Boot Removing Thingy

My dad made this for me over the Easter weekend. It's a helper to take off your boots without getting your hands dirty or your socks wet. All I had to do was finish it up. And, that means a couple of screws. Sanding the whole thing. One coat of linseed oil to give it that wonderful amber glow. A couple of coats of varnish to protect it. Done! Why it's sitting on my cd player is a completely different story.

And Another One

For the first bee house I built I just found plans online. It is the make a bee house for your garden type of thing. It's great to bring them in but there are a few problems with it. After a couple of years the bamboo tubes will be filled with parasites and they're not the easiest thing to clean.

I was reading an online book called "Managing Alternative Pollinators" that is available on the SARE webpage. It makes for really interesting reading but it might be a bit much for the home gardener. I decided to build another house more along the lines of what they recommend.

I didn't burn the front of it just for shits and giggles. The bees are better able to find their house if there is a pattern of light and dark to orient themselves. Also, the little attic is for an "emergence box" in the spring. We'll see how it all works out!

A Bee House?

What does a guy like me do on a Sunday afternoon? Well, to stave off dejection I decided to watch tv. I know, not the greatest way to cheer up, but I wasn't feeling up to much else. Luckily, there is this great documentary on Netflix about the disappearance of the honeybees.

That led to me looking up bee stuff on the internet. I found out that we have about a 100 different bee species here in Canada that are great pollinators, but produce no honey. They have colourful names like the "mason bee" or the "leaf cutter bee". Turns out their greatest worry is loss of habitat.

Surprisingly it is very easy to build homes for these solitary bees. So, armed with scraps of cedar and dollar store bamboo plant stakes I spent the rest of the afternoon building a bee house. It was a great way to spend the afternoon and maybe more importantly not think about the other stuff which was kind of the plan!

Restoration Number Two

Here's my evil looking fridge! Somehow, it's rusting between the paint and metal. It looks rather eurk so a quick paint job is in order. This will be the before shots.

Restoration Number One

My father picked two of these out of my grandfather's scrap runs. They are police phone boxes but that's all we know about them. Presumably they come from in or around Amos, Quebec. 

While looking it over I noticed what was left of a decal (the arrow points to it) 

 Here's the interesting bit. Since I'm a vacuum tube electronics geek I knew right away what the decal said. Although only "ectric" can be read it's in the unmistakable font of "Western Electric"

After looking it up on the internet I was able to find out a few things. For instance there were three models of these boxes. We own the earlier model. That most are red (if popularity of google search terms is to be believed) What I wasn't able to find out is how old they are... If you've seen these before and/or you've got more information I'd be very interested. Oh, and here's one from the 'net for comparison.

Makes a Spice Rack

You know you've graduated to the title of "Old Shop Monkey" when even your spice rack looks like warehouse racking. It even has "speed holes" to make it lighter!

Hot Air Balloon Flash Diffuser

There are all sorts of ways to diffuse a photography flash unit (or strobe if you like). Some of them are as simple as slitting a ping-pong ball and slipping it over the camera's own flash. Others are more involved, sometimes very much more involved indeed. A camera accessory company has made a reputation for itself selling just such kinds of products. Unfortunately, they believe their product is more than it really is. There's nothing like opening the little box you just bought and thinking to yourself "I just bought a fancy ping-pong ball for 80$". The internet is awash with DIY ideas to do pretty much the same thing for a lot less money. Hell, sometimes all you need is a convenient piece of bubble wrap!

Anyway, this weekend we were having a discussion about those kinds of DIY things and I hit upon the idea of using a kid's tissue hot air balloon toy to maker a diffuser. This morning while I was at the dollar store I found a roll of "Window Cling Privacy Film". Just the thing for a homebrew diffuser.

After scouring  the 'net for a decent pattern I found out there are no decent patterns. I just had to draw one for myself. I then made a "proof of concept" out of paper and sticky tape. Well, it works, and if I'd been more careful with the sticky tape it might even look good. Then, I hit a snag. I do not own either a flash unit or strobe or anything like it...

So here are my patterns. Scale them up or down as you need to make it fit your peculiar flash. I suggest making a paper model before committing to the real thing.

This is the one I used for the "proof of concept". The fact that they're tied together makes five less seems to do.

 Here's the single from the ones above.

 And here's one exactly the same except for the fact that the straight lines have been replaced by smooth spline curves. This one has the possibility of being the roundest of the lot, but construction is probably going to be much harder.

I've got .pdf files of the patterns (which are much nicer to work with) but no place to put them up on the 'net so if you want them, leave a comment or send me mail and I'll send them to you!