Ed's Experiments and Stuff

My wife and her sisters and cousins are going on girls weekend and to earn some husband points I decided to create some of these chalkboard paint stemware glasses I saw on Instructables.  http://www.instructables.com/id/ChalkBoard-Stemware/   I bought some cheap wine glasses at Wal-Mart and had some chalkboard paint left over from the wall of my basement shop. It is an easy process.  I wrapped a piece of electrical tape around the stem.  I used electrical tape because it is not as sticky as some other tape and so easier to get off once the painting is complete.  Also it is fairly thick so easier to find the end to unwrap it.  This makes it easier than something like tape you would use for wrapping paper. With the tape wrapped around the stem paint the bottom of the stem and base of the glass.  I used 3 coats.  One is not enough to cover well.  Two covered ok and was nice and smooth but I thought 3 would be more durable.  It will be i...

I like to garden and this new house has a patch of bamboo so I figured why not make a trellis? So one day I headed out to the back yard, grabbed a few pieces of bamboo and started working. First thing learned - bamboo is very brittle especially old bamboo. I tried cutting it with various hand saws only to have it splinter all over the place. Hmm, finally I got out a hand saw with a very fine metal cutting blade. Perfect. Oh, and cutting close to a "knuckle" if you can limits the amount of splintering. Next came connecting the pieces. The first couple of sets of holes I could do on the drill press which worked nicely because, again the brittleness, I could go nice and slow and got decent holes with little splintering. It only worked for a couple sets of holes and then I couldn't make sure they were straight through both pieces of bamboo so I had to go with hand drill. Second thing learned - bamboo has a flat side where the stems come out so you can turn that side ...

It was 4 out of 6 actually and they made it to spring. It might have helped that spring came really early this year. They didn't get as much sun as I thought they would in front of the sliding glass door downstairs which is why I only got two cuttings from them all winter. Also, on closer inspection the stems got very weak so once the leaves got large the stems would collapse under the weight. I guess they need some air movement or to get bumped now and again to make the stems grow more sturdy. I took the second cutting and am now putting them outside to acclimate them before I plant them in the ground. The picture shows what they looked like just before the cutting.

They are actually doing well in the house. They aren't growing real fast and I have only gotten one cutting from them so far during the winter but 4 of the 5 (or was it 5 out of 6, hmmm) plants lived. The leaves are nice and dark green. This strain was called Bright Lights with different colored stems and the stems all have nice color. So far I would call this a success, but not a runaway success since they are growing so slowly. The next test will be putting them back out in spring and seeing what they do. Stay tuned! I dug up the last of the carrots yesterday and found that apparently slugs like to overwinter in the tops of carrots. Yuck! Luckily I only lost a couple since there was only a handful left.

It has been awhile since I have written anything. My wife and I bought a house back in February, moved in March, and have been putting a lot of work into it. And, timing what it is, in July I got laid off from my job. Since it is around Thanksgiving, I will say I am very thankful to have a new job, new house (to us), a workshop in the house, and a ShopSmith that I got from a friend who’s step-dad passed away a couple of years ago. I actually had time the other day to go down and turn it on – and blow the circuit breaker. So I guess I am not doing much with it until I can get at least an outlet or two re-wired for 20 amp service. Sigh. I painted one wall with the blackboard paint in a big 3 x 6 foot blackboard. I did it to draw plans on while working so I didn’t forget things but my nieces like it so much there isn’t much space for me to write on. That paint is really cool and I highly recommend a nice wall of it in your workshop, if you have a blank wall. A little s...

Do you have a charcoal grill? After awhile if you have moved it around do the legs come out? I have two of these grills and they both have this problem. But then again I did get both of them out of the trash! I suppose they were in the trash in the first place because their owner was tired of dealing with the legs coming out. The problem is that the legs are typically just crimped as you see below instead of firmly attached. Well, we are going to fix this! First, what you will need is a drill, a small-ish drill bit, and either 3 screws long enough to go all the way through the leg with nuts to go with them, or 6 rivets and a rivet gun. The drill bit naturally will be sized to fit the size of the screws or rivets. I like rivets because with screws there is a chance the nuts will come loose and then you are going to have wobbly legs again. Rivets are a permanent fix. So now that you have everything you need, drill a hole through the leg where it attaches to the grill. Make sure ...

I wasn't going to post this because the repair failed but what the heck, maybe someone can learn from it. I have a 30" widescreen Sony WEGA TV, a really heavy picture tube TV. Several months ago it wouldn't come on and the light on the front flashed 7 times. I googled it and found out that this meant there was something wrong with the high voltage board, specifically two chips. After debating rather to bring it somewhere to fix it (probably $200 range), replace the board (also $200 range), or replace the two chips ($70 for the parts and a new soldering iron with a small tip and a couple other supplies). I finally decided on the $70 option even though I was leery about being able to unsolder the chip's pins, get them out, and then replace with new ones. So I ordered the parts, got a new iron, took a bunch of pictures of the inside of the TV so I could remember where all the connectors went, and disconnected everything. I actually did a good job of getting the old ...