Other Projects
There are some projects I do that are not woodworking related but are crafty type.
I figured I should make an Other Projects tab to dump all of these into. You never know what you might see in here.
Heavy Duty folding Shelf bracket
Eventually these are going to be used to hold my Canoe, but until I figure out the rest they are now just large folding shelf brackets.
There is a dedicated page with more information here
VHS Cassette Tape String Maker
Yeah, this is a weird one.
I have all these VHS tapes that I can't use anymore and I really don't like to throw things away so I thought I might try to make some rope out of them but I'd need a way to twist them together.
I read up on the old fashion rope machines and thought it would work except I didn't want to have to unravel all these tapes, just to have to twist them into a short piece of rope. I wanted something long so I could easily carry/use/cut the size I needed.
After far more iterations than I'd care to admit I came to an acceptable method of holding a spool of VHS tape so I could pull out a section at a time, turn it into rope (string), then pull out more and continue until the entire spool is empty.
Turns out I get about 70' of strong 4 ply string from 20 minutes of tape so a full 70 minute tape will give you a good amount of strong string. I'm not going to sugar coat this, This project was pretty tough to build and setup properly. it's also pretty slow and I got bored with it after doing just the 70' I mentioned above. I'm going to shelve this project for now and possibly motorize it in after I have had a break for a while.
After I get four ~70' long strings I'm planning on winding them up on some empty spools and twist them into some actual rope to see how that does.
Cutting steel quickly
A few years ago, I read a book about a guy that cut up old saw blades into kitchen knifes to sell during the Depression. He only used a cold chisel, a vise, and a file.
Since another project I was working on required a long strip of thin steel I decided to give this a try.
Turns out, this actually works better than the angle grinder/cutoff wheel that I typically use. It's faster, and it produces just as clean or cleaner cut.
You need to clamp the steel into a vise with the piece you want to keep clamped down. Take a cold chisel and angle so the tip is right at the top of the vise and give it two firm strikes to cut it. Slide down a little and repeat until you are through your cut.
Below is a video of the process. This is not sped up at all, it's really this fast.
Tin Can Rose
The temperature has dropped to 10°f recently so it's too cold to be spending time in the garage. I figured I'd record making a rose from Tuna Can lids. This is the 8th rose I have made.
you can download the pattern from the Instructable I put up a while ago when I first started making these.
Carving Knife "Chip Knife"
I have had a carving knife for quite a few years and while I do like it, the handle was always a bit small for my hands. I have had a few old saw blades kicking around for a while and decided to cut one up to make some new carving knives.
I drew up two different designs using my existing knife as somewhat of a pattern, but as I didn't take the blade out, I had to guess how the blade was made. I found that a small circular saw blade was just about the same width as the blades I was cutting so I used that to cut the groove in the handle for the blade. I also realized in this process that using that small blade was quite nice in my table saw so I may start using them more often.
The handle by the way was some Maple Pallet wood I have been saving for a special occasion since it's Ribbon Maple.
Backyard clay into fired pottery
So, this one was a pretty fun project with the kids.
I planted a few trees in our back yard and since we only have about 6 to 8" of topsoil before hitting solid clay, I had a lot of clay to try and get rid of. I figured this might be a fun project to do with the kids. Turns out, they had a lot of fun. If you do this with your kids, make sure they don't wear nice cloths as clay does stain.
oh, yeah... Socks and sandals, I rock that...