It's been about four months since I've updated here, but not for lack of interesting projects. We've put together two pieces for Desert Bus this year, kicking off in just a few days, but I'm reticent to post photos before I know they made it to Canada unscathed. There are also a few other side projects I've been meaning to document, but finding time is always a struggle. Also - I'm lined up to attend a silver and bronze investment casting class this weekend at Oakland's excellent studio, The Crucible, and will certainly share photos of my results! Exciting times ahead.
Pokemon Go: Gotcha Ranger Repair
I realize I've never noted it here, but sometime in the middle of last year I picked Pokemon Go up again. The amount of time I've been able to play has fluctuated a lot over the months, but it's proven itself a good excuse to get outside and do some walking on day when I'd just as well hide inside. There are 3rd party devices that interact with the game (they actually emulate the official peripheral but add several useful features, notably attempting to auto-catch pokemon that spawn near you without any outward fanfare and button-pressing). I understand that some players regard these devices negatively, since they automate a core gameplay loop, but since I derive most of my enjoyment out of the cooperative raiding portion of the game, the idea of scraping up a little extra resource while walking around doesn't feel particularly game-breaking.
With all that context out of the way - I'd helped a friend acquire a Gotcha Ranger, which had worked quite well for him over several months before it suddenly began acting up. After running through the standard debugging steps without success, he handed it off to me to see if it could be salvaged. I was able to pop it open by hand and take a look.
The problem was apparent pretty immediately, the lithium-polymer battery had ruptured and some telltale corrosion was apparent on both the swollen battery and the housing. After some googling around I was able to locate a similar-sized 3.7V li-po battery with a shade less capacity, and was able to get it next-day.
With the new battery in-hand I removed the two screws holding the board in the housing and examined the back face of it. There are a couple other posts online describing the connections, but I hadn't yet seen a labelled photo, so here we go. It's worth noting that the convention appears to be blue wires are always ground, the copper or red sleeved ones are positive.
Noticing the damage to the phone-charging wires, my friend asked me to disconnect that bit entirely as he never used it. Fair enough. I desoldered those connections, as well as the ones for the battery. After the unnecessary connector was snipped off the new battery, it was soldered to the board. Similarly, the wires coming off the front panel (display and controller) were soldered to the other two points near the battery-end of the board. The battery shipped discharged, but once I provided power via USB I was able to confirm everything was connected correctly. It took about 30 minutes for the light indicating active charging to settle down, and afterwards I confirmed function while disconnected from the USB.
With that I closed it up and made sure it could connect to my phone. A $6 battery and maybe 15 minutes of soldering to prevent the replacement of a $45 device - not too shabby.
Danby Kegerator Conversion
A couple months back I kicked off a brew of a Belgian saison, thinking to keg half the batch and bottle the rest. When bottling day came I realized that the fridge in our new place couldn’t accommodate the keg. I’d had it in my head for a while now that a kegerator would be a fun project, and this was the perfect excuse. After quite a lot of reading I ordered the Danby DAR044A4BDD-3 from Amazon (Danby DAR044A4BDD-3 Compact All Refrigerator, 4.4 Cubic Feet, Black) and picked up a pile of parts (tower, taps, shanks, dual-port CO2 regulator, tap handles, hose, hose clamps, ball-lock disconnects) from my local home-brew shop. At this point I began to suspect that buying a commercially made kegerator would’ve only been marginally more expensive, but there was fun to be had in the process.
The first step was preparing the door, since two kegs and a 5lb CO2 tank could fit only if we made the door flat. The door is only held on by a couple screws, and once it was off, the gasket was pulled off, then a hobby knife and dremel were used to cut the hard plastic free. A good bit of mess was generated while leveling out the insulating foam, I’d recommend an N45 mask for that bit. A piece of erasable white board material was picked up from Home Depot for a couple bucks and then cut down to 17 3/4” x 28 1/2”, just large enough to fit inside the gasket. The exposed insulating foam was covered with overlapping stripes of aluminum tape to prevent any condensation from getting into the insulation of the door, the whiteboard and gasket were placed, and the door was finally re-attached.
Two holes had to be put into the fridge, a 2” diameter hole on the top for the tower, and a smaller one near the bottom for routing cables in and out of the cooled volume. The second is only really necessary since I also wanted to use the fridge as a temperature controlled fermentation chamber for my next batch (an Irish Red), but has been useful for monitoring the temp as a kegerator too. Before drilling the first hole, the light fixture had to be moved out of the way. A couple screws hold it in place, and once they're removed it just dangles from a cable and can be taped out of the way. Measured on the top of the fridge, the center point of the hole sits at 13 3/4” from the front edge, and 10 3/8” from the left (or right) edge. I was paranoid about hitting any condenser lines when drilling into the fridge, so I borrowed an IR viewer from the lab and confirmed that this model has no condenser lines in roof. The spot I picked also managed to avoid electrical lines, which is also pretty important.
A 2” hole saw was used to (carefully) cut through, then the edges of the exposed metal were filed down. Strips of aluminum tape were fed through the hole and folded over to seal the insulation from humidity. With plenty of paranoia of ending up with a moldy kegerator, I went ahead and applied two layers of tape. For the hole at the bottom, I chose a spot in the left corner of the raised “shelf” that appeared unobstructed on the underside of the fridge, coming out well clear of the compressor. I used a 1 1/2" hole saw, again filed the edges, and fit it with a small length of PVC pipe, chosen after I’d confirmed that all the plugs I’d be routing through there would fit (temperature probe, ferm wrap heater, tower fan power). Around the edges where the pipe met the plastic (both top and bottom) I piped in a good bead of shower sealant, which took a surprisingly long time to cure but has since held up quite well.
I ended up using the fridge in this state (sans actual tower) for two weeks as a fermentation chamber for my Irish Red. I did apply a bit of aluminum foil to both sides of the tower-hole with duct tape to prevent moist air from entering the volume, and wedged a crumpled-up ball of foil into the void to reduce convection and radiation across that gap. Once that brew finished, I shifted it into full kegerator mode and attached the tower. None of the anchoring holes gave me much trouble, but I did have to hunt down very long bolts that could reach the interior, and some matching wing-nuts that I could hand tighten by hand. I switched on the tower fan I’d bought and realized in short order that my tower was under-insulated - condensation immediately formed on the top! I cut down a bit of rubber-foam pipe insulation and shoved it into the tower, which worked well.
I’ve still only attached one of the taps, and (after a bit of calculation) settled on close to 20 feet of beverage line and a medium setting on the flow-control tap to produce a low-foam pint every time. I did end up ordering a (surprisingly expensive) drip tray with a 3” diameter cut-out for the tower, as the taps certainly do drip for a couple seconds every time I pull a pint. I may post an update when I get the second keg set up, but until then I’m loving having a fresh red ale on tap.
Prost!
Gemstone Faceting: First Stone!
A couple years ago my grandfather re-built the faceting machine he used when he was stationed over-seas and gave it to me, along with plenty of tooling and rough stones. I’d been meaning to learn how to get going with it, even read a few books on the topic; unfortunately all were pale substitutes for experience. I’d been vaguely aware of the existence of a lapidary club in Tucson when I lived there, and had heard they held events that coincided with the annual gem and mineral show. Only this year did it strike me to look into them, and I learned they offered a two-day intensive course in faceting for members of the United States Faceter’s Guild (USFG). It didn’t take long to decide. I got my membership sorted out within the hour, and signed up for a spot! It didn’t hurt that a trip to Tucson would also mean a chance to catch up with several friends, and indulge at a lot of my old favorite restaurants.
The class itself ran two days, 8 hours each day, and was taught by Jeff Theesfield, Billy Bob Riley, and Dave Richardson. They walked the students, six of us, through the process of setting up and faceting a stone, from rough cutting through final polishing. I’m glad I decided to take a class rather than dive in on my own - there’s a mind-bogglingly large band of things that can go wrong, and mistakes that are incredibly easy to make. A number of famous names in the gem-cutting world stopped by the classroom throughout the day, Scott Sucher (world expert on the Hope diamond, among other stones) and John Bailey (from the International Faceting Academy in Oregon) among them, which was a rare treat.
The 16 hours was total was just barely enough to complete the stone - though I’m told with experience the whole process comes down to 2-4 hours depending on design complexity and well-behaved materials. Of the six students, only two of us produced finished stones, meaning the class likely could’ve benefited from a third day, longer hours. Dave spent a considerable bit of time near the end showing me how to clean up my meet-points during the final polishing step, which made for a significantly better gem. Going forward, I’ve got a clear picture of how I need to modify the machine I have to cut well, though there are a couple of features I probably won’t get without a professional machine (e.g. a Facetron or UltraTech) that would make life a lot easier. I’ll post updates here as my home setup matures, which will inevitably require new side projects worth writing up.
Homebrewing: First batch at the new address
For Christmas my friend Kevin gave me an ingredient kit for a Belgian Saison. Those are always make for a pleasant beer, particularly during the spring and summer. I decided to set it going over the weekend and hit only a few snags along the way. I did discover, fortuitously, that the garden hose in our new place is very near the kitchen window, and ideally placed for running water through the copper wort chiller I picked up last year. The fermentation and settling still have a few more days to go before bottling / kegging can happen, but I’m already thinking about future batches and ways to better control the process. A thermal control loop with data logging seems to be the next step!
Interim Update
It's been a good long while since I've updated here, and while I've started a couple projects in that time, nothing has gotten over the finish line. A confluence of work ramping up, moving to a new dwelling, and end-of-the-year travel has been very effective at keeping me away from my hobbies. Looking back, it also occurs to me that a good amount of what I did this year, never made it onto the site. I'll try to rectify that soon - the holiday shutdown means I'll have a couple weeks to decompress and reflect, and documenting the year seems a natural step along that way.
Stained Glass: Framed Black Lotus
Update: The piece sold during an 8-hour long silent auction, raising $5,678.90 for Child's Play! Congratulations to the new owner! I'm already excited to see what we can make for next year's Desert Bus.
We got the idea to make something for Desert Bus for Hope last winter, and this summer we finally set aside a weekend or two to actually do it (after hearing back from the Craft-along folks). The design we settled on was the iconic Black Lotus of Magic fame, with a circular frame of dichroic frosted glass, what for the thematic multi-color reflections.
If it wasn't clear from the first bit - This very piece CAN BE YOURS! Just tune into this year's Desert Bus for Hope, starting November 9th. We don't know yet if this will be a give-away or an auction, but by the time Desert Bus ends some charitable soul will be the lucky new owner of this, the rarest (and possibly heaviest?) of black lotuses.
It's true I've done a glass lotus before, back in 2013, but this was a much more intricate undertaking, involving more individual pieces and fused-paint details. Both my partner and I are a good bit more experienced than we were five years ago, and wanted to make sure the result would be worth sharing. I should clarify, she did the vast majority of the work on this piece, I helped with cutting and grinding, but she deserves the real credit for the result!
I wish I'd taken more process photos, but aside from being picky about orienting the dichroic segments, there weren't too many tricky bits to document.
Wood: First furniture project, a bed!
The Ikea bed (a queen-sized Malm), after being dutifully moved around over the last six or so years, had begun to display symptoms of the dreaded "wiggles". The slats had also picked up the bad habit of unceremoniously dropping between the (now distended) supports and causing all sorts of frustration, back pain, a mid-sleep surprises. I'd been tempted by the idea of trying to build a bed since I bought the table saw, and finally decided April was the month. The design was pretty constrained though; not only would it need to be easy to get up (and eventually down) a spiral staircase, it also had to be something that we could cut on our 4' x 6' balcony. The standard queen bed dimensions are 60" x 80", which astute observers will notice does not at all fit on the balcony. Thankfully, I came across a handful of designs that were essentially platform beds composed of boxes with drawers and supports added on.
While it's true I did tweak some of the dimensions and details, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention this video, which not only provided the fundamental design, also helped me dodge some snags along the way. One of the first big learnings of this project: nicer plywood gets super expensive, and long drawers do too. The four 8' x 4' sheets this project required ran about $300, the drawer slides about another $100, and roughly another $100 for the miscellaneous bits (edge banding, dowel stock, drawer pulls, fasteners, etc).
This was also my first project using pocket-hole screws, which, I know, some people view as cheating. Clearly this project wasn't meant to be fine woodworking, but rather functional furniture that I dearly wanted to have done within the time of a month (mostly evenings and weekend mornings). I did not, however, have a brad nailer / pin nailer, some glue and clamps ended up doing a lot more work than I anticipated. Rather than run through the entire process step-by-step, I'm just providing a few photos I snapped along the way (skip to the end to see the final result). For the finish we just sanded with 320 git with an orbital sander and put on two coats of wipe-on oil-based polyurethane, with a hand-sanding at 400 git in between coats.
Clearly the next project is building a new headboard. It's been a few days already and I'm still incredibly stoked to have more storage as well as a better night's sleep! The biggest part of this for me has been getting a bit of practice on a larger-scale project; now basic furniture projects don't seem quite so intimidating!
Wood: Boxes for my two new Set Cubes!
It's been ages since I've posted an update, but not for lack of activity! These two boxes actually came together a couple weeks ago, but finding the time to photograph and post them was the hard part.
A while back it got into my head to build set cubes, that is a draftable set of cards that re-creates the retail draft experience for a given set of Magic. In addition to prolonging the useful life of cards, it also saves time on sleeving every draft deck. You can read an excellent article on set cubes here. The ratio I ended up using is four of each common, two of each uncommon, and one of each rare and mythic (often shorted to just) 4/2/1/1, with the knowledge that either shuffling up the whole pile, or intentionally building packs, would result in reasonable versions of the experience. The cards themselves were double-sleeved in KMC perfect fits and KMC hyper mattes (a bit overkill, but I like having my cubes match so the lands can be used with any of them, and I wasn't about to single sleeve MM17).
The design for the boxes came about from a couple constraints. We've got two Ikea KALLAX shelves that are super convenient, and I wanted to make sure that the boxes would be able to fit side-by-side in a single Kallax cube, as well as made good use of the depth of the shelf. Next, the nicest dimesnional lumber I can easily get my hands on comes in 5" x 24" x 1/4" boards, so I wanted to limit each box to two of those. The lid and floor are retained by rabets, and the dividers by dadoes. All the corners are 45-degree miters done right on the saw. The poorly-drawn but accurate plans are in the first photo below, along with the cut-down and mitre'd panels.
As for materials, the Unstable box is curly maple with a sapele pommele inlay, while the Kaladesh box is walnut with a quilted maple inlay. For the lids and floors I used some oak plywood I got on discount, the dividers in both are aromatic cedar. The veneer was incredibly thin, but the grain pattern was really striking. Both the inlay and the panels were laser cut to fit, but the wavy nature of the veneer made both of these tricker than usual. After the glue-up they got a couple coats of natural-tone Danish oil.
I'm really happy with how these turned out! They have a bit more space than I need for just the double-sleeved cards, but it means I can store the tokens, dice, and any other extras as well.
Having cracked out two of the same design in the same weekend, I'm comfortable saying I've got this design down. Now on to bigger and better things, new techniques and interesting challenges!
Hawaii Vacation Videos
Videos have become the modern replacement for the dreary vacation slide show, wherein family members are cornered with food and drink, and made to sit through stories of various family members getting sunburns. Instead of cobbling together a massive single video, I decided to break up the clips by location, and link them to the map below. I also made excessive use of the FreeMusicArchive, the videos should list which track(s) were used. I probably could've done a better job on color correction, clipping out the boring bits, and choosing better music, but for now I'm happy to just be done editing it. It was a great trip, but I'd rather look forward to the next one than dwell on the previous one for another dozen hours in Final Cut!
Each map marker links to the video we shot there! For those who don't want to hunt around a map, here's a list in roughly the order we went:
- Kapoho Tidepools (6:38)
- Hilo Coast and Kalapana lava flow (1:42)
- Volcanoes National Park (4:47)
- Punalu'u Black Sand Beach (0:51)
- Papakolea Green Sand Beach (2:50)
- South Point (2:15)
- Hilo Waterfalls (1:29)
- Tropical Botanical Garden (8:06)
- Saddle Road (0:48)
- Kahalu'u Beach (3:42)
- Place of Refuge & Two-Step (6:03)
- Kaloko-Honokohau (2:37)
- Garden Eel Cove (17:13, Manta ray dive starts at 6:50)