Wheelbarrow Thing-a-mah-doo

We don't have a garage and my work shop is (no exaggeration) 9' x 12'. We have no place to put our wheelbarrow so this is how we've been storing it.

This morning I was watching 'This Old House' and they showed a very clever, but complicated, way of storing a wheelbarrow. It involved latches and bolts and other things I found completely unnecessary.

So I simplified it and stuck the wheelbarrow to our fence.




I took two scrap pieces of 4" cedar fence boards, created a 1/2' lip with them and screwed them to the fence about an inch below the lip of the wheelbarrow.







Instead of purchasing and installing a latch to hold it in place I simply used a 3" scrap of wood, a 1 5/8" wood screw, and two washers from the Brother Printer I took apart.




Now, I simply wheel the barrow up to the base block, tip it up and turn the latch to hold it firmly in place. It's a complete coincidence that it fits exactly under the top board of the fence.

Next I'll need to do something about the wheelbarrow handles. One has to wear gloves during use or they'll get a fist full o' slivers.

Cubicle Clock

 As my parents abandoned moved out of my childhood home to take up more permanent residence in Hawai'i, they discovered that they had amassed a tremendous amount of stuff they didn't need. They had a small collection of records that they had no hope of ever selling at their yard sale. Crap like Andy Williams and the Carpenters. I decided to take them off of their hands so that I can melt them into bowls. But that's another post. I still have to finish making my solar oven to melt the records. Again, another post.

After staring at the records for a few weeks I decided to turn one into a clock. Buried amongst the hot hits of the late '40s was an old 78 record called "Holiday for Trombones." I thought this would make a perfect clock for someone who is stuck on a cubicle farm all day.

A few months ago we had to replace our keyboard when my fiance spilled a glass of beer in it. I saved all of the keys from it hoping to find a nice project for them. This clock seemed like the perfect project. I used the F1-F12 keys for the hours. And since this is a clock for a cubicle, using the "Escape" key for 5 o'clock seemed apropos.

Pur-guh-luh, Pur-go-luh. Let's Call The Whole Thing Off

Pur-guh-luh? Pur-go-luh? It doesn't matter how you pronounce it, someone will correct your pronunciation. I'm not sure which one is correct, and honestly I don't care much since prior to April, I'd never used the word. But with some help from my sister, Kris; my fiance, Lesley; and long-time friend, Doug, I built one. I'd like to say that I used recycled wood from a century old barn or built it from pallets, but I didn't. All this wood came from a lumber yard. And it was expensive. It was $100 just for the brackets and through-bolts. And have you priced lumber lately? A 16ft 2x6 is $25! But I built it for my sister, so she paid for it.

Now, I've never built anything remotely like this in my life. The only thing close are these stairs I built on my fiance's house. My sister took a tremendous step of faith in asking me to build her a pergola. And a giant leap of faith asking me to build her two. Especially considering she wanted them done before my wedding and I had just had back surgery and still can't lift anything.  Anyone weight a green Doug Fir 6x6 lately? Trust me, it ain't light.

Fortunately, I have found a couple handy tools for helping me build things like this. One is the internet. I swear you can find out how to build anything on it. Need a time machine? No problem. The second is Google Sketchup. If you like to build stuff this is an awesome tool. You can sketch what you're building with Sketchup and then you have all of your measurements and diagrams at your finger tips. It's free and it's invaluable. Here is my Sketchup of the pergola.

Getting the brackets placed right was easily the hardest (hmm... "easily the hardest") part of the whole project. They needed to be exact, and I've never done this before. Once the cement is mixed it starts setting, and then you're committed. I gave myself a ballpark of about an hour before I couldn't move them anymore thinking I'd leisurely measure, level, reset, repeat. Nope. More like 10 mins. So you have to go fast, set all four brackets, and make sure they are square, level, and equidistant. I never did find an easy way to do this so we kinda winged it. But we got everything within a quarter inch of perfect.

Doug was kind enough to dig the holes, drill the holes for the through bolts, and help Kris carry the 6x6s. I know it was hard work and it doesn't help that Doug's back isn't much better than mine and Willard Scott is going to be showing Kris on a Smucker's jar soon, but I am extremely grateful for their help as I would likely be in surgery again had they not been there.

I notched a decorative end to each 2x6 with my Skill saw and then finished the cut with my jig saw that Kris got me for my birthday. I had to get a new jig saw because I have a lot of my grandfather's tools and they no longer make blades for his old jig saw. It's too bad, 'cause that thing was ol' school. It was all stainless steel and shiny. The new one is plastic but it can cut a 2x6 like toast through my fiances skin (if that doesn't make sense to you, you need to ask me about the time my fiance cut herself on a piece of toast. I'm pretty sure her skin is made of meringue).


Once the 6x6s were in place the rest was pretty easy. We bolted 2x6s to each side of the 6x6s for girders and then laid the remaining 2x6s across the girders. I toe-screwed them in place with 3" deck screws at the bottom. Then I ran seven 2x2s across the top and drove a 3" wood screw through and into each 2x6. It's solid as a rock. Three days after completion it withstood 60mph gusts of wind. Kris plans to plant some wisteria around the base of the 6x6s to help create some additional shade.

Wine Barrel Hoop Yard Globe

I've made a few neat things out of this wine barrel that I got for $35 off of Craig's List. So far, a few candle holders, a couple clocks, and a wine rack. Since I broke the barrel open I've had several ideas for what to do with the hoops. If I were to cut them up they'd make nice accents on the candle holders or wine racks. I might even find a way to use them to make Roman numerals on the clocks. At this time, I don't have an easy way to cut them up so I decided to use them whole.

The hoops are oxidized and weathered and should make some wonderful yard art, I believe.  Perhaps placed between the jockeys and gnomes, but in front of the crudely painted, not-so-funny, plywood cut-out folk art.

In an earlier post I commented that my wine barrel anatomy was sub par. Not so anymore. Prepare to be amazed:

Since the two bilge hoops encompass the widest part of the barrel they were the outside of my globe. These were followed in succession by the quarter hoops and finally the head hoops. I measured the diameter of the bilge, quarter, and head hoops individually, multiplied it by (go team hold that line) 3.14159 to get the circumference, and followed that up with some wicked division (by 2 & by 4) to figure out where to drill the north and south pole holes in the bilge, quarter, and head hoops, to make the poles fall on exact opposite sides. I used some extra mounting bolts from my TV for the poles. Unfortunately, I didn't have any nuts that matched the thread so I had to run to Home Depot and spend about $2 for a dozen nuts. I place a nut between each pair of the bilge, quarter, and head hoops and tightened the whole business down with my drill. 

To finish it up, I rotated the bilge, quarter, and head hoops to roughly space them equidistant apart, and then tossed it in the flower garden.

Bike Tire Belt

Yesterday I noticed a funny bulge in the rear tire of my road bike. I had a sudden swell of pride arise within me when I realised  I had worn out my first bike tire! It felt just like the first time I had to replace my running shoes. Because I had run 700 miles in them, not because they were the same color as my lawn. I put 2,732 miles on that tire in the last three years, and I'm damn proud of that (in case you're thinking that's not that much, I also put in 2,700 on a spinning bike in the gym). Being this was the first time I had to replace a bike tire I learned this tidbit - road bike tires cost the same as car tires, but are 1/20 the size.

A few years ago my fiance bought me a belt made out of a road bike tire. It's been my favorite belt for some time now. I figure that turning this tire into a belt would be a fitting tribute to the blood, sweat, and gears that tire has been through with me. That tire was there when I was hit by the car. And it was there through the three triathlons I trained for (and the two I competed in (refer to the part about being hit by a car for why I didn't compete in all three)).


If riding a bull for 8 seconds gets you a buckle, I think 200 hours on a bike should get you the whole frickin' belt. So today, I turned it into a belt.


It took me about an hour to make, and as always, I'm sure I can do the next one much quicker.

The hardest part was cutting through the steel cable that makes up the bead that holds the tire on the rim. I tried cutting it with my tin snips, to no avail. Then I tried wire snips. This eventually worked, with some manipulation, but it was very difficult. The best way through it was using my Dremel and a cutting disk. Once through the bead, I was able to cut the tire very easily with my tin snips.

My fiance has a special hole punch/rivet squisher/snap fastener tool that I used to punch the holes in the belt. Then I cut a small 1/2" section out of an old mountain bike tube for the strap. She also had this belt that was long past its prime. I'm assuming it didn't have a great deal of personal meaning to her (like she'd used it as a tourniquet to save a life, or to snag a large ring of skeleton keys from a bumbling guard's belt in some sort of epic prison escape).

Since the belt was shot, I removed the buckle and connected it and the strap to the tire using... now I hate to have to digress here. In past posts you've had to deal with such juvenile things as "high torque movements." But even in my most juvenile moments I can't make this kinda stuff up. I asked my local Ace Hardware guy for a specific type of nut and screw to attach the buckle to the belt. I explained what I needed to him and he said "Ah, you need a sex bolt and mating screw." I said "Beg your pardon?" I'm beginning to suspect that some middle-management suck-up in the parts department of Acme Hardware and Clock Parts asked his son's 8th grade gym class to name a couple of parts in their spring catalog.

So, sex bolts, mating screws, and all, I now have a trophy representing the 5,400 miles of cycling I've put in over the last three years.

Wine Stave Candle Holder

I seem to have hit some writer's block on this particular post, and therefore haven't posted in over a week. Perhaps you don't mind. For starters, I just did a post about candle holders. Also, part of my humor revolves around being self-deprecating.  Since I made these candles holders as Christmas gifts for my soon-to-be in-laws I couldn't hardly write "look at this crap I built for the most amazing in-laws a guy could ever ask for."



In reality, I'm very proud of these candle holders, otherwise they would still be sitting in my work shop with the candle holder that I wasn't too proud of.







I've gotten quite a few miles out of this wine barrel so far (a couple clocks and a wine rack). And I've still got a couple ideas left in the chamber. As you can see from the picture there are 17 staves in just half the barrel, so there's quite a bit of lumber in it.

The incredible purple color of the wine lends itself well to being used for decorative purposes.

For symmetry I chose the staves that were approximately 3" at the middle (the staves varied from 2.5" to slightly more than 3.5"). Since the tea light candles are 1" I wanted there to be about 1" of wood on each side.

I cut off the ends and used one of them for the base. Using complex math that I still don't understand, I determined how far apart to drill each of the holes so that they would all be equidistant from each other and the end of the stave. Miraculously, I got it right by adhering to the old carpenters creed of "Measure 67 times, cut once."

Because the staves are curved, I had to brace it before drilling. The hole for the candle must remain parallel with the table or the hot wax will drip out of the candle.  Once the holes were drilled I ran a wood screw through the center of the center hole and into the base. Because the wood is fairly rough I used a highly flammable spray lacquer (nah, I'm just kidding. I don't know if it's flammable or not) to give it a nice sheen.

Free, Free Log Candle Holders

I made these candle holders from wood outta this guy's => truck. There was a sign next to the wood that said "Free, Free". Not sure why. Extra free, I guess. Hence, Free, Free Log Candle Holders.

Oddly, these are the places I get my inspiration.

You can't tell from the picture on the left, but these have a fantastic, colorful design in the wood grain, as can be seen in the picture below.

These were a snap to build. I used my miter saw to cut them in 3", 5", and 6" lengths. Then I used a 1" Forsner bit in my drill press to drill the holes for the tea lights.

We'll be using these as decorations for our wedding so I'll need many more. However, I have got to let the wood dry out before drilling the holes again. The wood is very green and sappy (but affectionate). This made the wood chips very sticky and they got stuck all over my helper monkey's arm.

This also made it very slow and difficult to drill with the Forsner bit. The bit got so hot that I couldn't touch it with gloves on. That's a good way to dull a good bit, and Forsner's aren't cheap!