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The Ongoing Saga of the Workshop

 The ongoing saga of me trying to establish a new workshop at the new house. I've written about it previously on this blog. It's been nearly 10 months since we moved into the house and I thought that I would have been up and running long before this. I finally finished the rear wall. The rear wall is now both insulated and painted. The interior wall is lined with plywood as I did with the sidewall. I will varnish the wall before starting to hang things on it. All the wiring has been run for an excessive amount of power outlets, one of the outlets will have USB charging inbuilt. I've also pre-wired for a light above the bench with a switch just inside the door. The next phase will be painting the wall with varnish or should I say varnishing the wall. then I will commence building a bench across the back wall. I am thinking about putting some drawers under the bench to store things but making sure that the bench top overhangs so I can clamp things to the edge. I will also be fitting a bench vice. I'm hoping that this will be a practical and useful space because I don't really feel like rebuilding it after this. As always there are some photos attached to this post showing the progress so far. I'm hoping when I get the workshop up and running that I will do a collage of all the photos I've taken through the build. It's been too hard to try to video the progress because I've got too much stuff in the way. Every time I work in the shop I have to play a massive game [...]

By |January 20th, 2023|Categories: Around the home, Renovating|Tags: , |0 Comments
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More Adventures in 3D Printing

I've been having trouble with my 3D printer, mostly the filament gets blocked in the extruder. I initially thought that it was a problem with the STL file that I downloaded from Thingiverse. tried printing the file several times but there was no filament coming out of the extruder. I went through all the usual problem solving thinking including theBowden tube being blocked or indeed the nozzle. I replaced the Bowden tube with a better quality one supplied by my son in law.This didn't resolve the problem. I still had no filament coming out of the extruder. I wondered if the filament may have been the problem but since it's a new role I just counted that. I disassembled the new Bowden tube and took the nozzle off which I just replaced to stop the nozzle was blocked and it seemed that the extruder itself was blocked so I  heated the extruder up.  and pulled the filament out and discovered that there was a whole lot of melted filament sitting between the end of the Bowden tube and the extruding nozzle.  Having  got this far I decided to check on the Creality website to see if they had a solution to this problem. What I have failed to do was preheat the extruder prior to fiddling with it. I ended up with some melted filament inside the extruder and also in the  thread wherenozzle goes. I picked this out with a dental tool.  I realised that you have to put the nozzle into the extruder prior to fitting the Bowden tube. This means that you can seat the Bowden tube right down to the top of the extruder nozzle. Having  done this and fitting a [...]

By |January 4th, 2023|Categories: 3D Printing|Tags: , |0 Comments
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Adventures in 3D Printing

In a departure from wood working I have bought a 3D printer. I decided to buy an Ender 3D V2 based on a combination of price and performance . The printer has good reviews and there are lots of upgrades readily available. The machine was partially assembled which also appealed to me. I spent quite some time levelling the bed which is quite important on a 3D printer to ensure good quality prints. After some frustrating attempts to get the printer going and lots of YouTube videos I was able to perform a successful test print. I found the "teaching tech" YouTube channel and associated website particularly helpful. Certainly worth a look if you are new to 3D printing. After printing a test cat and some accessories for the printer itself I wanted to actually make something. There are of course lots models available online but not everything you want or need is online. In order to accomplish making something software is required. I ended up finding Onshape which is a web based 3d modelling program. Being web based is does not rely on the processing power of you pc or laptop. The program is available to use free of charge fully featured the only caveat is that any files created are publicly available within the Onshape online world. The learning curve was steep for me but more on that later but not insurmountable. Tool Holder Test Cat Improved Filament Feeder Stronger Bed Springs Test Print

By |December 13th, 2022|Categories: 3D Printing|0 Comments
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The ongoing workshop build

We have now been in our new house for eight months. I had been hoping to sort out the workshop in a matter of weeks! Progress has been slow. The most recent progress has been the rear wall which had a roller door installed. This was completely useless for my purposes. The roller door was removed with the help of a a beam lift. This made it easy and safe for two people to remove. I sold it quickly for $200 it was off my hands in two days. I managed to source a second hand window for the rear wall of the workshop. It had been subjected to lots of paint in various colours. Paint stripper and some scrubbing revealed an original brown. I painted the window with some etch primer and a topcoat of enamel in a grey colour called monument. The window now matches the other windows on the house. I purchased a solid wood as an access door for the rear wall of the workshop. The door I bought was apparently from a hospital and needs some fettling to make it fit the door is about the right width but is nearly 2500 mm high. The most common door size in Australia is 820 wide and 2040 high. Nothing a track can handle. I was lucky with the cladding as my brother had some lying around his property doesn't exactly match the house but will end up the same colour so all is good. I think that the whole wall will blend in once it has nice coat of paint. Then there is wiring and cladding on the inside.. https://youtube.com/shorts/BbN_9nskg3o?feature=share

By |November 3rd, 2022|Categories: Renovating, Woodworking|0 Comments
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Back Bench

I have been thinking about the bench that will go against the back wall. Luckily I have a reasonable supply of timber that I can construct a solid wok bench with a vice for woodworking. I will be using some hardware salvaged from the old workshop. At this stage the plan is to have three powerpoints across the wall just above the bench. One of the powerpoints will incorporate a couple of USB ports for charging things. I also have the idea to put a powerpoint under the bench for a shop vac. The main light in the garage has a switch located at the other end of the workshop. It is too much hassle to rewire it as a two way switch. The simpler solution is to put a light over the work bench with a switch just inside the back door. I have drawn a simple mud map of my thinking which is as close as I get to construction diagrams. The Back Wall

By |November 1st, 2022|Categories: Renovating, Woodworking|Tags: |0 Comments
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The Things People Do

Broken eyelet Moving into a house always means repairs. I do most of my own repairs because I can. It never ceases to amaze me how people repair things. We have a balcony across the front of the house which has balustrades using tensioned stainless steel wire . Most of the wire is anchored to timber with stainless steel eyelets. One of the eyelets failed and much to my surprise it had been repaired with epoxy! This was never going to work! I managed to get the broken part of the eyelet using a plug cutter. I drilled through the post and removed the plug. I found some dowel at the local hardware store almost the right size and glued it in with some shims. A bit of filler and paint and you wouldn't know the hole had been filled. I still cant believe that someone tried to repair this with epoxy. I subsequently discovered another broken eyelet and followed the same repair process.

By |October 22nd, 2022|Categories: News|Tags: |0 Comments
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Strange Photo Behaviour

Duck's at work I'm having some strange Photo behaviour. I store most of my photos on Google Photos for convenience and up until recently I could easily insert them directly from WordPress. However this has changed , certainly since WordPress version 6.0. I now experience what seems to be an endless loop and eventually I get a json error, whatever that is. Not all I'd lost as the images have turned up in the WordPress media library without being inserted in post. I can insert the photos directly from the library without issue. I took me quite some time to discover this. Not really seamless as sometimes I can't directly upload to the media library. Photos are an important part of blogs so this is a little annoying. I have tried this from several computers and a couple of android devices. I have two self hosted blogs with the same issue. Strange Photo Behaviour indeed.

By |July 13th, 2022|Categories: News|0 Comments
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New Workshop Slow Progress

We are now nearly three months into the relocation. The new workshop has a brand new concrete floor but that's about it . There have been all sorts of delays; some of it COVID related. I managed to lay some cable underneath the mesh prior to the floor being laid so at least I can get power to the far wall. The list of things to do is quite long and doesn't only include the workshop. The workshop aside we are still unpacking, my wife has had surgery and not able to weight bear on her left foot for six weeks. We still have rooms that resemble a a warehouse! The new floor in the workshop worked out well. Because there has been such a delay in using it some four weeks now it is very hard. This is a good thing. I am adapting what was originally an open carport to a workshop. The previous owners has started enclosing the carport and added a sidewall and roller doors front and back. We have added the concrete floor with a retaining wall at the far end. The rear roller will have to be removed as it stops about 300mm from the floor. My plan is to build a stud wall with an access door and a window. The side wall away from the house will also get a stud wall and insulation. I have already bought LED strip lights for the ceiling.

By |May 30th, 2022|Categories: News|0 Comments
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Workshop Update January 2022

The joys of storage A small update on the site and projects. I am currently in the process of moving house. This of course means that I am packing up my little workshop. My woodworking efforts have come to a temporary halt. I have already started packing up some of my tools and put them in storage. Ona positive note I will have a larger workshop at the new hose. The first tentative steps towards retirement and more workshop time I have lots projects planned and in progress. I started reupholstering and repairing a pair of lounge chairs. One is almost complete and I wanted to finish them both at the same time to better use the final fabric at the same time. I am also planning to venture into box making with a Gifkins dovetail jig. I am looking forward to getting back into woodturning at the new workshop. All my woodturning timber is currently in a paddock as I had to clear it out for the pesky open inspections. All part of the exhausting business of moving house. I started writing this with the intention of writing about the sort of YouTube channels that I like to watch but it did drift in to the hassles of moving house. It will be some time i.e. month before I get back to a workshop as such. On the positive side of things our new new residence has views of the sea. I will be able to enjoy sea breezes as I whittle away.

By |January 20th, 2022|Categories: Woodworking|0 Comments
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Major 8 Radiogram Repair

We have in our possession a Major 8 radiogram which was originally purchased by my in-laws around 1960s. It hasn't been used for years and kept largely for sentimental reasons. When I first saw it a very modern (for its day) stereo cassette player had been patched in not sure how but it worked. I have not been able to find any information online about this or any other radiogram. I did find a website that that does repairs Resurrection Radiograms. They hadn't heard of a Major 8 either. They did however suggest that it could be a rebranded Astor 8. I visited another website bakeliteradio it lists the Astor brand but doesn't really help my cause. The radiogram is now part of history as cassette players, 8 track cartridges and compact disks. The radio still works but it only has AM as this unit predates FM radio and there is little call for short wave theses days. So there it sits the AM band works but doesn't cover the full bandwidth that is available today. I can tune in some stations the sound is a bit crackly befitting such an on old radio. Sadly the turntable is no longer functional too hared to fix. The cabinet is made from veneered plywood which needed repair. That however is a story for another post. Major 8 RadiogramMajor 8 tuning on light

By |August 23rd, 2021|Categories: Renovating, Woodworking|Tags: |0 Comments
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