Sawdust

The other day I found myself pondering how to cut some bits of wood down to size for narrow shelves.  In the past, I would have grabbed the first bit, measured it up, marked it out, and clamped another piece of wood with a straight(ish) edge on as a guide, while clamping the whole thing to the bench, or some extension to the bench, or something, in such a way that running a hand held circular saw down the guide wouldn't saw the bench in half.  And then done it all again for the next piece.  And so on.  This classic DIY technique will work, but... (step)son Leo has a table saw.  With a table saw you can just set the guide using the built-in rule, and push the workpiece through the saw - that's it.  To do the next piece, you just push it through - no tedious marking each piece out separately.  So, I thought, I could take the (few) pieces of wood to Leo's... or I could just get on with it the old-fashioned way...  or I could buy myself a table saw...

So I started investigating on the world wide web-o-net.  It turns out you can buy an entry-level table saw from Screwfix which has a desirable 40-tooth blade, a monstrous 2hp motor, gets pretty good reviews, and comes with free delivery, all for the princely sum of £99.99. Really.  https://www.screwfix.com/p/titan-ttb674tas-254mm-table-saw-230-240v/9486j

You have to assemble it yourself, and reviewers mention that there are lots of nuts and bolts involved (as if that's some kind of drawback!).  So, I got one.  And it's all true!  Lots of nuts and bolts, and it works pretty well. The guide is only held at one end, which is a bit junior, but it's not too bad really. It may not be the most accurate device ever, but it certainly works.

£99.99!

It also make a horrendous amount of sawdust!  As you can see, it's fitted with pipes for a dust extraction system, so I started wondering about making one - possibly using the nice universal motor from the old washing machine.  Poor thing, it had started to behave rather erratically, stopping in odd places, but only in certain wash cycles.  I was all for mending it (or course), whereas the lovely Jackie wanted to throw it out and buy a new one immediately.  I did have a slight concern that it might be a bit hard to find the fault, because individually, all the bits seemed to work OK.  There were a few moments of stalemate, but then she pointed out that the poor thing was more than 18 years old, so it had served us well enough (including a couple of repairs along the way to keep me amused), and I relented.  We bought a new one, and I stripped down the old one for interesting parts.

Anyway, I was going to need a whirly chamber thingy from a bagless vacuum cleaner to catch the sawdust, so the next time I was at the "recycling centre" I took a look in the "small electrical" skip.  Nothing.  Who'd have thought it? Usually there are a few dead Dysons in there at least, but not this time.  So I tried Gumtree - and got a VAX vacuum for a tenner, from near where we used to live.  Of course, this one actually works, somewhat spoiling the project.  In fact it's practically new; it was left behind in a rental flat by the departing tenants.

dearly departing tenants...

All that's needed is to connect the (small) VAX hose onto the (big) dust extraction outlet.

I thought of a few possible ways to do it before I remembered the washing machine.  It was a washer-dryer, so it had lots of ducting and rubbery bits around the drum.  And lo!  It came to pass that the perfect part was already on site.  Here it is, installed.  

Note the absence of any need for clips (Jubilee or otherwise), tape, or any other bodgery.  It's all self-supporting. The big end fits snugly round the saw fitting, and the little end fits snugly into the VAX hose.  The redundant corrugated hose sticking out to the left is blocked by a snugly-fitting plastic bottle top.  Sadly, although the picture below make it look like evidence of my successful achievement of cold nuclear fusion, it's really just a green plastic bottle top illuminated by my phone camera's flash.

Cold nuclear fusion

Anyway, the whole arrangement works remarkably well.  There's a footswitch on the vacuum cleaner to turn on the extraction while you're busy at the saw controls, and with the handle removed, the whole thing fits underneath the saw table.  Marvellous!

The saw tilts, so I was able to make two 6ft long 45 degree wedges to stabilise the piano room's new IKEA Billy corner bookcase installation.  Unusually, the IKEA solution was not really good enough,  and left gaps between the upright edges.  No gaps for me!

Writing about the project being spoilt by getting one that still works reminds me of an episode from my youth.  When I was about 15, I started to get interested in electronics.  My father, who was an accountant, had a client who ran a TV shop with a repair shop in the back, so I asked if I could get a scrap TV to take to bits - you know, for "projects".  When it turned up, it was a fully working TV, which was obviously too good to take to bits.  Also, I now had a TV in my bedroom.  Thus were my early ambitions of earnest industry turned into idleness and lethargy by the generosity of a kind man.  Still, the idleness and lethargy are turning out to be quite useful in the long run.  They have much more application in today's world than a modest understanding of thermionic valve circuitry.

Update!

It seems that my attempt to use Google in the sky as a repository for my latest blog pictures (to avoid the trouble of moving six feet to get a USB cable to get them off my phone) has ended in frustration for you, my gentle readership.  There is surely nothing worse than being confronted by a mysterious password request when you're just trying to see a picture that someone else wanted to show you.  I apologise unreservedly.

Anyway, I've put the pictures in my last blog the old fashioned way now, so here you go:
http://theinfiniteweekend.blogspot.com/2019/01/something-old-something-new.html


Now I've got to find a picture for this blog.  Hmmm...


I spotted these two in Exeter recently, which shows that the modified C90 thing has caught on to the extent that you can do all this, apparently, by buying aftermarket bits - no need for actual backstreet engineering any more.

You do have to weld some brackets on the front fork to fit those external spring/damper unit though (or get someone else to, more likely).

And of all things, Honda have got in on the act with this brand new 2018 model, the SuperCub 125:

Well.  There's nothing new under the sun, is there?

Something old, something new

A new house, of course, requires various new things to go in it.  In our case, that included a new telly - partly because I threw away the stand for the old one, in a fit of pre-house-move clearing up.  I had foolishly thought that since we had never used it in the ten years (or so) that we had the old telly, it wasn't worth keeping.  Bah!  Anyway, we decided to buy a new, bigger telly.  I didn't do a great deal of research; I basically just decided to buy another Sony Bravia because they're always good, aren't they? (if maybe a bit expensive).  And so it is - lovely picture - but instead of having 2 SCART sockets, 3 HDMI inputs, composite video and a VGA connector for your old laptop to plug straight into, you get 2 HDMI inputs and composite video in.  And that's it. Well, it also has an ethernet port and it does wifi (which is nice) but where do you connect your VHS player, or (in my case) even SCART-only DVD player?  Answer: you don't mate.  Buy yourself a nice new BlueRay player and subscribe to Netflix.  Oh well.

Meanwhile, in another aspect of new different house ownership, I decided to replace the original crappy 3-flap vents which terminate the ducting from various extractor fans around the place with something that doesn't stick open, fall to pieces, attract nesting birds and leak water into places it shouldn't be.  This rather mundane task requires the use of both a ladder, and the neighbour's drive to put it on.  Of course, this is Devon, so the neighbour's drive slopes.

the neigbours' drive slopes

After my ladder-based tragedy of some years ago, and its resulting broken arm, I'm a bit sensitive about ladder safety nowadays; so rather than propping my ladder up on a random bit of wood, I made an adjustable ladder leg.  Here's the close up:

leg, close up

As you can see, it's basically a thing clamped onto the short leg.  Specifically, the thing is the bar part of a Krooklock steering wheel lock I had many, many years ago.  It's ideal for the job, because it's made of steel, with a hard but compliant rubber sheath bonded onto it.  It even has a rounded end, which makes a great ladder foot; and the rubberiness gives really good friction for the clamping.  I tested it by extending the leg for several inches, putting the ladder on the ground with the extension on a block of wood, and jumping up and down on it to try and rotate the extension out of place. I couldn't move it.  All in all, the ladder leg extension was a complete success - which is more than could be said for the Krooklock.  At the time I had a Golf GTi, a Krooklock, and two sets of car keys - but only one of them also had a key for the Krooklock.  One day, the lovely Jackie and I went to stay with a friend in Wiltshire (or some other far-away county).  Since we had to park overnight on the public road, I clicked the Krooklock on - and then noticed that I had the wrong set of keys.  Our friend called up an acquaintance who she thought might be able to help (he said "when do you want it done?" which I thought showed promise) but in the end it turned out that, armed with a large screwdriver and a willingness to experiment, a Krooklock can be removed in about thirty seconds by someone with zero previous experience.  I notice that Halfords still sell these (they have a bent bar now) and that Autocar's review of "Best steering wheel locks 2018" lists the time required to defeat it as five seconds.  Hmmm...  I wonder what the worst ones are like?

Needless to say, I didn't use again it after that.  Instead I took it to pieces, and kept the pieces in the garage for a couple of decades.  The lock part (actually quite a good cam lock with a cylindrical key) was used a couple of years ago to replace the failed lock in the old camper van's internal "safe" (just a lockable steel box really).  It wasn't a drop-in replacement, but I got it to be functional after a bit of metal work.  And the bar - well, it's just been reborn as the ladder leg extension device.  So that's yet another winner for my preferred policy of never throwing anything away!

Post script

My last post was actually written several weeks ago, but never got published for some reason, so it's already time for an update.  We've unpacked all the removal company's boxes and crates, and returned a larger number of them than we were supposed to have had in the first place, but they didn't give us a refund.  We did resort to putting some stuff straight into our own boxes instead, so there is still quite a bit of sorting out to do; not to mention all the boxes I packed and stored before we moved.  As a result of all this, the garage is still full of stuff, but at least it's all our stuff now.  And even though it's full, it's more functional than the old one.  Of course, there's now no time for proper projects, because of all the shelf installation, wiring stuff up, furniture moving, and trying to learn how to do recycling the Teignbridge way.  Quite different from Exeter.  Here they collect glass from your door, but only if you mix it up with cardboard and coloured paper in your green box; and there's a separate blue box for food waste, which doesn't go with the nappies and tissues, because they go in the black bin, but not in the black box, which is for metal and plastic, but not packaging film, because that can't be recycled, you see. And what used to be the brown bin is now the green bin, which also isn't recycling at all because it's garden waste (subscription only - may have in-game charges - terms and conditions apply).

All in all it's been a bit of a mission, and it's far from over.  I'm really not sure when I can expect to get back to starting a project just for the fun of it.  I think I will need a solid two weeks to get the garage in order, and I can't see that starting any time soon.  Also, the garage, while wonderful, is, of course, completely unheated, and it's winter now.  Brrrr!  In fact, the project completion rate is going slightly negative with the demise of yet another completely successful custom TV cabinet (affectionately known as the monolith) which is about to be scrapped because we no longer need to house a Sky box, satellite box, Tivo, DVD player, VCR and record collection.

monolith - no place for it in our new, clean world

In our new, clean world, we are settling for Freeview Plus, and saving approximately the same amount of money as my defined-benefit pension brings in every month.  Oh, and we're buying a bigger TV.

(slightly) bigger TV

Finally... it's done

We've done it - we've sold, and bought, and moved.  We are now proud owners of a lovely four-year-old house - a mere baby of a thing really.  I searched for "four year old" on DuckDuckGo to find some amusing reference to quote and discovered that apparently, people also ask:

What skills should a 4 year old have?

4- to 5-Year-Old Development: Movement Milestones and Hand and Finger Skills

• Stand on one foot for more than 9 seconds.
• Do a somersault and hop.
• Walk up and down stairs without help.
• Walk forward and backwards easily.
• Peddle a tricycle.
• Copy a triangle, circle, square, and other shapes.
• Draw a person with a body.

I was going to comment that my new house isn't able to stand on one foot at all, but instead I must ask: how many four-year-olds can actually do a somersault? I've never been able to do a proper somersault in my life!  And although I can walk forwards and backwards easily (sometimes even at the same time) and usually negotiate stairs without having to ask for assistance, I don't relish the idea of having to peddle a tricycle. Is this for some four-year-olds' version of The Apprentice?  When did street sales techniques become a core skill for infants?  And finally, if I were going to test a four-year-old's artistic skills, I would think it only fair to ask them to draw a person with a pencil, or some other proper drawing implement. Not a body. Far too heavy. Not fair at all.

Anyway, I digress.  The whole house moving process jolly nearly turned into a catastrophe when I fell mysteriously and hopelessly ill one day after dinner, and spent the next three days in bed, feeling unpleasantly queasy all the time and so depleted that I was completely unable to do anything at all, except for going to see a doctor, who said "it's a virus", did blood tests, prescribed a protein pump inhibitor in case I had stomach acid, and wished me well: but I still wasn't. Fortunately, when I woke up on moving day I found that I didn't feel ill at all. And indeed, I wasn't, so everything worked out OK in the nick of time.  The lovely Jackie did all the hard work getting stuff ready for the packers to turn up on Wednesday, but they had underestimated the job and were left with a lot to do on moving day - which left a lot for us to do when they had finished.  And then they dumped the whole caboodle at the new house, finishing just after dark by putting everything from the loft, the garage and outside the old house into my capacious new garage, which is now completely stuffed full.

Stuffed full

But I am undaunted.  I'm sure that given a bit of racking, and with the dispersal of lawnmowers and such like to the garden shed (yes!) and beyond we will have everything looking shipshape before too much of the remaining allotted 18½ years has drizzled by.

It is all a bit of a mission though, this house moving. The people we bought from are a couple of hospital doctors, with a family of small children.  How do they do all this, on top of all that?  Beats me.

Inside the house, so far we have unpacked the kitchen.  Rose Removals use a lot of packing paper, which is good because it isn't plastic bubble wrap.  They suggested that we might scrumple it up in the boxes and return it to them with the rest of their stuff (including those rather nice yellow boxes in the garage picture), but since one of the features of packing paper is that it takes up a lot of room when scrumpled, I have been unscrumpling it.  This is my pile of unscrumpled paper so far:

Unscrumpled paper

The lovely Jackie holds the entirely reasonable position that this is probably a complete waste of time, but I disagree.  After all, I am one of those dinner guests who quietly unscrumple their After Eight wrappers. I do it for the sheer joy of achieving an almost mirror-like smoothness of the silvery side whilst avoiding unsightly tearing.  I'm quite good at it, too.  I have, quite accidentally, inspired other dinner guests to try their skill at the art - possibly to the despair of dinner hosts who were hoping for something a bit more erudite, in return for their largesse.  Anyway, I find it quite rewarding in a Zen-style, taking refuge in the small, kind of way.  Before house move - fetch water, smooth After Eight wrappers, drink beer: after house move - fetch water, smooth packing paper, drink beer!"  That sort of thing.

Motorbikes and scooters

Since I started clearing things out in preparation for moving house, I have spent some time on Gumtree.  The original reason was to post some "it's free!" ads for some things I want to get rid of but are still fully functional and someone might still want.  Possibly.  I know, there isn't a big market in slide projectors, for example, but that's the point really.  If you found a load of slides in your loft, and you'd thrown your slide projector away in 1997 when you went digital, you might want a free one, no? 

Anyway Gumtree has seen me before, and it shows me pictures of motorbikes without me even having to ask, which is very distracting.  If you recall, my last post included a picture of a modified Honda C90.  Long story short, I found out that if you want to buy a Honda C90, there are a few to choose from.  At the bottom of the market, if your budget stops at £195, you're limited to this:

Not very encouraging really.  If you want to move up to something that might actually move, you need £1000 to get one like this:

which is a little bit rusty, but not too bad.  If you really want a nice one, here's what £2750 buys you:

Very smart indeed, although it is the late model shape with the somewhat unattractive rectangular headlight.  I'm guessing that the porta-potti on the back come with it too.

But I also noticed that you could have this instead:

which is a 2000 Honda CBR 929 Fireblade, with 26,000 miles on it, together with an expensive aftermarket carbon-fibre silencer, and an expensive aftermarket rear shock.  To get an idea of just how clean this bike is, look at the inaccessible-to-clean castings, inner fairing and bolt heads in this picture.

The exhaust system is titanium, by the way, so it doesn't go rusty.  When it was new it made 152bhp and topped out at 176mph;  I expect it still does.  Oh, and you get to keep six hundred of your hard-earned pounds to spend on whatever you like, because the asking price is a mere £2150.  Somehow, the idea of creating an amusing if completely unusable special out of a C90 seems somewhat absurd.

And the Fireblade is for sale right now in Exeter, by the way. 

Either way, roll on the double garage...

What? Really? No... well, maybe; oh good grief!

This is about the house buying saga.  If you are feeling at all queasy, or hoping for a quick laugh, look away now.

We were romping along looking at forms telling us whether or not we could expect the radiators to still be there, or the bathroom fittings, or the roof, when we bought our new house, when the lovely Jackie suggested that we should point out to our conveyancer that we would be particularly interested if there happened to be any covenants still in force there which would affect our enjoyment of our camper van.  So we did, and it turns out that actually there is just the one:

The transferee (that's us) covenants (i.e. enters into a legal contract)

not to:

• unless parking a domestic vehicle on the Parking Space not to park at any time on any part of the Maintained Areas or on the Property any boat lorry commercial vehicle of any description trailer caravan house on wheels or other similar chattel unless it is enclosed within a garage or other enclosure on the Property.

Hmmmm...  apart from the double negative, that seems pretty unequivocal.  You can't park a camper van (or caravan, or boat) on your own freehold property unless it's inside the garage.

There are loads of these covenants, which are written by the estate builders to keep their nice new housing "developments" free from travellers' encampments, small business owners illicitly operating heavy haulage or waste disposal operations from home, sub-letters, ne'er-do-wells, con-men, purse-snatchers, ruffians, blackguards, malefactors, nuisances, nose-pickers, arse-scratchers and perfectly nice people who own camper vans.  They are then enshrined in law so as to "run with the land" (as he quaint legal terminology has it) which means that they are necessarily passed down to all future owners of the properties on their estate for the rest of time. Phew!  That's quite a long while.

Various parties have suggested that it's probably OK, because nobody will actually care if we park our van on our own property where it can't even be seen from the road; and that is, in all probability, true; but I still find myself bristling with indignation. I just don't like the idea of signing a contract which I fully expect to break on day one, and every day thereafter.

So - there has been discontent in the Sears household while we wonder whether to blunder ahead anyway, with our eyes closed and our fingers crossed, or just call the whole thing off.  We've veered in each direction, sought advice, slept on it, talked it over, and (in a bizarre episode during which we successfully got Layla to go to sleep in the car) sung about it.  Eventually the lovely Jackie solved the ethical problem by asking "what exactly, in legal terminology, is an enclosure?".  It turns out, after reference to my copy of MacKenzie and Phillips (Textbook on Land Law, 10th Edition 2004) and various other sources, that it's pretty much the same as in everyday English: "land bounded by a fence, wall, hedge, ditch or other physical boundary". Since the entire back garden (including the garage and most of the drive) is bordered by fences, walls, hedges, and quite possibly ditches, and closed off from the rest of the world by a gate across the drive (should one choose to shut it) I am happy to believe that it constitutes an "other enclosure".  And so my conscience is clear, and we are back to buying the house again.

All that remains is to lighten the tone with some sort of picture.  Maybe this one:

perfectly nice people who own camper vans

Or if that's just too much of let-down, here's a rather modified Honda C90 Super Cub.

I rather like this actually.  I particularly appreciate keeping the original front forks, and the "it's a C90, so the fuel tank is underneath the seat, right?" aesthetic.  And the bicycle pedal kickstart.  And the hardtail.  I just can't quite imagine actually riding the thing.  Still, now that the double garage is back within sight again...