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Happy Mother’s Day to all you mama’s!
Archive for the ‘Miscellany’ Category
>A Mother’s Day How-to
Sunday, May 10th, 2009
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This is for every man who has a mother. Homemade gifts are the best, right? Well, here is a homemade gift idea sure to please the pickiest mother.
Here is a practical gift, made with family love and engineering. Moms don’t like noise. Especially when they are hauling their favorite trailer. They are probably familiar with the rattle between the hitch reciever and the ball drop. Here a a homemade solution, sure to win hearts on Mother’s Day.
Here is a picture of the anti-rattle device in operation. It has a square the fits around the ball drop. It then has a piece that sticks out over the receiver mount, which is attached to the vehicle. A nut is welded to that piece and then a eye bolt is threaded through. The eye-bolt is twisted by hand to hit the receiver mount—-and viola, no more rattle!!!
All your need are some small pieces of fairly sturdy steel and an eyebolt and matching nut and a small welder. A clamp or two helps to keeps things aligned when welding. Simply align them and clamp them down to your ball drop, to ensure a tight fit, and weld the pieces together. Here’s the best thing about this, you probably have the parts lying in your garage already. For the frugal gift maker, this is a perfect Mother’s Day gift. Total it only cost me $0.00. Build one today!
Here is picture of the finished product polished. Parts list: Two large cotter pins; One large bolt with nut; One piece of angle-iron; two eyebolts with one nut.
Make that special mother in your life happy. (Sorry mom, I only made one of these for Aubri, maybe next year). Here is evidence that practical, homemade gifts are the best.
>Modifiying Carboys
Saturday, April 4th, 2009
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This modification was done so that I can easily measure the volume of wort (unfermented beer) or beer in the carboy. Knowing the volume allows for many useful calculations. I poured in water and made 3 measurement lines on each carboy (the glass jug). I used glass etch cream to do the work. All I had to do was put tape around the marks I wanted. Doing the taping was a bit tedious.
Here I am applying the glass etch. These are 6.5 gallon carboys. I also did all my 5 gallon carboys.
These are the lines on a 6.5 gallon carboy. The bottom mark is 5.0, the middle 5.5, and the top 6.0 gallons. The lines are not on top of the glass. The etch is a acid-like substance that eats away a bit of the glass. It does not feel lower, but it is not clear like the rest of the glass.
The finished product. It looks simple, but doing 13 carboys was no small feat. I hope to brew this coming week. I decided I need to dilute the hard water here with distilled water. That should improve the quality of my beers.Happy brewing (or drinking if you don’t brew)!
>Easter Basket.
Saturday, April 4th, 2009
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I got this basket at a rummage sale last weekend for 10 cents.
I looked beyond the silk flowers and “baby” ribbon hot glued on to it and saw a great basket for Lily’s Easter basket.
I found some ribbon I had on hand and voila. A little better I think. Maybe I’ll keep it for mine.
