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I am experimenting with a low-voltage AC welder. I changed one transformer from 16 to 7 volts but the lams were welded, so it was not easy to make it neat. The used wire needed lots of straightening.

My education really started when Dad gave me his 1964 Popular Electronics magazine on simple TV repairs, back about 1967. TVs needed much more repair in those days, but the repairs were commonly simple. Not much worse than changing a lightbulb. Unless component values had drifted enough that...

Thank you Kevin. I don’t get bored easily, or such tedious jobs would be less attractive. Transformers don’t need to be complicated, but sometimes they are. This one had windings I didn’t want, and removing them was a pita (but with very positive results.) But it was not frightening. I wound...

Lovely man’s bike, but with a girl’s name.

Years ago in a fit of tree-hugging self congratulations, I junked my outboard engine and converted my little boat to electric. It runs on 36v from three 12v Lead/acid deep cycle marine batteries. Since that time I have been charging the batteries with individual Schumacher 12v chargers. Which...

I find myself doing small easy fun stuff, instead of the long boring parts of my 3 year car project, which I’m letting drag into 4. (One is going on 10 years, but it’s on hiatus, collecting new rust.) I still have rust to scrape and paint, but the rains this year have been much nicer than...

Mickey’s was popular in Calif in the mid 70s when we were young and poor. In Minnesota you could get Grain Belt. Oooof! It’s like 36oz of GB = 12oz Molson. Golden Ale was popular too. They had a 12pack, half Golden, half Canadian. It was called “the six of one/half dozen of the other”.

People in Canada drink that, when they have Molson? I don’t get it.

Yikes! We don’t need faulty wires! Today I got the second rod in at my welder subpanel. Now I am well grounded at both extremes of the house. This one had to go through the patio concrete, but it actually went in easier than the first one.

I haven’t given up yet, guys. The rains keep coming and going, and so I haven’t been working on the car much at all. Also everything has been crashing here in one month. The ice maker died, the water heater leaked, and the sewer cracked and it had to be dug up and patched. I discovered a bad...

The proportions came out very nice.

You can get the authentic London style marmalade here, but it is not common. There are many brands that use local California or Florida oranges, and they are not the same at all.

If you use epoxy resin you can sneak layers of glass between laminations. Being glass in clear resin they kinda disappear. It makes up for not having cross plys. Oh yes, read about laminating resins vs “waxed” resins. Adding things like wax makes the surface set up quickly. Laminating resins...

Closeup, from orbit.

I was amazed that this works so well, and even better after I modified the chimney. It looks like a pot, but for obvious reasons I do not want to call this the pot stove. I think I will call it the eagle stove. As in, “the Eagle has landed.”

Has anyone here worked on gold? I have a 20k gold ring that I wish to repair and I have some softer 10k gold to solder/braze it with. I could use sta-silv white flux and a 000 torch, or TIG with argon. Perhaps the only difference is my skill at either one of those. I might be better trying...

I added air holes and modified the chimney to be a better potstand. Ok, Houston, we are GO for a burn…

We now have a shaker grate and a feed tube. Still hoping for a twilight burn tonight. I need more air holes.

Making good hinges is harder than you think. These were made from pieces of rectangular tubing. The latch handle turned out to be a little long. But it works and so does the hinge. I still haven’t created any air vent. It also needs a shaker grate, and there’s some small holes that need to...