Wooden Barn Mailbox

 The previous week I posted about a wireless alert system that I had devised with the use of some surplus parts and a cheap doorbell to let me know when the mail had been delivered. 

While I was happy with the concept, I was a little less than thrilled about the reduced range that I seemed to be getting when it was being used with my metal mailbox. My suspicion was that the mailbox was acting a bit like a faraday cage with the doorbell transmitter, severely cutting down the range of the signal being transmitted. 

I did try to have the doorbell transmitter located outside of the mailbox, but I was wasn't too happy with the idea of having it exposed to the elements. 

Since my mailbox was starting to look a little rough, I figured perhaps a mailbox upgrade, one that would be a bit more radio-friendly, would be a nice project to tackle.

Building a Tablet Computer Stand

 

It's been a while since I made some real sawdust in the shop and the opportunity finally arrived when I started getting a bit annoyed with how I was using my tablet computer the other day. 

I find tablets to be a very handy gadget - you pretty much have the capability of a full PC in a format that is totally portable. They are much nicer than a smartphone since they also carry a much bigger screen - an added bonus as my hair is starting to go grey.

The only annoyance I have is when I don't need to have the portability, but rather I need to use it sitting down at my desk or I need to have it sitting on my workbench so that I can use it to look at something while my hands were busy.  The issue in those cases is that this often means that the tablet is sitting flat on the tabletop, which makes it a bit hard to read without doing a bit of neck calisthenics.

To solve this problem I really needed some sort of stand that I could set the tablet on, with the screen positioned at an angle to allow for easy viewing. 

As luck should have it, I just recently got my hands on a couple of pieces of 3/4 inch thick spalted maple that I scored from the "Free Wood" bin at my local cabinet maker. 

The Necessary Evil - Shop Maintenance

Last week I was ripping some stringers from a pallet for a new project that I was working on when my table saw made a bit of a clunk and shot out a couple of sparks - it would appear that I had forgotten to remove a nail from the stringer before I started cutting.

Obviously, the saw blade didn't really like that too much and proceeded to tell me this by making an absolute mess of the cut on the next board that I ripped.

Effectively I wrecked the blade and it needed to be replaced.

Changing a saw blade on a table saw is a fairly straight forward affair of loosening the nut that attached the blade to the spindle of the table saw's motor, except for a slight twist.

If you tried to just take a wrench to the nut, you will quickly find that the blade will just spin freely as you turn the nut. No matter how dull the blade is, it is still not a good idea to have something like that near fingers that are in close proximity, nor can you just hold onto the blade with one hand while wrenching with the other - a sure-fire way to get a nasty cut.

To do it properly, you need to wedge in a piece of scrap wood between the blade and the body of the table saw.  The blade digs into the wood, and not your hand as you loosen the nut.

Switching saw blades is just another part of regular shop maintenance,  that thing you need to do from time to time to ensure that your fingers stay attached and your projects look decent.

Digitizing 35mm Slides with a Smart Phone

Recently I got into a bit of a nostalgia kick when I found a box of old 35mm film slides at my parent's house a few weeks ago. 

Finding those slides brought back memories of sitting in a dark room, watching pictures of someone's recent trip someplace far away.  I can remember the click of the slide projector as it cycled through to the next slide, the smell of the hot bulb in the projector, and of course, watching the odd upside-down slide flash up on the screen. 

This was an experience that is now lost to time since we live in a streaming YouTube world. 

Millions of these slides now languish on the back of closets, forgotten. 

The really nice thing about 35mm slides was that they typically had a high-quality image, almost rivaling the high definition quality of the pictures that we can take on our smartphones today. 

There is a lot of history lock up in those slides, the problem is that without a projector of some sort, they remain locked inside their square cardboard sleeve. 

I developed a plan to rescue the slides that I had found by converting them into a digital format. You can purchase devices on Amazon that can convert slides for you, but again, my cheapness kicked in when I saw that even an inexpensive converter was around $150. 

Recently, I picked at an auction a lot of old slide viewers for a few dollars. The viewers were used to preview slides before you put them into a slide projector's carousel.

Most of the viewers had a small viewing window that had a small lightbulb inside to light up the slide. However, one particular viewer used the light from the room to illuminate the slide, and the slide was viewable as a large image. 

As an experiment, I tried to take a photo of a slide as it was seen in the viewer with my smartphone. I was actually quite pleased with the image quality that I got on the phone. 

So between this old slide viewer and my smartphone, I had the makings of a converter for my box of slides. 

Wipe Your Paws! - A Simple Laser Engraved Sign

After using my little NEJE laser engraver for a little while and not managing to permanently blind myself by staring at the laser as if I was a moth to a light bulb, I figured that I could graduate up to something a bit more deadly powerful.

After reviewing the offerings on hand on Amazon, I settled on a 2.5-watt engraver that had the magic mix of being cheap but having very good reviews by what seemed to be actual humans (though I do hear that the bots are starting to get pretty smart these days 😀) 

The laser also had a much larger engraving surface - which really opened up the project possibilities that I could consider.

Turning a Simple Clock on a Lathe

Now I was always intrigued by clocks, even from a young age.

A few years ago, I came across an old report card that was issued during my tenure in kindergarten. In the report, the teacher made a comment that one day I had somehow gotten my hands on a box of "broken" alarm clocks - which were being used to teach us how to tell time - and somehow I had managed to get those clocks to work again. Which was pretty amazing except for the fact that I had somehow managed to make the alarms go off during nap time!

Needless to say, I always found timepieces interesting, as evidenced by previous projects that I've posted.

A few months ago I posted a little tutorial on how to turn wooden bowl blanks on a lathe.

Well, I got sidetracked a little bit with some other projects, but the lathe was starting to look a little lonely so I figured that I should give it a little love and try making something with it again.

The project that I settled on was basically an extension of the bowl blank, but with some extra touches including rounding the edges of the blank and cutting a groove into the face.

The spark of this project was due to some more experimentation that I was doing with the Cricut Maker where I wanted to see how the Maker handled fine detail work on wood veneer.

So, being a creature of habit,  I decided to build a clock using the Maker and my lathe.

Building an Aquarium Stand - Step 4: Building the Base

With the body of the aquarium stand out of the way, the last major component to build the base of the stand.

Since the base of the aquarium stand is going to have to carry the full weight of the aquarium along with the stand itself, I needed to engineer in a lot of extra strength into the base, however, I needed to make sure that it reflected the character of the rest of the stand.

To build in that strength, I decided to have the stand predominately built out of a much heavier material - 2X4 lumber.

Building an Aquarium Stand - Step 2: Building the Top

In my last post, I sketched out a bit of a design for an aquarium stand that I wanted to hold a tank to house George, our tame Sunfish.

With my plan of attack determined, it was finally time to head into the shop and start building.

As I previously mentioned, I designed the aquarium stand to be constructed in three distinct parts (top, body, and bottom).

Since the stand will be custom-built for the aquarium, the first logical step would be to start from the top.

The first step in the process was to find out the footprint of the tank.

Table Saw Stand from Pallets

As I may have mentioned in previous posts, things have been going under a bit of a transformation in the shop. 

This summer marked a move to some better (albeit still "small") shop space. As part of this move, I decided to treat myself to an upgrade to my old table saw. 

In my past couple of posts, I've discovered and have been experimenting a little with that outcast of the shipping world, the lowly pallet. 

Since I was impressed on how well my new workbench had turned out. I wanted to continue my experience of using pallets to further improve conditions in the new shop space. 

My new table saw is classed as a compact table saw which is meant for use at construction sites. While a very capable saw, in order for it to be used properly, it really needs to be set securely on a stand or a tabletop. 

When I looked at what a store-bought stand would cost, I realized that I was looking at least a couple of hundred dollars for a custom stand for the saw. 

Since I had a few leftover pallets from my workbench project sitting in the corner of the shop, something told me that I could probably build something similar for a lot less money. 

The New Toy - DeWalt DW745 Compact Saw

Every once in awhile Christmas arrives in the shop when a large box suddenly shows up with the promise of something exciting within.

For a long time, I had my eye on a DeWalt compact table saw to replace the old Black and Decker table saw that was starting to get a little tired after many years of faithful service.

What really drew me to this particular Dewalt saw was that the rip fence was integrated into a geared rail system that had a measurement indicator that showed the distance between the blade and the rip fence.

Basically what this meant was that I could accurately set my rip fence with just a twist of a knob versus manually sliding the rip fence and measuring the distance between the blade and the fence with a tape measure.

The fence system that this saw used also guaranteed that the rip fence would be parallel to the blade, something that I always had a bit of an issue with table saws that had to be manual slid into place.

Since I don't have a very large budget for tools, I had to rely on asking for Home Depot gift cards as birthday and Christmas presents. After a few years, and a lot of patience (not to mention a lot of gift cards), I finally had enough accumulated to claim my new toy.

The Seasonal Shop Expansion

As you can tell from my desk building project, the main disadvantage of having a small shop is that I am really limited in the amount of space that I have available for working on those really big items,.

"Let's Be Careful Out There"

While this may horribly date me, that was the famous catchphrase of Sgt Phil Esterhaus from Hill Street Blues.

While it was meant to be advice for law enforcement officers that were going on duty, it is also very good advice of those of us that use tools that are powered and very sharp, often at the same time.

I've been using power saws and other such devices since I was a young teenager and I always treated those tools with a great deal of respect.

For many years (decades even) about the only injury that I ever got was the occasional sliver.

But all that good karma with power tools can be for naught if you are only distracted for a second when one of these things are running.

Such was the case for me last fall.