Windshield Washer Nozzle

Project:
Fixing our car's windshield washer nozzle

Difficulty Level (Easy, Medium, Hard, Insane):
Medium

Process:
Melanie told me there was something wrong with the windshield washer fluid so I took it in the shop and propped open the hood. I had Nathaniel push the windshield washer lever and I quickly realized that there was some sort of leak under the hood.

After further investigation I found that the windshield washer nozzle part that hooked up to the hose was broken.

Since I hadn't actually really used the Gingery Metal Lathe for anything yet it was time to start making it useful. I put a 12" piece of 1/2" aluminum rod, turned it down to 0.300" with a groove for an o-ring. The other end was turned down to 0.250" to connect to the fluid hose. At the end I drilled an 1/8" hole through the part, pushed it into the nozzle and the hose and that was it.

Pictures:

The nozzle with the broken off part on the left

The underside of the car hood

Close-up of the hose connecting to the nozzle

The aluminum rod in the lathe

Rough-cutting the part

The part with the o-ring installed at one end

Drilling the hole for the washer fluid

Close-up of the finished part before cutting it off

The nozzle installed again

Tools:
Gingery Metal Lathe

Drill
Hacksaw
Crowbar
Needle nose pliers
Calipers

Materials:
12" of 1/2" aluminum rod

Cost:
$0.00

Time:
1hr

Savings:
Probably about $30 or $40 bucks. Not sure how much a new nozzle would cost at the dealership

Conclusion:
It seems to work fine. There's still a tiny small leak but since the washer fluid is not used all that much I think I'll accept a couple of drops per minute of using it.

Baby Gate Hinges

Project:
Fixing the baby gate hinges my son broke by slamming the gate

Difficulty Level (Easy, Medium, Hard, Insane):
Easy

Process:
So my son had a fit and decided to slam the baby gate door so hard that the hinges broke right in half. Not sure where replacement hinges could be bought and needing the baby gate rather quickly I figured I'd use some of the left-over plastic resin I bought after the The Fix That Wasn't to make two new ones.

The process was pretty simple: make the pattern, create the mold then cast the new part except for usually I use my Propane Burner and Home Foundry to make them in aluminum but this time I used the Smooth-On two-component plastic resin.

The whole thing took about an hour and I've had the new hinges installed now for one day and it seems to have done the trick.

Pictures:

The broken hinges

Using crazy glue to temporarily fix them

Filling the cavity with playdo to strengthen cast

Preparing the mold

The alginate I used for making the mold

Universal release agent to make it easier to separate pattern and final cast

This hardens into a white plastic in 10 minutes

Pouring the alginate over the old pattern to make the mold

Letting it set for about 10 minutes

Once the cup was removed

Flipping it over reveals the pattern in the mold

Once I poured the plastic resin into the mold

The hardened resin

The rough casts revealed and the mold in the background

The new casts beside the old hinges. Note the hole is now filled in for the new hinges

After the casts were cleaned up and drilled

Ellie thinks it's the coolest thing ever

The installed baby gate with the new hinges

Close-up of the top hinge

Close-up of the bottom hinge

Tools:
Knife
Spoon
Drill
Sander
Hot glue gun

Materials:
Smooth-on alginate
Smooth-on plastic resin
3 paper cups

Cost:
$0.00

Time:
1hr

Savings:
No idea how much those brackets are

Conclusion:
Looks good. Not sure how strong they are. I guess time will tell

Winter Jacket Zipper

Project:
Replacing the zipper of my winter jacket

Difficulty Level (Easy, Medium, Hard, Insane):
Medium

Process:
When I originally bought my winter jacket, the zipper was an area of concern because the teeth were very fine. If I had to guess where it would break first that main zipper would have been the place. So just like I predicted, it started acting up on me a while back and I knew I'd have to do something about it.

Now, winter jackets are not that expensive. I think I paid $125 bucks for this one and I really could just go buy a new one but I figured hey, why not trying to fix it. When I found out that a replacement zipper was only $9 bucks I decided to give it a try.

First I had to take the old zipper out, which was a pain in the butt, then sew the new one back in. The only thing that made it a bit tricky is that since it is a winter jacket there are various layers that had to be sewn together at the right spot. Since I don't have a commercial sewing machine and I'm not a seamstress or whatever they're called if they're guys I did one layer at a time.

I almost gave up after one half took me an hour and a half but then I calculated the savings and even if the other side took me another hour and a half, I'd still end up getting over $40/hr in actual savings for my labor so I decided to go for it even though I don't particularly enjoy sewing.

Surprisingly, the second half only took me about half an hour so for 2hrs of work and $9 bucks I have a virtually brand new jacket.

Pictures:

Diagram of fabric layers

The faulty (original) zipper

Taking the old zipper out

After one side was done

Close-up of the old and the new zipper

The top of the new zipper after one side was done

The final product; good as new

Tools:
Sewing machine
Sharp knife
Needles

Materials:
Zipper

Cost:
$8.81

Time:
2hrs

Savings:
$126.80

Conclusion:
Everything seems good and the zipper works great.

Manganese (IV) Oxide Thermite

Project:
A simple and quick science project for our church kids

Difficulty Level (Easy, Medium, Hard, Insane):
Easy

Process:
Mixing 3g of fine aluminum powder with 24g of manganese (iv) oxide and lighting it on fire with a 4" piece of magnesium ribbon creates a very bright flash and a nice big cloud of smoke. Something I might mix up with the kids at church next science night.

I bought the manganese (iv) oxide and aluminum powder over 20 years ago when I first got into chemistry back in high school so I dug it out and it still works perfect. Maybe I'll try black powder next time...

Videos:

Pictures:

Aluminum powder

Manganese (iv) oxide

Weighing 9g of aluminum powder

Add 24g of manganese (iv) oxide

The magnesium ribbon that just arrived in the mail today

Tools:
None

Materials:
24g of manganese (iv) oxide
9g of aluminum powder
4" of magnesium ribbon

Cost:
$0.10 for the magnesium

Time:
20 minutes

Conclusion:
Awesome! I could totally have gotten into pyrotechnics...

Nativity Scene

Project:
Create two 4' by 4' nativity scenes, one for my mother in law, the other for my father in law's sister in law

Difficulty Level (Easy, Medium, Hard, Insane):
Easy

Process:
The process was actually quite easy: Get the wood, trace the template on a piece of plywood (my mother in law actually did that part), cut out the wood then sand the edges (Mel did this part). The only thing was that there was a LOT of cutting out and all the lines were curvy and squiggly. Nothing was straight and therefore the whole thing took pretty much the whole day to do but I do have to say, although I'm not much of a crafty-stuff-liking-guy it turned out quite nice.


Pictures:

This was the second time around. The first one was traced with a template (shown on last picture)

Cutting out the rough shape

Using the jig saw to fine-cut the pattern

Put together minus the two sheep

The finished nativity scene

Another angle

The original pattern

A picture of the final painted version aunt Ida sent me

Another view

Tools:
Pencil
Saw horses
Band saw
Jig saw
Sanding block

Materials:
2 sheets of 1/2 G1S plywood
Template
Tracing paper

Cost:
$85.00

Time:
8 hrs

Savings:
No idea what they would cost to buy

Conclusion:
It looked quite nice but probably one of my less favorite projects