Shark Cordless 2 speed rechargable sweeper

 I picked up a Shark Cordless Sweeper yesterday. I needed a vacuum, and this came recommended from Katie's brother Matt. I let it charge the 20 hours needed and gave it a try. It claims to be able to run for 50 minutes. Time will tell if that claim is true. It works pretty gosh darn good. It is quite, which is very nice. I do wish that the little wall-hugging sweep was on both sides. I realize that 90% of the population is right handed, so it makes sense to put it on the right side, but it would be nice to push it down the left wall to get into those tights spaces.


 The first thing I saw was that it would make an excellent platform for making a DIY robotic vacuum cleaner. The drive system can simply clip onto the little short handle and everything is ready to go! Turn it on, and let it go. I am thinking a 2 wheel drive system, with bump sensors all the way around. Give the controller a basic bump, back up a bit, turn 180 degrees using only one wheel, and go program. The robotic sweeper should do pretty gosh darn good at cleaning an in entire room systematically. If I can get the drive system to track well, I may work on a way for it to dead-reckon where it has been, and where it hasn't hit an obstacle yet, so it will actively try to cover the entire area.


 The beauty of it would be that you simply unclip the robotic part of it, and stick on the telescoping handle, and you can touch up where it missed, or pre-clean the bad spots, and let the robot do the whole room.

This is the closest I could find on Amazon.com. It looks like it has more features, and is priced less then I paid for mine. It is getting poor reviews though... I hope I don't have the same troubles.

Stuff on my shelves

 With 16 inch deep shelves, I can put a lot of books on my shelves. Here I have books 3 layers deep. I have the ones I haven't read up front, and the ones I have read in back.


 With no sides on the shelving, I can do neat things like put books in sideways and be able to access them from the side.


 Here is everything I put on the shelves tonight. Well, I also slid in the grey tub and firesafe on the bottom shelf. I have a lot of room left. My crockpot and electic skillet will go up top, and my dishes will go on the 2nd shelf from the bottom. I will probably rearrage stuff once or twice before I move.

Unbreakable Spiked Caster Cups

 I bought a package of these unbreakable spiked caster cups that won't crush rugs or carpets to go under my shelves. I knew that I am putting a lot of weight down onto a small area of surface area and it would take forever to knock the divits out of the carpet.


 I had to cut a corner of two of the casters off where the shelf sat tight against the wall.


 Here you see that with a corner cut off, I can put the shelf tight against the moulding.

Bookcase with shelves installed.

 Front view of the book case with all the shelves installed. It is pretty sturdy. I can grab the top shelf and pick myself off the ground. I think that a small child or a cat could climb this shelf without risk of it falling over it is so deep. It wants to wiggle though. It is very stiff front to back and side to side, but it will twist a little bit if you walk into the corner. It is actually kinda funny, it acts like it is ticklish. I don't think it will twist itself apart. Having 2 frames with longer shelves, like what I saw at the store, there wouldn't be any worry about the twist.


 Looking at the shelving from the back corner.


 I had originally thought to use the shelves like this, but when I waled around it and about poked an eye out on a corner, I changed my mind.


 Hey, it looks pretty good sitting there. I used to have my gray tub of bedclothes, my firesafe film vault, and a large box of food sitting where the shelf is now at.
I need to sand and paint the frame. I will do that when I move I guess. I think my electric sander is in a box in a friend's garage. I am going to caulk the seems with paintable caulk so I don't have any obvious joints when it's all done. I think it will look nice.

Final Assembly of shelving.

 Attaching the hinges to the frames. I attached them with the frame opened up so I have a better chance of getting them straight.


 I put the hinges on just below the height of the shelves so they would be less visible.


 Cool, eh? It folds up for easy transport. I can flop this on my roof rack on my car and carry it to my new place when I move.


 It's not many 6 shelf, 7 foot tall, 36 inch wide, 16 inch deep shelves that you can carry into a room through a door by yourself with one hand.

Cutting the 2nd set of tenons on my table saw.

OK, so I got lazy. I wasn't happy with the depth not being quite right with my tenons when I did them by hand. I have this new table saw sitting right inside my front door, I just as well use it, right?
 I cut the tenons using the miter guage and the rip fence. The Rip fence was set to the depth of the tenon, and the blade was set for what needed to be cut off as far is thickness. I then put the cross member against the miter guage, and cut the tenon about 10 times each side. I just move the board away from the fence an eight of an inch each cut.


 These are all much more consistant in size now. I used my chisel to clean up any rough spots or little thin pieces of wood I missed with the saw.


 I cut all the tenons tonight, glued, and rope-clamped the 2nd half of the shelving support tonight.


 Here are the two halves leaning against each other. Doesn't look like a bookshelf does it. This 2nd unit has twist in it too, the opposite direction of the one I glued up last night. So it is sitting out to dry blocked up to flex it the other way. I hope they come out square with each other.

Using rope as a clamp for my shelving

 I have the assembly all glued up. Now to clamp it. Normally half a dozen pipe clamps would be in order, but I don't own a single one. (gift idea, wink wink, nudge nudge)


 So for my latest rope trick, I am going to make some shelf clamps. A bowline, a truckers hitch, and tie the rope off. Simple, right?


 The second cross member gets cinched tight. I tied the rope to the top, tied a loop below the not. The rope goes down and under, and back to the loop. I feed the rope through the loop, and then pull down as hard as I can at the awkward angle and trying not to get any glue on me. When doing this, the loop in the rope acts like a pulley, and you can get the rope pulled tighter. I call it a truckers hitch because I have seen old truck drivers use it to tie down loads in their pickup trucks.


 I finished tying up each cross member as tight as I can make it. If you noticed, I tied 2 ropes in the same empty space, skipped a space, did 2 knots , skipped a space, did the last 2.


 I came back and tied the 2 ropes in a space together as tight as I could. This really cinched the tenon and mortise joints together.


 Here you can see my rope-work. Used up most of my rope doing this.


 I blocked each corner and laid the bookcase frame down on the ground. I then measured for square. It is an eight of an inch off. I think I can live with that.


 The top left corner was wanting to lift up off the ground. The frame isn't laying flat. So I removed the block under that corner and weighted it down. I am hoping that when everything dries up, it will come back halfway between where it currently is, and where it wanted to be, making a nice, flat shelving support.


I spoke with my dad about my do it yourself book shelf tonight. I had decided that I am going to cut the rest of the cross members with the table saw, and wanted to ask the best way to do it. He recommended using painters caulk to fill in the gaps in my joint work so the finished, painted shelving looks really good.

Assembling one of my shelving upright.

 The first cross piece gets fitted into the uprights. It works! Being that I am working on the ground and not on a workbench, that I am inexperienced with this type of woodworking, and so on, and so forth, my mortise and tenon cuts aren't perfect. When fitting the cross pieces to the uprights, I would flip and turn the cross members to try to find the best fit for edge alignment. Some of the mortises cut a little tweaking and most of the tenons got trimmed with the chisel.


 It kinda looks like a railing here, doesn't it? It is kinda challenging to get everything all lined up by myself. but I started at one end and worked back and forth until everything slipped together. Now I just need to take it all apart so I can glue it up.


 This is as far as I got today. I got one of the 2 halves assembled, and the mortises cut into the the remaining 2 uprights. I figure it will take most of the evening tomorrow to disassemble and glue, and reassemble the completed half. I am going to use a rope as a clamp to make the joints tight. I am also going to need to counter-twist this half as one corner wants to lift about an inch away from flat.


 I wanted to see what it looked like with a shelf in it. The assembly is actually upside down of how I am going to use it, but it lined up to my roller-stand better this way. I also have the finished end of the shelf facing away from me in the picture. Even though it is going to have some massive shelves, it should be fairly "light" to the eye.

Marking and Cutting the Tenons

 I marked the Tenon cut marks all the way around. I also made sure to X off the scrap on both ends at the same time so I didn't accidentally end up with a 90 degree twist in my tenons.


 I cut the ends on my miter box down to the lines.


 It really helps to cut at a 45 degree angle like this. You can see both lines that your trying to cut along. Spinning the piece, you cut at a 45 down the remaining line, and then about 5 strokes square to the lines will finish the cut.


 At first I tried using a rasp and file to clean up my cuts, but I found that the 3/4 inch chisel works much better when used like a knife to clean up the cuts. I keep the chisel sharp, so it is actually really easy to shave the wood smooth with it.
You can see where I marked my chisels with a cut depth mark in permanent marker so I knew how deep to cut my mortises. I didn't need to drill any holes in the corners. Besides cutting the 4 uprights to size with a jigsaw, I am making the whole shelf using only hand tools. Well, I will probably drill pilot holes for the hinges, so that won't be true.

Mortising the uprights for the bookshelf

 I remember my dad telling me to hide the worst face when your making something out of wood. That means that the worst of the knots in the wood are on the side that I will be cutting the mortises into. I had to flip the 2nd piece of wood so that the knots didn't line up with where I was going to need to cut the mortises. I don't even want to know how much of a pain it would be to cut a mortise on a knot.


 I sat the 2nd upright next to the first after I had it all marked. I wanted to make sure that I had everything correct. Measure twice, cut once, right?


 Two of my uprights finished and ready for the cross members now.

Cutting in the mortise.

 Not being sure how to do the corners of a mortise and keeping things clean, I thought I would drill pilot holes. This should keep my chisel cuts from "running" down the wood beyond where I am cutting, and give me a gauge of how deep I need to go. I can't really get them all that straight with a hand drill, well at least not as straight as I would like.


 I traced the edges with my chisel as was suggested. I see I need to get a new chisel. My one real chisel is too big, and the biggest one from my el-cheapo woodcarving set just isn't up to the job.


 I cut this down as deep as my little chisel can reach. It looks pretty good.


 Not quite deep enough, but look, it fits together! Now, I only need to make 24 of these without messing up!

Practicing cutting a Tenon

 I had never cut a mortice and tenon wood joint before, so I thought I would practice on some of the scrap pieces from cutting my uprights to size. This looks pretty good.


 Ohhps, rolling it over shows that I didn't have my saw straight. I may cut at least the cuts from the sides in my little miterbox so they are straight. Maybe at least start them and finish with the jigsaw.

Measure Twice, Cut Once

Or... I have cut it 3 times and it is STILL too short!
 Here I have the wood all set up on my handy table saw rollers that I also use as saw horses - at least for picking stuff up so I don't have to always bend to reach it.


 I have picked out the straightest 4 peices and faced them all best side down like my dad taught me. I will mark the worst side and cut the mortices into the bad side too.


 The Jigsaw is handy, so I cut off the ends that are wanting to twist the worst. I half expect to have this stuff to twist itself up into pretzels before I am finished. Maybe if I hurry I can get it built and some weight on it before it gets too bad. I know I won't be painting it until I move as it is pretty wet still.

Bookshelf Idea

 I saw this bookshelf at Target yesterday for $230. Way out of my budget, but it got my wheels turning. It looks fairly strong, light, and easily portable as the uprights are hinged and fold flat.


 The uprights are essentially 2 ladders hinged together. You open them up, slide in the shelving, and finish opening them as wide as they will go.


 I did some figuring on how deep and wide I can make a single shelf. I figured if I use 16" deep shelves I would need shelves at least 30 inches wide if my "rungs" where 24" long with 1 inch lost on each end for the Mortice and Tenon joint I want to use to put the shelf together.


 $70 at Lowes bought me 8 2"x2" firring strips 8 foot long that look pretty clean. I only need 7. I got 6 white shelves that are 16 inches deep by 36 inches wide. I picked up 2 white finished door hinges.

I am going to pick the straightest 4 and cut them to 7 foot long for my uprights. I will mortices into these at 10, 12, 14, 16, and 18 inches apart, plus 1.5 inches for each "rung". Well, actually, the top and bottom rungs will be 2 inches from the end, and I will spread the shelves out as close to the following numbers as I can get. The next best 3 firring strips get cut into 2 foot sections. I will cut tenons into each of these. This will get assembled into 2 ladders which will be hinged together. I may try to get fancy and recess my hinge in as well. We shall see.

The finished shelving unit will be simple and open. The shelves will be easily transportable - important with my upcoming move. And I got twice the shelving for 30% less cost then the shelving I was looking at buying.

Working from home

I had the day off from my old job today, and tried to work from home for my new job. Working from home was so hard. I am not really set up for that. My desk isn't big enough to hold anything after the 2 19" are on it. I don't have anywhere to put anything. The whole corner is just ready to cave in on me.

 I can pick up either this bookshelf or bakers rack for $100 at Target. I am thinking for half the money, can make something a little simpler that would work just as well for me.


 I think I am going to wander over to Lowes tomorrow and see what there is to see.


I just gotta do something with my space if I am going to be spending any time working from home.

This is what my blog looks like on a REALLY big screen.

 I stopped at CompUSA one day and pulled up my blog on the biggest monitor in the place. WOW. I want one of these screens. My site is designed for 19" monitors.

PakYak Guestbook

I am looking at the access logs for my blog, and I see that people are looking at my PakYak information from all over the world.

If you like what you see, leave a comment to this post as a way of "signing a guestbook". Let us know where your from and if your building a PakYak, or just thinking about it.

Creuzer: Broken Blogger "rel" Tags

This is an update to my Creuzer: Broken Blogger "rel" Tags post from a week ago.

I had my webhost create a symlink for me as the blog doesn't have shell access on that login. I had /labels/ symlinked to /tags/ so I can run my tags in, well, the tags directory. Seems to make more sense to me.

A quick update to my page-rewrite function and it's all over but the social bookmarking. Still waiting on that.

I broke my boat!

I got a little bit rough with the kayak frame tonight. Grabbing it by one end and pushing and dragging it around while I am trying to work on it.
 One of the side stringers broke in the middle of the boat. There was a void in one of the plys and it snapped right there. It didn't like being bent sideways. It is strong enough the thick way, which is how the water will apply pressure for the most part.


 Yep, it's broken! Right in half...


 I think a little tape will fix it up! Well at least enough that I can fold the boat up for the night. I will cut a new stringer tomorrow.


 It isn't duct tape, but I think it will hold.




I was thinking about stretching the center of the boat out maybe 2-4 inches in each of the stringers. This should give me just enough leg room to be able to use the boat. Then I remembered, I had already cut the 2 foot long pieces for the coaming, and the longer cockpit would need longer pieces! Oh well, next boat I guess.

End Brace Detail

 I recessed in a pan headed screw into the wood stringer because I was worried that a flat headed screw would split the end of the stringer.


 Here you see the end brace. Most of the bolts have been cut down. The nuts are recessed into the wood so everything is flush.


 Here you can see the recessed bolt head in the stringer. The long bolt is for a piece that I am going to add to strengthen the end braces.

Cutting the long bolts down to size.

I couldn't find bolts that where 5/8ths, or 7/8ths or 9/8ths, so I had to make them.


 From what I have found the best tool for the job is an electricians wire cutters. I am not fond of this style of wire cutter for doing electrical work, but the built in bolt cutters are the handiest! You can see that I "modified" this brand new pair of Channel Locks brand wire cutters with a extra padded handle. I knew I was going to be cutting a lot of bolts and this makes it easier on the hands.


 You thread the bolt into the threaded side of the bolt cutter.


 I wanted to cut 1/8th of an inch of the bolt off. This is about the thickness of the tool. I found that if I run 2 threads out past the end of the tool, I get the perfect length.


 After you cut the bolt, you have to unthread the bolt from the cutter. This acts like a die and cleans up the threads on the bolt.

Using Ajax to pull in comments to the main blog page

I found a basic tutorial over at this blog that shows how to use AJAX - well actually AHAH which is a simpler piece of ajax to load in comments from the individual post page into the main page.

The whole process is pretty neat, while the end result just makes the blog seem to work much nicer. If you want to look at the comments on one of the main pages, it just kinda works now instead of going to that "add a comment" page to view a comment. That seemed kinda broken to me.

I tested it with Firefox 2, IE 7 and Opera 8(?) which is on my Nokia 770. Let me know if the comments aren't pulled in for you.

There are a couple of changes you need to make that I didn't see mentioned in the instructions, one is adding a pair of named <div> tags for the comments and backlinks to be placed into, the other is to change the javascript to use YOUR blogger blog ID.

Kayak Research

Or 10 things I learned by looking at what I am building after I have built it.

Funny, how I have half built a kayak without ever really looking at one. I had seen them on the top of SUVs and Volkswagons and so on and in stores, but I had never really LOOKED at one in person. One could safely assume that I have never been in one either from that prior statement.
I brought a co-worker home today who's ride didn't show up (cross fingers that said ride was just being forgetful and nothing serious happened) and the road back home was at a dead stop. So, I decided to go to Bass Pro Shops and do a bit of "research". My discoveries are:

1. They sell a lot of plastic & fiberglass boats.


2. They sell a really cool boat that the back 3rd splits open so the boat forms a Y with the pull of a lever. You can stand up in the boat, so they include a railing and push rod recessed into the floor of the boat. It costs $2k.


3. They have a limited selection of paddles, all of which split down the middle (for blade pitch adjustment) but none of the blades come off the shafts (without tools).


4. The equvilent of what I am making costs $600 and doesn't have many of the "extras" that the more expensive boats have, like cup holders.


5. Kayak Racks to transport the boats on your car cost extra money. As do covers for storing your Kayak.


6. They come in a LOT of colors.


7. Canoes (which I always thought of as small) seem HUGE next to a Kayak. Kayaks seem HUGE when they are standing straight up and down and are in a building.


8. I still haven't figured out this camera phone.


9. The only 2 "required" items to use a Kayak are a paddle and a life jacket. There are a lot of life jackets to choose from.


10. Parents are apt to drop a lot of money on their kids. 2 families walked in while I was gawking and picked out a kayak and had it rung up.

You sat on not in at least half the kayaks there. I am wondering if redisigning the boat to be taller and wider making a foldable canoe would be in order? Using 3/4 inch plywood would strengthen the boat a lot. You could probably add a seat to the top of one of the center braces then and sit up on the boat. Hmm, it would need to be strong enough to sit on unskinned as some dummy (me) is liable to sit on the boat on land.

Opportunities

Well, I am going to be moving soon. I need an apartment, furniture, all that stuff. I may have found some furniture from a friend's mother who is moving out of her house, It is currently up by Orlando, but my find it's way to Lakeland for me. This weekend I may have found a place to live.

A one bedroom, one bath with a large kitchen and huge living room with a patio big enough that I could work on my projects in it. Well, that's the description I got at least, I haven't seen it. The current occupants are paying $350 a month. Tack on the $150 a month they are paying for utilities ($90 last month, but I am going for the most expensive summer season here for pricing), and I found a place for the same money that I am living now! Granted, it's not a mansion and is in Lakeland, 25 miles away from the office, but, still! It is a straight shot right into the office. 2 blocks off the main drag for the apartment, and 3 blocks for the office. For that kind of money, even including the money spent on the commute, I come out ahead. Let's see, 25 miles, figure 1 gallon of gas each way, $2.50 per gallon, $1 toll each way, 1/3 of an $30 oil change, 20 working weeks days a month. I would be spending about $150 $110 a month on the commute. If I was to live in Tampa, my apartment price would be about $650 a month, plus utilities, plus commute of say, 5 miles each way, so 200 miles a month, or about $16.50 a month in gas.

That $165 $205/month difference is half a lot of the car payment of the new car that I would need anyhow (or the new insurance price). A new car, with working air conditioning would probably make the extra hour I spend a day in the car OK. A new car would be getting 30mpg or thereabouts. I am thinking Ford Escape Hybrid or Dodge Magnum - although the Magnums are still too new to get a good price on them. Heck, if gas hits $3.00 per gallon I am still $100 $140 bucks ahead doing the commute.

Of course, I could always get a new car, and keep driving the Escort until it dies. Is the $80 a month in insurance on the Escort worth potentially saving 12,000 miles a year on the new car (if the Escort lasts that long, that is)? Probably. Granted the Escort needs a new transmission seal, brakes and rotors, tires and alignment, the AC fixed, some rusty spots fixed, and a few other minor things (like being replaced).

The most important factor here though, is - Close to the office, or Close to Katie? I don't think I am even going to bother keep looking in Tampa for a place to live if I can price a new car into living closer to my girlfriend! Talk about a WIN-WIN!


UPDATE - It's ok to edit a post the same day I posted it right? Or even say 24 hours...
Anyway. I got a clarification, I thought that the apartment was near the Parkway, but it isn't so I wouldn't have to pay any tolls at all. That's $40 a month that I wouldn't have to pay. I corrected all the numbers above.

Broken Blogger "rel" Tags

I use Operator for FireFox which parses Microformats and allows you to take actions on them - such as add a contact to your address book. Some really cool stuff.

But the "rel" tag is broken on my blogger blog. Blogger doesn't follow the spec. Not that they can, with my site being a FTP published blog, they can't follow spec and still be able to publish the "Labels" as they call tags, correctly. The issue is that blogger makes the URL end with ".html" as the would need to in order for that "Labels" page to work at all.

I took matters into my own hands. I can't fix blogger, but I can fix my site.

My webhost has PHP available to me. I have made 3 changes so I can do some really cool stuff with my blog, like fix the Labels issue.
1) I have all my blogger uploaded .html pages parsed as PHP
2) I use mod_rewrite to allow me to link to /labels/tag as well as /labels/tag.html
3) I use PHP's output buffering to dynamically rewrite the page as it is being served.

In more detail:

1) I created a .htaccess file at the root level of my website (/httpdocs) that contains the following line.

AddType application/x-httpd-php .html .php

This allows all .html pages to be parsed as php code.

2) I created a .htcasses file in /labels that has the following code in it.

RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /labels/
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !.+\.html$
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !.+\.html.+$

RewriteRule ^(.+)$ $1\.html [L]

This checks to see if the URL requested ends in .html and if not, appends the .html and serves the file.

3a) I created a file called bloggerrewrite.php and it contains the following code:

<?php
//ob_start("bloggerlabelrewrite");
//ob_end_flush();
function bloggerlabelrewrite($buffer)
{
// Lets find the blogger labels stuff
// It is good to be as specific as we can because we don't have control over any changes Blogger may make
$pattern = '/(<p class=\"blogger-labels\">.*<\/p>)/iu'; //case insensitive and ungreedy just incase Blogger changes something.

$html_array = preg_split ($pattern, $buffer, -1, PREG_SPLIT_DELIM_CAPTURE ); // $html_array[0] = the stuff before, $html_array[1] = the blogger lables paragraph, $html_array[2] the stuff after

$trans = array("Labels:" => "Tags:", ".html\">" => "\">"); // the transformation we want to make - Changing Labels to Tags, and dropping the .html

return $html_array['0'] . strtr($html_array['1'] , $trans) . $html_array['2'] ;
}
?>

3b) I then modified my Blogger Template by inserting the following between the <BLOGGER> and </BLOGGER> so I can use the output buffering from the 3a file on each individual post.

<Blogger>
<?php
include_once("{$_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT']}/bloggerrewrite.php");
ob_start("bloggerlabelrewrite");
?>

[SNIP BLOGGER TEMPLATE STUFF]

<?php ob_end_flush(); ?>
</Blogger>

The results are as you see. My Blogger "Labels" no longer exist, you now see a "Tags" section at the bottom of every post. These tags are properly formatted, and so they work with Operator.

I am kinda wondering, what if a crawler or whatever comes across the site, identifies it as a blogger site, and tries to parse the "Labels" in a BloggerQuirks mode, and doesn't find any Labels...

200th post

Wow. This is my 200th post to this blog. I didn't think I had that much to say.

I worked on my boat tonight. I basically did the same thing as last night, only on the other end brace. I worked on the two bottom stringers - rounding them out and recessing the nuts. I can use a one inch flathead screw on the bottom of the end-brace aluminum and side stringers.
I didn't take any photos as it's the same as last night.

I was hungy so I took a walk. I was in the mood for fish. I stumbled upon Shucks on th Water. The Blackened Grouper Rhuben came highly recomended by the waiter who might be the owner by the way he talks. The sandwich was awesome. The steak fries are as good as they come. I am full, but am getting the triple chocolate cake.

A large hoe is squealing down the road. It is shaking my water on the table. It has traffic all tied up.

Finishing an End Brace

 I worked on finishing up one of the two end braces tonight. I beveled all braces, counter sunk all the holes, filed all the corners. I did notice that I need to cut a bevel on the bottom (short) braces on the end brace so they will clear the stringers when folding and unfolding.

I see what Jonathan Abitz means when he said that cutting the notches in the braces on the mid braces that hold the side stringers up makes assembly tricky. I futzed and putzed tryibng to get the boat unfolded tonight. It folds up like a breeze, I just cant get the goofy thing unfolded for the life of me. I must be unfolding a part too soon, and having a brace bind up on me.

Midbrace notched out for gunwales

 The midbrace with the different hole pattern gets notched out for the gunwales. Here I balanced one of the midbraces on the other so I can mark where I want the notch to be. I think the gunwale is supposed to lay flat and square to the ground.


 Here is the midbrace marked and ready to cut.


 The midbraces have been cut. I just stacked the two of them together and cut them both at the same time.


 Here you can see that the gunwales set flat, parallel to the ground. I had to disconnect one side of the gunwales from the other in the middle so I could put the brackets back on. I cut the other end of the boat, and then re-assembled the gunwales in the middle. The boat folds up a lot easier with these notches cut in too.

Notching the large flat bar mid brace

 I need to trim these braces at the black marks so they clear the notch in the large flat bar mid brace.


 The large flat bar mid brace cut, drilled, and countersunk.


 It looks like I have to go back and trim the other set of midbrace braces so they clear the notch in the aluminum

Countersinking the nuts

 I thought long and hard about how I am going to cut in the nuts. The instructions said to use a 3/8ths inch drill bit. Then I saw a spade bit in the store, and thought that's perfect. It will give me a nice flat bottom. So, I use a spade bit to drill the holes. I figure that if I do all my braces in the matched pairs, at the same time, laied out so they mirror each other, I don't have to worry about putting the nuts on the wrong side of a brace.


 Here is a brace with the nuts set. After this one, I lined up 2 edges of the nuts with the long side of the brace. I guess it is the perfectionist in me (some of my friends might have a different way to phrase it). It doesn't really take any longer, and it looks neater when it is done.


 I haven't decided for sure how I am going to cut off the bolts yet. I might use one of those cheap wire cutters with a bolt cutter in them. I think that will end up looking nicer. I would probably then clean up the tip a bit with my Dremel. I am thinking that using a cutoff wheel is going to leave cut marks on the nut. I could also cut it flush with a hacksaw.
I guess the lazys will win out and if it is easier unscrew the screw, and then nip it with the pliers, or if it is easier running a hacksaw on it's side.
\

Folded up PakYak frame.

 The whole boat folds up into this little package of wood, aluminum, nuts and bolts. It isn't folding too tight because I can't be bothered with the details in the directions. Flat Head Screws, not pan head screws. Oh well, I got some now, so lets see what it looks like with the correct hardware.


 Isn't it cute? It's like looking down into a crib at a newborn. It isn't all that much bigger then one. Well, not that one that was born a while ago in China.


 It looks like an alligator ready to eat my empty Mt. Dew bottle. Ok, so it is late and I am tired.


 The folded frame doesn't sit that tall for the 12 foot long version of the boat. If I make the stringers longer, the short braces and whatnot will have more of a gap between them in the middle. I would like to make the boat an inch or two wider, but I think I would need to re-figure more then just adding an inch to the length of all the short wooden braces. I think I would need to make the holes in the aluminum farther apart if I want it to fold up tight, and that would make the boat taller, which I don't want. Hrmm, I will have to think about this one.

Rough Assembled Frame

 Tada, the assembled boat frame. Now I get to take it all apart, round the corners that need to be rounded, bevel the edges that need to be beveled, counter sink the holes that need to be countersunk, cut in all my nuts, sand, and urethane the frame. Fhew, that sounds like work to me! Oh wait, then I have to put it all back together! This will be a good project for during the week. I can do a section at a time.


 Design Flaw. A 12 foot PakYak won't fit all six foot four inches of me. This photo has my back touching the rear thwart and my feet touching to front one. I won't have to worry about putting the spray skirt on while I am in this boat. I am going to have to sit down next to the boat, and see how much longer I NEED to make the next one in order for me to fit into it. I am going to finish this one up as I have the extra wood already, a lot of the aluminum for a new frame. I am thinking that Katie is too tall to fit into this one as well, so I just as well sell it to recoup some of the money I spent on the boat. So, if anybody wants a 12 foot finished PakYak Folding Kayak. I will have one for sale. If you speak up now, you can even pick the color skin you want. Make me an offer... Or I am willing to trade it for an Industrial, heavy material sewing machine that I need to sew up the skin.


 Here is a side view of the boat. The pieces that are going down the center, and then down to the ground get a little hook on the end,and they lock the whole front and back together. I haven't made the little hooks or the slots that they fit in yet, so they hang loose like you see for now.


 I don't think it is ready to go in yet. I just thought I would let the boat see what is has in store for it. Maybe if I start at an early age, I can scare it into not leaking on me.

Both halves of the Kayak side by side

 I laid out all the pieces on the ground so I knew where the longer and short stringers went together. I was really confused for a moment, because I was short a stringer, and then I remembered, I had broken one. So I cut a new stringer to size.


 I tried assembling all the little wooden braces to the aluminum braces first. I don't think this was as easy as bolting all the little aluminum braces to the flat plates, and then bolting them to the angle stock braces. I also think it was easier to bolt the whole thing together folded up like I did for the first half then unfolded like this. I kept fighting the sides that formed the gunwales. They just wanted to bind up on me.


 Here I have the 2 completed halves on my my Do It Yourself folding Kayak. This second half went together much faster, even though I fought with with assembly more. The first time I wasn't really sure if it was all going to fit. The second half, I knew it was all going to fit, I just needed to keep taking off pieces and shaving them with the block plane so they fit.


 It is pretty amazing that the frame on the left folds up into what you see on the right isn't it? Once I get the right hardware installed, the frame will fold up tighter. I bought more nuts and bolts tonight, the right kind, lets just hope they are the right size. I think the ones I got will all be too long, but I can fix that with my Dremel and a cutoff wheel. I couldn't find 5/8ths long flat head screws. So I got 3/4 inch.

Cutting the 4inch bar stock in half.

 I need to cut this in half lengthwise. I am not really happy with how I ended up doing it. It worked, but It didn't feel safe. I think that for the money, I am just going to buy a bit of 1" flat stock and not worry about my fingers.


  Doesn't this look like a stupid thing to do? It was all I could think of doing.


 This is how I ended up cutting the flat bar in half. I just used my jigsaw like it was a scroll saw or bandsaw. The aluminum wanted to jump up and down if I pushed to hard, I also had a courser metal cutting blade installed, so that might have been some of it. I cut half the length, then flipped it, and cut the other half. I went REALLY slow that last quarter of an inch so when I cut through, my fingers didn't go sliding into the blade. I am rather attached to my fingers. I use them a lot, being a web developer and all.


 I clean up all my edges with my Dremel rotary tool and an emery cut off wheel. I use the flat side like it was a sanding wheel. I picked up a file tonight to see if that does a better job or is quicker.

Assembling the pieces for the second half of the Kayak

 I figured out that if I stack the stringers and braces up to 4 tall, add my hole template, and a back board, I can drill my holes straighter. I think it is because I am taking more time to make sure I get the holes straight. I am also aiming for the bottom piece, which seems to help too. Lowe's has drill presses for $100. I might see if I can look around for one on sale somewhere.


 I cut the braces and brackets all in one fell swoop with the jig saw. I am so glad I dug that out of storage. I even cut one extra little bracket to replace the one I screwed up the other night. I cut all the 2 inch pieces first. It is so much easier cutting the little pieces when you have a handle to hold on to.


 I have marked this piece for drilling. I didn't have enough aluminum bar stock to make the other one like it. I made one out of a bit of 2" plywood. It worked for getting everything assembled. I picked up a new stick of 2" wide, 1/8 aluminum. The only piece Lowe's had left was 8 feet long! I only needed 5 and a half inches for this boat! Oh well, I got lots for the next 2 boats I am going to make.


 I wasn't the only one making a lot of noise. Helicopters have been going around and around like they are lost for the last 2 days. This blimp happened to move slow enough that I could grab the camera and take a photo of it.
I was thinking... Zeppelins are a skin on frame construction....

Free to a good home

I am cleaning out some of the unneeded stuff I have.
I have this really nice, not working, iMac DV SE 400mhz- the graphite colored one. Yes, I am giving my baby away! I will give it to whomever asks for it first, for free, you just gotta figure out how to get it there. You will get just the computer, no hard drive, no RAM.
It powers on, then powers right off. I don't know what is wrong with it. The slot loading DVDROM drive is... weak, it doesn't like to spit out discs.

It would make a good parts box. The case only has 1 scratch on it.

The computer will not move to Tampa with me for one reason or another.

Snap link previews

I am trying something new on the website today. I am adding Snap link previews. Now you can hover over a link and see a preview of the page that the link links to.

There are a couple options, I basically turned it "all on". I can have the little icon appear or not appear, I can have the preview only show when you hover over the icon, or the icon and the link.

What do you think? Useful? No? Should I make any changes?

[UPDATE]
It doesn't work on IE7? I loaded this page in IE7 and I don't get the snaplinks previews. It works fine in FireFox.

Half the frame - unfolded

 Here is a top view of what I have done so far. I must say, i am really enjoying this DIY boat building experience. I never thought that an hour a night would see the boat coming along so fast. Granted, none of the pieces are finished. I will have a lot of work to do going back and beveling all of the pieces and rounding corners and so forth. I am NOT looking forward to sanding all the edges of wood on this kayak.


 An angled view of this half of the frame.


 This is looking down the frame with me squeezing the end together. There is a piece of rubber and some snaps that does this when the boat is finished.
I am going to have to remember that for final assembly, I want all the exposed joints to overlap with the outside towards the front if I can get away with that and still have it fold.

The extra holes are to cut weight, right?

 I got half of the frame assembled tonight. It was getting dark, and I was trying to hurry, and I couldn't figure out why this thing wasn't folding very well. I put it down, and the problem jumped right out at me. I drilled one of the aluminum braces incorrectly.


 I was trying to get this piece done before dark last night, and measured my 5 inches from the end hole from the wrong hole. Oohps. That is what I get for hurrying, right?


 The frame assembled with the hole in the right spot makes the frame look right. I have the wrong hardware for assembling the frame. I got pan headed screws instead of flat headed screws. I have to go find the right screws. Once I counter sink where the screws go, and drill in the nuts so they can be pressed into the braces and stringers, this should fold up nice and tight. Lowe's didn't have the right screws, or at least, I didn't see them 10 minutes from closing time when I bought the ones I have. At least nuts and bolts don't go bad, and you always seem to need some.


 It looks like I am not getting my holes square in the middle and straight. I could either replace the bad pieces, or shave off where they are rubbing. I think I am going to shave them for now. I can always make new braces in the future. I do wish I had a drill press though. I would make a quick jig and I could bang out these holes perfectly so fast. One of these days...

Cutting Corners...

 Because I am making this boat low budget, no space, and to have something to do, I am using a lot more hand tools then other people might. To round the corners of the stringers and braces, I am using a blockplane. The blockplane works really well for beveling the edges, but it doesn't like rounding the corners. So I am cutting the corners off with a cheap hand saw miter box. I made up a jig to I can just drop my pieces in and cut them. The black pieces are cammed locks that hold the piece to be cut.
 Cutting the corners off takes a lot of the work out of rounding the corners of the braces. I just hit the shoulders of the cut with the block plane a couple of times, and I have a nice, round corner.
 The little piece of wood to the right is my jig and it really makes this a slick process. You can see that this is a cutting jig as well as a drilling jig. The whole is worn out from using it as a template for my centered hole 1/2 inch from the end. I need to make a new drill guide from another scrap piece of wood.

2 weeks notice.

So, 2 weeks ago today, I gave my 2 weeks notice at work. My last day is April 15th (so the 13th really).

Confused Yet?

From the announcement email that went out to staff from the CEO.

It is with a sense of deep regret that I have accepted effective April 15th, 2007 the resignation of Mike Creuzer, Webmaster. Mike has been an influential member of our RAGFL staff and we wish him the very best in his new endeavor in Tampa as a software programmer for iMapp. Mike has agreed to do his best on the projects he has started and we are grateful for the contribution he has made in making www.R-World.com the "go to" resource for our members. Please join me in wishing him the best of luck on his journey. Thank you Mike for all that you have done.

I am going to work for iMapp in Tampa as the email says. They are a vendor for RAGFL (The Realtor Association of Greater Fort Laduerdale), so it was kinda a touchy situation, a company hiring one of their larger client's employees. That is part of my extra long notice. I will be in Fort Lauderdale for probably another 2 months working on and learning one of the products that iMapp sells. And then it's packing my bags and finding a new place to make a mess of in Tampa.

I am going to be doing primarily programming, which I have slowly drifted towards really liking in my time at RAGFL. I should be able to take my knowledge and experience from RAGFL and bring a lot of insight and skill to iMapp. I am excited about the new opportunities!

My new job is significantly closer to Katie, my girlfriend. I will only be 25 miles away from here she lives. She works halfway between where she lives and where I will live, so that will be a lot more convenient. I must say, I had never had a relationship that turned into a long distance relationship work out. I am really hoping that this long distance relationship holds together once it isn't long distance anymore. Another bonus with the new job is that, well... Lets just say I will be able to dig myself out of the hole a whole heck of a lot faster.

It is really tough though. Staying focused at my old job when I really want to get started with the new one. I am working on some pretty cool stuff, so that hopefully if I get it all done the way I want it to be, I go out with a bang.

On the RAGFL Staff Page I am slowly fading out... Hey, I had to do SOME sort of mischief, right?

Power Tools.

 I don't know what I was thinking, trying to cut all the aluminum pieces with a hacksaw. I had at the pieces with my jigsaw, which I picked up last night, and got more work done tonight then I did the whole week. I finished cutting the 10" mid brace I was working on when I wrecked my hacksaw blade. I made up the other one, and I made up 2 of the 2" little braces too. I figured out that I want to cut the tab out of the little braces before I cut it off the aluminum stock. I don't want my fingers that close the blade on the jigsaw. I cut 1 tab off the wrong side of the corner in the angle. Oohps. So now I need to re-cut that piece. I will worry about it later when I do the finish work on the aluminum. I am anxious to see this boat come together, well at least the frame, so a lot of the corners aren't being rounded and so forth. A lot of that is because I am only getting an hour, hour and a half of work time in before it gets dark. People, if you have a workshop, appreciate it! Working in the dark sucks.


 So now I think I have half the frame done. That does not mean I have the frame half done though. The "half" that I show here unfolded needs to get the braces all put in. That is where it looks to get really fun. Being able to fold and unfold this thing to my hearts content. So tomorrow night, I think I am going to drill the holes in the 2 flat bar pieces of aluminum for this half, and assemble all the braces. Then hopefully this weekend I can build the other half of the frame.


I might need to find my canvas for the skin sooner than I had thought!

The Machine is Us/ing Us (Final Version)

This is a follow up to a post I made 26 days ago. The author of the video has released the final version today. i was the 250th person to view it. I like the video.

I am now Famous!

Like I said in an earlier post, I had sent a message to the inventor of the PakYak, Jim, letting him know I was building one, and thanking him for his hard work. He offered to link to my blog. I expected to get put into the "examples" page with the other people who have completed a PakYak. I made the home page! My name is misspelled, but, hey, I have been called worse.

Talk about pressure! Now I am going to HAVE to finish this project! Good thing I went tonight and picked up my jigsaw from a friend's garage where it was being kept. I should be able to get the aluminum pieces cut faster and more accurately then with the hacksaw I was using.

I never thought I would be a DIY Boat Building Celebrity! Maybe I need to FINISH the kayak before I can make the examples page. I had better hurry so I can secure place number 6.

Automotive Navigation

I had a thought today. I went over to a friends house that I have been to 3 times total in the last 2 years. I don't really remember how to get there.
I looked up his address on google maps, and printed it out.

I would like to get a GPS for the car. I don't know how much work it is to key into your GPS where you want to go. I don't think I would want to get directions in the GPS software on the computer, download it to a memory card, and load it into the GPS unit. I guess I don't know how you key into a GPS where you want to go.

I think that I would be willing carry a keychain fob that has my address book on it. The GPS can read my key chain via Bluetooth or RFID type wireless connection. In the GPS, I select "get address from remote device", key in the PIN for my address book keyfob, scroll through my addresses, and select one. Hrmm, I could even be in a friends car, and do this.

The keyfob plugs into the USB port of you computer and updates off of your address book.

I think if it talked bluetooth, the GPS could even log into your phone, and pull the address book off your phone. You would need to enter addresses into your phonebook. But with the data cables nowadays, there should be software that autosyncs to your outlook address book.

Anyway, this was my half-formed idea as I was driving to go pick up my jigsaw tonight.

I know you SoiSentinal and Stewie have opinions on this one! What do you think?

Cursed!

Somebody by the name of AJ commented on a post last night something about a "Mercury RetroGrade" in which stuff doesn't work.
Well, wouldn't you know. I fought ALL DAY LONG today with stuff breaking on my website at work that shouldn't have broken.
I had code that has worked great for a year, hasn't been touched in a month, start double posting today. No reason, just out of the blue.
I spent 2 hours chasing after a stray comma that affected IE and not FF - probably because I have a javascript debugger in FF and not IE. I have yet to figure javascript out.
It's just been a WAAaaaa day.

AJ, Thanks but no thanks.
At least your curse is over tomorrow!

Winter in Wisconsin

Mother took some wonderful photos and blogged them today. I think my favorite is this one.

Twelve men. Zero women at Taco Bell today.

Kayak Mishaps

Well, today was a bust. It seems like the only thing I got done was breaking tools. I managed to make 1 small bracket and one 10" bracket tonight, but at the cost of a hacksaw blade, a small clamp, and 2 Dremel cutoff wheels.

I am not sure where my jigsaw is. I think it is in a friends garage down here in Florida. He didn't remember seeing it out, so it is probably stuffed away in a box. He offered to lend me his in the meantime. He won't be at work tomorrow, so I guess I will have to wait until Wednesday.

I sent an email to the fella who originally made the PakYak, Jim Heter. He sent back an email and said that he will link to my blog from his site. How cool is that? I guess this means that I will need to be extra diligent about keeping the blog up to date with the progress on the kayak.

Taco Bell Deomographics?

I am at Taco Bell. There are thirteen people here all are male. Is that this place's demographic?

Who eats at Taco Bell? Who do they target their marketing too?

Kayak - first pieces assembled together!

 Well, the Kayak is starting to come together. I am getting some of the aluminum brackets cut so I can start assembling the pieces. I am leaving many of the pieces fairly rough for assembly, and once I like how the whole thing comes together I will clean them up.


 It looks like I got the wrong kind of bolts, so I will need to replace the ones I used with the right kind. I need flat head screws and not pan head screws. The flat head screws can be countersunk and recessed into the pieces so that they don't hit each other when folded up.


 I need an old bicycle tube if anybody has one laying around. It will be kinda strange to buy one, just to cut it up. The far ends in the picture get held together with a chunk of rubber cut from the tube. Pretty clever.


 Maybe by next weekend, I will have the frame fully assembled. I can then go and tweak the design, and finish each piece.

Library Thing Writeup in the NY Times.

The New York Times did a nice writeup on the LibraryThing.com.

There are very few websites that I actually like. Most of Google's tools, del.icio.us, and Library Thing. Blogger is on my @#$%^ list at the moment. Well, the stuff I have on my blog is the stuff I like. So check out my books and bookmarks in the right column!

Lunar Eclipse

 No eclipse for me.
 The moon is hiding behind the clouds.
 You can make out the moon as that brighter smudge in the upper right.

Aluminum peices for the Kayak

 So, I dove right into working on the boat tonight when I got home. Got out all the wood peices, the paperwork, and the drill. Put all the wood peices back. I decided that I might want to charge the battery for the drill.
 Not a problem. Break out the little hacksaw I picked up. I know what hacksaw I want, I just can't find it in a store. Todd has one, that is where I saw it. I bet a nickel it's sitting in the windowsill of his front room right now! I did a number on the blade tonight. I probably got a quarter of the aluminum cut before I totaly ruined it.

Hopefully I will find time this weekend to get the pecies far enough along to start assembling them. That is the fun part of this boat design. Playing with the peices!

Finished the wood peices for the Kayak

 I worked on the Kayak when I got home tonight. I finished cutting all the 1" wide lengths. I beveled the edges of what I cut tonight with a block plane. I broke 1 peice doing this. So now I have to re-cut that peice.

It looks like I will need to fill the voids on my longer peices if they are going to be useable. I am thinking of just shoving wood glue and sawdust into the holes. That oughta reinforce the peices enough.

I fiddled around with the broken peice and came up with a jig to cut the half round ends on most of the peices. I will just cut of a small 45 degree peice off of each corner, and 2 or three strokes with the block plane rounds the peices out quite well. Any finishing should be managable when sanding the peices down.

Counting up what I have left for wood, I have more then enough for another 2 full boats. I am planning on making both of them. Things are just so much more fun when you can do it with somebody else. I am thinking that this first boat is going to be a bit short for me to sit in comfortably, so I am probably going to make the next one longer. I will probably try to sell the 3rd one to recoup some of the costs in making them.

I have been looking at how canvas skins are put on other types of boats, and I think I am going to deviate from the "specs" a bit. I am going to add a ton of loops all along the sewn edges of the kayak. I will then lace these up over the top like a corset. This should enable me to cinch the bottom part of the skin - that touches the water and really ought to be fairly tight and smooth - snug. I haven't seen any DIY boats that have this feature, but I did see a photo that had a lot of lashings across the deck and it might have been a commercial unit that did this. It's hard to tell, as it appears that most kayaks have lashes across the top to stow gear, and tuck you paddle away so it doesn't float off on you when you stop paddling.

I have been reading a lot about building Kayaks, and I found 2 more that I want to build. The one I am currently building I would consider a "casual" Kayak, not really all that good on the water, but you know, it stores small and sets up fast. I will probably keep the goofy thing in the trunk of the car so it is with me where ever I go.
There is another type of kayak called a Greenland Kayak that can be made to be broken down. However, this boat is lashed together, so it takes about 2 hours to tie the thing up once your good at it. It also is a mess of little peices that don't sit flat with each other. The long peices are about 6 feet long, and the short peices would fill a suitcase. This, however, is a "real" kayak that would be seaworthy.
There is a third kind that is made with thin strips of wood. They are absolutely beautiful! I have always loved a fine peice of woodwork, and these boats qualify!

So, IF I start using the kayak I am making now a lot, and IF I decide I like kayaking, and IF I decide I need another boat that is better and IF I don't have a large place to keep it, I will be making a Greenland Kayak.

When I get a place where I can store a non-collapsable kayak, I just might make an all wooden one.

A fella can dream, right? 5 boats away...