Making, Crafting, Creating... aka Whatcha workin' on?

[anon87143080]

Time to press the grapes. I got nine gallons of juice this time, 50% more than last year.

[ClutchLinkey]

Those are really cool.
Have you played around with a kind of faux dowel joint thing? Seems like it might be less intrusive than the finger joints, but then I’m not sure how much you’d need to inset the holes to maintain integrity, and that might have it’s own weird effect…
Hope you’ll keep us posted.

@anon87143080 - congrats! What will become of it?

[anon67050589]

I’m close enough to drive to your (wine) keg party. Just sayin’!

[anon87143080]

I boil it for sanitary reasons then I make what I call a grape cider. I ferment with a belgian yeast to impart some complex flavours and add some tettanger hops for a slight bit of flavor and aroma. Finished product shown below (last year’s vintage). Its a bit tart but refreshing when poured over ice.

@anon67050589 I’m happy to drop some off!

[anon33932455]

Slowly renovating the money pit. Here we have butcher-block counters that were stained a light red and sealed.

A few hours under the heat gun and the belt sander and we’re back to the original white oak.

A few coats of Danish oil (a combination of tung oil and liquified Danes?) should put it right.

[anon67050589]

It is amazing how much wood preferences change, almost as often as paint preferences.

Why stain white oak to look like cherry? Eh, it was the stain of choice for a while….and a very nice stain, but white oak is so lovely too. Here’s hoping it doesn’t ‘age’ out for a great long while, because that looks wonderful!

[anon33932455]

The Danish oil will darken and gloss it ever so slightly, because it’s a very small room – the bright white is a bit odd to me. (The room is 6’ wide by 12’ long. It was the original kitchen when the kitchen was brought inside in the 1890s). But not much darker. The bonus is that sanding that down in that little room has given the place the smell of bourbon barrels.

[Medievalist]

You’re making firewood!

[Immutable_Mike]

I don’t have a “before” shot, but I cleaned up our frog pond, moving a few hundred kilos of rocks, cleaned out the sludge, reset the rocks and installed a small fountain for aeration. We have a lot of large skinks (20cm+), tiny geckos and green tree frogs and it’s been a dry winter, so keeping them all watered somewhere where they’re safe from kookaburras is important.

Pond intra-repair

(For scale it’s about 140cm left-to-right across.)

I’ve wandered out this morning to check the pump was still working, only to discover the water level’s dropped by about 12cm so the pond has a leak and I’m going to have to remove all the rocks and start again.

Edited for the grammarz)

[Medievalist]

Came back from NYC last night and found my air conditioning was dead. Well, actually I already knew because the Ecobee emailed me about it on Tuesday. But anyway.

The culprit was a 45uf/5uf 370vac dual capacitor (which I didn’t even know was a thing - but basically it’s two caps submerged in a common oil bath with a shared negative, and one is the fan motor start cap, the other is the compressor start cap). Rather than wait for a delivery from online, I got Pedro the Cruel to impersonate a licensed HVAC tech and get one locally. And now we’re cool again! Victory!

[tcg550]

Question for any laser engraver/cutter users.

My wife gave me the go ahead to buy one.

I’m looking at the Glowforge 40w CO2 cutter vs the xtool D1 pro 20w diode/infrared.

She’s wants me to make stuff for craft shows/etsy and for fun.

I’m mostly going to engrave and cut acrylic and wood for signs and router templates.

There’s about a $3,500 difference in price. xtool is around 15 hundred and the Glowforge is around 5 grand.

The xtool has a rotator accessory for engraving on mugs, wine glasses, etc… The Glowforge has no such accessory.

The xtool also seems to be a lot more customizable for taller items.

The Glowforge also has camera positioning, can’t decide if that’s worth the extra money.

I can’t decide if the speed and thickness improvement is worth the extra money.

What are you laser folks using and have you learned anything or have regrets about not going bigger.

Anything you all have learned would be helpful.

Thanks.

[anon97585346]

I started a hopped mead this evening. No specific recipe was followed so hopefully it turns out. I also don’t know the starting gravity as I seem to have misplaced my hydrometer. At least I have an excuse to buy a refractometer now.

[anon97585346]

Fermentation has begun!!!

[anon23281680]

I didn’t make this. We bought it from someone with a booth at our local library’s Lib Con. Probably college or maybe high school age person? All the joints are movable. They also had a wicked cool chainsaw man helmet that I should have asked to photo. But it was crowded and someone else wanted to buy something from her.
Kid loves it, says it has “flair”

[anon87143080]

[anon23281680]

Cuter than the Minecraft ones. But the kid does love the Minecraft ones

[Brainspore]

Minor hack: I have a hanging file folder cabinet in my office but only needed two of the four drawers for file storage, so I just made a laser cut pattern to make hanging boxes out of 3/16” plywood to use as regular storage drawers.

[belovedvillain]

I’m working on a live score for FW Mirnau’s Nosferatu and if the vampire doesn’t get me, this 10-string will.

[TheirFeldspars]

Phone case made from paper packaging materials. The corrugations at the corners are on a 45° angle so they crush on impact.

[HMSGoose]

My girls and I have been back on our Sculpey game. This is my favorite piece I’ve done lately, A little vintage racer. I used aluminum foil cores to give the axles some rigidity, and to secure the neck. I forgot to put down a banana for scale but it’s probably about 2" long.