation in the cold weather. It wasn’t windy, but it’s about 35F out there and since I move slow with my big clumsy hands, it got chilly quickly. Working with those small wires and tight screwdrivers is tough.

I managed to get two wires in, and then in trying to get the third screw loose, I pulled out all my wires. So I had to put all three wires back in, tighten them, test things with my tester (it worked!) and then close things up and re-attach the PVC to the barn wall that covers the cords as they come down from the roof.

At least I learned that it’s worth checking whether you need a male or female plug before you start attaching wires.

It’s a Broken Weld

I don’t feel like a complete idiot after today. I had emailed with a dealer that could do some work on my tractor and mentioned that my rotary mower had lost the pan and blades. They told me to bring it up and they’d take a look, so with some time today, I decided to head up and see what they could do.

It’s a long drive, about 60 miles from the house, but these were nice guys (unlike the crew in Parker), so I loaded the mower into the back of the horse trailer and headed up. It’s a nice, easy drive, and I was on the phone most of the way, doing work, so it wasn’t a complete waste.

I got up there, and two guys came to look at it. They were as confused as I was in trying to figure out how this was attached, especially with a nut still on the bottom shaft.

Then the guy in charge came over, tipped it higher, and took a closer look. He told me that there was no nut on it. It was welded on and the weld broke.

Apparently, just above the not and notched pieces, that round part was welded to the blade pan. Not a great design, but a cheap one and this is a (relatively) cheap mower.

I feel better, though a little dumb for not pushing this sooner. I’ve been looking for a local place to work on it and a few places have been hesitant, most wanting to sell me a new bush hog instead. These guys were friendly, and they said it would take about a week, so I’m looking forward to seeing it working again.

It definitely pays to find good service people and be ready to call them. I’d have never thought about that.

Fence Man

I went out this afternoon to work on fence. My wife was supposed to join me, but she has horses, and well, horses win out over fence. Actually she would have, but we have plans later and there wasn’t enough time for both.

So I headed out, pliers, clips, welded wire and gloves. As I wrestled the wire around on the ground, spinning it to unroll it by the foot, I was glad I had a hat on. Hot, sunny, and it’s tough work moving a 330’ roll of wire around. It went fairly smoothly, and I clipped it over the place I’d stopped and continued to the end.

The only thing slowing me down was a bit of an audience that was curious about what I was doing. There are 4 or 5 horses in the pasture next to where I was working, and they kept coming over the sniff my hands as I tried to clip wire on.

The North side is done! I had a little time, so I pounded in 3 t-posts, which is always a challenge when they’re 6 foot tall. But they’re in and the start of a track is going up.

Check 2007 Prius 12V Battery

Not a wood related entry, but this it’s a do-it-yourself-man-thing.

The Prius has seemed to be running the hybrid battery low quickly, and then charging quickly as I drive. It’s just a feeling I have from driving this car for 3 years. I posted a note on Prius Chat and someone suggested that my 12V battery might be low, which wasn’t something I suspected. I thought I might have defective hybrid batteries.

So I ran a quick check by turning on ACC mode (press power, no brake) and opened  the windows. Sure enough, they were really, really slow to go down. I then found this procedure as well:

Get your Prius into "Accessory Mode" - Press the power button without touching the brake pedal.

Put the MFD into "Maintenance Mode" - Press and hold the "Info" button on the MFD while turning the headlights on and off 4 times.

Press the "Menu" field on the screen.

Press the "Display Check" field.

Press the "Signal Check" field.

The 12v battery voltage will be one of the items listed, it should be above 12 volts. If it is lower, either the battery needs replacement or the charging system is not functioning correctly - see step 7.

Put a small load on the battery by pressing the power button again without touching the brake pedal. The voltage should stay above 12v. If it drops significantly, you need a new battery.

My battery was reading 10V, so a replacement is needed. I called the local Toyota dealer and they have them for $174 in stock. A bunch of online places have recommended eLearnAid for low prices, but their sale is $165 (list $240). I guess Toyota realized it’s not worth overcharging for parts.

So I’m off to get a new battery.

Two Belts as Good As One

I didn’t make sawdust, but I did kick off some shavings of rubber recently.

My riding lawnmower was in need of some work this season. I charged up the battery, changed the oil, freshened the gas (a little was left from last winter), and checked things over. The tires needed some air and fix a flat, and then it fired up. I was actually a little surprised that it started so easily and it was ready to go.

When my wife engaged the drive belt, nothing happened. I got down and looked at it while she was sitting on it and nothing appeared to move. With a wrench I tapped the belt and saw the drive pulley was spinning, and the belt grabbed, but the lever that pulls over one drive wheel didn’t stretch the belt enough. After 5 or 6 years, I think this was something that needed replacement.

So I got a belt from Lowes, lay down and threaded it back in and started the mower. I made my way around the yard and as I almost completed a loop I started to smell burning and lots of white smoke coming up. At first I thought that the engine was low on oil from a leak, but I disengaged the drive belt and as I was about to turn off the engine, the white smoke stopped.

Hmmm.

I pulled back to the garage and checked it and found strings of rubber hanging off and the belt loose. When I pulled the belt off, I noticed that there was one bent piece of metal near a pulley on which the belt had been rubbing. I realized that some pulleys have 1 metal guide to hold the belt on and some have two. Apparently I missed one when I threaded the belt around that pulley.

So it was back to Lowes for another $20 belt, and a pair of pliers with some elbow grease to bent the guide back upright. This time I double checked the threading, ran it for a minute, then checked it again. Things were looking good, so I left it on and my son cut some grass.

$40 and the belt is fixed, and I learned something. But it would have cost me more than that if I wasn’t willing to mess with the mower and took it to Sears to have them look at it. After replacing the starter last year and both blades by removing the deck the year before, I feel like I’m getting to know this beast pretty well.