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Posts Tagged 'Craft'
2011-10-19

Cue the Dramatic Music

It was Lancaster PA, October something something 2011 and in a stunning turn of events that rocked my world to it's very foundation.... I didn't make the cut. Obviously I need quite a bit more training.

Pffftttt stop being so dramatic; let me spin you a yarn: In mid-August, I suffered some fairly debilitating muscle spasms that rendered my right arm mostly useless. By the end of September (6 weeks later), the pain had subsided to the point where I was finally able to drive a car.

Now, at about 8 weeks later, I can look in the mirror and see a noticeable lack of muscle mass in my right shoulder and arm. Apparently the muscles had atrophied from lack of use. Time to bring those muscles back!

The 3 Point Plan to be Hella Sick Rippin

Oh yea!!!!!!
To put my plan into action, I needed to cut up some ugly old shorts so that I could sort of make cubes of fabric. Once I had my basic pattern, I sewed that crap up into little bags and filled the bags with the filling from some diving weights.

The final product: three soft fabric bags that weight one pound each and are ugly eye-sores.

Put the Plan to Work

Since I have already typed the word "plan" a few times, you should now have the theme to the A-Team playing in your head. if you don't have the theme playing in your head, something is wrong with you.

The Training

  1. Put on a sweet wizard cap (any hat with a feather in it: feathers make everything magical)
  2. Take off your shoes
  3. juggle while walking around Petaluma

How is this a 3 point plan? I'm glad you asked.

  1. juggling improves my hand eye coordination
  2. juggling 3 one pound bags for 10 minutes is quite a nice workout for my shoulder
  3. walking around barefoot will toughen up my feet (Lancaster gave me blisters)

How exactly is this training for a Beard and Mustache championship? Hey! Just because it isn't related in any way, shape, or form, doesn't mean wuggling (walking and juggling) isn't an important aspect of training for a facial hair contest.... and most importantly, it is fun.

Now quit reading and go do something completely unrelated to anything you should be preparing for.

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2011-10-06

After re-purposing a larger case with more storage for the server on my home network and filling the server with my ripped DVDs, I figured it was about time to replace my media playback machine with a machine that was actually capable of decoding my rips without running the CPU at 100%.

Gather Some Components

The case for the new machine is box that was part of a Wild Turkey holiday gift set: a cheaply crafted piece of crap made of low grade wood, with a clear plastic cover.

The Electronics

Because this machine is going to be fanless, I decided to layout the components in a way that would maximize convection cooling. What this means, is that the component that generates the most heat needs to be closest to the exhaust and the most temperature sensitive component needs to be located by the air intake.

Cutting, Drilling, Bending, JB-Welding

First things first: the hinged lid needed to be removed so I could muck with the inside of the box more easily.

  1. After aligning all of the internals, I traced where the metal port plate is supposed to go and then cut... not a bad fit.
  2. A lot of small holes where drilled on both sided of the box. Technically, it was the top and bottom that were drilled ( the machine is going to be on end so as to provide the best convection airflow.
  3. Those metal things with the points are my component stand offs and I bent the points down before using JB-weld to attach them to the inside of the box.

Fire Up the Soldering Iron

  • That two pronged thing-a-ma-bobber is my power switch. Because it consists of two switches in series, both switches must be pressed in order to power the machine on and (most importantly) power off the machine. The last switch I put in/on a machine has a tendency to accidentally get pressed when I least expect it; like when I open my scanner.
  • A red LED was soldered to some wire and wrapped with electrical tape. This is the Power On indicator and bit a sandpaper helped diffuse the light coming out of the LED.

Put It All Together

This is the mostly finished machine with the lid put back on. The locking clasp on the side had to be moved, but it still functions perfectly.

At this point, everything was going extremely well and the computer looked absolutely fantastic, so I figured something was terribly wrong. After connecting everything and pressing the power buttons .... nothing happened. Bummer.

Note to self: when powering up a computer, make sure it is plugged in properly.

After properly plugging in my power converter, the machine booted and I installed (Arch Linux)[http://www.archlinux.org/].

Installed

The final resting place for the machine is on the wall next to the TV.

  • Don't be afraid of the dark
  • Computers are just fancy clocks
  • The two power switches are just barely visible on the right side of the machine.

Still to do: The audio out can use a smaller adapter and the current external USB wireless adapter needs to be replaced by an internal PCI-Express mini card. I need to either hack the XMBC to properly handle my NES controller, or I need to write my own software for browsing and playing media from my collection.

Due to the lack of a fan, this computer is silent; therefor, I have named it Wind.

Now quit reading, and think of wind related things.

like:

  • What's next? A computer named Earth and a computer named Fire?
  • Make 3 more, and Crom will laugh at them.
Comments
2011-10-06 jrobb:
that's just awesome. Does the atom CPU w/ onboard video work well as a media comp?
2011-10-11 jpope:
Looks great.

Also, I'm fairly certain that you can map the keys on your controller with just an edit of a particular file. Which file is it you ask? I can't quite remember but, it seems I seen it on the XBMC forums.
2011-10-11 jezra:
The problem isn't with the buttons, it is with the d-pad registering as an "axis", which does not have a keypress delay.
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2011-09-26

A few days ago on Google+, some friends posted pictures of the chili sauce they made. Not wanted to be left out of the awesome-sauce party, I asked for the recipe.

Although the directions for the chili sauce are in German, there are plenty of pictures on the page, and my web browser is configured to translate non-english webpages for me. Awesome!

Gather the ingredients

Since I didn't want my sauce to be very red in color, I used a mix of red and green chilis and diverted from the recipe slightly.

  • 1 Red bell pepper
  • 8 Green serrano chilis
  • 4 cloves of garlic ( most things need more garlic )
  • a bit of ginger
  • 1 lil red bastard of a chili that my buddy grew ( it is the hottest of the bunch)
  • 125 ml garlic red wine vinegar
  • 1 cup of dextrose (priming sugar is the only sugar I have at home)
  • 500 ml water

lost in translation

Step 3 is brutal.
German: Auch die Knoblauchzehen und die Chilis in grobe Stücke schneiden. Danach nicht vergessen, die Augen zu reiben und in der Nase zu bohren. Nur so kommt man zu der Vorfreude auf die spätere Schärfe der Sauce!!

English: Also, the garlic cloves and chillies cut into chunks. Then do not forget to rub your eyes and picking your nose. Only one comes to the anticipation of the later sharpness of the sauce!

Not wanting to veer to far from the original recipe, after I chopped the chilis and garlic, I immediately started to rub my eyes. Although the pain made me forget to pick my nose, I did manage to take what could arguably be the least becoming picture of Yours Truly ever taken.

the finished product

After blending and reducing my mixture, I had almost enough chili sauce to fill my 16oz jar.

The Taste

The various ingredients certainly give this sauce a distinct and excellent flavor. It starts with the sweet, which fades to a garlic/ginger flavor, and ends with the lingering heat of the hot chilis.

For future chili sauces, I plan to skip the sugar and use a variety of fruits and sweet vegetables, as well as different types of chilis.

Now quit reading, and go skip step 3.

Comments
2011-10-16 maloki:
I tried this tonight.
I took out most of the seeds though, not realizing/remembrering that they are needed for the texture as well...

But I did good, and thanks to your pictures I managed to skip step 3 ;)
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2010-12-04

On one of the forums I frequent, there was a discussion about using a QR Code as a forum avatar. And I thought "Damn, I should put a qr code that links to my website on a t-shirt".

The Code

First things first, get a QR Code that links to http://www.jezra.net
Simple enough. Now I just need to transfer this to a t-shirt.

The Stencil

The code is a grid of 21 squares by 21 squares. So I grabbed some butcher paper from Petaluma Market and drew a 21x21 grid on the paper. The grid spacing is half an inch per square. I really should have used the metric system.

Why butcher paper? one side of the butcher paper is lightly waxed and after cutting the stencil I will iron the stencil onto a t-shirt. This will give me nice crisp lines.

Is that a Dungeons & Dragons map?

The code is black on white, but since I was putting the code on a black shirt, I needed to mark the negative spaces that would need to be removed.

After a couple of screw ups, I think I have everything mapped out.

Laying It Out

With my trusty left-handed scissors, I cut out all of the pieces and arranged the pieces on the t-shirt in preparation for the iron.

White Fabric Paint

After using an iron to affix the paper to the t-shirt, I began slopping on fabric paint to create the white pattern of the QR Code.

Amazingly, all of the fabric paint went where I wanted it to go. That is to say, I didn't spill any paint or make a mess.

Showing It Off

  1. Let the paint dry
  2. Peel off the butcher paper
  3. Use a hot iron to fix the paint to the fabric
  4. Find a sexy model to show off the shirt

When I told my buddy about this project, he said "just have Kinko's print the image of the code onto transferable paper", to which I replied "no, this way will be more interesting". Yea, well this way was a pain. I probably should have listened to my buddy.

While I'm reminiscing, I might as well add that if I were to do it all over again, I would definitely use a t-shirt that actually fits me. Why the hell was there a plain black medium t-shirt at my place?

Now quit reading, and go listen to your buddy. Oh yea, now I need to find out if it works...

Comments
Have you tested it? (since it's on a shirt, you need a smartphone with a QR-code reader, like Android's Barcode Scanner).
2010-12-05 jezra:
I had various people try last night, and there was nothing but failure.
An excellent comment on the technology.
2010-12-05 jezra:
The failure is definitely due to the implementation
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2010-11-01

Due to an unfortunate series of events, Shemp ( my homemade banjo ) is out of commission. However, I recently purchased a used Sovereign banjo that needed a bit of work to get into a somewhat decent playing condition. One thing I really wanted for this banjo was a strap. You know, just in case I want to wander around the block while picking a tune.

For my banjo strap, I wanted something fairly easy to remove and very easy on the wallet. For two bucks spent at the thrift store, and bits of stuff lying around my home, I had a pretty sweet banjer strap in no time.

Four Bottle caps

Beer bottle caps, hot glue, and magnets make great bottle cap fridge magnets, but that's not what I'm making right now. From the bottle cap collection, I selected two Red Tails, a PBR, and a Highlife.

Gettin Hammered!

All four of the caps was hammered flat. The Red Tail caps flattened nice and clean, the other two.... well not so much. Notice that the PBR cap is a Jack of Diamonds? That was intentional.

Stuck Together

The flat caps where paired up and a hole what punched through their centers. To keep things neat and to cover any sharp edges, an eyelet was popped into the center of the stacked caps.

The actual "strap"

Two dollars at Sack's Thrift Avenue purchased a leather belt. Damn, I'm busting the bank on this one. A slit the length of the flat caps diameter was cut into each end of the belt and a small hole was punched for good measure.

Hold on

Some red leather cord was knotted at one end, fed through the cap eyelet, looped through the rim bolt and over the caps to secure the whole thing nicely. It's quite easy to remove and adjust. This was done twice.

Done

"Button" the caps through both ends of the belt, throw that baby over the shoulder and frail some Cripple Creek on the front porch!

It is really weird to play standing up, as I am so accustomed to easily seeing the strings and frets when sitting.

Now quit reading, and go parse the following with lilypond:

\version "2.12.2"
\header {
  title =   "~$ sudo modprobe" 
  composer =  "Fabian Scherschel & Dan Lynch"
  copyright = "Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike 3.0"
}
melody = \relative c' {
  \key e \minor
  \time 4/4
  \numericTimeSignature
  e4 d8 e4 d8 e[ fis] | % 1
  g2. b4 | % 2
  a2. r8 b8 ~ | % 3
  b8 a g a g a g fis | % 4
  e4 d8 e4 d8 e[ fis] | % 5
  g2. ~ g8 fis | % 6
  d1 ~ | % 7
  d2 r | % 8
  \bar "|."
}
\score {
  \transpose c' c
  \context TabStaff = "banjer" <<
    \set TabStaff.stringTunings = #banjo-open-g-tuning
    \set Staff.instrumentName = #"Banjo"
    \context TabVoice = "banjer" { \melody }
  >>
  \layout {}
}

...and thank you Dr. Kulp

Comments
2010-11-05 NYbill:
i see a lot of pickin... but, not much grinnin...

ha, nice idea for a strap, jez. how come i get the feeling, if left to your own devices, in a few years you will be living in a house made of choice recyclables and duct tape?

;)
2010-11-06 jezra:
Who said anything about grinning? When I play, I tend to focus so much on finger placement that I start drooling.
2010-11-09 sixthwheel:
Nice to know that Leo Laporte is not the only redneck in Petaluma.
Sorry it took so long to respond...had a hard time figuring out the math problem to prove my humanness.
2010-11-15 jezra:
Trust me, Leo is just about the farthest thing one can be from a Luma redneck.
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2010-05-01
In what one might describe as as cockamamie idea, I wanted to send some stickers to Dan Lynch of Linux Outlaws and Rathole Radio fame to put on a few coffee cups at the Oggcast unconference (technically it's an audcast unconference, but I'll let it slide, this time). Unfortunately, I got caught up with writing a script for Scriptfrenzy and I failed to make the stickers in time to send them to Dan.

It is now the first of May, and the scriptfrenzy challenge has ended (I wrote my 100th page with 45 minutes left before the ending deadline) and it's time to finish the stickers.

1: Take picture of Jezra with a digital camera.
2: manipulate the image using GIMP to isolate and duplicate my head
3: put the image on a flash drive
4: print the image at a local image printing kiosk for ¢29
5: go to my buddy's house ( hey buddy, you should start a photo blog so I can link to it)

On the way to my buddy's house I was almost hit by a car while I was walking in a crosswalk. The driver of the car started yelling at me for walking in the crosswalk. For some reason, when I informed the driver that California state law requires automobiles to yield to pedestrians in crosswalks, the driver insisted that there was no such law. Wow! Apparently anyone can get a California Driver's license.

My buddy is, amongst other things, quite an image fanatic. Aside from taking a lot of pictures, he also likes to do things with pictures, and one of the things he does with pictures is turn them into stickers.

Here is my picture, my buddy's scissors (they are not lefthanded), and my buddy's roll of double sided adhesive that will turn any image into a sticker with a peel off back.

A properly sized piece of double sided tape was applied to the back of my image



Having one big sticker is not the desired outcome, so using the righthanded bastard scissors, I cut out one of the duplicated images of my head.

Awesome Possum!

After this picture was taken, I went home and used proper scissors to cut out the other two Jezra images.


So where does that leave me? I have three Jezra stickers that are too large to put on the bottom of a coffee cup and I don't plan on sending them to Dan Lynch.

OK, I'm going to give the stickers away in a pathetic contest type thing.
Here are the rules:
1. you must send me a post-card from your current city of residence
2. you must write your address on the post-card

now stop reading, and get a post-card.
Comments
2010-05-02 Julian Aloofi:
But how can we know your postal adress? :D

(awaiting an email ;) )
2010-05-02 jezra:
Part of the challenge is *finding* my mailing address.
2010-05-02 Julian Aloofi:
Ah I see. After a bit of searching the obvious places, I found lots of interesting stuff about you, but not your postal adress (actually found your phone number faster).

So, I tried really hard in my brain, and finally found the solution ;)

Off to buy some stamps.
2010-05-07 jezra:
please see *rule* number 2.
2010-05-07 Windigo:
I imagine that just writing "Jezra - Petaluma, CA" on a postcard would have a 50/50 chance of reaching you. :D
2010-05-07 jezra:
Are you going to take that 80 cent gamble?
2010-05-28 mjjzf:
On the bottom of a coffee cup? Or a tea cup?
2010-05-28 jezra:
A coffee cup of course. A tea cup is just a coffee cup that someone accidentally filled with tea.
2010-09-07 Clarknova77:
Is this competition still open? One of those sweet stickers would look great on my work cup.
2010-09-07 jezra:
sure, why not. The picture will be different though.
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2010-04-07
oh.... errrr..... can't ... breathe ... need ... air.

I swear, every year my kilt shrinks just a smidgeon. Some naysayers may think that it is me getting girthier and not kilt shrinking that leads to the kilt not fitting anymore. Well, damn you naysayers! This is my blog and I can blame the kilt if I want to. Now get off my lawn!

It seems to me, that the kilt straps are just too damn short. Look at those sad little rinky dink straps.
My first thought was that I should cut open the kilt, replace the straps with longer straps and then sew everything back together. What a terrible idea! That would require semi-decent sewing skills and a lot of time. I certainly don't have that sort of kilt alteration skill.

Why not just bolt on some extensions?

$2 dollars, spent at a local thrift store, got me a leather belt that is just a tad bit wider than the straps on the kilt. Mix this with a leather punch and a few Chicago bolts that my buddy gave me (thanks buddy), and I was ready to start "fixing" the kilt.

For my kilt, I need three straps that are a few inches longer than the current straps.

Now I just need to cut the straps to my desired shape, punch a few holes in them, and bolt them to the current straps.


Well looky looky!

Cut,bolted in place, and working like a charm! Since the Chicago bolts are chromeplated just like the strap buckles, everything looks quite nice and the fit is absolutely perfect.


New kilt: $450
Adjusting kilt: $2 and some Chicago bolts
Looking good at my friends wedding: priceless, and by priceless, I mean $452
Feeling smug like Garak the Cardasian tailor on Deep Space Nine: priceless

now quit reading, and go alter some garments before the Dominion invades!
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2010-02-09

Why Yes; that is the Nokia N810 that I purchased on Ebay. Again, yes; the nokia is resting upon a torn black t-shirt and some ugly old shorts that no longer fit me.

The N810 has a wonderful screen that I fear will get scratched to hell if it stays in my pocket for too long. For portability reasons, I'm going to need a screen protector or, even better, a Nokia Coozie.



First things first, cut out a large strip of fabric from the t-shirt. Follow this by cutting a large strip of that ghastly fabric from the shorts.

Pin the pieces of fabric together and then sew the fabric together. This will make it easier to handle.

That's a lot of pins. Hopefully the screen will respond to bloodied fingers.



After wrapping the fabric around the N810, it is possible to determine where to sew the fabric in order to make the beginning shape of the coozie. After sewing and cutting off the excess fabric, things are starting to really take shape.

I left plenty of extra fabric on the length-wise measurement so that I would have some slack to make hemming easier.


Putting the N810 in the almost coozie, I marked where I needed to fold and hem the opening, and like Riker does after Picard says "Make it so", I made is sew.
Yes, I made a Star Trek sewing joke. Engage!


After hemming the coozie, half of the extra fabric was removed and the other half was shaped and sewn to make a flap that I could tuck into the coozie after the device.

Originally, I wanted to use velcro to hold the opening shut, but I would have had to either sew the velcro on very early in the process or sew it on by hand, which I am too lazy to do.



Finally.

Here is the coozie with the N810 inside and the flap tucked in. It may not be pretty but it is pretty damn useful and pretty damn ugly.

Sweet, I've got Linux in my pocket.




Now quit reading, and go make something ugly and useful.
Comments
2010-02-25 Russell Dickenson (AKA phayz):
I wonder if you have considered joining forces with Linus and adding some embroidery? :P
2010-02-25 jezra:
Linus does embroidery? hmm...

Oh well, I don't embroider, it takes a bit too long and doesn't really add to the functionality. Besides, I don't really *want* it to look nice.
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2009-07-25

Oh man, how many times have you been in this situation?
There is a madman with a gun trying to kill you, and he keeps yelling "you're not carnival personnel" because, why trying to flee from the madman, you ran past a sign that clearly states "Carnival Personnel Only".
Damn, I hate when that happens.




What's with that sign? Don't they know that there is a madman after me? Perhaps running by that sign makes me a jerk, but I'll be damned if I'm going to stand around waiting for a madman to kill me. If only there was some way to alleviate the guilt associated with clearly violating the "carnival personnel only" rule.

A Ha I have the solution.....




For starters, I'm going to need a black t-shirt, some iron-on letters, an iron, and some sweet left-handed scissors. Some of the letters are missing because, for a toddler's birthday, I made a special birthday present tank-top that says "bullshit" on it.

Let's get crackin, shall we?
start by cutting out the letters needed for the shirt.




Carefully align the letters on the t-shirt. Since the letter on the paper are mirror images of what will show up on the shirt, special care is needed to make sure that the letters get placed right. This looks pretty good, so plug in the iron and move along to the next step.

( actually, this isn't that good, I'll explain later)




Make sure that the iron is dry. We don't want any steam to mess up our letters. With the iron set to "wool", press on the iron-ons for about 15 seconds. If you press too long, or use too high of a heat, you might burn the letters a bit; which is exactly what I did on the "bullshit" tank top.

Flip the tshirt over and iron the other side of the letters for about 5 seconds.




Hot Diggity! Problem solved.
Now, when the madman starts yelling "you're not carnival personnel", one can simply point to their shirt and say "Well actually, Yes I am".

The alignment issue: When I think of all of the issues that I've encountered while utilizing typography in a graphic, it amazes me that I didn't think about the kerning of the letters. The "V" and "A" in Carnival should be a lot closer together.

The best part: This isn't for me. This t-shirt is a gift for a friend. Hey buddy, when you read this give me a call, I have a gift for you.


Keep making stuff, and rock on.
Comments
2009-07-25 Andrew Antle:
Jezra, that is awesome, and hilarious to boot. As for that madman, might not a plan have to come together? O'Bacon, Sweet, the Proctologist and Mr. Aquarius could take care of him (just in case the shirt happens to fail... :)

Cheers,
Andrew
2009-07-25 Michael "CSS Nazi" Howell:
http://imagebin.org:80/57131

Please fix how your pages look in RSS readers like Akregator. Maybe tweak the CSS so classes are used instead of inline CSS, like Blogger does? Or maybe include a "clear" declaration in the inline CSS?
2009-07-25 jezra:
Michael, as you can see when viewing this page, my CSS is fine. The problem that you are having is with the outlawpla.net feed which has stripped out the CSS that I am using. If you subscribe to my feed, the posting will render properly.
2009-07-25 jezra:
Oh yea, and I've changed the code to handle CSS being stripped out.
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2009-06-09
Yes, the banjer is finished! Actually, the banjo has been finished for a few days and there was at least one weekend that I worked on the instrument but forgot to bring my camera to take pictures, so just pretend that I did all of this in a few hours last Sunday.


12th fretMy friend with the wood shop has made a few stringed instruments before and he let me use some spare fret wire. Here is the 12th fret with fret markers. the markers are made from the same piece of bloodwood that I used to make the bridge,tuning pins, string saddle thing, and the pot rod. Speaking of blood, there are a few drops on the 7th fret from when I had to say "oops, that's finger", while hammering in the fret wire.

A forchner bit drilled the hole in the neck and a plug bit cut plugs of blood wood that I gently tapped into place. Well, it might not have been that gentle and two of the pegs broke just below the level of the neck. Hey! it adds personality.

string saddle thingThis is the string saddle thing in a vice. After the glue dried, I sanded and smoothed the thing, drilled some pilot holes and attached some brass screws to attach the strings to. The whole thing slips on over the pot rod, so if I ever find a nicer tin or my tin needs to be replaced, I can slide the saddle thing off with little hassle.

tin on rodThe tin was cut with a dremel tool and the flanges from the cut were folded into the tin to run parallel to the pot rod.

clamped tinTwo hose clamps and a bit of old bicycle innertube keep the tin in place on the potrod. These aren't really needed because string tension on the saddle thing keeps everything quite snug.

bridgeHey it's the bloodwood bridge!

bridge reflectionThere is something about the reflection of the bridge on the tin that I find quite mesmerizing. Don't forget to look at the string holder thingy with the brass screws.

Shemp the banjoAnd finally.....the finished product.

For reason's that most people probably wouldn't understand, she has been affectionately named Shemp in honor of Shemp Howard: my favorite of the six Three Stooges.

After sitting down and taking the time to properly tune Shemp, she sounds quite nice and hopefully, in a few weeks, I'll have gained enough skill on the banjer to make a recording to share (it will be 'Banks and Braes'; I love that tune ).

For the next banjo, should I decide to make another, I'll use a dark wood for the fretboard as it is currently hard to see the strings against the light wood; especially with the grain going with the strings. I would also like to make a wooden pot, although I don't think I'll make a proper banjo head. Hmmm, my buddy does have a lathe.......


I'd like to thank my buddy for the use of his shop, Pat and Patrick Costello for inspiring and teaching me through their blog posts, books, and videos. Frail on!

Well that's all for now, time to get back to banjo practice!
Comments
2009-06-09 billy:
looks great, are you going to put a soundfile up?
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2009-05-06
A few more hours in the shop and a bit more progress. For the most part, I did a lot of sanding and rasping and more sanding and then I sanded some more. For a "quick and simple" cookie tin banjo, this sure is taking quite a long time.

The first thing that needed to be done was the creation of the last tuning peg. Since all of the pegs are quite unique in shape, I decided to etch numbers in the peg face so that it would be easier to keep track of which peg should go where when I taper the tuning pegs holes in the neck.


Where the potrod was glued to the neck, I rasped and sanded to get the shape just the way I wanted it. After the neck and potrod was shaped, I sanded with various grits to get the neck as smooth as possible.


The tails were trimmed off of the tuning pegs and the corners where rounded with a rough grit sand paper. At this point, I simply had to see what the finished banjer would look like with my new cookie tin banjo pot. Since the potrod is quite a bit longer than the diameter of the tin, in the future I will probably make a wooden banjo pot with a drum head. It could be a neverending project.

Next up (in theory): fret dot inlays, cutting the pot to fit the potrod, crafting the nut and bridge, figuring out the tailpiece/saddle.
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2009-04-27
Hot diggity! It had been a while since I got to spend some time in my buddy's shop and I forgot to take my digital camera with me last time. Luckily, a few hours of wood-craft took place on Sunday and I managed to get a few shots of the banjo progress.

There is a certain level of "how the crap am I going to do that?" when I get to each step of making pieces of the banjer. Sometimes, the problem is solved with a bit of woodshop instruction from my buddy and the use of a jig that he has made. Other times, well, there is probably a tool to do what I need, but it isn't in the woodshop.

A 2" by 12" by 1" piece of bloodwood was glued to the base of the neck. The bloodwood piece will pass through the pot and hold the pot in place, as well as being an anchor for the saddle and strap. It is going to take a lot of rasping to round the heel of the potrod.

The pegs are also made of bloodwood, and they are semi-typical friction pegs. Friction pegs need to have a slight taper in order to work properly. The basic shape of the peg was hand cut with a coping saw and a small tail was left on the top. The tail of the peg was rounded with a rasp and placed in a drill press. As the peg spun in the drill, a block of wood, with a 1 degree cut on one face, was covered with sandpaper and used to create the taper of the peg. For some reason, the 1 degree cut in the block was done by my friend and it is the only part of the banjo creation that I didn't do myself.

After a bit more time with the coping saw, rasp, and custom taper maker, I now had a total of 4 pegs, enough for the head. Damn that rasp! I was just too tired to create the 5th tuning peg so I relaxed in my buddy's backyard and looked for ducks.

Next up: making the 5th tuning peg, tapering the peg holes on the neck, shaping the neck and potrod, making a nut and bridge and string saddle, attaching the pot to the potrod, learning to play the banjo.
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2009-04-13
A few months ago, I visited archive.org in search of public domain music. What I found that grabbed my interest was quite a bit of old-timey Appalachian songs with a banjo for accompaniment. Fast forward to a few weeks ago when an evening of watching youtube videos was comprised entirely of introduction and instruction on playing the banjo in the clawhammer or frailing style. This was followed by watching videos of people playing their homemade banjers. I think you know where this is going........

I am a fortunate person with good crafty friends.

A very good friend of mine happens to enjoy crafting wood and he agreed to let me make a banjo in his wood shop during the weekends. First thing first, select a piece of wood for the neck. To be honest, the first thing that I did was to purchase a candy tin from a local thrift store to be the pot of my banjo. Back to the neck. While searching through the scrap wood in the shop I found a piece of maple that my friend said was a poor choice because it was sap wood. Oh the poor rejected piece of wood. Just kidding, I chose the sap wood piece. It was about 35"x3"x1". There were probably a few 16ths, 32nds,8ths, or quarters that should be included in the measurement but I don't like fractions. Metric System; for the win!

Anyway, after a lecture on shop safety and instruction on power tool usage, I was ready to start making the neck. A few passes on the joiner and the planer and the neck was squared up nicely and it was time to sand what would be the fret board ( I'm not actually using a seperate board for the fret board).
 


After cutting the channels for the frets, I needed to design a head stock. Thanks to inkscape, I soon had a nice printable vector graphic of my headstock.
 


The rough cut shape with the tin that will be the banjo pot.
 


With a lot of rasp work, the neck is really starting to take shape. Someone should call Indiana Jones because I think the grail has been found.
 


The base of the neck needed to be rounded in order to sit flush against the pot and a "strum area" was routed out.
 


Later that day, these two ducks decided to visit my friends back yard in search of bugs.
 


That's it for part 1. Next weekend is tuning pegs and other assorted nick-nacks.
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2008-11-10
Every year, on Bike To Work day, I stop at the Bike To Work station to get a cup of coffee, a bagel and a goody-bag. The goody-bag is a nice canvas bag containing band-aids, tube repair kits, a blinky light and informational fliers. The canvas bag, although quite nice, isn't exactly ideal for carrying stuff while riding. Fortunately, a little bit of cutting and stitching can repurpose a canvas bag into a bike-seat bag that holds:
an adjustable wrench
a spare tube
a patch kit
a spoke wrench
a tire pump
a pen
a lighter
a swiss army knife
a set of tire irons
a folder plastic bag

I should really get a small bike lock for the bag, as well as a some allen wrenches.
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2008-10-22
The start of it all
While riding my bicycle home from a friends house, I look down and saw that my right pant leg was not rolled up and I thought, "I should pull over and roll up my pant leg". Being three blocks from home, the pant leg rolling never took place, as I opted to just head home.

Can you guess where this is going?

Seconds later, I felt an extremely strong tug on my leg and heard a loud ripping sound in the vicinity of my right leg....... My pants, my favorite bike riding pants, my comfortable light pants, torn from ankle to knee were missing a large chunk of fabric that disappeared mysteriously. The damage was irreparable.

Looking on the bright side
A few months ago, a sewing machine that was destined for the thrift store, was diverted to my humble abode. Now, thanks to the sewing machine, my former favorite pants are my favorite shorts. But the fun doesn't stop there. After cutting of the pant legs to make shorts, I was left with some perfectly good black fabric. hmmmmm....
Thanks to a sewing pattern for a cycling cap, I now have a favorite cycling cap. Actually, it is a good all around cap, but the bill needs to be a bit wider. So without further ado, I present, "The Cap".


Ah.... the award winning sideburns.


Moving straight from Degoba and into our hearts.


Just in case you where wondering what the cap would look like on a small bunya pine fruit.
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2008-09-04
I know what you are thinking. "where the hell is bike trailer part 1?" Well... um.... I didn't take any pictures so I'll give you a quick run down of part one.

A friend gave me an old baby stroller that he no longer needed. With hacksaw in hand, I chopped up the aluminum frame into what I envisioned to be workable pieces. A few PVC pipe fittings and a few nuts and bolts later, I had a working frame. Sweet sweet duct tape made the platform of the trailer.
Done.

On to part 2:
As much as I love duct tape, a more firm trailer bed seemed to be in order so the duct tape was stripped off, leaving the frame in all of it's aluminium glory. ha, I said "aluminium". Previous to removing the duct tape, I had decided to use plywood slats for the bed of the trailer. Since I only needed about 2' by 2' piece of wood, I felt it would be best to ask the woodworkers that I know if they have any scrap wood that I could use. Being polite is the first step in asking a friend's father for some scrap plywood. In a show of pure awesomeness, my buddy's father not only gave me some scrap, but he cut and sanded the wood as well. A quick jaunt to my local Ace Hardware for some nuts,bolts, washers and brackets, and BOOYAH! One mighty fine trailer.

And here is the trailer attached to "The Green Squeaker" and ready for action.
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2008-09-04
Every once in a great while, one might get the urge to create something nice for another person. Recently, I had the aforementioned urge and decided to make a hair pretty for a particular someone. In case you don't know what a hair pretty is I will give you the basic description. A hair pretty is something that one puts in their hair to add a bit a pizazz to their coif.



For this particular hair pretty, I used the following:

  • a hair thingy that holds hair in place

  • orange, yellow, and white plastic flowers
    (do not use real flowers, no one wants rotting flowers in their hair.)

  • some plastic leaves
    (a little bit of foliage goes a long way)

  • orange ribbon
    (I like orange )


To bind all of the components, I chose hot glue. Hot glue comes from a hot glue gun. It's called hot glue because it is hot, as the burns on my fingers prove.

Anyway, I wrapped the ribbon around the top and glued it in place. Next, the flowers were added and finally, the leaves where added to cover up the ugly glue joints at the base of the flowers. About an hour later, I presented the hair pretty to a special someone and got quite a nice smile, hug and kiss in return. BOOYAH!
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2008-08-29
On a recent trip to the FNBG(friendly neighborhood bicycle graveyard), I came across a horribly weathered Brooks B15 saddle. By horribly weathered, I mean that the years of neglect in rain, and heat had turned the leather into a torn, dried out, shrunk, crumbling, decrepit piece of jerky on a rusted steel frame.

So Sad. Wait... What? That isn't sad. That's an opportunity for some leather crafting! Here is a quick breakdown of the process I used to add some new leather to the saddle.

First I used duct-tape to hold the old leather in what I figured was it's original shape. I then traced the shape onto some leather that was graciously supplied by my buddies father, who happens to be quite a leather crafter. In case you were wondering, it is 13-15# vegetable tanned butt leather.
Â

The leather was soaked in room temperature water for about an hour and then wrapped in a plastic grocery bag and the whole thing was placed in the fridge overnight. The next day, the leather was quite malleable and easily molded over the old leather. Duct-tape held the molded leather in place while it dried.
Â

Here is the molded leather and the frame with the old leather removed. 220 grit garnet paper cleaned the frame up to some of it's former glory.

A leather punch and a pop-riveter attached the leather to frame quite well.

Cuir Bouilli, a process of using hot water to harden leather was used on my new saddle to really firm things up. A few coats of red stain later, I was ready to rock and roll. Shazaam!!


Comments
2008-12-20 Rodney:
Looks nice! Is it comfortable?
2008-12-21 jezra:
It is comfortable now. Initially, I thought that the seat was too firm. However, after conditioning the leather and a few hundred miles of riding, the seat has broken in and the leather has molded itself to my derriere to make a perfect fit.
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2008-05-19
Not every project that I start gets finished. Perhaps that is not the best way to say it; how about "because I have so many projects going at the same time, it takes a long long time for some of them to be completed". Yes, that is much better.

Many years ago, I had read about a style of stitching that is used when making a flag. Move forward to the mid-oughts: pirates are all the rage and the skull and cross-bones abound. Boring. It is the pirata generica of our times, lacking flair and individuality. So what happens when I mix fabric, flag stitching, and an idea for Jezra's pirate flag? Not a whole hell of a lot. The memories of the stitch had drifted to obscurity, and I lost motivation.

Tick tock, tick tock; welcome to the present. Fondly remembering the image of my pirate flag as I saw it in my minds eye, fluttering on the breeze of memories, I can't help but smile. Oh what the hell, I grab some canvas and paint and make my little pirate flag. It's not perfect, it's not the best; but it is mine, and it beautifully adorns the base drone of my Dunbars.
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