Accomplishing stuff instead of wasting time on Facebook for a change.

So now that my craigslist water heater’s been installed (and thus is no longer in my way in the shop…) I’ve rearranged the shop and made it more ‘shop like.’ 

My $25 yard sale find in the form of a DeWalt radial arm saw is now in line with the porch door.  That way I can open the door to work with much longer stock than I could where it first landed in my shop. 

The yard sale find in the form of a back-up generator is now where last years failed experiment in the form of a (now deceased) tomato plant was. 

The little computer table that had been in the living room before finding it’s way to the shop (also a yard sale find) is now where the radial arm saw was and will shortly be transferred to storage pending its being listed on craigslist.  (You wouldn’t happen to need a nice little computer table by any chance?  I’ll give you a really good deal on it…)  Once brought to storage the table will be replaced by my Black & Decker Workmate (which is yet another yard sale find from a bunch of years ago.)

I had to reposition the main power strip and reconnect everything because of the equipment’s new locations in the shop.  Yes, there are several significant power tools plugged into the same power strip.  They only get used one or at most two at a time.  So I don’t think the load is a problem.  (The second being either the compressor or the shop vac.)  The power strip has its own breaker anyway, just in case.  I don’t remember if the power strip was from a yard sale of not…

A bunch of other little stuff has been shuffled around to make things a bit neater.  And a bunch of boxes of stuff that piled up out there while the shop was unusably filled with a water heater have been moved to Galileo’s cargo bay pending delivery to storage.

As for all this yard sale stuff…  Why pay full price?  That vintage radial arm saw set me back $25.  A modern RAS if purchased new would cost at least $250 for a piece of junk that wouldn’t last and would potentially be dangerous to boot.  A good saw comparable to my yard sale find would probably set you back a grand or more.  I have seen high end radial arm saws listed on-line for as much as $3,500 (!) though I don’t think this one’s quite in that league…  All mine needs is a good cleaning and for the table to be replaced, which, if used the way the previous owned did, is sacrificial anyway.  I know better and will set it up right, so that won’t be an issue in the future.

A lot of this ‘getting the shop back in shop shape’ was spawned by last night’s efforts to fix the power head of my electric string trimmer.  I managed to get the job done – and the lawn mowed – but it wasn’t the most convenient shop that I’ve ever worked in by any stretch of the imagination!  This arrangement should be much better and when it’s finally organized the way I want, it may actually be a pleasure to spend time out there puttering.

I sure hope so!

Flea Market Finds

I went to the Hollis Flea Market on Sunday.  I was mostly there to see friends and actually hoping not to spend any money.  Well, fiat.  You know...

So there I was digging through a pile of TSA confiscations and having a grand conversation with a new friend.  The way we were chatting the folks running the table thought we'd known each other for years!

Among the government stolen pocket knives I picked out four little Victorinox classic size folders that came home with me.  I've always had a soft spot for a good quality pocket knife.  More than a year ago I got my Victorinox Mini-Champ from a bucket of knives much like this one at an antique shop on some property in Hillsborough I was interested in buying actually during the showing!  It now goes with me everywhere I go riding in its custom fitted 'magazine pouch' in my pancake cellphone holster.  I didn't find another in this pile unfortunately.  The closest was a new-to-me Rambler.  The others are an Escort in purple advertising Nexium (whatever that is...), a vintage Classic in blue with the old big P Piper Aircraft logo and no key ring/lanyard loop, and a standard red scaled Rally with a straight screwdriver instead of the current Phillips and a nail file without the screwdriver tip. 

At Mum's friend 'the movie man's' table I bought a book on antique kitchen stuff.  That will come in handy as we restore the B&B's kitchen to reflect the period when the house was built.  That may be a bit of a challenge since the entire kitchen was gutted and replaced with modern cabinets and appliances.  Well, many of the appliances have gone AWOL, but fortunately the original wood kitchen stove is still there waiting to be restored.

Back to the flea...

The only other thing I picked up was a pair of cufflinks.  They're marked 14K.  The guy who sold them to me pointed that out and said that he didn't think they really were.  I bought them anyway. because they are both little working abacuses.  I used to actually use an abacus every day at work.  Back when I was drafting 'on the board' I would frequently need to add up a series of dimensions to work out the over-all length of a part.  As a check I would first do the math on my calculator.  Then I'd re-do it on my abacus.  If there was ever a discrepancy it always turned out that I'd fat-fingered something on the calculator.  I can't think of an instance when I'd screwed up on the abacus.  With that you can actually see the numbers as you are working the math.

So I looked around on-line and found several sellers who had the same set of ofcufflinks.  All were being sold as real 14k gold.  For grins and giggles I weighed them up and checked the price at Kitco for scrap 14k.  My $10 cufflinks, if real, would fetch over $200!  I have no intention of scrapping them.  What I need now is a shirt that I can wear them with.  :-)

So that was my weekend at the flea.

One of my Pet Peeves

Mum and I like riding around scouting for yard sales.  Now that the weather is turning nicer the sales are starting up again.  :-)  We’ve already stopped at a few and scored some good deals.  As I mentioned in the post about the rather disappointing opening day at the flea market we’ve even had an addition to the family at one of the sales this year.

Where I get peeved is when people post bad signs.  Over the past few years I’ve noticed a trend where people have started putting their address on their signs instead of an arrow.  Some have even posted signs printed on their computer with not more than 72 point text and a full inventory of what they have to sell.

HOW THE BLODY HELL AM I SUPPOSED TO READ THAT  

AS I’M DRIVING BY IN MY CAR?!

Sorry.  I get a little peeved…

So in an attempt to save myself from (another) full-on melt-down over it I have written a special web page dedicated to proper signage for yard sales, garage sales, tag sales and all similar types of events that one may wish to direct people to via homespun signage.

I have even provided two styles of signs that can be downloaded for free and printed on your very own laser printer.  The larger set is even customizable.

You can find my signage tutorial and the free downloads at Beetlemania, my original web site.

BTW: If you happen to be looking for yard sales in the Boston Northwest/Merrimack area on Craigslist you may see my ad for the signs web page.  I posted the first iteration of that for the year last night.

How a tractor beam works

The Starship Enterprise featured quite a few cool technologies that didn’t exist when the show débuted back in 1966.  Cell phones (communicators), portable computers (tricorders), Bluetooth earpieces (those gizmos Spock and Uhura would stick in their ear on the Bridge), transporters and tractor beams.  Many of those things exist in some form today.  Some do not.  I can’t help you with designing a transporter or a warp engine, but I do have a theory about how to make a tractor beam.

The premise behind a tractor beam is that it is some kind of probably electro-magnetic beam that can somehow grab hold of an object and either hold it in place or push it away or pull it in closer relative to the device that generates the beam.  How this was done was never explained.  We just assumed that it worked and in the context of the show it did.

But could such a thing work in the real world?  I don’t see why not.  All we have to do is figure out how gravity works.  Then we need to figure out how to generate gravity without lugging around a 55 gallon drum of the stuff neutron stars are made of.  Oh yes, once we have gravity figured out then we’ll also need anti-gravity.

Minor little details…

Signs of Spring

Today was opening day at the flea market in Hollis New Hampshire.  Sort of…  The April Fools Day snow storm threw everybody off this weekend.  Two of the three fields decided to postpone opening until next weekend – even though they hadn’t changed the dates on their signs.  The one field that did open only had about ten venders.

We stopped at the first yard sale of the year on our way to the flea market.  Mum got a couple more cookbooks.  I picked up a box of over-wire style mason jars.  There’s one pint size and several 2-quart.  There was one of the larger size jars on a table at the flea, but I didn’t bother to find out what they were asking for it.  I paid $2.50 for the whole box that I already had in the car.

And our family added a new member at the yard sale.  There is a new Vermont Teddy in the family – and he’s a Wizard!

The one disappointing thing about today’s fun and frivolity was that some friends of ours that we were hoping to meet up with at the flea went elsewhere when they heard that the field they usually set up on was not going to open today after all.  I had brought along the floor plans that I mentioned a couple of posts ago so I could show them.  Well, maybe next week…