I received a Baldor metal grinder with 10-inch wheels, with a motor wired for three-phase industrial power. Three-phase power is not provided in U.S. residential homes, so I needed to power it from normal single-phase power. My solution was to build a balanced static phase converter, requiring only a few relatively inexpensive capacitors. (Much less expensive than that nuclear reactor I was considering.)

When I fixed up an old drill press, I found that the switch plate for the on/off switch was fairly worn. The original paint and lettering was worn away, so that the start/stop wording was almost unreadable. Even though I am clever enough to figure out that the big red button means "stop", it needed a clearly readable switch plate label.

I received a Baldor metal grinder with 10-inch wheels, on its own pedestal floor stand, discarded from a school metal shop program. Several owners before me did not know what to do with it, mainly because the motor is wired for three-phase industrial power which is not found in U.S. residential homes. My job was to fix it up and get it working.

There were two major tasks to the restoration: cleaning/repainting, and making the three-phase motor work.

My new grinder needed some task lighting for the grinding wheels. I decided to build a dedicated lamp for each side, controlled by the grinder power switch. This worked in perfectly with my latest obsession, I mean interest, which is LED lighting.

Any trained machinist will tell you that a drill press with a cheap jig is no substitute for a proper lathe. I'm not a trained machinist, so now that I've said that, let's get on to accomplishing something interesting.

In my quest for high-efficiency lighting, I came across a new idea for small household lights.

In our bathroom, there are two sconce lights (one on each side of the mirror) in addition to the main lights over the top of the mirror. The side sconce lights are not really necessary for adequate lighting, but they look nice and add some visual charm to the mirror. Therefore I saw them as good candidates for lower-energy substitutes.

Compact fluorescent light bulbs, or CFLs, have been generally available and affordable for consumers for quite a few years now. I've been using them for about ten years, and they have steadily improved during that time. Needless to say, they aren't perfect, but there are many ways to use them successfully.

It is not simple to make a new kind of light bulb which can replace the simple incandescent bulb in all situations and still provide significant energy savings. Some tradeoffs are necessary.

I have an old laser printer which does not have a decent standby power-saving mode.  I built a computer-controlled power switch for it, so the computer turns on the printer when there is a print job, then turns it off again later.

Many woodworkers have dust collection systems, which use suction and large pipes and hoses to collect sawdust and other particles from power tools.  For the hobbyist, these systems can be affordable, below $1000 for a decent system.  Naturally, I therefore wondered what I could accomplish with my old shop vacuum, some junk from the garbage can, and about 20 bucks.

As a handyman and hobbyist, I find there are many everyday plastic objects that can be used to make interesting things.  Some of the most common useful plastics, such as high-density polyethylene (HDPE) and polypropylene (PP) just cannot be glued.  But they can be welded with hot air.  You may be surprised at what you can make with an old plastic bucket and a heat gun from the discount tool store.

 

I recently borrowed this book from a friend, and found it very useful. I was already a fairly fast reader, but I had never investigated "speed reading".

I found that by following these techniques, not only did I read faster, but my comprehension improved. The book covers speed reading techniques and also related improvements in study skills for students.

After I made the mounting bracket, then I proceeded to create the blade guard and splitter.

I acquired a table saw last summer at a local estate sale for $20. It needed some repair, but looked like it was likely still in fairly good condition.

The label identifies it as a Powr-Kraft model TMG-3332A from Montgomery-Wards; date unkown. Looking at it, I guessed it was from the 1960s.

My used tablesaw came without a splitter/blade guard. This is an important safety item, so I am making one for the saw. The first step was to create a mounting bracket where it could attach.

I have been using LTSP for a while to turn old PCs into X terminals. LTSP works well for a desktop PC that can use PXE or Etherboot. LTSP does not work as cleanly on old laptops with PCMCIA network cards. In these cases, the kernel has to be installed on the laptop hard disk, but the rest of the LTSP installation runs from the server. When upgrading LTSP, the kernel on the hard disk gets out of sync with the modules on the server, and the laptops stop working as terminals.

I've been looking for a simpler setup for a laptop X terminal, and I've found ThinStation.