Category Archives: Making

Saturday was more Framing and a lot of figuring.

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I worked on the bathroom pretty much all day today.  I got a lot done but there was a whole lot of time spent figuring out what to do.  There are a lot of heights and things that went into figuring out the correct height of the shower base and the 3/4 wall that will hold the shower bucket.

P3300087So this is the platform for the shower base.  Since this is a “dry” cabin, we do not have running water.  We haul water from an artesian well about 5 miles away.  This shower will have a restaurant “bus” pan underneath to catch the water, that we will then take outside.  In the summer, I plan to build a solar shower but this will work great in the winter, until the sauna gets built.  So the platform is there to raise thepan up high enough to slide the drain pan in and out.

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Here is the plywood subfloor that the shower pan sits on.  Before I cut the drain hole in it.

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This is shot of the 3/4 wall that will have a shelf on it for holding the shower bucket.  I have not made it yet, but I have a couple options.  You fill it with water and put it up on the shelf then turn on the spigot.  Works great.  Or I have a pump sprayer with a sink sprayer head on it.  Not sure which will work out best.  There will be some experimentation with this.  I put a couple extra studs in this wall since 5 gallons of water is 40lbs.  I am making this up as I go along so I hope this setup works.

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Wide shot of the 3/4 wall and platform.

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Shower pan installed.

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Careful measuring of the seat height was taken into consideration.

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I also got the rough frame for the humanure bucket toilet done as well.  There are a few more interesting things to get framed here such as the cat door and wood chip bin.  Maybe tomorrow or in the next few days.

Shaving Horse and Axe Heads

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As I start building my tool collection for homesteading, I needed some good axes, they are essential to working with any kind of wood.  As I learn to work with wood, I took the cheap route and traded for some really beat up axe heads, and learned how to sharpen them.  It is a real gift to have that sort of skill.  It sort of became an obsession and now every metal edge in my house is razor-sharp.

Here are some photos of some axe heads I traded for, they were in pretty rough shape and I reconditioned them.  Starting with a wire wheel, then file, and a 3 different sharpening stones.  Well, these guys all need handles.  I have tried to find handles but they all seem to be the wrong size so I am going to make my own.

Making handles requires a draw knife, which I just purchased off of ebay for $10 and it has not arrived yet.  It will need some reconditioning as well, but while I was waiting for it I built the other part of the tools necessary, which is a shaving horse.  I asked some guys on Facebook and they pointed me to Mike Abbott’s Lumber Horse plans.   So for less than $20 and 2 hours time, I have a fully functional shaving horse.

For those of you who do not know what a shaving horse is, it is a soft-headed vice that you sit on.  You use your legs to hold the head down on the work piece.  They are pretty much required for any type of hand forming of handles, spoons, bows, and many other things.  They are very useful.

Enjoy the gallery and keep your axe sharp.
-TM

Upcycling a cloth shopping bag into a firewood carrier.

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Living with a wood stove is not too bad however, it does require one to carry wood fairly often.  Sure, you can load up one arm with the other but this is uncomfortable for carrying more than a few pieces at a time.   They sell these firewood carriers  for $22 at Lehman’s.  I needed one and I have big sheet of canvas that I was going to use to make one then I had an idea.  Why not make one out of a cloth shopping bag.  I have tons of them, for a while there everyone was giving them away and I have like 20 of them.  So here goes.

Upcycling is an important homesteader, hacker and maker skill.  It is basically taking something that is useless or less useful in its current form and modifying it.  The best part is that it usually does not cost much or anything at all.  In this case I already had the bags and thread.  For a small time investment I have a really nice firewood carrier.

Items Needed:

  • Cloth Shopping Bag

  • Scissors

  • Needle and thread

  • Sharp knife of seam ripper

Here is the bag that I started with.  Given to me as a set of 5 from Google when they visited my work.

 

 

I Ripped the seams of the side of the bag.  I chose this bag because of the 4 panel construction.  The piece that the handle is sewn to was one piece and the sides were sewn on to it.  Making it perfect for this project.

 

 

Here is the bad with the 4 seams ripped out.  You can see the shape of the bag.  I just trimmed the short sides with a scissors and cut off the material that was covering the seams.

 

 

On the panels that I trimmed I folded them under and pinned them for sewing.

 

 

 

Here you can see both sides pinned and ready to sew.

 

 

 

Please ignore my awful sewing job here.  I go for function not looks.  I could have fired up the sewing machine but it was so little sewing, I didn’t feel like setting it up since we moved and took it apart.

 

 

Immediately after sewing it, I had to try it out so here is the firewood carrier out at the wood shed waiting to be filled with wood.

 

 

The wife is filling the firewood carrier while I cheer her on and take photos.

 

 

 

Here is the wife modeling the finest in Northland Fall Fashions.  The upcycled, shopping bag firewood carrier.

 

 

 

The firewood carrier from another angle.

 

 

 

Closeup.

 

 

 

This carrier is nice because you can set down the logs and the pile does not roll around while you open the door.  It also keeps all the wood shavings, and bark chips inside it so you can just bring it outside and shake it out when you come get more wood.

This project took about 1 hour from start to finish and I am really happy with the outcome.  I think I might try making a few more of them once I get the sewing machine set up.  I do think that the handles are a bit long on this bag so I might trim them or take them off and sew on handles that wrap around the bottom so they are less likely to rip off from the weight of the wood.

Hack, Make, Repair and Upcycle.  Break the cycle of conspicuous consumption.
-TM

Vinyl QR Barcodes

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QR Barcodes or 3D barcodes are something that has interested me for a while now.  These codes are used by optical scanners much like any barcode on products at the supermarket.  The main difference is that instead of just holding letters and numbers, these codes can hold a lot of data.  Depending on the version of the code they can hold up to 1,852 characters.  A normal barcode would have to be like 40 feet long to hold that much data.

Here is what they look like:

I am not sure why these codes fascinate me so much but I think it is their potential uses.  They have been used in manufacturing and shipping for years.  They can be read by computers to move things around or sort items.  With the increase of smart phone use, their usefulness has increased greatly.  QR codes can hold email addresses or websites and many of the scanning apps available for smart phones easily recognize them.

With some of the vinyl graphics work I do, I had always wanted to try cutting out of vinyl to put on a truck or shop window.  After creating a mobile website for one of my customers a few weeks ago the opportunity to use a QR code reached fruition.  The company, Hoppe Tree Service, just bought a new truck that happens to need graphics.  I pitched a QR code on the truck and we decided to try it out.

I cut this one out in a 12″ X 12″ after making one mistake and cutting out the first one in mirrored format.  I still had that selected by accident from the last thing I cut, a T-Shirt for my Halloween Costume.  It was surprisingly easy to cut and weed.  Each pixel on the code is about .475 inches square.  Meaning they are very easy to work with. The photo is a camera phone photo, I will replace that when I get a better shot.

The interesting thing with this QR code is that it directs users to the mobile version of their website.  Hopefully, technical customers will be able to scan the truck with their phones and email, or call for tree work.  We will have to see how it all works out in the end but it is an interesting concept that no one is doing around here yet.

Generate your own codes here: http://qrcode.kaywa.com/

Tapco Intrafuse 10/22 Stock Swap

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My Birthday on Thursday was a good one.  I headed up to Cabelas, after work, to retrieve my brother-in-law.  He was going to be staying with us for a few days.  Of course, while I was there I could not help browsing around.  Picked up a shirt, a Tapco Intrafuse Stock, and a Tactical Solutions extended Mag release for my Ruger 10/22.  This gun was the second gun I purchased and I have had it for about 15 years.  It is a fantastic shooter and tons of fun but it was feeling a bit stale.

I spent the night rooting his Kindle Fire and installing the new parts on the 10/22.  I had been eyeballing one of these kits for a while and with some Holiday money burning a hole in my pocket this seemed like a great time to do it.  The Tapco kits get really good reviews and Cabelas had it for like $99.

Here is what the Ruger 10/22 looked like before I started.

 

I should have been taking pictures during the process but there are enough installation videos on youtube to go around.  It was really easy to install, almost too easy.  I think it took about an hour.  No modifications are required to the gun.  All the factory sights stay on, just the old stock comes off.  Even the extended mag release was really easy.  Remove one pin, take out the old one and insert the new one.  That is it.  The best part of this stock swap is the “tacticool” look.  The stock has two picatinny rails for a bipod, lights, optics, what ever furniture your heart desires.

I still need to get a few more things like a new picatinny base for the factory scope location and some new rings for the buckmaster I had mounted on it.  I might change optics but the Buckmaster would shoot 2″ groups at 100yds so I am hesitant to replace it.

This was a very easy and fun project.  I would highly recommend that anyone with an old 10/22 lying around who wants to dress it up a bit, give this kit a shot.  It really is top notch.  I will report a bit more once I get the scope mounted and get it out to the range for a bit.