I built a custom Tansu-style TV stand for my Pioneer Kuro plasma and PMC LB1 center channel speaker. The speaker is so large I had almost no choice but to make a custom stand. I also used this as an opportunity to teach myself some woodworking skills.
This is not a real Tansu, and I'm sure a real Tansu creator would cringe at the design and (lack of) craftsmanship. Up close, you can see a ton of mistakes I made (poor cuts, plywood tear-out, glue squeeze-out, etc), but at the casual TV viewing distance, I can live with it. For now.
The whole stand is made from a single sheet of cheap birch plywood, the "macaroni and cheese of woodworking." It's finished with four coats of Tung Oil, but the birch isn't that pretty, so I'll likely make it darker at some point.
Side note: AOL shut down their member homepages a couple of years ago. So where can I find the invaluable "Allan's Wood Miser's Workshop" site now besides on archive.org?
After years of sweeping and dusting and dozens of disposable air filter masks, I’m finally taking dust control seriously in my garage workshop.
Dust control starts at the tool with a vacuum system, but it ends in the air. No matter how well I gathered chips and dust while working on a piece of wood, I would inevitably find a film of dust on everything in the garage by the end of the day.
No more.
I bought and installed a Jet Air Filtration System ![[B00004R9LO]](http://www.mikeyp.com/css/external.gif)
in the garage, and my days of pervasive dust are history. There are several air filter systems available. I picked the Jet because of a good review in Fine Woodworking and a good price plus “free” Prime shipping on Amazon.com.
You simply turn it on via a remote control, set the speed, set the number of hours it should run, and forget about it. It works like a home furnace, with a reasonably quiet impeller that cycles air through two sets of filters. The results are quickly noticeable.
$300 is cheap insurance against emphysema and lung cancer, eh?
(Why yes, I did in fact mount this sucker to the ceiling joists all by myself. Not recommended…)
There are many tales of garden gnomes who have mysteriously traveled the world.
But there are far fewer tales of gnomes that have traveled from a galaxy far, far away.
I have a DIY video security system at the house. It uses a Linux box with two video capture cards connected to two security cameras. The Linux box runs an app called motion that will capture images and videos when motion is detected in a video frame. It works extremely well, except that I need to leave the Linux box running 24/7. It uses between 60-70 watts according to the Kill-A-Watt, so it's a prime candidate for lowering the power bill.
The motion wiki pointed me to a box called the Aviosys IP Video 9100A . It takes up to four composite video inputs, and serves up either snapshots or a real-time video stream over the network. Basically, it's a little Linux box that runs in under 5W. Sold!
Here's the before and after shot, with both boxes plugged into a WiFi bridge.
The motion software supports IP cameras natively, so I set up the software on my main Linux server, pointed it at the 9100A, and just like that, no more extra 65W Linux box running 24/7.
Even better, the guys at Yoics have developed an alternate firmware that allows direct access to JPGs for each video device. It also provides a very nice iPhone-optimized view of the cameras. Their firmware is highly recommended.
I love my old Delta Compound Miter saw. I have a fairly basic model, but it does what it is designed to do: make straight cuts at measured angles. But with basic saws you do miss out on some cool features of more expensive models.
Like laser guides, for instance.
I usually make a pretty accurate cut, but when I found that Irwin makes a Miter Saw Laser Guide accessory that works with most miter saws, I had to try it.
Installation of the Irwin Laser Guide was straightforward. You just replace the outside washer of the saw blade with the laser guide, and bolt it back on. The laser activates automatically when the saw blade starts spinning. And that's all there is to it - the basic saw now has a laser that accurately marks the cut point of the saw blade. Neat!
There are a couple of downsides. The first is that the automatic activation means that blade needs to move to get the laser to draw. I wish I could manually turn it on instead, as it seems unnecessarily risky to activate the saw just to check a measurement. The second downside is common to most laser guides, and that is that the laser is nearly impossible to see when the saw is being used outdoors on a sunny day.
But hey, for only $25, the Irwin Miter Saw Laser Guide is a great accessory for an inexpensive miter saw.
This week, the large brown lumbering vehicle made its customary journey to my homestead. Upon arrival, the humanoid occupant emerged, also clad in brown (yet with the odd insignia "U.P.S." emblazoned on his cloak). After the usual paperwork negotiations and a shout of "Utini!", the brown vehicle lumbered away and I was left with my new droid.
"Porter-Cable 7812", as it is called, should work out just fine. And if this droid does work out, I think I'll transmit my application to the Academy this year and… well, maybe next year.
It sure is nice to have a real tool-triggered Shop Vac in the house for a change.
With a house on the northern slope of a hill, I need to pressure wash my siding and decks annually. Of course, I haven't actually done this in five years, so I have plenty of pressure washing to do. Rather than rent a washer for several days, I decided to buy one.
It only took a little research to decide that I should buy a gas-powered model instead of electric, as even the smallest gas models are more powerful than the typical electric washer. http://www.pressurewashersdirect.com/ has a lot of good buying information, but their recommended models are frequently sold out. The cheapest recommended models are in the $250-$300 price range, and use either Honda or Briggs & Stratton engines.
Out of pure luck I stumbled upon a Briggs and Stratton 2050 PSI Clean Shot Pressure Washer on amazon.com for $199, with an instant $25-off coupon. For $175, that is an excellent deal for a gas-powered pressure washer, so I bought it.
At 2050 PSI plus 2.0 GPM water flow, you can send a stream of water so powerful that it will cut a piece of weathered 1×4 redwood clean in two (as I almost did). You need to dial back the sprayer to make sure it won't destroy the wood. Sturdy shoes, long pants, earplugs, eye goggles, and a dust mask are mandatory when using this thing.
So far, I've used the Briggs washer to blast away several years of gray mildew and weathering from a 265 sq/ft deck. Not including the time to remove everything from the deck and spray down some Superdeck no-bleach cleaning solution, the whole pressure washing process took me about two and a half hours plus about a half gallon of gas. Not bad at all, and now the deck has a natural wood finish that is (almost) ready for some new stain.
In the future, I'll consider buying a more powerful washer so I can clean the decks with a wider spray setting, but for now, this is a perfect budget pressure washer.
There are several tax credits available next year for homeowners who upgrade the energy efficiency of their homes. I'm particularly interested in the $300 credit for a water heater upgrade. My water heater is likely 20 years old...
Plumbing is an easy job, done in the most awkward location.
I spent a rare day off on a lovely Sunday morning crawling under the house and in the attic repairing a cracked waste pipe. Why didn't I just call a plumber to do this for me? Because, for the second time, I had to repair a job botched by a plumber a few years ago.
I can only guess how someone could screw up such a simple task. Fixing ABS pipe is as simple as glue part A to part B:
can work wonders as long as you're careful to not rattle other pipes to pieces.The only hard part about the whole job is getting there, and that can be a real chore. I'd swear I almost stepped on my own lower lip when I contorted myself in to the attic corner today.
Wanna learn more about plumbing? Ortho and Black & Decker both publish excellent guides.
My current cordless drill is an old 9v Craftsman that I inherited. It works fine, but doesn't have the strength or battery life for anything beyond light duty housework. Plus, it has an old ¼ inch chuck with ratchet and key, which is small and clumsy compared to modern chucks.
I want a new one.
I've been eyeing the highly rated, but expensive, Panasonic 15.4v drill:
But as of this posting, Amazon has a sweet-looking Makita on sale for $125 after coupon and rebate. I have a Makita random orbital sander that I like quite a bit. This might be an offer I can't refuse.
UPDATE: Looks like amazon sold out of the Makita! Maybe I'll get the Panasonic after all. It's over a pound lighter than the Makita, which is a big deal for wussies like me, and Amazon's $25 discount still applies (making it ~$175).
UPDATE 2: The Makita's are back in stock, and at the same deal price.
If you have an outdoor security camera, like a Lorex, the Lorex VQ2120 Night Vision module is a must-have add-on. It has a whopping 68 infrared LEDs that enable a night vision range of nearly 35 feet.
The Night Vision includes a Y-adapter to share the power supply with a Lorex Camera such as the Lorex Pro VQ-1530 , but don't use it! When the two devices share the same power supply, the camera will show a rolling noise pattern that will confuse the heck out of any Motion Capture software. Luckily, it also includes its own power supply, which solves the issue, and allows you to see very cleary which neighbor's dog is pooping in your front yard.
UPDATE Feb 5: As it turns out, while the camera includes a 300mA power supply, the night vision includes a larger 500mA power supply. If you use the Y-adapter with the 500mA PS instead of the 300mA PS (like I initially did), there are no noise issues whatsoever. My mistake - RTFM! 
If you are considering a video security system, don't bother buying a special security video tape recorder. Instead, install Linux on an old PC, and set up a great piece of software called Motion.
I installed Motion on an old K6-233 running Linux Mandrake 10.1, and configured it to capture frames from a Lorex Video Camera. Unlike regular webcam software, Motion only saves images if it detects motion in the frame. Once you have the images, you can do anything you want with them (like browse them through a web browser).
I wrote a couple of bash scripts that take a full day's set of motion capture images and create a time-lapsed QuickTime movie of the day's activity. Pretty cool to watch a movie of a full day pass in just a few minutes!
Avoid buying cheap-o security cameras, such as ones from Swann, Q-See, etc. at all costs. If you are lucky enough to find printed specs on the package, you'll notice that they have high noise levels, high lux levels, and low resolutions, all of which translates to a garbage picture and endless false-positives with motion capture software.
The Swann I tried today simply died after 10 minutes of use. Blank, no picture. 
If you pay a bit more, you can get a much higher quality camera from Lorex. I have a VG1030R mounted outdoors. Solid metal construction, and it delivers a clean picture at a decent resolution for motion capture in all but the lowest light situations. Sure, it isn't a 525 line CCTV, but for $79 at Fry's/Outpost.com, it is a hard value to beat.
Applying a polyurethane top coat to a wood finish in a cold winter garage turns out to be a bad idea.
In my case, each '2 hour fast-dry' coat took over 10 hours to dry in 45'F weather. And worse, the stuff won't flow smoothly or disolve itself properly, leaving lot's of little polyurethane boogers all over the finish.
Next time I might try to make a wipe-on varnish by thinning the polyurethane with turpentine or naptha, but I suppose wood finishing is better suited for warmer weather.
