So... What are YOU doing? - Part 5

[Andrew]

Finally got back to church this morning. I have been absent since new years do to a cold and then then right after that I got the flu, the sermon was about me as usual lol and the pastor kept looking at me when preaching I got a chance to talk to everyone after they were glad to see me, some were deeply concerned and said they felt 'something', probably because Im still getting over the flue and still pretty drained by it so I wasnt flying over everyone in the spirit. I did manage to blow out my shoe. lol
Its a bit muddy outside too so it got in my socks... meh

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[NewCreation435]

Was out driving around and noticed a church that I hadn't seen before about 24 minutes from my house. It is non denominational. I'm going to try going there next Sunday.

 

[Stravinsk]

Today I made a 7 Volt battery out of the following materials:

-shallow square plastic container divided into compartments
-Zinc coated nails (galvanized)
-Copper wire
-Dirt
-salt water
-Vinegar

It's very similar to the following, but because I had larger compartments (but less of them) I managed to increase voltage by both wrapping the copper wire around the galvanized nails and also making copper coils to increase the surface area when they are buried in the dirt - making sure the coil has the most contact with dirt and then compacting it.



I think I could make it into a 12V battery easily enough by increasing coil size/turns. The nice thing about my battery is that it has a lid to keep the dirt from drying out.

As for load, when the battery was in it's infancy and I was getting just a few volts out of it, I could light an LED. I haven't tested a larger load on it yet.

 

[tango]

Yesterday I got my foam sprayed and went for a walk. I decided against cutting up the insulation panel - that can wait for today. I'm still trying to work out just how my porch is supported - I found one beam that came through the wall (with a big hole, now sealed) and I can see where another beam goes into the wall (hoping not to have another major patch job there), but can't figure out how the third corner is supported. Maybe I'll find another hatchet job when I take down the walls in the next room, but that will wait until I've done at least some rebuilding. If nothing else I want to get some of my insulation panels off the pile on the floor and into the gaps between the studs. I can see a lot of time being spent going over the walls very closely to patch any small holes, and cutting these panels to fit.

 

[Lamb]

Finally got back to church this morning. I have been absent since new years do to a cold and then then right after that I got the flu, the sermon was about me as usual lol and the pastor kept looking at me when preaching I got a chance to talk to everyone after they were glad to see me, some were deeply concerned and said they felt 'something', probably because Im still getting over the flue and still pretty drained by it so I wasnt flying over everyone in the spirit. I did manage to blow out my shoe. lol
Its a bit muddy outside too so it got in my socks... meh

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Duct tape fixes everything

 

[ImaginaryDay2]

Time to make the donuts

 

[Lamb]

Letting my stomach rest after eating stir fry for lunch before I workout. I was running a small fever yesterday so I'm not sure I want to go outside to walk though.

 

[tango]

This morning I pulled down the last few parts of one exterior wall, pried off a bit of trim around the ceiling, patched a couple of bits of the concrete, and then set to cutting a piece of my insulation panel to fit into place.

So far I've put two small pieces into place (both about 15x21 inches) and I already hate working with the stuff. Partly because it's fiddly - it needs to be cut slightly oversize so it can be compressed and pushed into place, such that it tries to expand and holds itself in place. But if it's oversize by too much it won't press into place, which then leaves me trying to shave fine strips off it with a kitchen knife, which in turn leaves dust all over the place.

I've got about 23 3/4 more sheets of this stuff to go, and when it's all used up I'm going to need to order more of it. I can hardly wait. I'm going to try and use a jigsaw or a circular saw on it, simply because it makes it so much easier to cut it parallel to the surfaces. Using a fine kitchen knife makes it hard to cut straight and hard to cut square.

Once that was done I went into town with my wife and got some beer. I may need it, by the time I'm done with these panels...

 

[Stravinsk]

Today I made a 7 Volt battery out of the following materials:

-shallow square plastic container divided into compartments
-Zinc coated nails (galvanized)
-Copper wire
-Dirt
-salt water
-Vinegar

It's very similar to the following, but because I had larger compartments (but less of them) I managed to increase voltage by both wrapping the copper wire around the galvanized nails and also making copper coils to increase the surface area when they are buried in the dirt - making sure the coil has the most contact with dirt and then compacting it.



I think I could make it into a 12V battery easily enough by increasing coil size/turns. The nice thing about my battery is that it has a lid to keep the dirt from drying out.

As for load, when the battery was in it's infancy and I was getting just a few volts out of it, I could light an LED. I haven't tested a larger load on it yet.

For the sake of disclosure (before anyone thinks of doing it) I thought it good to tell what I discovered this morning. Checking the voltage to the unchanged cells (no moisture evaporation do to it being sealed) revealed a drop of 3 volts, and visible corrosion in the copper. This would have happened slower I'm figuring if the soil was just merely a little damp (and with just water, not salt water) and I hadn't used vinegar to boost output. I also checked the voltage between cells using a larger copper coil affixed to one of the Zinc plated nails. The result was an increase in voltage between 2 cells, however - the voltage increase was the same whether I buried the coil, or just laid it on top of the dirt. Voltage measurements were taken from the soil in both scenarios and it wound up being the same.

Since then I read up a little on earth batteries and it seems there might be ways of using the idea with less corrosion via positioning and a different anode/cathode. Not knowledgeable enough to make one, but overall this was a fun little experiment and it didn't cost much.

 

[hotrhymez]

in bed spying on all of you .

 

[Lamb]

in bed spying on all of you .

Yikes!!

Time to play hide and seek!

 

[tango]

Contemplating whether to spend time doing battle with my insulation panels, or building a jig to make box joints. I've got some red oak in the basement waiting to be made into a box but need to get the jig worked out first. Otherwise box joints are a really slow and laborious process with the added bonus of getting to throw away the wood and start over if I make a single mistake with the saw fence.

 

[NewCreation435]

I'm writing notes from the last two days of visits at school.

 

[Lamb]

Turning on Judge Judy to see who she yells at today

 

[tango]

Huge step forward today, not so much in raw achievement but in realisations.

Firstly, after much fiddling around and doing things in the wrong order that made it more complex and take longer, I finally got a jig to cut box joints working. I tried to use it on some plywood and it kinda sorta worked, but the plywood isn't strong enough to be cut so many times and flaked badly. So I tried on an offcut of hardwood. I don't know what the wood is, I salvaged it from a dumpster. It cut much more cleanly (some slight chip out because I didn't put a backing piece in place) and the fingers of my box joint intertwined almost perfectly. Nothing a quick run with a sander can't tidy up. So now I can make a couple of boxes I've wanted for a while now.

I also found a much easier way to work with my insulation panels. I'd been trying to cut them with a kitchen knife. THe kitchen knife will cut the panels but because the leading edge is narrower than the trailing edge it resists all the way. I tried using my jigsaw and it made a clean cut but quite a lot of airborne dust, which isn't ideal. Then I wondered what would happen if I used a small hand saw, and it worked perfectly. I can cut square and straight and without too much trouble. Now all I need is some kind of jig to hold a panel in place so I can cut it side to side. I could also use a thinner marker pen - the only one I have that will mark the panels so I know where to cut is a big fat marker, so I have to remember which edge of the line I'm supposed to be cutting to.

ETA: Forgot to mention I noticed something not quite right with an exterior door and, sure enough, there was a draft coming in around it. So a quick application of some self-adhesive draft excluder foam and the draft went away. Given it's really cold right now it's funny to think of the application of $3-4 worth of insulating materials potentially paying for itself within a day or two. Certainly some days back when I used a tube of silicone to seal around all the windows in the same room the difference in feeling of warmth was amazing, so that $3.99 probably did pay for itself within a couple of days at most.

 

[tango]

Winding down ready for bed, enjoying the sweet sound of the furnace not running

 

[tango]

Fun packed day today. Fun with Panels. Fun with Cement. Fun with Pry Bars. Fun with Hammers. Fun with Fiberglass. Oh yes, a bit of everything today.

I figured I'd start by taking off a small section of baseboard. Some genius laid new floor in the house and just laid them up to the existing baseboard, which makes it very hard to get the baseboard off. Of course the door trim is also held in place by the floor, and by big long nails, which doesn't help. So getting anything out is a battle.

Anyway, first up I managed to pry off one end piece, thanks to a blade on my oscillating tool that's just about sharp enough to cut through nails. Having cut three of four nails I could turn it and pry it away. Then it was easier to take off the baseboard, but again I had to use a cutting tool to get through a couple of nails. Then I found another draft, so go to chisel out another bit of mortar and refill the joint. Because I could get at the very bottom of the wall I could also pack more spaces with fiberglass.

Then I pried away a few more laths and found a couple more drafts. One was a gap in the wall surface about 1/2" wide so I cleaned it out and refilled it, and the other was in a space I couldn't get at so I stuffed it with fiberglass until I can get at it.

Next I cleaned up a couple of mortar joints and fitted some insulation panels. Although I can cut it now it's still tricky to work with because the gaps between my studs aren't standard and aren't uniform - over the last 100 years or so some of them have twisted a little.

When I came to one of the sections I wanted to fit a panel I found some fiberglass I'd left behind. So I pulled out the fiberglass and found why I'd put it there. Yep... another gap in the wall tha was about 1/2" at the narrowest and about three times that at the widest. It took nearly a full cup of cement powder mixed into cement and it still isn't quite full, but because the top of it is above the ceiling line I was mostly working blind, so filled it as far as I could see and I'll revisit it tomorrow when everything has had chance to try.

Previously when I was working I'd turn the heating off and the temperature might drop from 61 to 56 in maybe 3 hours. Today with the heating off the temperature dropped from 61 to 57 but it took nearly six hours. So I know the work I'm doing is bearing fruit already. It's also pleasing to see a growing area of my wall shift from the gray of the concrete block to the silver of the insulation panels. I'm really optimistic about how this is going to end up.

 

[Stravinsk]

I made a new friend. He/she (I have not yet determined this) started frequenting my yard ever since I was cutting down the tree. No collar, no tag. Shy, but not afraid of me. Fairly thin and hungry looking. Very young still, less than a year old. A few days ago I coaxed it into eating some leftover canned cat food that isn't getting used, outside my front porch. The next day I let it inside. After about an hour I let her out again. Today it enjoyed one of my cushions for an afternoon nap. I think it was abandoned by a neighbor moving house. My last cat was an inside cat but this one has already become accustomed to being outside so I think I will let it come and go as it pleases.

 

[Lamb]

I made a new friend. He/she (I have not yet determined this) started frequenting my yard ever since I was cutting down the tree. No collar, no tag. Shy, but not afraid of me. Fairly thin and hungry looking. Very young still, less than a year old. A few days ago I coaxed it into eating some leftover canned cat food that isn't getting used, outside my front porch. The next day I let it inside. After about an hour I let her out again. Today it enjoyed one of my cushions for an afternoon nap. I think it was abandoned by a neighbor moving house. My last cat was an inside cat but this one has already become accustomed to being outside so I think I will let it come and go as it pleases.

I was hoping you were going to say kangaroo.

 

[tango]

Waiting for food to come out of the oven. I didn't drink enough water yesterday and I'm really feeling it today. Hopefully my headache will clear soon and I can get back to fixing walls and cutting insulation panels. Gradually heading towards a place where I need to pull some more wall down. I've got a wall perpendicular to the exterior wall that was constructed over the top of the lath-and-plaster of the exterior wall, so getting the laths out from behind it could be an exercise in frustration. But it needs to be done or I can't finish the insulation job, and I know there are issues with the wall behind there because I've had to liberally stuff fiberglass into spaces to stop the drafts. I really hope I don't have to be taking studs out to gain access to the wall.