Pulsar watch

The wife (girlfriend at the time) bought me this watch as a Christmas gift about 2 years ago. I had been eyeballing it for a little bit. Really liked the clean look, and it matched my black scrubs I would soon be wearing to work at my new (at the time) job.

I was wearing it while working in the garage one day (I think on the CT70), and busted the crystal. A piece of the glass fell beneath one of the hands and wedged in there, binding up the movement and running out the battery. The spring bar holding one side of the strap on bent and the strap fell off as well. So I took it off with the intent of having it fixed and it sat for almost 2 years.

I eventually decided I could fix it myself and started looking into watch making. Found the parts and information I needed and got to work. Didn't take before pictures, but you can figure it out.

Now I really want to start building and repairing mechanical watches. Because I didn't have enough hobbies yet...

Kegerator

I've been homebrewing for about 3 years now and always wanted to switch from bottling to kegging, but couldn't ever quite make the jump for whatever reason. I had a mini fridge I bought in college just sitting around acting as a beer fridge, so a couple of years ago I decided to start getting it ready for a keg setup. Some measurements verified that it should hold a ball lock setup with some modifications, so I did some work to the inside of it, removing excess parts and bending the cooling element down and back, holding it in place with a couple of screws.

I always had a problem with this fridge not getting cold enough to make ice or keep my groceries cold enough, even on the highest setting. So I thought maybe if I could circulate some air around the cooling element I could make it a bit more efficient. I picked up a computer case fan and found an appropriate AC adapter to hot wire to it, then cut and fit some plastic to direct the air flow behind and around the element, giving it a kind of whirlpool effect (however slight). This seemed to work well, as now it would make ice on some of the lowest settings. (Note: I have since found this, that would be much easier.)

That's how it sat for 2+ years, waiting for me to get motivated and funded well enough to finish the job. My wife is awesome, and coordinated with my brother (who also brews) to get me a ball lock keg setup with a 10 lb CO2 tank tank for Christmas this year, so I got to work finishing the job. 

First things first, I decided to wire the fan plug into the power supply of the fridge so it would all work as one unit and not have an extra plug. This was the original plan, but hadn't yet happened. I did some investigation on the back of the fridge, and decided to run extensions from the plug of the AC adapter to the appropriate wires from the fridge's power cord. I soldered extension wires on and insulated them with heat-shrink tube so they wouldn't short, then hooked them up with the insulated wire crimps that came on the fridge's wiring. I drilled a hole in the bottom of the fridge for the wire from the AC adapter to pass directly to the workings of the fridge, instead of the door and around like it had been. Some tidying of the wires made it a bit more manageable and now it all works as one unit. Any time the refrigerator is plugged in, the fan is circulating air.

Even with the door liner removed, the door to the fridge wouldn't close all the way with the equipment in there, so I decided to make a collar for the front of the refrigerator from a 10' 2x6. I glued it on with some Liquid Nails, and added a few straps to give it a bit more support. I put some weatherstripping I had left over from another project around the edges to improve the seal. Since the magnet on the door wouldn't work to hold it closed anymore, I picked up a latch to do the job. 

To help it stay cold, I picked up some reflective insulation and placed all around the inside and on the inside of the door. 

In the near future I'm going to pick up a faucet for the front of the door, and I may eventually move the CO2 tank outside the fridge to accommodate another keg and tap. We'll see what the future brings, but I'm really excited for now.

Update 1/14/15: Got a Perlick 630SS faucet for the front. Looks good and works well.

Cooler stereo

I'd seen a bunch of stereo coolers and been doing a fair amount of floating over the summer. I decided I needed one. So I started researching to find out what I could about putting one together. It's really straightforward. You take marine (if desired) stereo equipment and put it inside a cooler. It only took me about 4-5 hours from start to finish to put it all together and get it wired up. I'm surprisingly happy with the sound.

I started with a cooler I picked up at a flea market for $5. It was a little smaller than what I wanted, which will require I be creative when I later convert it to still be used as a cooler. But it beat the hell out of buying the one I wanted for $50 new. Then I went and picked up (on sale, no less) the marine audio setup I'd decided on. The stereo is bluetooth compatible, so the stereo works as a large wireless speaker, which is awesome. After picking up a deep cycle battery that was made to run a trolling motor, I was ready to go.

 After marking out where I wanted the speakers, I used a paddle bit to make a starter hole and went to town on it with my jigsaw. I didn't take any pictures during the process of putting it together. Once I cut the holes, I mounted the speakers using the included screws. I plugged in the speaker wires and then started the most difficult task of the whole project: deciding where to put the head unit.

I eventually settled on the top of the lid, facing up. This was so I could have access to the controls without having to open the cooler. Also, it would allow the remote to access the receiver. I used some marine-grade epoxy I had left over to mount the frame for the receiver. Because of the way it hanged into the cooler, I had to stagger the battery to the opposite side. I ran the speaker lines to the appropriate length and cut them off so I didn't get too bad a rat's nest in there. I had some 16G wire laying around from a previous project so I ran it to the appropriate length for power (hot, hot switched, and ground). I soldered all the connections and used heat shrink tubing around the joints. 

I turned it on and it worked perfectly. Thing is LOUD! Now I just had to do some finishing touches. I had some small L-brackets left over from something, so I screwed them into the bottom to stabilized the battery. Then I added a 12v cigarette lighter-style plug that had a fuse built in. I have a 1 amp battery charger and an extra maintenance charger I'm going to solder a male 12v plug onto for charging through this port. I can obviously use it as a power outlet for charging phones, although the receiver has a USB plug on the front that chargers, as well as an auxiliary input. Today I used it to run a small air pump to fill a tire on my boat's trailer. But mostly I plan on using it to charge.

I plan to use this for tailgating, camping, working around the yard, etc. The original plan was to put cooler anchors on the boat and use it there (old bass boat doesn't have a stereo), but the boat will be going away soon. I'm going to build a small trailer for it so I can tow it around on my bicycle. Like I said before, it's got a bluetooth receiver in the head unit so I can take it just about anywhere and listen to to just about anything. The biggest thing I'm excited about the cooler size is that it fits perfectly in my kayak so I can take it floating or just paddling around the lake.

Stitch and glue kayak

I had been shopping for a kayak for some time. Unfortunately where I live floating the river, and kayaking in particular, had become the "in" thing to do, and to buy a used kayak was almost as expensive as a new one. I happened to stumble across something I hadn't considered. Building a kayak.

Always being one to do things myself, I was immediately hooked. I pored over countless web pages, absorbing information and deciding what I wanted. Strip built? Stitch and glue? Skin-on-frame? What could I get by with the cheapest? What would be the easiest? Fastest to get together? I finally settled on The Old Man's River Ranger 12, using some plans I found that I thought would be the easiest, fastest, cheapest to build. It comes in the 12' version (that I built), a 14' version, and a 16' version. I think I may build the 14' version next, just to get a little bit more storage and float a little higher I could find very few references to it anywhere online, and only one build thread. I had to have one, and no one knew what I was talking about. This is the picture that made me finally decide (although I don't think it's a RR):

So I got together a list of materials and waited for payday. I decided I needed to have an elevated surface to build on, so I made some saw horses and pieced together a 16' long table so I could scarf together the wood and be working with one large piece. Couldn't have worked better.

Then I set about making my scarf joint to make one long 16'x4' sheet of plywood. I used 5mm project sheets from Lowes. The scarf joint was the most time-consuming part of the whole project, although that probably has to do with the fact I did it by hand with a rasp and block sander. If I had a belt sander, I'd put some coarse-grit paper on it and be done in a jiffy. Next time. I staggered the top sheet 2" back from the bottom sheet (making the similar sides face each other so I'd have the same grain pattern the whole length), and made a mark 2" back from the edge of the top sheet. Then I planed/sanded the whole 4" wide area into one smooth angle. Then, I flipped the top sheet back over, lined up the sheets so they were overlapping on the 2" (using small nails to secure them n place) and glued them with the epoxy resin, using wax paper to keep it from sticking to the table and the 2x4 I used to apply pressure to the top.

Once that dried overnight, I started laying out the patterns for my pieces. I put my keel plate in the middle against one edge, each side piece on either side of it, and then had plenty of area on the far end to make my deck plates and bulkheads. I used small nails along the lines and a small piece of trim to make the dots from the plans line up into an even curve (the plans come with drawings of the pieces, with dots with coordinates you have to draw lines between). Once I had all my pieces laid out, I picked up a jigsaw and went to town. From my experience with a "quick cut" blade with few teeth, I suggest using a finer-toothed blade to reduce splitting as you cut. 

Once I made sure everything was going to line up, I stitched the pieces together with small zip ties. I simply used a small drill bit to make holes that lined up on each panel, then zipped them together. It was starting to look like a boat!

I made the fillets (thickened glue along the edges of mating panels to glue them together) out of the epoxy thickened with flour. Wood flour (finely ground wood) would have been ideal, but I found a couple of different places that said bread flour would be acceptable. I'll warn you since no one warned me: it will take a lot of the flour to thicken the epoxy to peanut-butter texture. I couldn't ever get it there before the epoxy started to set and gel up so I half-assed the fillets.

Then, it was time to sand. And sand. And sand. And take a break. And sand. Once I had all the panels adequately smooth (again, I half-assed it but it was good enough for me), I laid the fiberglass cloth down and smoothed it out on the outside of the hull. I wanted to pick up some good cloth, but funds, time, and impatience added up to me laying individual sheets of fiberglass cloth, again from Lowes. I covered the cloth with a first layer of resin and waited for it to dry. Again, being the cheap bastard I am, I cheaped out on the resin and got the cheap stuff. From Lowes. I also only glassed the outside of the hull, and only put one layer of resin down. On the next one I do, I'll do it like it should be done and put 3-4 layers of resin and glass the whole thing, inside and out. Do as I say, not as I do. Then I put 4 layers of varnish on the outside of the hull and turned my efforts toward the inside. 

To bend the 1x3's I used as gunwales, I cut out a 2x4 and clamped the ends together. I had several ideas for a seat, but I decided to just have a couple of 2x2 sections that a canoe seat hooked onto. It didn't work at all, and would only last for one outing before I rigged up a better seat. I glued in small pieces of 2x2 in the front and back storage sections. They look kind of funny, but you'll see why they're there shortly. I used small pieces of 2x2 glued to the walls to mount the foot rests, as you'll see soon. 

I pieced together the decks by laying down wax paper, setting them together, and laying a sheet of fiberglass over them. I resined over them and waited for the resin to begin to set, and then put the decks over their places on the front and back to shape them, and clamped them down with ratchet straps, again with wax paper on top and around the edges to keep the epoxy from sticking them in place. The plans called for these to be glassed in place and holes cut in them for hatches, but I decided to make the whole panels themselves the hatches. Worked much better and was much easier in my humble opinion. Once the glass was dry I varnished over them to make 'em shiny.

I varnished the entire inside of the boat with 3 layers, and then set about putting the finishing touches on it. I cut pieces of OSB to line the inner edges of the hatches to support the decks. I used foam-rubber window weatherstripping along the top edges to create a seal. I got my deck rigging setup to bungee the hatches on and provide attachment points for various other features, like the paddle holder and front and rear storage I made inside the hatches.

Every time I go floating, someone loses a paddle. So I put the blocks in the front to hold an emergency paddle in place. The blocks in the back are spaced to hold down 2 large dry boxes. The red one is my first aid kit, and I mostly use the clear one to store my phone, wallet, and bluetooth speaker when I'm not using it. 

Once I got the bungees hooked up to hold on the decks, she was ready to get wet. Now she just needed a maiden voyage

I wanted to add cleats to the front for a bungee net (the biggest reason for the gunwales besides increased stiffness along the top edge). So as soon as I could find some I liked, I added them.

As I said earlier, the seat simply did not work, so I picked up a cheap boat seat and rigged up a way to make it sit in there and screwed it in place. It's a huge upgrade, and spending a whole day on the river is a breeze. I also added cleats behind the seat to secure a cooler for easy access to beverages. It can get hot on the river.

After pouring a filler into the nose of the boat for support, I drilled a hole and added a carry handle made of paracord. I used short lengths of paracord to make tethers for the hatches so the slid off either side and hung on the side of the boat instead of dangling or getting lost should I capsize. 

She floated wonderfully. We took it out on Labor Day, and it took us twice as long to get down the river as it should have because we kept having to stop and answer everyone's questions about it. I don't think anyone's said the words "stitch and glue" so many times in a day.

TL;DR: Imgur album