Firewood Drying
07/10/2019
Oldest: Small woodstore
Newer: 1B/T, 4B/T, 2B/T
Newest: 3B/T
07/10/2019
Oldest: Small woodstore
Newer: 1B/T, 4B/T, 2B/T
Newest: 3B/T
We have a small motorbike in the family!
It’s a 90cc pitbike, and was a generous donation from a colleague. It’s got a Chinese copy of the famous Honda Supercub engine, so parts are cheap. It will be a good project for me and my son.
Here are some things we’ve done in an effort to get this running properly:
It still wouldn’t run for long or start consistently. So I took it to a friend’s neighbour who offered to help. ‘Try replacing the spark-plug’ he said.
Suddenly this thing came to life! The old plug was still sparking visibly but obviously not strongly enough. So after this I had to look at another modification:
Photos to follow.
I’m fixing up an old trailer I was given a couple of years ago.
It was originally a trailer tent (a Conway Challenger, no less). It’s sides are sheet metal and the floor is plywood. The fibreglass wheel arches have come detached, my right foot has breached the floor and the rear door has taken its leave.
It has long since passed the point of being safe, and is well on its way to becoming useless.
I’ll be welding up a new frame using 40×40 x 5mm angle iron. and use decking boards for the floor & sides.
So I want to connect a vacuum up to my table saw to reduce dust. I buy a cyclone-type dust collector. Then I sit and tie myself up in knots looking at the hoses, fittings and cannot work out what I need to complete the job.
This all looks fairly straight forward until you consider the diameters of the hoses/fittings.
Ref | Device | Outside Diameter (mm) |
Inside Diameter (mm) |
---|---|---|---|
1 | Vacuum | 35 | n/a |
2 | Dust Collector | 55 | 50 |
3 | Dust Collector | 55 | 50 |
4 | Table Saw blade guard | 38 | n/a |
5 | Table Saw chip case | 58 | n/a |
I’ll update this when I find the hoses and fittings required.
With wheels on one end, it will be easy to move. First I’ll need to build a ramp to roll the stand down into a storage area. I used one part cement, 2 parts aggregate (about 15mm) and 3 parts sand.
Buying a splitting maul or splitting axe? Learn from someone who made a mistake.
One terrible splitting maul and one great one. The first literally bounces of most logs. The second cuts beautifully.
The first is a Faithfull (unfaithful) something or other which I promptly returned. It was like hitting a log with a sledge hammer. The second is a Draper Expert and makes splitting a pleasure.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Draper-Expert-09944-Splitting-Fibreglass/dp/B002SCOLTY
Fibreblass handle. 6lb / 2.7kg head.
Very excited to get my hands on this new (to me) trailer.
It needed a new plug, so that was tonight’s task…
An hour or so round here of an evening and stress levels are destroyed. Not that I’m stressed. Think I just enjoy chopping wood.
I’ve spent a few days repairing dodgy slates on the roof of our auld hoose. Almost every replacement slate needs cut to size. Hence the debris…
It’s doing the job. The floating beam remains aloft, even with some cards weighing it down!
I settled on 12mm threaded rod to mount this beam.
This small project came about when I was asked whether the Raspberry Pi could measure the temperature of a biomass boiler and display it on a phone.
Using a couple of digital temperature sensors, the DS18B20, some python and a bash script, the temperature at each sensor is relayed to a web page every 60 seconds.
The beam was 6″ x 6″ PAR – planed all round – so it was anything but round.
Some shaping helps it look more aged & natural…
I used a freshly sharpened kukri to carve off the sharp edges and shape it around the knots. [Side note: have a read at this: wikipedia:Kukri — what a great tool.] I followed that with a belt sander at 80 grit, then hand-sanded to 120-grit. Oak is a nice wood to work.
I’ve got an offcut from the oak beam to test a couple of finishes… left is stain in shellac previously donated by a local french polisher. On the right is Briwax wax, “Jacobean” coloured.
I’m leaning toward the Briwax… the grain comes out more prominently.
Here’s the ladder constructed… just needs a coat or two of varnish.
I’m going to attempt to build a ladder for the kids to get into their loft-den. I’m using spare, recycled timber. The steps will be decking boards cut down the middle.
The loft in the log store is the perfect size for a kids’ den. Here I am flooring it with some recycled HDF.