A while ago we bought rechargeable light bars for our pantry shelves, and we love them. The only problem was that because they were held to the underside of the shelf by weak magnets, every time we bumped a light or dropped a heavy jar into the pantry, the light would clatter to the floor.
This post covers my process of creating, in FreeCAD, clips that would hold the lights securely. I’m really pleased at how they turned out.
During the wildfires of 2020 I saw many instructions for how to quickly duct-tape air filters to a box fan, to remove smoke from household air. Years before that I was interested in buying a woodworking shop air filter that would remove fine sawdust that otherwise floats in the air for days or weeks.
This post describes my experience making a air-filter-box-fan design, using 3D printed clips instead of duct tape to hold the filter to the fan.
Each clock repairer seems to have their own favorite method for cleaning their clocks. Some prefer mineral spirits; some like ammoniated cleaners; some like dish detergent. Because I’m just starting out, my particular cleaning process is evolving. This post covers my current process and recipes.
Score so far: Vise: 1, Me: 0. In this post I tell the sad tale of trying to extract the jaw face screws that are frozen with rust – nothing has worked for me.
I wasn’t happy with how much rust remained after the vinegar treatment, so I decided to give the vise a treatment with Evapo-Rust – my favorite rust remover.
I also decided that so little paint was left, I’d strip the remaining paint off, either with paint stripper or a wire wheel, depending on whether the paint had lead in it.
On a whim I bought a rusty, Ace brand 3 1/2″ (say 90 mm) vise at a garage sale. I’ve watched a few vise restoration videos, so I think I have a chance at restoring it…
The family cuckoo clock I’m working on is being capricious about when it decides to play the music, so I’ve built a test stand that will let me see what’s going wrong.
After looking through the wide variety of weight-driven clock test stands on NAWCC.org. I decided to build a floor-standing U-frame.
TL;DR: There are links to rough drawings of my completed plans at the end of this post, so you have something to start your own design from.
I’m in the process of cleaning and repairing a family musical cuckoo clock. I’ve watched a lot of videos on repairing cuckoo clocks, and have disassembled, cleaned, and repaired one cuckoo movement, so I think I’m as prepared as I can be for working on the clock movement.
The musical movement is another matter. What follows is a detailed How To that captures what I learned, what to do, and what not to do.
My Ansonia kitchen clock had a loose warning pin – the pin that stops the clock’s gonging at the right time – so I decided to bite the bullet and do my very first actual metalworking, no-going-back, clock repair!