diy

As you can see it used to have some plastic covering. The frame is held together with (sorta brittle) plastic pins but my main focus is how I'd re-cover the frame in plastic:

• What sort of adhesives should I consider for outdoor metal-plastic bonding?

• Is adhesive and soft (clear) plastic even a good idea?

• Have any of you done something similar?

The light came with an alternate mount that screws on to the handlebar but it makes taking the light off more annoying, and obviously removes the ability to freely put the light on different bikes

I was hoping this design was universal but none of the straps I'm seeing online have the screw hole. Well, there is one very similar strap but I'd have to pay 13€ postage on a 5€ item which offends me on a spiritual level

We miraculously managed to get a good deal that we could blow all our savings on to get this new HVAC unit installed about a year ago. In the last few days, it's suddenly started producing a sour smell, particularly in my room. Looking up the issue, all I see is people saying to call someone to get it cleaned because it's mold and/or bacteria build-up. I changed the filter, but the one that was there was barely dirty at all, so I don't think that was much of a fix.

I can't go into detail, but there's a lot going on right now and we can't afford much. We barely even have time to organize fixing something like this. But I don't want to take risks with our health.

Can I get some advice please? What would y'all do?

*also my god the youtube algorithm-fueled thumbnails that come up when searching for tutorials on what to do about this are truly horrendous, look at this shit, just straight up embarrassing

A woman reached out to my coop shop because she is getting rid of her late son’s tools, specifically a 40W glowforge laser. We already have a laser, so I’m passing it on. NYC area, I believe.

Edit: laser is claimed!

Edit: laser was a scam :(

Got some time this week to get on with woodworking, and I've made something I've been planning for months at this time but couldn't get to doing:

So yeah, it's simply a pine wood structure composed of two 100x60cm^2^ boards, one of which is simply lying on the shotgun and rear seats when folded, and the rear board has a cutout for that weird grey shelf of the trunk, and I cut some mortises in it to fit the base I made for it.

Here you can see the mortises and tenons more in detail. I went with this instead of screws because it's cheap and doesn't require additional hardware, it's easy to assemble and disassemble, and I honestly have fun banging mortises with the chisel and mallet

Here you can see it with the foldable high density foam mattress I picked up on AliExpress for like 45€, which is honestly more comfy than expected if you don't mind a hard bed. I'm a super tall guy so the whole thing needed to be 2m long, and I made it 60cm wide, the same as the mattress.

The support structure for the bottom conveniently disassembles into three pieces and takes very little space in the trunk!

Finally, the whole thing disassembled and in the trunk. I'm quite stoked of how it turned out. The total cost hovers around the 80-90€, I spent essentially 45€ on the mattress (whose plastic cover will obviously be removed once I start using it) and around 40€ on the wood you're seeing (I locally bought for 85€ a 22mm thick pine board of 240x120cm^2^ and used about half of it). There's really not much more to it, since I used no hardware, and I banged it all using handtools on the roman workbench I featured in my previous DIY post.

Oh btw the car is a Renault Grand Scenic from 2006, an old diesel beater I bought for 2000€ with 200.000km some months ago with this idea of travelling around Spain with it. It's pretty long so it's nice for a tall guy like me to be able to lie down fully inside it, and also it's quite fuel efficient, running at around 4.6L/100km in my experience over the past months.

Thanks for taking a look :)

I'm considering a shed but that's a lot of space and money. I'm wondering if there are some cheaper alternatives like maybe fitting a bike rack (??) with powdered concrete. Any thoughts?

The wardrobe was massive and a god damn awful pain in the arse to unbuild (and too big to take to the tip in our tiny car) but it had to be done, leaving this gross wallpaper and possibly damage all the way to the original plaster from ca. 1907.

The shelving tracks on the right are ancient and the screws just wont budge at all. There's half a dozen layers of paint and wallpaper making it worse (you can see how deep it goes where the shelves have been in place even longer). Any ideas on decimating some old ass screws would be cool. We can afford to hire or borrow powertools if that's necessary.

EDIT oh we peeled some of it back and the plaster is fucked to the brick lmao

I've been wanting to get going with woodworking on my newly made low roman workbench for a while now but I couldn't due to thesis manuscript.

Here you can see some rough planing of the surface of another workbench I wanna make for a buddy of mine, I'm gonna make a wooden bow workshop over the summer with friends and they need work surfaces to be able to do so. Thankfully I found a very cheap supplier of lumber in the province of Cuenca and the entire workbench will set me back only some 10€, kinda crazy.

This picture is just mood tbh. I love the little corner I have for my woodworking, the low workbench working both as seating and as workbench simultaneously makes it super compact, and the light was beautiful, finally it's the sunny season in Spain after a few months of unusually rainy spring

Here is the try square I wanted to make, finished and coated in linseed oil. I made some paste wax following the recipe of Wood by Wright (2 parts beeswax, 2 parts linseed oil, 1 part mineral spirits). This try square will open up a lot of possibilities regarding stock dimensioning and precise planning and lineup drawing, I'm stoked about it and it turned very straight!

Finally, a pic of the piece of log from which I split the wood to make the try square, it's from a tree they cut down locally and I hauled it home by hand, so yeah, free wood!! It's super hard, no idea what species it is, I'm used to pine and fir, so working with a hardwood like this is surprisingly different

A while back, my u-lock's plastic mount broke while I was riding my bike, sending the lock straight into the pavement. The impact broke off the hard plastic/rubber bit on the lock itself that slots into the mount so I can't even get a cheap replacement mount from China.

For over a year I've hooked the lock onto one of the shoulder straps on my backpack but I noticed the added weight and stress of a heavy piece of metal dangling off the strap has caused the stitching to start to rip.

I'm getting tired of lugging this thing around. Doea anyone have any ideas for mounting it back on the frame?

My Instagram, in case you're into this sort of thing (Lego).

I finally got around to making my own book. Its for my wife to introduce her to ML.

It looks really ~~janky~~ rustic and I hope it holds together well but we'll see I guess. Unfortunately I was careless with the glue in when sticking the text block to the cover and so it looks really dirty.

I typeset it myself in LaTeX then printed it on regular A4 copy paper, which unfortunately has the wrong grain direction since I want to fold it but finding proper paper is impossible. I'm going to buy a huge roll of paper and cut it myself next time probably since its rather cheap actually, like 20€ for a roll of 0.61x50m A1 paper.

Bound it with the cheapest linen thread, waxed with paraffin because I still dont know of a good beeswax alternative, glued the spine with regular white craft glue. The tapes are really thin linen gauze. I got the boards from the back of notebooks and glued it all together with corn starch. I think this whole book of 300 pages = 75 sheets cost less than a euro since its basically paper, toner, some thread, some gauze and a few grams of corn starch. Oh and the wrapping is some brown packing paper.

I'm hoping to make a couple books like this so I get a library going but I dont know if I'll bind it on board again or just glue it on some carton. It's a lot more effort to glue it on board and they're still warped despite all my efforts.

I'm thinking of printing the covers on 120gsm cardboard and gluing them together over the spine basically thread the linen gauze through the back cover and glue it on, then glue the front cover so the tapes are sealed. then I could just tip the textblock on the covers and it would cause that much warp. Dunno yet though. First I gotta typeset "Imperialsm, the highest stage of capitalism", which is next on the list.

Dear friends,

Last month, I posted this big project idea of mine to Hexbear's as well as Beehaw's DIY communities. Now I'd like to give you an update.

All figures I'm referring to are here: https://imgur.com/a/b8vGfQf

First, a big thank you to all who have replied, you've helped me a lot in making this project a reality. I have distilled your answers, tips and critiques into a text document, and I can happily tell you that they gave me a more realistic understanding of what I want to accomplish.

I formatted the post like this because it's quite long, and I like to yap, as the kids say.

151x39 cm: (length of desk + length of Kallax tower) x (width of Kallax)
A second 151x39 for the other side
280x39 cm: (length of Kallax-es on either side + distance between them)

Open questions at the end of all this:

I'd like to hear your general thoughts and concerns!
Which wood for the long 5m shelf? 
Lap joints as described above: yay or nay?
Lighting systems?
Back wall of desks?

THANK YOU <3

Warning: Long treatise about current hyperfixation-turned career plan

After a lot of research into different hydrolysis devices and the principles they operate on, I feel confident that I've satisfied the theoretical part of this step in my plan: I have the plans for an oxy/hydro fuel cell that I really do think will surpass the designs that inspired it in efficiency and safety. Now I just have to do the blood-sweat-grease alchemy to make it real.

My initial idea for a bulky "double decker sandwich" design, where the anode and cathode plates are two different stacks separated by plexiglass, has been abandoned. Rather than keeping the two gasses separate in this way, which would lead to unavoidable efficiency loss, I'm intermingling the stacks for maximum efficiency while cordoning off one gas-producing surface at a time with 3d printed separators which will be included in the sandwich. Instead of separating the groups of plates, I'm separating the individual spaces between the plates. I am essentially building a scaled up version of this: https://youtu.be/klJzWPo-ZZE?

The separators work by taking advantage of the different polarities in the powered cell: basically, the different sides of the 7 plates will together form a little self-contained mirror hall of positively and negatively charged metal. The negative sides always produce hydrogen, and the positive sides always produce oxygen. But in a normal cell like this, these gases are produced together and rise together, forming the explosive HHO which is very cool but mostly useless for my purposes. But with the addition of the separators, we can split the whole unit into alternating negative and positive layers, which share an input (coolant) but split the outputs. We can channel the gases from these layers alternately into twin manifolds, then into their own tanks and eventually, down two hoses and into a hissing sapphire furnace.

The biggest change I personally have made to distinguish this from other cells like it is the planned addition of heavy nickel plating., The second biggest change was including primitive blowoff valves on each bubbler tank, but I really hope for the nickel plating to be a game-changer, and here's why:

It might mitigate or solve the toxic waste problem while seriously boosting the device's power. I may or may not have gotten into this already, but stainless steel, the best balance between conductive and affordable most hydrocell builders can find, is alloyed with up to 10% chromium. This is fine for building stuff, I think, but if you submerge that metal in caustic liquid and zap it with electricity, some of that chromium will leech out into the fuel, making it not just highly caustic but carcinogenic as well. To avoid this, I'm planning to electroplate a THICK coat of nickel on the plates, so thick that apparently they call what I want to do electroforming. If I can add at least a half millimeter of pure nickel to each plate, I'll be a happy fish. The idea is that the electricity will go along the path of least resistance (nickel is several times more conductive than steel) and spare the vulnerable alloy beneath. This would also greatly increase the cell's power efficiency, because

nickel is several times more conductive than steel

The way I proceed with this now depends on my ability to electroform, and the outcome of my best attempt. If there's some reason it can't work, let me know, I can handle the sadness.

Looking ahead to the next step, I finally found footage of a personal corundum furnace actually working, and seeing it's design has refilled the wind in my sails and eased my doubts.https://youtu.be/YiS3ZUuCH3c (skip to 7:20 for the money shot) It's so fucking simple, the combustion chamber is two modified firebricks. The body is a glorified welding torch with a can of oxides on top, and there are a total two pieces of beginner-level robotics in there. Before this, I wondered blindly and anxiously about how I would design the thing. Now, I see that the current step of constructing the gas cell will absolutely be the most expensive and time consuming part. I'm nearing the peak of the mountain, after which momentum will begin to carry me as a friend. Also, I've been keeping the cost of fittings down by taking them all from Ken Langone.

Still, I do have one or two important questions that my comrades here, who are more versed in things like math and numbers, could maybe fill me in on:

1. How do I calculate the gas output of this thing? The amperage I can do, but the output I cannot. I want a cell powerful enough to potenially fuel two Verneuil furnaces at once down the road.

2. I'll edit this in when I remember it 5 minutes after posting

this is the handiest I have ever felt

someone had already posted the shape online so it was really simple

I think the title says it all but if needed - I'll edit this. Of course I googled but I got nowhere. Google results were total shit. Google won't help me if I don't know the exact name for that fucking thing. It's a very stupid design choice. Five regular old push buttons would be so much better.

About an hour ago I managed to stick it back on but I'm nearly 100% sure it's going to fall off again in week or two if not far sooner.

---

Edit

I don't mean part of the unit itself. I mean just the thin plastic cover over the buttons that's ~3mm thick.

My rental unit has a gas fireplace that's controlled by remote. The remote fell about 3 feet and the LCD shattered. The remote is still functional, the screen is just cracked and bleeding. Replacements cost $100 and I'm on the hook for it if my landlord finds out. Haven't been able to find any cheaper compatible remotes either.

Any thoughts about how I might be able to track down a replacement LCD? Is it even worth it? The LCD seems pretty specialized.

hi comrades update poooost

it's been a bit. three months or so since the last post. this project is deeply near and dear to my heart and it's not abandoned but there was a bit there where i fell off the face of the earth and i wanna fill in that gap.

i've been off and on for the past three months, but for the past two weeks in particular i've been on. i made a commitment to myself to spend time on this before work - this is my most valuable and reliable time slot in a day - and i've been reliably making updates every single day i haven't had a prior obligation. it's a habit now. i've been deeply personally turbulent lately, much more for better than for worse but in ways that really take most of my awake time - except this before work slot. wouldn't want to spend it on anything else.

the posts dried up for two reasons - one, the development recently has been feeling like the last leg of a marathon. nothing new is really happening, there's no news besides that i'm closer than i was last time, and there's nothing notable to report until i actually dot the final i and cross the final t and then i buy one and i get it in my hand. two, writing the posts actually took a lot of time - i was finding a few hours per week for sphynx time, and post-writing became one or two of them, because i care a lot about documentation and presentation and communications. that's kinda not sustainable. my fix for this has been taking things to matrix. sphynx has a matrix room now. i find it FAR more sustainable to bang out a couple quick 30 second messages when i finish up a work session than writing a post aggregating all of those every week or two. if you want know if/when/how i'm still working on the project, you can either check the git logs, which is where most of the work will live, or join the matrix room for more interactive and human readable updates (and even a place to hang out??). DM me your matrix handle for a link ✨

as for technicals, here's a brief summary of what i've done since the last post:

• implement some additional safety features, including but not limited to top-level current limiting diode to prevent overcurrent, inline resistor to also prevent overcurrent, and a parallel bleeder resistor to prevent the probe being weird inbetween pulses
• replacing parts that i spec'd from the JLCPCB extended library with basic library parts - each time i do this the sphynx gets $3 cheaper.
• in general, getting all parts at least in the extended library so that you can order a sphynx, not even own a soldering iron, and get to using it. this has involved a lot of part swaps, some which are moving targets - spec a part, find it on JLCPCB, replace it, do other stuff, come back, it's out of stock and you have to replace it again. very frustrating.
• updating PCB graphics - better knob indicators, better labeling, paring down unnecessary test points and jumpers and other junk, etc.
• probably more but i'm forgetting

realistically, this is the last post until i have the sphynx lite RC2 in my hand. as it stands this is likely my whole work sesh for the morning but i dearly love you all and you deserve to know what i'm up to and this was a good use of my morning. thank you for everyone who's been following. let's talk soon.

What did I expect from a $50 chair, but now it works.

18th century joiner plane. All it needed was a little flattening, and sharpening of the iron and chip breaker. It takes a beautiful shaving now.

I am working towards building my own workbench. When I moved in there was one in the garage already but the top is MDF, and it's way too wide at like 5 feet. I hate that I can't walk around it or reach the other side, it gets mad dirty back there.

I am going to make a fore plane next, but before that I need to make floats. Then I will be all set.

I bought a cheap router at a flea market and thought it would be good to do some shop shelves as a learner project. These are the rails for the shelves that slot into the legs with lap joints. I was going to drop some 2*4 spreaders in to the top and cut the grooves on the wrong goddamn face and now I have to redo them, and of course, don't have the material so I have to go to the fucking hardware store now

Diy rule of thumb, take the time estimate for completing a project and multiply it by 3... Or 12 lol

I need a couple fans for my hot end, the bearings on one of the fans on my current one are spun. Anyone have rec’s for a brand that makes quality fans? I don’t mind paying for something that will last more than six months of semi-regular use. I’ve burned thru lots of cheapies and I’m tired of replacing them.