Frivolous At Heart

Did you know that when you build your home, the exhaust fan that are built into the microwave are vented inside the house? It’s an upgrade option to homeowners and a lot of owners overlook this option. My house is designed like that and we didn’t know it was an important factor or that if it was something that we had overlooked. I told the queen that I would redo the exhaust and route it outside but it was a no go until she saw my skills at dry wall and texturing that she changed her mind.

Now the place that I reside at, the landlord did the same deal and will not permit the modifications needed to route the exhaust outside. We were preparing chicken wraps today and the house was full of smoke. We both became teary-eyed but at least the wraps were delicious which somewhat made us forget the smoke that was suffocating us. You can see the smoke faintly below:

Do you see the exhaust? I sucks from the bottom and routes out to the top inside your kitchen- what a lame design. I can’t cut into the landlord’s cabinets so I’ve came up with an ingenious way to rout the exhaust out! To be continued tomorrow!

Box was made out of galvanized sheet metal cut to specified measurements. Box took and hour to make with the bending and screwing of walls together. Came out pretty good IMO. I can take it down whenever we move out. All the joints are sealed with duct compound.

This box filled with reams of printing paper we call our dinner table, cost us 28dollars at office depot. We use it everynight to have dinner. I slip a slipper underneath me bum while wearing the other and having dinner with me mate, Jimbo. We are poor ass students. Actually, we are just lazy to go buy a table. I could build one lol but that’s another story.

God we need more fiber in our diet. All meat and no veggies. At least I have a V8 each day. By the looks of it, If my buddy eats like me, he’s bound to be skinny lol! I’m so mad I left chicken in the fridge for a week and it went bad! I should have put it in the freezer!!! Now i’m out of $8 and no chicken. I’ll cook a whole chicken tomorrow and have it all week. What i need is a whole wild boar and pack that honker in the freezer for the winter. O that reminds me, I need to go buy some MSG.

I miss home, I miss my nieces and nephews.

So I needed a trash bin and I was throwing away a lot of boxes and etc. I knew I had a box for the vacuum and I said to myself, “why not use it for a trash bin”, and I did thusly. The current box I was using for a trash bin wasn’t very fitting for the job.

I also purchased a spining tray to store and organize all my pens and pencils. OMG I have so much pencil lead I’m willing to give them away! I think I have enough to last my educational career and after it as well!

The spool gun is discontinued and in order to weld aluminum, you would need to purchase another spool gun for another Lincoln machine and buy the proper modules to run it. I said the hell with it and mated mine with the Lincoln K2532-1 Magnum 100SG Spool Gun designed for the Lincoln 140-180.

Works well might I add. I need to buy a new four pin female adapter so I can rid myself of the wire splices. I wonder what part # that is! My welder is ancient yet works sooooo damn smooth I’m loving it! I will not spend 1500USD on a damn spool gun that I’ll rarely use occasionally. The Gun is rated up to 180amps and I run it at 100% duty cycle at those numbers all day without problems.

I’m in the process of making a panel saw for my personal use. I hate having to drive down to my buddies place to cut some ply. The drive to and fro waste a lot of valuable time. I need to get this project done within a week before school starts back up again! I don’t want to buy one because it’s either too expensive or either too expensive.

I just started noticing that the steel stock I purchased months ago, aren’t actually all straight. Some bend a little at the end- wonder if I can bend them back? I had 24′ of 1.25X1.25″ tube that was straight and I used it to create my frame. More to come!

UPDATE 05/03/08

I drew out my dimensions for my sliding bracket(SB). The SB is 16″x16″x.25″ aluminum plate.

I had to rough cut it and I tried to leave 1/8 edge so I can go over it with my router. That is the first time I’ve ever used a router on aluminum and I made a few miscalculations here and there but it came out great!

I came back with my router and routed the edges to make it look symmetrical and purdy.

I have mounted the saw I’m going to use for my panel saw as a mock up. Doesn’t it look great? I love how it’s coming out! the SB looks great!

UPDATE: 05/07/08

I finally was able to take a photo of the frame. Here is the frame=) I hope the bottom piece is flush. If it isn’t, I’ll have to buy 3″x.5″x10′ to square it up. I hate to grind the welds!

This is the pulley that will help counter-balance the saw.

These are my wheels to move it around. I still have not made the support brackets for the frame; thus, it leans on whatever is behind it.

UPDATE: 05/08/08

I installed the wheels today and they work great!

I had to add more bracing in the back- O the wonders of designing and making your own projects are that you find so many defects that you must overcome! I’m adding horizontal bracing in the back for more support and to make the surface more plumb and even. I have never thought of this until I actually came across it. Now there’s something new to add to my pool of knowledge.

UPDATE: 05/17/08

I took a 2″x4″x10′ and ran it in a planer to take it down to 1.25″x4″x10′. Time consuming and lots of saw dust to collect and clean up.

Once that was done, It was then mated to the panel saw frame.

I finally installed the slider face plate.

Ever had to carry lumber or pipes 12 foot long? I had to today. The max length I have ever carried was around 10ft. Even at that length, I thought it was quite long. Today I went down to the metal shop and they had on sale 1.25″ square tubing and I had to pick some up. I’m a cheap shopper and invest in the long run and usually purchase metal that are outside vs the ones inside which are twice as much. Metal inside are rust free and come at a premium price but makes no difference for what I do anywho.

The ones outside are pretty much rust free if you come and get it in time. They sell quite quickly so you must be avid about your metal deals and not have a mind set on what you want- just work with what you have (at a discounted price =)). I usually like to stock up on metal material because I never know when the next time I’ll need it. This time I did. I wanted an extender to tie down and support my material as I transport to-and-fro. I have tailored it to my exact needs thus it was a solid piece welded to an already existing hitch drawbar (towbar).

The next time when I go purchase wood or metal goods, I’ll use my homemade HDE (I’m renaming that stupid name (Extend-A-Truck)). It will now be known as the Hitch Drawbar Extender.

This is my drawbar that I don’t use as often as I should. I sacrificed it for the betterment of ME=) I had to cut the drawbar and the angle that resulted from the cut was perfect (seemed like it was meant to be).

Yes, I hung off of it like a little monekey while testing it. The tongue weight (TW) for my hitch is around 500lbs but I would imagine having the HDE would decrease my TW capacity;however, I don’t think I’ll ever exceed the capacity to make any minor issues major.

Yes, that is one 12ft square tubing in the back for testing an photo purposes.

The whole project cost me less than 6dollars in material + sweat vs buying one for $100+. Granted the ones you buy are universal fittment but mine is just tailored for towards my vehicle. Works well enough for me that I don’t really care for an aftermarket HDE. I’ll buy another drawbar the next time I need it.

I recently acquired a 14″ Ryobi Chop Saw and have loved it ever since. I was thinking of purchasing a bandsaw and or coldsaw (yeah right!) but combined with the Bullet metal cutting blade, it cuts faster and less grimy than abrasive disks which makes for a cleaner environment around the shop. I’m sure you know how dusty abrasive disks can be because it poses a health issue when ingested via inhalation. The fine granite particles that can be lodged in our lungs and cause all sorts of bad things are from the by products of the abrasive disks.

I don’t think I’ll be getting a bandsaw anytime soon. This chop saw takes up very little room but it’s quite cumbersome to carry so I’m going to make a stand for it once I have time. Might give it better mitering capability but first I have to tinker on how to approach this. The only thing I worry about is the number of cuts I can make before the blade dulls. After all, it’s only carbide and it will dull. I want to make a video of a kick ass cut but I’ll have to do that later so TBA on this one!

My house was built a good five years ago and the builders were careless in placing where the AC vent. I know better now the next time I have a house built! Anywho, I had carpet upstairs and it the vent was on the floor pulling in dirt right through the darn filter! 2-3 months, it would leak from the top down to the bottom floors. O it aggravated me very much! As you can see, I don’t have carpeting anymore. I have hardwood flooring done months ago and to my amazement, now more clogging of the evaporator. Not to mention we don’t use it because it’s the winter time so that could be a factor not put into the equation. Every time it clogs up, I had to remove the metal shroud from the AC unit to clean the evaporator with a brush and a detergent to get it draining correctly!

Not anymore! I’m going to move the AC vent to prevent future clogging of the evaporator and I am also putting a pan underneath the evaporator to save my 1st floor from water damage. I took everything apart to get to the box lying underneath the evaporator:

Here is what I pictured it to be: Moved from the bottom to the top near the ceiling where it can suck in clean air.

I made the aluminum drain pan (19.25×23.75″) so just in case the evaporator decides to be naughty again. I’ve been meaning to do this for quite a while now and I have finally done this because currently, I have a lot of free time. I decided to use aluminum because it’s rust resistant. I did not want to use galvanized steel because it will rust with time and the way the pan sits, you’ll notice it would be a PITA to change out. The pan is at an angle so that way any leaks would follow the direction of gravity. I’ll need to connect this into the drain. I should finish this tomorrow. The pan was the only obstacle holding this project back.

UPDATE 01/27/08

AC leaking | AC evaporator leaking | moving AC vent | moving AC duct

Yes, more shelves! I had to install more shelves. First it was only seven rows my sister wanted then she wanted it to go up to the ceiling. Only problem was the AC switches were in the way so I had to move those.

See those switches? Man they were a pain in the ass to move! Well not really, just time consuming because I had to cut into the wall in two places for elbow room to fish the wires through to their new home.

It was fun removing them from their location and relocating! The wires were #6 gauge and was very hard to manipulate! Kind of bulky to work with but it was done none-the-less.

After I was done, I had to patch up the walls and puddy’d the wall up for texturing tomorrow! Yes, I said texturing! If you are going to do a project, do it right or don’t do it at all! Though sometimes I get lazy but that still doesn’t make it okay!

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I’m done! I wonder how they are going to get their shoes? I had a hard time reaching the highest shelf with that ladder you see in the foreground. Those are some high shelves!
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moving electrical boxes : moving electrical boxes : patching up holes in walls : drywall patching : drywall texturizing

I get so confused which SATA what plugs into where and looks like how all the time. Technology keeps on changing. Sata 1 came out and it was pretty easy and efficient. Then SATA 2 came out which was basically the same as SATA 1 with only one noticeable difference: SATA 1 had no clip and would “slip” out of its port while SATA 2 had a clip device that would grasp hold onto the port it was stuck in. Here is a photo of what I speak of:

SATA 1

SATA 2

Now there’s eSATA too so we can’t forget about that! They come in varying lengths and the longest I’ve seen is six feet. It’s tailored for external use. Not something I would advise but to each his own. I like internal- safer for my setup. eSATA is the same as above except it was incorporated in 2004 to define the standard transmit and received potential: (wikipedia)

# Minimum transmit potential increased: Range is 500–600 mV instead of 400–600 mV.
# Minimum receive potential decreased: Range is 240–600 mV instead of 325–600 mV.