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 [motion, motionrpm] 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.
