How To Convert Film Slides To Digital Pictures - Easy DIY setup for any camera

Description

Want to convert slides to digital images? In this episode of House of Hacks, Harley shows how to convert film slides to digital pictures using the gear you already have. This technique also works for transfer old negatives to digital photos.

Resources (Amazon affiliate links):
Clamp light with aluminum reflector
GE 100 watt equivalent LED lights
Clip on macro lenses

Additional information about camera/lens selection and post processing.

How to shoot to the right (aka ETTR)

Here at House of Hacks we do tutorials, project overviews, tool reviews and more related to making things around the home and shop. Generally this involves wood and metal working, electronics, photography and other similar things. If this sounds interesting to you, you may subscribe here.

If you’re interested in learning more about the House of Hacks' values, here’s a playlist for you.

And here’s the most recent video.

For a written transcript, go to How To Convert Film Slides To Digital Pictures

Music under Creative Commons License By Attribution 4.0 by Kevin MacLeod at http://incompetech.com.
Intro/Exit: "Hot Swing"
Incidental: "Starry," "Touching Moments Two," "Riptide" & "Rocket"

Transcript

Our memories are more like photos than videos. We remember moments. Snapshots in time.

Photos allow us to share these moments with others.

Some may have been there with us and photos give us a common anchor point.

Some may not have been, separated by distance, time or both, and photos allow us to share our experience with them.

Imagine what it’d be like if you could move those memorable moments captured with physical images into the digital world.

You could have a historical record that doesn’t degrade over time.

You could instantly share them others around the world.

You could compile them into new and different ways.

Stick around and I’ll show you how to move from imagination to reality.

In this episode, I’m going to show an easy DIY build to help you digitize either slides or negatives.

Its primary materials are some cardboard and an inexpensive light you can get at the home improvement store or online for less than ten dollars.

And you can use any camera. An SLR if you have one. Or your phone. Or anything in between.

Welcome to the House of Hacks.

If we’re just meeting, I’m Harley and I show you how to create stuff in the workshop.

Sometimes it's out of wood or metal. Today it’s going to be out of cardboard and duct tape.

Basically, we’re going to make a light filled box. This does two things for us.

It diffuses the light nicely so we don't have any hot spots in our final image and it gives us a place to mount either a slide or negative.

Whatever's mounted here gets lit up nicely and then we can use any camera to make an image of it.

I'll show some samples from my SLR and my phone later in the video.

Let’s get started.

The tools we’re going to need are:

• a box knife,
• a straight edge,
• a right angle,
• a pen,
• and a measuring tape.

The materials we’re going to use are:

• some scrap cardboard, (both corrugated and non-corrugated.),
• white duct tape, or you can use white paper or paint,
• shop lamp,
• daylight balanced LED light bulb,
• and glue.

I’m going to be using this inexpensive shop light as a light source. They come in various sizes.

This is one of the smaller ones with an 8.5” reflector. You can get them at any home improvement store or online.

They'll take any kind of light bulb, but I'm going to be using an LED. These run cooler and have great color rendition.

I recommend using daylight balanced for the best color in your final images.

And this one happens to be a 100 watt equivalent.

Since the light is going to be bouncing around inside the box quite a bit, I wanted something with a higher wattage in order to be able to keep the ISO in the camera down lower.

I’ll leave Amazon affiliate links to all of this down in the description below.

First, let’s make a box to contain the light and give us a place to mount the slides or negatives.

This needs to be large enough for the light to mount to and also so there’s enough room for the light to disburse nicely.

Too small and you may end up with some shadows or gradients.

I’m going to use an old cardboard box that was used for shipping.

You could also use some foam board from the craft store and cut it to the desired size.

First I mark a circle where I want to put the light.

Now, I’m going to cut a hole in the cardboard above the reflector for the film mounting point.

I have a number of different film sizes I work with, so I’m going to make this a bit larger than the largest negative I’ll want to duplicate.

In my case it’s 120 film and making it a bit larger keeps the thick edges of the cardboard from casting shadows on the film.

This gives me an idea for the size to cut the rest of the box to.

I want the box to be about as deep as the light is round, so, looking from the top, roughly square.

The idea is to have the light shine in one direction, bounce off the back and then into the film mounted on the same plane as the light.

If we put the light on the opposite side of the film so it's shining directly on it, we might get some hot spots or an unevenness of exposure from the middle of the film to the edges.

Bouncing it this way should help eliminate that problem.

So, this box is a bit larger than I need. I’ll use a box knife to cut it down to size.

I don’t want the inside of the box to be this brownish, cardboard color because that would give us a color cast to the light.

I want it to be as close to a neutral white as possible.

I'm going to line the inside of this box with white duct tape.

But you could also use white paint or glue white paper to the inside. We just need it to be white.

And of course, this step could be skipped if white foam board was used.

Now that the box is white inside, I’m going to tape the box closed.

Next, I’ll tape the light to the box.

To do this, I’m going to first put down a layer of tape on the outside of box.

Then I’m going to tape the light to the tape on the box, making sure to fold over the end of the tape to give me a little pull tab.

By taping to the tape on the box instead of the box itself, it’ll be easy to remove the light without tearing up the box.

We're almost ready to use this, but first we need an easy place to put the film.

In addition to 35mm film cameras, I have a number of cameras that take 120 film and expose it in different aspect ratios.

Some give me square images and some give me wider images.

I’m going to use this thin cardboard to make different holders for the various sizes so I can convert images from any of my cameras.

For each type of film, I cut a large base piece that covers the hole in the box. These can all be the same size.

Then each base gets a smaller hole for a particular film format.

Finally I make holders appropriate for each type of film to hold it in place.

For slides, I cut some cardboard and glued in a U shape around the hole.

Then I glued a small piece of cardboard on the corners to help hold the slide in place.

This will allow the slides to be consistently placed in the same location.

For film, I’ll use cardboard folded to the correct size to make a sleeve and line it with fabric to minimize scratches.

I can then run the film through this sleeve.

Like the area around the opening for the light, I put more tape on the box around the hole where the film holders go and also on the film holders themselves.

Then whatever film holder I need for the project at hand can be taped to the box and removed without tearing anything up.

Now that we have the box constructed, let’s put it to use and get it setup.

I've got a nice stable setup here with the box on the table and the camera on a tripod.

When you set this up, you want to make sure your camera is straight on with the image that you're taking a picture of.

If there's any angle involved at all, one side will be smaller then the other and you'll have distortion that you need to fix in post processing.

They way that I've found easiest to set this up is to level the camera and then raise and lower the tripod until the images were centered between what I was taking the picture of and the camera.

And then I could move the box in and out to change the zoom level until the image completely fills the sensor.

In my case, I have a 35mm camera, full-frame, and a true macro lens and 35mm slides that I'm taking pictures of so I can perfectly fill the image of the slide with the camera.

If you have a different camera, different lens or different film, then the aspect ratios may not perfectly line up and you'll end up with black bars on either the sides or top and bottom in order to see the entire image.

If you're using a zoom lens in your setup, you want to set it to something over 100mm ideally.

This'll give you the least amount of distortion.

If your wider than that, then the edges may get distorted because of the lens optics.

Now that we have the physical setup, we need to setup the settings inside the camera.

There's two things we're concerned with: exposure and white balance.

For exposure, we need to make sure the light's on, set the camera to manual mode and look at just the white light coming out of the box.

We want to set this so that our camera's histogram is as far to the right as possible without actually getting clipped off.

I have a video that talks about this in more detail.

This'll give us the most amount of brightness in our images without glowing out any details.

For white balance, you want to use the custom setting.

How this is setup will vary from one camera to the next, so look in your user's manual to find out how to setup yours.

Now that everything is setup, I'm ready to put a slide in the holder and start making images.

This box will work with any camera.

I just showed an SLR but I've got my phone here and I can use it to just kind of position there and take an image.

It'd be better if I had a tripod for my phone if I was doing a lot of these.

But I don't and hand held works fine enough for demonstration purposes.

I also found that digital zoom works but having a clip on macro lens works even better.

These are inexpensive for cheap ones. They're not perfect lenses but they're satisfactory.

As I mentioned, different cameras, different lenses and different films will give you different aspect ratios and may require some post processing.

Slides of course don't require post processing for color correction but you may need to adjust for crop.

Negatives will need some color correction.

Obviously you need to invert the colors and I go into a lot of details about different camera lenses and the effects that they have and also how to post process negatives in this video over here.

I'll see you over there.

Down here is a video that YouTube thinks you'll enjoy.

And when making things, remember...

Perfection's not required.

Fun is!

Woodworking Measuring Tips - 7 tricks for success

Description

Having trouble getting consistent measurements in the workshop? In this episode, Harley gives seven woodworking measuring tips to improve your projects' success.

Here at House of Hacks we do tutorials, project overviews, tool reviews and more related to making things around the home and shop. Generally this involves wood and metal working, electronics, photography and other similar things. If this sounds interesting to you, you may subscribe here.

If you’re interested in learning more about the House of Hacks' values, here’s a playlist for you.

And here’s the most recent video.

For a written transcript, go to Woodworking Measuring Tips - 7 tricks for success

Music under Creative Commons License By Attribution 4.0 by Kevin MacLeod at http://incompetech.com.
Intro/Exit: "Hot Swing"

Transcript

Are you having problems with consistent measurements on your projects?

Today, I have 7 woodworking measuring tips here at the House of Hacks.

If we're just meeting, I'm Harley and I believe everyone has a God-given creative spark.

Creativity involves connecting the dots in new ways.

The more dots you have, the more creative you can be.

Here at the House of Hacks, I try to show new connections and give you new dots for your own inspiration.

If this sounds interesting to you, hit the subscribe button and ring the bell notification icon and you'll be notified when new uploads are available.

The first tip is to square the ends that you're going to be measuring from.

This way, if there's any angle, it won't impact the final measurement.

Tip two is to use the same tape measure for your whole project.

This will eliminate any variation from one tape measure to the next, particularly on the ends that move.

Those holes may be slightly different from one tape to the next.

Tip number three is to use a sharp pencil.

This will help minimize any error from the mark itself, both when making the mark and also when lining it up for the cut.

And stay tuned to the end because there's actually a bonus tip at the end.

Tip number four is to use a "V" to mark your cut location rather than a straight line.

This will help reduce the amount of interpretation when lining up to make the cut.

Tip number five is to make one measurement, cut it, make your next measurement, cut it, and so forth.

This will eliminate any drift from the kerf width of the blade.

Tip number six is, if you're making multiple cuts that are the same length, use a stop block.

This way you only have to measure once, it speeds up your production and it also gives you much better consistency.

Tip number seven is to be consistent where you line up the mark with your blade.

The more variance you have in your alignment, the more variation you're going to have in your final product.

And bonus tip number eight is, if you're cutting multiple pieces that are the same length, in addition to using a stop block, if you make multiple cuts at the same time, that'll further reduce the room for error.

Thanks for joining me on this creative journey that we're on.

I'll see you in one of these videos over here that YouTube thinks you'll enjoy.

And when making things, remember...

Perfection isn't required.

Fun is!

Velleman MK105 Signal Generator - assembly

Description

Interested in basic electronic kit projects? In this episode of the House of Hacks, Harley assembles a Velleman Signal Generator kit MK105. This kit is moderately easy to assemble. The company rates it as a 2 out of 5 on the the difficulty scale. Soldering is required but is probably a good kit for learning how to solder circuit boards.

Velleman MK105 Signal Generator (affiliate link)

Soldering station review
How to solder
Soldering tips

Tools needed:
Soldering iron or soldering station and solder
Needle nosed pliers
Wire cutters
Panavise or 3rd hand

There are other computer related videos in this playlist.

Here at House of Hacks we do tutorials, project overviews, tool reviews and more related to making things around the home and shop. Generally this involves wood and metal working, electronics, photography and other similar things. If this sounds interesting to you, you may subscribe here.

If you’re interested in learning more about the House of Hacks' values, here’s a playlist for you.

And here’s the most recent video.

For a written transcript, go to Velleman MK105 Signal Generator - assembly

Music under Creative Commons License By Attribution 4.0 by Kevin MacLeod at http://incompetech.com.
Intro/Exit: "Hot Swing"
Incidental: “District Four"

Transcript

Today at the House of Hacks, let's assemble this signal generator.

If we're just meeting, Welcome!

I'm Harley and I make stuff in the workshop, usually out of wood, metal and sometimes electronics.

This is a basic electronics kit made by Velleman. It's a signal generator model number MK105 and we'll be assembling and testing it today.

It runs off a 9 volt battery and makes sine waves, triangle waves and square waves at about 1000 hertz.

Inside this kit... there's the card that holds everything in,

a battery holder,

a bunch of components in a plastic bag,

and a PCB.

Inside this card is assembly instructions and a schematic. We'll get to those later.

The first thing you want to do is dump the parts out and separate them into their different types of components.

These are resistors and they have color bands on them to identify them.

These can looking things are electrolytic capacitors.

These flat disc looking things are regular capacitors are non-electrolytic.

This is a jumper. These are header connectors for the jumpers.

This is a socket for the chip and here's the chip itself.

Here is a variable resistor.

And some plastic stand-offs and screws to mount this. This will get mounted to this when it's all said and done.

Looks like there's a transistor here with three legs. They're kind of an interesting shape. They're usually a dome with a flat side on them.

And those are all the different pieces parts.

And then there are these connectors that will be the ground and output for the signals.

I think that's everything in here. We'll just separate these out and put them into piles. We'll separate the resistors by component values.

And there's a diode too. It looks kind of like a resistor. Rather than having the color bands on it like the resistors have, it has a number around it that tells you the component value and also it has a single band that tells you which direction it goes in the circuit. That is important.

So it looks like there are... one... two... three... four... five values of resistors. Three different values of capacitors. One value of electrolytic capacitors. A single value for the transistors. And there's only a single diode so there's only one of those values.

When we're putting in capacitors we need to be sure to put these in the right places because they do have different values on them and along with the resistors.

The electrolytic capacitors, we need to pay attention to their polarity but it's the same value for both of them.

And the same thing goes for the transistors and diode.

This is the card that holds all the components in the blister pack and inside here are all the instructions. They're actually laid out really well considering there's not really any writing on them. They're all just illustrations.

Across the top it shows how to put the pieces in for soldering.

And then it tells you what to do.

Generally with electronics kits, you want to start from the smallest components and work up to larger components.

That way you're not trying to fit small pieces down in between larger pieces.

This follows that same convention.

We have the resistors are number one. And this is also very well laid out because it has the numbers for the resistors which are marked on the PC board and the values for the resistor here but over here they're actually telling you what color represent those values.

So you don't even have to look it up. Whenever it says R1 through R3, use the brown-black-red resistors.

And when you need resistors R4 through R6 you use the brown-black-orange resistors. And just so forth. Very well laid out.

Then we put in the diode and then the IC socket and the IC iteself and the transistor, the capacitor, electrolytic capacitors, the potentiometer, the jumper, the test points that have the output and the ground.

We'll put in the battery connector and then it shows how to put the jumper in to get different wave forms and finally there's a schematic that shows have everything is put together.

Today, I'm going to just be assembling and testing this. Leave a comment below if in the future you'd like to see this either put into a project box or talk about the theory of operation.

This is a good, easy beginners electronics project. The only real specialty tool you need is a soldering iron. I've got a temperature controlled soldering station. It's kind of a low to mid-range tool but you don't need anything near this fancy. You can use just a simple pencil soldering iron that's not temperature controlled for this particular project.

Those can be had for less than $20, I'm sure, and that'll work just fine for this.

You need a little bit of solder for connecting things together.

You'll want a fan to blow across the project to keep the solder fumes from rising up into your face.

I've also got some needle nose pliers to bend wire leads with and wire cutters to trim those leads with.

And then you need a place to work. I'm using a Panavise tool that's designed specifically for working with circuit boards.

But you don't need anything near this fancy. Just working on a flat table top, probably want to protect it with some cardboard or something that would work fine. Also, if you need to hold the circuit board, I've use pliers with a rubber band just to hold things and that works well too if you need it at an angle.

And if you're of a certain age, reading glasses. We will be working in close.

Let's get this put together.

[music]

OK. When working on these, we want to bend these leads down so that they fit into the holes like so.

And then we find the location on the circuit board that they go in. In this case, this is R8 and R8 is... right... 11... 9... 10... R8 goes right in here so we'll just put this right in here like so.

And on the back, we'll just bend these leads over, that'll just hold it in place before we get the solder in.

[music]

OK. So that does it for the resistors. We've got the diode and the rest of the components to put in. It's all exactly the same process and we'll just work through all of them.

OK. Here we're putting in the diode and we can see on the printed circuit board there's this heavy bar on the one side of the outline for the diode. That indicates where the bar that's on the diode itself should go in the orientation so you make sure that gets put in there correctly.

Also, we can see on these electrolytic capacitors, there's a plus side to indicate where the plus goes on the capacitor and also on the transistor, there's a D shaped outline that corresponds to the flat side we saw on the transistor earlier and finally on the integrated circuit, there's a notch indicated on the printed circuit board. So those all need to go in one particular direction and it's important to watch the orientation. For the other resistors and the other capacitors, they can go in any direction you want.

[music]

It came out to be a pretty nice little package. I do need to find a 9 volt battery and then we'll take it over to the bench and turn on the oscilloscope and see what the output looks like.

[music]

I found a 9 volt battery. Pulled the oscilloscope out and got it warmed up. This is an old CRT one so it takes a little bit to warm up.

And got everything connected and we can see we have a fairly nice square wave here.

It does drift a little bit. It's a little bit faster than a 1000 hertz but for a basic signal generation to make audio checks and things like that it's fine.

It does have some other settings.

It has what they call an integration setting which we can see here. It's sort of a weird looking signal.

And then it has a triangle wave which looks pretty nice.

And finally there's a sine wave.

And the little trimmer pot adjusts the voltage so we increase the voltage and decrease the voltage if we want.

So that's not a bad little kit for a couple dollars.

Easy to put together. Great beginner kit.

Over here there's another video that YouTube thinks you'll enjoy.

Until next time, go make something.

Perfection's not required. Fun is!

What's Inside A Hard Disk | Equipment Autopsy

Description

Ever wonder what's inside a hard disk drive? In this equipment autopsy, Harley takes apart an old hard drive to see what's inside and explain how they work.

There are other computer related videos in this playlist.

Here at House of Hacks we do tutorials, project overviews, tool reviews and more related to making things around the home and shop. Generally this involves wood and metal working, electronics, photography and other similar things. If this sounds interesting to you, you may subscribe here.

If you’re interested in learning more about the House of Hacks' values, here’s a playlist for you.

And here’s the most recent video.

For a written transcript, go to What's Inside A Hard Disk | Equipment Autopsy

Music under Creative Commons License By Attribution 4.0 by Kevin MacLeod at http://incompetech.com.
Intro/Exit: "Hot Swing"

Transcript

Coming soon

Replace Mechanical Fuel Pump - 1965 Buick Skylark

Description

How to replace a mechanical fuel pump. This is the topic for this episode in the series on starting an old 1965 Buick Skylark convertible. Last episode, Harley determined the fuel pump wasn't pumping any gas up to the carburetor. In this video we change the fuel pump for a new one. Will it start this time?

Here at House of Hacks we do tutorials, project overviews, tool reviews and more related to making things around the home and shop. Generally this involves wood and metal working, electronics, photography and other similar things. If this sounds interesting to you, you may subscribe here.

If you’re interested in learning more about the House of Hacks' values, here’s a playlist for you.

And here’s the most recent video.

For a written transcript, go to Replace Mechanical Fuel Pump - 1965 Buick Skylark

Music under Creative Commons License By Attribution 4.0 by Kevin MacLeod at http://incompetech.com.
Intro/Exit: "Hot Swing"
Incidental: "Chipper", "Decisions", "Rocket Power"

Transcript

In the last episode of trying to get this old convertible started, I concluded that the fuel pump wasn't getting fuel up into the carburetor.

I've got a new fuel pump and in this episode, I'm going to install it and see if that makes a difference.

Will this car start after I change the fuel pump? Your guess is as good as mine.

If you're new here: Welcome!

I'm Harley and this is the House of Hacks where usually we make stuff. In this case, I'm repairing this old car, trying to get it started so I can start work on another car project that I have sitting over in the corner of the garage.

I'm going to go change clothes and get to work.

[music]

OK. I got the old pump out and the first bolt was no problem. The second bolt gave me a little bit of a challenge. At first I thought it was a different sized bolt head because it didn't want to go on. But as it turned out, it was just some road gunk that needed to get cleaned out and it was in fact the same size as expected.

I took the old pump off and there's nothing special on these blocks that you need to do internally. The pump rides directly on an eccentric cam inside the timing belt cover and so on small block Chevys, there's a pin that you need to make sure doesn't fall out it's kind of a pain to get reassembled.

The Buicks are much simpler in that this rides directly on the cam and so you don't have to worry about anything.

Putting it back on, I may need to bump the motor over a little bit to take some of the tension off, depending on where that cam is in the cycle.

In comparing these two pumps, they are the same as far as the engine connection is concerned. The flanges are the same. The arms going into the motor are the same and the dimensions overall are the same. They are different though where the hoses connect in and I'm going to need to go to the parts store to get some fittings to be able to install this new one.

[music]

OK. That should do it.

The old fitting for the output side, I was able to use from the old fuel pump. The fitting was just fine. It came off without a problem and the threads fit this one.

I had to get a new fitting for the input side. The old pump had the connection built into it and the new one just had a threaded fitting and so I had to get a brass fitting to be able to put the tubing on.

It took me four stops to find this. I found it at the fourth place I went to which is probably a good indication as to why Amazon is killing the retail space. Retailers just have a hard time keeping inventory in stock the way Amazon does.

So let's get this installed!

[music]

So there were two outcomes from today.

The good news is I was able to get the engine running!

The bad news is I had to put fuel in the carburetor for that to happen. That's telling me the carburetor is not really getting enough fuel.

I pulled the fuel line from the fuel pump to the carburetor off at the carburetor and there was a little bit of fuel there but no where near the amount that's supposed to be there to keep the engine running.

That tells me that the fuel pump is trying to work but its not getting enough fuel to be able to pump it through the system.

That tells me there's most likely a partial blockage from the tank to the fuel pump. I've replaced everything after the fuel pump to the carburetor.

So the next video will be investigating that, trying to either flush out the fuel line and clear that blockage or putting in a temporary line in the mean time just to get the project running.

Until then, I'll see you this video that YouTube thinks you'll enjoy and when making things remember...

Perfection's not required.

Fun is!

Lights For Sewing Room - Get a Massive Improvement

Description

Wondering about installing lights for sewing room? Is your craft room lighting in need of an upgrade? In this episode of House of Hacks, Harley shows how to upgrade sewing room lights for a massive improvement. Adding several LED lights in room improved the overall usefulness of the sewing space and for craft work.

Check out Diane's channel Delightful Light: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCqeC5EK8VMuFCK5t268H4eA/videos

Here at House of Hacks we do tutorials, project overviews, tool reviews and more related to making things around the home and shop. Generally this involves wood and metal working, electronics, photography and other similar things. If this sounds interesting to you, you may subscribe here.

If you’re interested in learning more about the House of Hacks' values, here’s a playlist for you.

And here’s the most recent video.

For a written transcript, go to How to start a muscle car that has been sitting - 1965 Buick Skylark - Part II

Music under Creative Commons License By Attribution 3.0 by Kevin MacLeod at http://incompetech.com.
Intro/Exit: "Hot Swing"
Incidental: "Mining by Moonlight," "Motivator," "Rocket," "Chipper"

Transcript

Coming soon...

How to start a muscle car that has been sitting - 1965 Buick Skylark - Part II

Description

Wondering about the challenges of starting a car that's been mothballed for a while? In this episode of House of Hacks, Harley continues the saga of getting a 1965 Buick Skylark Convertible started.

Part 1 of this series
Making a vacuum cleaner

Here at House of Hacks we do tutorials, project overviews, tool reviews and more related to making things around the home and shop. Generally this involves wood and metal working, electronics, photography and other similar things. If this sounds interesting to you, you may subscribe here.

If you’re interested in learning more about the House of Hacks' values, here’s a playlist for you.

And here’s the most recent video.

For a written transcript, go to How to start a muscle car that has been sitting - 1965 Buick Skylark - Part II

Music under Creative Commons License By Attribution 3.0 by Kevin MacLeod at http://incompetech.com.
Intro/Exit: "Hot Swing"
Incidental: “Iron Bacon", “Prelude and Action", “Fast Talkin", “Zap Beat”, “Pump", “Happy Alley”, "Chipper", “Rocket Power", "Decisions"

Transcript

Hi! Harley here.

In the last video on trying to get this car started, I got the oil changed, I siphoned out the fuel and as I was working under the hood, I realized I should probably change the coolant.

I put a little pressure on the radiator hoses and could tell that the wires inside them had corroded and I didn't really want that floating around inside the car.

It was probably a good thing that I did. I pulled off the radiator hoses and found that the coolant inside had kind of gelled up a little bit and I'd never seen that before.

But because of that, I want to really kind of do a power flush of the system and try to get all that gunk out of there.

So, what I'm going to do today, my primary task is to try to find some fittings that I can attach a garden hose to both sides of the radiator system to be able to flush out both the radiator and the block.

I want to be able to connect garden hoses to both sides: one going in, one going out, for drainage purposes.

We'll see if that helps.

Once I've got new coolant in it, then I need to put new fuel in it, get the battery going and then I think we'll be ready to try to start this baby up.

Hopefully, we'll get all that done today, but I'm not going to make any guarantees.

Let's get started.

[music]

The trip to Lowe's was a success. I found a 1-1/2" flex pipe to slip joint adapter that fits perfectly into the radiator hose.

Put a hose clamp on that and that'll work just fine.

And then going into this adapter, I've got a bushing that slips in there for the 1-1/2" side and the other side there's a 3/4" slip connector.

And then I've got two hose adapters, one male, one female, and they've got a slip 3/4" connector on that side.

And so then I'll just take a little bit of 3/4" pipe and put right there in the middle like so and I'll be able to run water in one side, through the radiator hose and then on the other end it'll go into the radiator hose and come out the garden hose outside the garage to be able to flush out both the radiator and the block.

[music]

OK. I've got everything hooked up with the water and I have one minor leak in one of the solder connections that I made in my plumbing.

No leaks around the radiator hoses or the thermostat housing or the engine block or anything like that.

Water's coming through fine. I have it on high speed on the water, full blast, and I'm getting full flow at the other end.

So that is really good news.

One of my biggest concerns with this when I found the gelled up coolant was that there'd be a solid block somewhere in the radiator or in the engine block and it would inhibit the flow.

There might still be a block somewhere, but I don't really know how to check that without just completely dismantling the engine.

So, we're good to go now, I think.

I am going to reverse connections on the hose to put reverse flow through the engine to just kind of help knock loose any blockages that might be in there.

And then the next step will be to do the same procedure on the radiator and then connect up the whole radiator and put coolant in it.

[music]

So now, this is going to be the first time in I don't know how long, over a decade, that I've put key in the ignition with a battery in it and tried to start it up.

Let's see what happens.

OK. That is great!

I wasn't sure if this engine was going to be seized from sitting so long or what, but obviously it's turning over just fine.

So, now I'm going to just put some starter fluid in it and give it a couple more tries. See what happens.

[starting attempts]

We could hear it try to start but the belt started sqeeking and I checked the belt and that pulley is really, really, really hot on the water pump.

So I think the water pump is actually frozen up even though the engine is turning over.

So, I'm going to have to do some checking on the accessories on the front end of the engine before I really try to start it.

[Heavy sigh] If there's not one thing, there's another.

[music]

The internet in general and Amazon in particular are great innovations.

Back in the mid-80s when I was working on these cars on a regular basis, getting parts for them was always kind of hit-or-miss proposition.

You never knew if when you went to the auto parts store if they're going to have what you needed or if they were out of stock or if they even could get them at all.

Sometimes you had to go to the junk yard to find parts and hope that they in decent enough shape that you could use them.

I got a new water pump for this thing on Amazon for less than $20 delivered to my door within a week and a half of ordering it.

That's just amazing to me. It's mind blowing.

And I had a choice of many different brands to choose from all under $20.

And in addition to this, I could go to eBay and get new, original stock parts, genuine GM parts, originally manufacture, exact replacement, matching numbers, everything, for $80.

Again, trying to find something like that back in the day would have been a real challenge.

So, the internet is an incredible resource for working on these old vehicles.

That said, I did get the new water pump and started working on this. When I took off the old one, I did have one bolt head break. Fortunately, it broke just underneath the head and I was able to get some Vise-Grips on there after putting some penetrating oil on the screw and was able to pull the screw out without any problems whatsoever.

Fortunately, none of the other bolts had any problems coming out whatsoever. That was kind of a concern that something would break off and if something broke off on this then it makes it a much larger project.

So, I got the old one off and got the new one and started getting ready to put it on. I started scraping off the old junk that was on the mating surface so I could get a good surface for the gasket to seal to.

And in the process I found a hole on the back side of the water pump assembly.

The way these Buick blocks are designed, is you have the block and you have the timing gears that mount to the front of that. And then there's a casting that mounts over the top of that that the bottom of the crankshaft comes through and that assembly also contains the back side of the water pump.

So, it's a fairly thick casting. It's several inches thick that acts as both a timing chain cover and also the mounting for the front of the water pump and then also acts as the back of the water pump.

There's a common failure with these where the back side will wear through. I believe my Dad had a failure of this mode back in the 70s when he was driving one of these cars and had exactly the same thing.

He had a water leak. Changed the water pump and still had the leak and further investigation found that it was actually coming through the casting itself, not the water pump assembly directly.

So, it seems to be a fairly common failure on these, in this design.

Again, I went to the internet and did some searching and did actually find this assembly. I can get it, depending on where I get it from, it's between $110 and $250. Again from many different manufacturers.

So, that's a good thing. The bad thing is it's got a seal for the crank assembly and it's more disassembly of the front end of the engine that I just really don't want to go through.

Particularly for what I'm doing with the car at this point. I just need to move it around the property. I'm not planning on driving it. It's not going to be a daily driver. It's not even going to be registered for the road or insured. So, I really don't want to put that much effort into it at this point in time.

So, to do a much simpler, faster, cheaper, patch job, I'm going to use JB Weld.

I've never used JB Weld on a engine patch like this. I've have talked to people who have done this successfully without any problems so I'm going to give this a shot.

Hopefully it will work.

JB Weld does come in a couple different formulations. This is the original formulation. They also had a quick setting formulation that has a shorter working time and sets up sooner.

But in looking at the specifications for it, the quick set has a lower tensile strength and also lower maximum temperature that it's designed to work in.

So, the original has twice the temperature range that it's going to be working on and so because this is on the engine around the coolant, it's not going to get super hot like the inside of the engine on the block, but it is high enough that the quick setting stuff was kind of on the edge of where I felt comfortable using it. So, I did get the original formulation.

So, now I'll do some more cleaning out. I'll put some of this on that hole to patch the hole and then I'll also use some gasket...

Once the JB Weld is setup, I'll put some gasket material on the inside, just in an effort to make sure it seals properly and then I'll go ahead and put the new water pump on.

[music]

The other day, I got the patch on the timing cover. I don't think it's a perfect solution, but it's good enough for what I need to get done right now.

There's always, in working on projects, there's always a balance between practicality and perfection. In this particular case, I need to get it running, so I can move it around the yard and get it out of the garage to be able to work on the other project.

So, it doesn't need to be perfect for this application.

This car needs a lot of work on it before it's considered road worthy in my opinion. And this is kind of the least of the issues. So, this is good enough for now.

I think it's actually good enough, I'm not going to bother putting any silicone sealant inside here. I think that'd just be overkill and so now I think I'm ready to put the new water pump on.

I've got the new water pump, bright, shiny and ready to go.

It came with a gasket.

I got some red, high temperature silicone sealer and some new bolts.

The procedure on this will be to put some of the silicone sealer along the edge where the gasket goes. Then the gasket will go on top of that and then another thin layer of sealant on top of the gasket.

Then this will go onto the timing cover. There are two pins in there that will help locate it. And then I'll put one bolt through to hold it in place and then it'll just be a matter of installing the rest of the bolts.

When that's all done, it needs to sit for 24 hours to let the sealant set up and cure.

Then I'll be ready to put coolant and try firing this baby up again.

[music]

New day. It's been enough time for the silicone to set up and today's task is to replace the lower radiator hose, refill the coolant, attach the battery and we'll give this another try.

Hopefully it'll work today.

[music]

I don't know why I thought that this was going to be an easy project. Nothing ever goes according to plan.

I started putting the coolant in and heard a drip that was more than what was accounted for my the little bit of spillage that I had when I started to pouring things in.

I started looking around and found a fairly major leak somewhere around the upper radiator hose where it goes into the block.

I'm hoping it's just the thermostat housing because that's an easy fix. If it's not the thermostat housing, then the only other place it could be leaking from would be the intake manifold and that changes the project to a whole new level, which I don't know that I really want to get into.

So, I do have another block that I think has a thermostat housing on it. I'll take that off. Hopefully it's serviceable enough to patch this one and get this thing back going.

I got the thermostat housing off the extra, spare block and it's in serviceable shape.

It has a little bit of corrosion on it, but just surface stuff. Nothing really that would make it a problem.

I'll take it downstairs into the basement and put it on the wire wheel and kind of clean it up a little bit. Get it so it's serviceable on this other car.

Hopefully I can get the old thermostat housing off without breaking any bolts. I did have one bolt on this one break in the old block. I don't care at this point.

And then I'll hopefully get this one installed on the car I'm trying to get running.

[music]

Here's the old one. You can see right in there, there's a hole.

That's on the bottom side of the engine where I couldn't see under there. Actually it was filled with corrosion that only became obvious once I got it off and started cleaning it.

As I was cleaning it, another huge chunk fell off. You can see it right there.

Now if we look at this and compare it to the new one, or the one that's not in as bad a shape, you can see what that looks like.

And if we look at the bottom side, you can see how it's all corroded and eaten away on the old one...

...and how the new one looks a lot better.

Fortunately, it's not the intake manifold that's the problem. Yay!

[music]

OK, that's really encouraging!

Putting the starter fluid in there, it did try to start and stumble along and ran for a second or so.

So that's telling me it's got spark. The engine is probably basically is fine.

I do need to find out why it's not getting any fuel though.

I took the fuel line off the carburetor and it's completely dry.

So, it's not getting up from the fuel pump up to the carburetor.

My guess is it's probably just taking awhile to pull the fuel out of the tank through the line the length of the car through the fuel pump and up.

So, I'm going to put a vacuum on the line going into the fuel pump to kind of pull the fuel up from the tank.

Prime the pump so to speak.

And then we'll see what happens.

I made this real simple setup to try to pull the fuel out of the tank and get most of the air out so the fuel pump isn't trying to pull a bunch of air through the carburetor as I'm cranking the engine over.

Hopefully that'll help the car start easier.

It's just a trash salsa container that I put a couple holes in and epoxied in a couple fittings.

One fitting is a barbed fitting that will go to the fuel line coming from the tank and the other, I have a compression fitting with a little bit of this hard tubing that the inside diameter of this is the same as the outside diameter of this other hard tubing that's going into the vacuum pump.

And I'll just push this in here. I suspect I'll probably have enough seal in here just through friction that I won't need any additional clamping on it.

If I do, I'll just put a hose clamp on it.

I got this great little air pump from some people that didn't want it any more and they were just going to throw it away and I gladly took it off their hands.

It has this flexible tubing that's connected to the vacuum side.

It also has a output side that's pressurized if you need air pressure instead of air vacuum.

And there's nothing wrong with it. It is a low volume, little diaphragm pump.

It's pretty quiet though so I think it'll work perfect for this type of application.

OK. As you can see, we have the fuel pump right here and we've got the vacuum chamber down there that will receive the gas.

We've got the vacuum line here and the line coming from the tank there.

Now all we need to do is apply power. Let's see what happens.

It looks like it's working.

[music]

And we got some gas out. Hopefully that's enough to get the air out of the line and fuel up the carburetor.

[music]

Well, it's obviously trying. It's just not getting any gas. Obviously. It runs for brief, a second or two, when I put fuel directly into the carburetor and it tries to go for not quite as long when I use starter fluid.

So, I'm getting spark. I'm getting air. It's just not getting any fuel, enough to keep the engine running from the pump or through the carburetor, or something.

So, now I need to kind of do some diagnostics on that. [shakes head]

Off screen: It's not going to catch fire is it.

On screen: Nope. At least I hope not.

Off screen: You got a fire extinguisher handy?

On screen: Yep.

OK.

[cranking]

OK. That's good.

Well, I had my wife turn the engine over while I was holding the end of the fuel line that goes into the carburetor and nothing was coming out of it.

So that really points the finger to the fuel pump. We have fuel coming to the fuel pump because I used the vacuum to pull it up. I replaced the fuel line and the fuel filter from between the fuel pump and the carburetor so we know that's all good.

So the fuel pump is really the only thing left in the system that could possibly have anything wrong with it.

So the next step is to replace that. That'll be in a future video.

For now, YouTube has some videos down below of things that it thinks that you'd be interested in and my latest video that I've released.

And up here in this playlist, somewhere over there, there's other car related videos if you're interested in those.

Until next time, go make something.

Perfection's not required.

Fun is!

Does a miter saw zero-clearance insert make a difference?

Description

Does a miter saw zero clearance insert help with tear-out? In this episode of House of Hacks, Harley shows how to make a miter saw zero clearance insert and then demonstrates the results, showing before and after cuts.

Here at House of Hacks we do tutorials, project overviews, tool reviews and more related to making things around the home and shop. Generally this involves wood and metal working, electronics, photography and other similar things. If this sounds interesting to you, you may subscribe here.

If you’re interested in learning more about the House of Hacks' values, here’s a playlist for you.

And here’s the most recent video.

For a written transcript, go to Does a miter saw zero-clearance insert make a difference?

Music under Creative Commons License By Attribution 3.0 by Kevin MacLeod at http://incompetech.com.
Intro/Exit: "Hot Swing"
Incidental: "MTA"

Transcript

Are you getting tear out from your miter saw cuts?

There's two theories as to why this is.

One says it's a dull blade.

The other says it's because you're no using a zero clearance insert, like me.

I've got the original OEM insert.

Today I want to try to test out that theory and create a zero clearance insert and see how well it works.

Zero clearance inserts are an easy afternoon project.

It's really just a piece of wood, cut to the right shape and thickness.

Put in the saw and a kerf cut in it with the blade that's going to be used in the saw.

This means that there's zero excess space around the kerf for things to fall into and in theory it helps support the wood so there's less tear out.

Because it's an easy afternoon project, I want to test this theory.

I've got a piece of old wood flooring from a previous project that I want to use to create a zero clearance insert for my miter saw.

But first, if we're just meeting, I'm Harley and this is the House of Hacks where I make stuff out of wood, metal and other similar material.

I'm going to be using a bandsaw to cut this to rough thickness and then a planer to get it to the exact thickness.

I'll also use the bandsaw to cut it to shape.

But if you don't have a bandsaw or a thickness planer, you can use hand tools: planes, files, sandpaper and a hand saw is really all you need to create one.

So, don't let not having certain tools stop you from doing a project.

Figure out a way using what you have to make due and get the project done.

Before starting this project, make sure the saw is unplugged.

First we need to remove the old insert. This will be used as a pattern for the new one to get the right thickness and the right shape.

It's held in by six screws. The last two screws are back here behind the fence and they're easiest to get to if the table is rotated to 45 [degrees] to reveal one screw and then the other 45 [degrees] to reveal the other screw.

And once the screws are removed, it just slides straight out.

Now that I have the plate out, I'm going to put it flush with the wood and make a mark for the thickness and then I'll put it on top and mark the outline.

OK. I have the bandsaw setup with the fence so that I'll get a cut a little bit thicker than I'll need and then I'll sneak up on the exact thickness with the thickness planer.

OK, again, this doesn't quite fit because I cut it oversized intentionally so I could sneak up onto a perfect fit using the sander..

OK, let's give this a test fit. It's looking really good actually.

Wow. I'm really pleased with that. There's no discernible movement in that whatsoever.

It's a really nice test fit.

I was wondering about putting the screws back in it and as tight as it is, I don't think I'm going to bother.

I'm going to see how well it works as it is.

It's time now to put a kerf in it and then do a test cut.

So, did it make a difference?

Let's take a close look and find out.

So, this is an interesting result.

Here's the original OEM insert with the old blade.

And here's the zero clearance insert.

To me, there's no real discernible difference. The look pretty much exactly the same.

Now, just for test purposes, I put a brand new blade on and used the original OEM insert and it is much, much cleaner.

So that tells me that the blade makes a much bigger difference than the zero clearance insert does.

Lesson learned: always have a sharp blade if you care about tear out.

I'll see you over here in these videos that YouTube thinks you'll enjoy.

And until next time...

Go make something.

Perfection's not required.

Fun is!

How To Make A Window Garden Box

Description

Interested in starting plants indoors? In this episode of House of Hacks, Harley shows how to make a window garden box. His wife setup a plant nursery in their window that needed a way to reflect light back onto the plants to help the plants grow straight. Harley attaches a white shade to reflect light back into the plants.

Here's a playlist of other gardening related videos.

Here at House of Hacks we do tutorials, project overviews, tool reviews and more related to making things around the home and shop. Generally this involves wood and metal working, electronics, photography and other similar things. If this sounds interesting to you, you may subscribe here.

If you’re interested in learning more about the House of Hacks' values, here’s a playlist for you.

And here’s the most recent video.

For a written transcript, go to How To Make A Window Garden Box

Music under Creative Commons License By Attribution 3.0 by Kevin MacLeod at http://incompetech.com.
Intro/Exit: "Hot Swing"
Incidental: "Rocket Power"

Transcript

Want to know how to make an indoor plant nursery?

Today at the House of Hacks, we're going to be talking about that.

My wife had this space in front of the window where she wanted to make a nursery for her plants.

So we got her some shelves.

These are chrome plated, kind of utility shelves that have wheels on them so she can move them around to make for easy maintenance, clean-up, that sort of thing.

Then we got her these trays.

These trays have two parts to them. One part has holes in the bottom that you put the soil in and the seeds.

And the second part is solid where you put the water in.

When you put this tray in here, the water soaks up from the bottom and waters the seeds, kind of through capillary action.

And in a couple weeks time, you get this.

The problem with this though is these plants are all leaning towards the window.

They get the sun from one side and there's not enough light coming in from the other direction.

So to solve that problem, we picked up this.

It's a outdoor roller shade and it just goes up and down and the idea is we'll mount it on shelves here and we can roll it down and it should reflect light back in from the opposite side.

We'll see how this works out.

The problem is that it's designed to mount on wood and the shelves are metal.

So, I'm going to have to make a mounting bracket for this to mount it.

And then we'll see how it works.

Welcome to the House of Hacks. If we're just meeting, I'm Harley and I make stuff. Usually it's out of wood or metal.

Today we're going to be talking about making garden materials for inside and we're going to be using a combination of these metal shelves and some wood.

OK, here's the plan.

The shade is just as long as the shelves are and so I can't put anything on top of the shelves and still have the brackets hold this on because it's just too long.

So, I'm going to use this longer piece of plywood and cut it down so the brackets will fit on here like so, and that'll hold everything together.

And then in order to hold this onto the shelves, I've got these two pieces of wood that I'll attach one on each side but close enough in where they'll both fit on the shelves.

And then I'll sandwich the shelf between these long pieces of wood holding this on and these two shorter pieces of wood in the middle just to clamp everything in place.

That's the plan. Let's see how it works.

I have the wood cut to length. I have the holes marked.

The brackets go right on there.

I've got these self-tapping utility screws that are short enough that they won't go through the wood.

And we'll just use the drill to put them in those locations.

And now I've got some longer self-tapping screws that I'll use to mount these two pieces of wood together.

Well, that's installed.

We'll see how well it works long term for helping the plants grow straighter.

Over here I'll see you in another gardening video.

And when making things remember...

Perfection's not required. Fun is!

Transform Your Photography: DIY Kaleidoscope Camera Attachment

If you're looking to add some creative flair to your photography, a DIY kaleidoscope attachment for your camera is a fun and easy project that will allow you to take stunning abstract images.

In this tutorial, we'll show you how to make this attachment using simple, inexpensive materials that can be easily assembled with just a few tools.

First, we'll start by cutting three strips of mirror using a glass cutter and a straight edge. Make sure to wear gloves and safety glasses for this step, as broken glass can be sharp and dangerous. If you have trouble getting a clean cut on the first pass, don't be afraid to give it another try. It might take a few tries to get the hang of it, but once you've scored the mirror, it should snap easily along the scored line.

Next, we'll tape the three strips of mirror into a triangle shape to hold them in place while we glue them together. Using a hot glue gun, run a generous bead of glue along each seam to secure the mirror in place. Hot glue is a great material to use for this project because it sets quickly and holds things together firmly.

With the triangular mirror assembly complete, we can move on to creating the mounting plate for the camera. Cut a piece of plywood to the desired size and drill two holes in it. One hole should be slightly larger than a 1/4 inch and will be used to hold the camera in place with a bolt. The other hole should be closer to the top of the plywood and should have a 1/4-20 t-nut for tripod mounting.

Finally, attach the triangular mirror assembly to the mounting plate using a couple of unions and a bolt. Make sure everything is securely in place before mounting your camera on the attachment. Once everything is set up, you can start shooting through the kaleidoscope attachment and creating unique, abstract images.

This DIY kaleidoscope attachment is a great way to add some creativity to your photography and capture unique and eye-catching images. With just a little bit of time and effort, you'll be able to transform your photography and see the world in a whole new way. So why wait? Gather your materials and get started on this fun and rewarding project today!

Additional resources

Originally invented by Sir David Brewster when experimenting with light, kaleidoscope comes from three Greek words. "Kalos" meaning beautiful, "eidos" meaning shape and "skopion" meaning to observe. So literally, "to observe beautiful shapes.”

There’s a great video talking about some philosophical ideas related to the kaleidoscope: Veronica Soare: We are kaleidoscopes

Here's another video featuring abstract photography: burning bulb filament.

Here at House of Hacks we do tutorials, project overviews, tool reviews and more related to making things around the home and shop. Generally this involves wood and metal working, electronics, photography and other similar things. If this sounds interesting to you, you may subscribe here.

If you’re interested in learning more about the House of Hacks' values, here’s a playlist for you.

And here’s the most recent video.

Music under Creative Commons License By Attribution 3.0 by Kevin MacLeod at http://incompetech.com.

• Intro/Exit: "Hot Swing"
• Incidental: "Welcome to the Show" and "Riptide"

Transcript

Interested in abstract images? Both stills and moving?

Today we're going to be doing this at the House of Hacks.

In today's project, I'm going to show you how to make this. It's a DIY kaleidoscope attachment for your camera.

It's basically a mounting plate that your camera bolts to and a triangular mirror assembly that can be rotated around if you want.

You just shoot through it and take a picture of whatever you want and whatever you're making becomes a kaleidoscope image.

This is easily made from inexpensive materials, most of this was actually just scrap that I had lying around from previous projects.

The only thing I really had to buy was a couple unions at the hardware store.

I think that was it.

Everything else I had on hand.

For this build, we only need a few materials.

I've got a base that's 3/8" thick plywood, 3 inches wide and 18 inches long. The dimensions aren't super critical.

I've got a 2x4 that I'll be using to make some brackets out of.

Two unions, ABS, 3 inches in diameter.

And a piece of 12 inch square mirror.

A couple tools that we need:

Some hot glue.

Some tape.

Glass cutter.

And a little bit of hardware.

I've got a t-nut, that's 1/4-20 and a bolt that's 1/4-20 that's long enough to go through the plywood and into the camera and a couple washers to make it so it snugs down tight.

I think that's everything we need. Let's start making this.

Welcome! If we're just meeting, I'm Harley and this is the House of Hacks where I make stuff, usually out of wood and metal.

Today it happens to also include mirrors, tape and a little bit of hot glue.

This is the base that, off camera, I drilled two holes in. One is a little bit larger than a 1/4" where the bolt will go through from the bottom and hold the camera in place.

The other is up here closer to about a third of the way up that has a 1/4-20 t-nut in it and this'll be for tripod mounting.

The dimensions of this piece are 3/8" thick plywood. It's 3" wide and 18" long.

The dimensions aren't super critical just as long as you have a good base to mount the camera to and it's long enough for the mirrors that we're going to be cutting.

OK. I've got the gloves on because I want to be safe.

We want three strips of mirror out of here that are 1 and 3/4" wide each and so I'm going to make a mark on where I want that cut.

And I'll lay a straight edge down on those marks. I've got the glass cutter.

We need to give ourselves a little bit of extra room to compensate for the thickness of the glass cutter.

We just press down firmly and we want to just do a single pass.

And then we'll see if this breaks. And I do have my safety glasses on.

And that didn't work too well. I don't think I was pressing down quite hard enough.

Generally, you don't want to try to do two cuts. You want to score it in the first pass. I'll give this another try.

That looks better. I should be able to just... snap it like so.

And we didn't get as good a cut as I would have liked.

If you notice, this edge didn't get cut very well. We'll try again.

And you should hear a creaking sound.

That's much better!

OK. So now we have our three pieces of glass.

And now I'm going to take a piece of tape and tape this into a triangle.

That's just a temporary thing to hold it while we glue it.

Now that we have the mirror in a triangle formation, temporarily held in place by the tape, I'm going to just use the glue gun and run a bead along each of the seams.

And this will be what really holds it in place for good.

We just want to take out time and run a very generous bead along each of the edges.

Hot glue is one of those things that I don't think is really given enough credit in the workshop.

It is a really handy material to work with when holding things together either temporarily or even permanently on projects.

It would be nice if it set up a little bit faster.

One of the cool things about this project is it doesn't have to be perfect. There's a lot of leeway for kind of imperfections that really won't show up in the final product.

This is definitely one of those cases where we're looking for utility over beauty.

OK. I'm going to let that sit for a couple minutes and let that really setup well.

The hot glue has setup and I took the temporary tape off and finished up the seams with some more hot glue there in the middle where the tape was.

And so now we don't really have any sharp edges on this glass. The corners are a little bit sharp but we don't have any cut edges exposed like we did before so we don't really need the gloves.

The next step is to wrap this whole thing in tape. That will do a couple things.

It will make it light tight along the edges so we don't have any light leakage.

It will also, if anything should happen to this and it should break, then it'll help contain the mess and won't get glass all over the place.

I've got some duct tape, so let's start wrapping this up.

Now I'll take the utility knife and just cut the edges here.

I think we have everything now ready to assemble.

The unions I have have a little tab on them from the manufacturing process and I want to put those on the outside of this assembly so I want to make sure I know where those are relative to the mounting brackets.

So, those just slide inside the mounting brackets like so, so now that'll help hold everything together so this part doesn't slide in and out as much.

And now, if everything is setup right, this should just kind of have a pretty snug fit inside these unions. And it's looking really good.

The tape gives it a good snug fit and if it's a little loose, you can just wrap a little tape around this and it'll hold it nice and tight.

So we've got one side in and now the other side should just kind of go in the same way.

And now we're ready to glue this down.

Now when I cut this, I did put one of these edges thinner. So I want to make sure that's on the bottom.

And then when this gets glued in, it'll be just like that.

We're ready to mount this.

I've got the camera bolted to the base plate so that I know exactly where I want to mount this.

So this will mount in front of the lens and I want to make sure that I have enough room for the lens to move in and out but I don't want it so much that I have a lot of light leakage around it.

I made sure I have the thin part of my wood down here and so I think that's pretty much where I want to put it is right about there.

I'll just turn this over and run a bead of hot glue along this edge.

Now I'll turn it over and I have a little bit of set time where I can get things lined up just right.

I want to try to get it as centered as I can and get it going as straight as I can with the camera going along the axis of the mirrors.

It's just a matter of letting the glue set now.

Assembly is complete. Let's go make some images.

I'll see you in this video where I show you how to make some other abstract images using light bulbs.

But in the mean time, let's go make some images.

Remember, perfection's not required.

Fun is!

Silverado Tailgate Won't Open - How to fix broken tailgate latch without tools

Description

Have a situation where a Silverado tailgate won't open? In today's House of Hacks episode, Harley shows how easy it is to fix a Chevrolet pickup tailgate latch that won't unlock. This is a simple job that can be done in minutes, without tools.

Silverado Tailgate Handle Rod Retainer Clips (Affiliate link)

Here at House of Hacks we do tutorials, project overviews, tool reviews and more related to making things around the home and shop. Generally this involves wood and metal working, electronics, photography and other similar things. If this sounds interesting to you, you may subscribe here.

If you’re interested in learning more about the House of Hacks' values, here’s a playlist for you.

And here’s the most recent video.

For a written transcript, go to Silverado Tailgate Won't Open - How to fix broken tailgate latch without tools

Music under Creative Commons License By Attribution 3.0 by Kevin MacLeod at http://incompetech.com.
Intro/Exit: "Hot Swing"

Transcript

Uh, oh! This isn't good.

I had this happen the other day... I went to open the tailgate and it wouldn't open.

So, let's tear into this and see what's going on.

The bezel doesn't have any screws on it at all and there's nothing on the back that would control the bezel, so I think it's just a press fit.

And... yep... sure enough... it just kind of snaps into place.

So, I pulled on the top and the bottom just lifted out.

And... yep... there's a rod in here that's not unlatching properly and has a little plastic piece on it. So, I think that's probably what's broken.

Welcome to the House of Hacks.

If we're just meeting, I'm Harley and I make stuff, usually out of wood or metal.

But today, I'm fixing stuff. Specifically the tailgate for a 2005 Silverado.

OK. So we can see this is floating free and it's broken off from this hole where it's supposed to be going in.

To take this off, all I'm going to do is rotate this down and then it just slides off the back of the rod.

And here's a good one. And you can see that piece that's broken off.

Now to put this back in, this needs to spring. It won't work if we put the rod on first.

We need to put this in the hole and clip it in first... like that.

And then slide the rod into it.

And then the clip comes up like so.

And we should be done.

That works well.

Now we just need to put the bezel back on. The bottom slides into place in a couple holes and the top snaps into place.

Cool! That works.

That's all in all, about five minutes worth of work once I knew what I needed to get done.

I was able to pick up a lifetime supply of these clips. There were five red ones which go on the left and five green ones which go on the right and these were less than $7.

So now, if this ever fails again in the future, I have plenty on hand. I'll leave a link to those down below in the description.

Over here on this side, YouTube has some videos that it thinks you'd enjoy. You can go check those out.

And until next time, go make something.

Perfection's not required. Fun is!

Workshop Safety Gear - Don't lose your faculties

Description

Do you want to live life without sound or sight or 10 fingers? Protect them! In this episode of House of Hacks, Harley presents basic workshop safety gear and some rules that everyone should follow to stay safe while making things. Topics include safety glasses and other eye protection, hearing protection and other lesser thought about items.

16 quick safety tips

Shop Hacks on dust collection and air filtration

Here at House of Hacks we do tutorials, project overviews, tool reviews and more related to making things around the home and shop. Generally this involves wood and metal working, electronics, photography and other similar things. If this sounds interesting to you, you may subscribe here.

If you’re interested in learning more about the House of Hacks' values, here’s a playlist for you.

And here’s the most recent video.

For a written transcript, go to Workshop Safety Gear - Don't lose your faculties

Music under Creative Commons License By Attribution 3.0 by Kevin MacLeod at http://incompetech.com.
Intro/Exit: "Hot Swing"

Transcript

[Norm Abram's voice] But before we use any power tools, let's talk about shop safety.

Be sure read, understand and follow all the safety rules that come with your power tools.

Knowing how to use your power tools properly will greatly reduce the risk of personal injury.

And remember this, there is no more important safety rule than to wear these, safety glasses.

I'm sure many of us remember Norm's sound advice from back in the day.

While an important start, workshop safety gear goes far beyond just safety glasses and we're starting right now.

Welcome to the House of Hacks.

If we're just meeting, I'm Harley and I make stuff out of wood, metal and sometimes other materials.

And sometimes I talk about other issues, such as today, for National Safety Month, I want to talk a little bit about shop safety.

To start, I want to acknowledge that if you watch some of my videos, I wouldn't be surprised if you found violations of some of what I talk about today.

In the home shop, ultimately, you're the only one responsible for your own safety and you have to make the judgement call about what to do and how to do it.

In my opinion, the two most important pieces of safety gear are eye protection and ear protection.

Anytime a power tool is used, or a hand tool with high forces, such as a hammer or a press, eye protection is critical.

Since I wear both glasses and contacts, I have solutions for both.

But even if you don't wear corrective lenses, it's a good idea to have both on hand in case you have visitors that stop by and need some.

And, while they're better than nothing, prescription glasses are not safety glasses.

In addition to safety glasses, for some operations, particularly if flying particles are involved, like using the lathe or a grinder, I like to have a face shield.

This provides additional protection for the eyes as well as some level of protection for the rest of the face.

After the eyes are covered, the next most important thing is ear protection.

This is something that for some reason doesn't seem to get as much attention, but in my opinion should.

This is something that I kind of got upset at Norm for, for not mentioning it more often in his show.

Our eyes are super sensitive and we know immediately when we get something in them, but hearing damage is much more insidious.

It tends to happen without us being aware of it and it's cumulative over time.

Many small instances of too much noise add up until it's significant.

Since we adapt as it worsens, we don't notice it until it causes problems in our interactions with other people, and by then it's too late.

So in addition to safety glasses, another must is either ear muffs that go over the ear or ear plugs that go in the ear.

I have and use both.

Ear muffs I use for shorter operations where I only need them for a limited time.

They're easier to put on and take off but they are more bulky and hot.

If I need hearing protection for an extended period of time, I personally prefer ear plugs.

They're a little harder to put in but they're more comfortable, they're not as bulky and they're not as hot.

I get a box of 200 disposable pair for about $20 a box and I use them not only in the workshop but also in the yard for yard work and when riding the motorcycle.

Another piece of safety gear that's not talked about as much as the first two is breathing protection.

Primarily involving wood working, like hearing damage, dust is one of those insidious things that causes damage over time.

I've heard reports of people that have gone without breathing protection for years and have no visible problems until one day they develop an allergy to either wood or wood dust that makes doing their hobby or profession either undoable or very uncomfortable.

One way of protecting your breathing is with filters and masks.

This can be anything as simple as a dust mask to a respirator or even something battery powered that provides positive pressure ventilation.

Examples of the last one, while expensive, also sometimes have built in eye protection and hearing protection.

In addition to dust, respirators should also be used with chemicals, but be sure that the filter you're using is appropriate for the chemical that you need to filter.

And also, dust respirators may not filter out chemicals and vice versa.

Another form of breathing protection is with really good dust collection.

Tony over at Shop Hacks has this down to a science and a really optimized system.

His shop air while he's running his table saw has a lower particulate count than the outside air.

Another unrecognized hazard, and something I'm become more aware of, is jewelry.

Anything loose can get caught in equipment, particularly things that rotate, and something that would have been a simple brush with the equipment becomes a serious injury.

Since I wear my wedding band all the time, I rarely think about taking it off when I come into the shop.

And this is something I've been thinking about: I need to do more proactively.

I've also thought about the option of getting a silicone ring and wearing it most of the time and only wear the gold band for dressy occasions.

Shop dress code is another item that's not talked about too much but is a safety gear concern too.

Briefly, a couple items...

Wear cotton. It's less flammable than synthetic material and not as prone to melt into your skin if something hot hits it.

Wear close-toed shoes or boots. Again, hot flying metal or falling off-cuts aren't going to penetrate leather. Never wear sandals or flip-flops.

Nothing loose. Always short sleeves. Make sure everything fits well and no ties.

I'd love to hear in the comments what you consider essential safety gear. Did I miss anything critical?

I'll see you in this video where I talk about 16 safety tips in two minutes.

And after watching that video, when making things remember...

Perfection's not required. Fun is!

Universal Mobile Base For Table Saw and other tools - Portamate PM-1100

Description

Imagine, what would shop life be like if you could easily move any tool around? In this episode of the House of Hacks, Harley opens, assembles and installs a universal mobile base for table saw. Used in this video is a Bora Portamate PM-1100 kit that is a DIY mobile base for power tools.

Portamate PM-1100 (Amazon affiliate link)

Here at House of Hacks we do tutorials, project overviews, tool reviews and more related to making things around the home and shop. Generally this involves wood and metal working, electronics, photography and other similar things. If this sounds interesting to you, you may subscribe here.

If you’re interested in learning more about the House of Hacks' values, here’s a playlist for you.

And here’s the most recent video.

For a written transcript, go to Universal Mobile Base For Table Saw and other tools - Portamate PM-1100

Music under Creative Commons License By Attribution 3.0 by Kevin MacLeod at http://incompetech.com.
Intro/Exit: "Hot Swing"
Incidental: "Riptide"

Transcript

Imagine, what would it be like if you could move your larger tools around the workshop?

How would a universal mobile base for your table saw or other tools change your workflow?

Would you have more flexibility for storage?

Would your shop be more space efficient?

Would your tools be easier to use for different sizes of materials?

Today at the House of Hacks we’re going to be looking at how to do this.

About 18 months ago, I went to my Dad’s to pick up some tools that had been my Granddad's. When I got back, I did a video of what I brought back with me and I'll leave a link up here in the cards.

Recently, I made another trip to pick up a few more things that had been left behind. Most notably was a larger table saw that had been my Granddad's and he'd built a base for it.

It's going to be a great upgrade to my current small one but it's much larger and won't fit in the workshop the way it's currently organized.

So I looked at what I needed and what I had and changed my approach to my shop's organization.

Previously, all my large tools were set and ready to use in fixed locations. This had the advantage of being quick to setup.

But it has two disadvantages. One is it takes more floor space because you have to dedicate room around the tool in order to work.

And two, you have less flexibility in your material handling in and out of the equipment.

In addition to the tools taking up floor space, I also had two 6' snap together utility shelves that contained various supplies and small bench tools.

I decided to change to a mobile layout where most of the large tools are on movable bases.

This will allow them to be stored closer together for more compact and efficient use of floor space and it'll give more flexibility for material handling.

This more efficient use of floor space will allow me to get the larger table saw in the workshop.

It does come at a cost though of more setup time.

To accomplish this, I did two things.

First, I split the two 6' shelf units into four 3' shelf units and then hung them from the ceiling.

This allows better space utilization closer to the ceiling and it frees up a lot of floor space.

Second, I converted a number of tools with fixed bases to have mobile bases.

This conversion is the topic of today's video.

But first, welcome to the House of Hacks.

If we're just meeting, I'm Harley and I make stuff out of wood, metal and sometimes other materials. And sometimes I talk about other workshop related topics.

Today, I'm going to be showing the assembly and use of the Portamate PM-1100 universal base kit.

On my previous trip to Dad's, I picked up a large saw with a base that Granddad had made.

I didn't have a permanent location for it, so for expedience, I picked up a mobile base with metal rails.

These metal rails have holes in them in fixed locations for adjustability, but because the holes are in fixed locations, you don't have infinite adjustability.

And so it didn't exactly quite fit the base that I already had. It ended up being about an inch larger than it really needed to be on both the width and length.

I looked around and found the Portamate PM-1100.

This is a hardware kit that has wheels and all the hardware to mount them to a piece of wood.

The piece of wood doesn't come with the kit. You'd make it whatever size you want.

So this allows me to have a base that's exactly the right size for the bases that I already have.

I'll leave an Amazon affiliate link in the description below.

With this design, there's two corners that are designed for the back of the equipment that only roll in one direction.

And there's two corners that are designed for the front with castors that allow you to change direction as you're rolling it around.

The castors are also designed with levers on them so they're up when you're using the tool and it won't roll around and you can push them down, the wheels drop down, lifts the tool off the ground and you can move it.

You supply a piece of wood to connect them at the desired size.

Plywood is usually best for strength purposes.

When I originally bought them, I was planning on just attaching them to the preexisting bases without using any plywood.

However, when I actually got them and tried putting them on, I realized there were toe kicks on the bases that interfered with the hardware raising and lowering mechanism.

So in order to put them where that would work, there wasn't enough material left to attach them to so I ended up going with the plywood anyway.

I cut some plywood left over from previous projects to the desired size, added the hardware to it and attached those assemblies to the bases.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Let's take a look at what's in the box and how to assemble them.

In the box are two bright orange pieces that are the levers for the cam activation and two plates to mount the castors to.

There are also four corner pieces and wheels.

Two corner pieces are designed for the rear wheels and two are for the front wheels.

There are also four flat plates that are designed to sandwich plywood between them and the corner pieces to provide extra support.

And all the needed screws, nuts and bushings are in a little baggie.

The rear wheel assembly is straightforward.

Using the appropriate bolt, put it through the axel hole from the inside of the base.

Place a bushing on it, the wheel, another bushing and then a nyloc nut on the outside.

Putting the second bushing on is a bit tricky due to the limited space but holding the wheel flat keeps gravity from working against you.

The front wheel assembly has a few more parts.

First put in the foot rest.

This is what will rest on the floor when the wheel is in the up position, keeping the tool from moving around.

It just screws into pre-threaded holes in the corner piece and is secured with a jam nut once the height is set as desired.

Then put a carriage bolt through the top square hole.

Put a bushing on the bolt followed by the orange piece, flat side up, followed by another bushing and pushed through the other side of the support.

A split lock washer goes on followed by a standard nut.

Put another carriage bolt through the other square hole and then the grey plate.

Note that the plate comes pre-lubricated with some grease.

Be sure to put the grease side towards the orange plate and don’t get it on you.

Push the screw through the assembly followed by another split lock washer and nut.

Finally, the castor can be put through the grey plate and secured with its nut.

This nut has a flanged surface that acts as a lock nut and goes toward the plate.

Next measure your tool base to determine how big you need to make your plywood and cut it to size.

The hardware is designed to work with either 1/2” or 3/4” plywood and comes with different length screws for each application.

Depending on the thickness you use, you’ll have screws left over intended for the other thickness.

With the plywood cut to the correct size, place the wheel assemblies on each corner and mark the hole positions.

Then drill the holes.

I used a drill press but you could use a hand held drill.

Just be sure to get them as straight as you can since there’s another metal piece that needs to match up on the other side.

There is some room for play, so it doesn’t have to have super tight tolerances.

But the closer you can get it, the easier it’ll be to get everything lined up.

Once all the holes are made, it’s time to attach the corner assemblies.

Put the corner piece with the wheel in place, put a flat triangle piece on top with the countersink side up and attach them with the appropriate screws.

Note that the bottom piece has a pre-tapped hole so no nuts are required for this operation.

Get all the screws started first, then make sure the corner assembly is tight to the wood before tightening the screws down.

Repeat this process for all four corners and the base is ready to attach to your tool.

How this is done will vary, depending on your tool.

In my case, I just used grabber screws to attach from the bottom of the plywood up into the bottom of the tool’s case.

My Granddad used 2x4 construction for the base’s frame, so there was plenty of wood to attach to.

You’ll have to figure out the best means of attaching this for your situation and provide your own hardware.

Once it’s attached, all that’s left to do is adjust the rubber feet on the front.

You want to adjust them so they support the weight of the equipment when the wheels are in the up position but are lifted off the ground when the wheels are in the down position.

Once in the desired position, tighten the jam nut so they will stay in place.

And, they’re ready to use.

I’ll see you in this playlist of other shop organization ideas.

And when making things, remember…

Perfection's not required. Fun is!