Fixing My Sewing Machine

Project:
Fixing the bobbin pin drive mechanism of my (yes, my, not my wife's) brother sewing machine

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

Process:
The final stage of my Backyard Sun Shade Pergola project required me to sew the shade cloth to size which wouldn't have been a problem except for somehow my sewing machine stopped working. For those that don't know how to use a sewing machine, there are two places where the thread goes:

1. At the top on the actual spool
2. At the bottom in the bobbin

So when I wanted to transfer some of the uv-resistant thread to the bobbin, I put it on the bobbin pin, engaged the machine and although I could hear the machine spinning, the actual bobbin didn't spin.

After some investigation I found that somehow (and this is really weird), the rubber wheel that made a connection with the drive gear seemed to have melted off. I know it didn't actually melt because the machine never got hot enough. It almost looked like the rubber of the wheel was dissolved and dripped down into the machine. It was very sticky and gooey, kind of like asphalt. Because of that, it wasn't making proper contact with the drive wheel anymore and prevented me from filling up the bobbin with the thread I needed to sew the shade cloth.

The trickiest part was to find all the screws that held the two halves of the machine together, take those apart and then remove the drive wheel.

Once I had the bobbin pin out, I found a rubber seal/gasket that fit from one of my multi-purpose gasket kits, slipped it onto the bobbin pin and put it all back together.

Pictures:

After the two halves were separated

The bobbin pin from the top

The rubber wheel that somehow dissolved or melted

A close-up of the bobbin pin rubber wheel

Once the bobbin pin was removed

The rubber washer I put on the bobbin pin

A close-up of the new rubber "wheel"

Once the bobbin pin was installed again

Sewing the shade cloth for my backyard sun shade (link at top)

Close-up of the sun shade being sewn

Tools:
Philips screwdriver
Flat-head screwdriver
Needle nose pliers

Materials:
1 rubber gasket

Cost:
$0.02

Time:
1.5 hrs

Savings:
Not sure, but probably at least $100 bucks

Conclusion:
Works like a charm and the shade cloth is now all done

Backyard Sun Shade Pergola

Project:
Building a sun shade pergola in our back yard for my wife

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

Process:
My wife has always wanted some sort of a sun shade area in our back yard so she can watch the kids play and since our girl is still a bit too little to stay on our property without constant supervision, watching her from the deck just wasn't so practical.

I had been planning this for quite some time now, composed a sketch, got Mel's stamp of approval and then put together the lumber order.

This long weekend was a long-awaited (and I must say well-deserved) get-away trip for my wife and her sister. They were gone from Thursday afternoon until Monday evening all by themselves, no kids and I thought this would be the best time to surprise her with a fully finished shade area now that the weather is finally getting a bit nicer.

After they left I called the home depot to deliver my lumber just to find out that they couldn't do it until after the weekend so I had to improvise by packing up the 3 kiddos and lugging the lumber home in a few trips in the back of the van. NOT exactly what I had envisioned but once I got a project in the "GO" stage there's no stopping.

Thursday: After the first load of lumber was at my house and the girls were in bed I built a rigid frame and got my son to help me use a laser level (once it got a bit darker) to mark the 4 corners of the pergola perfectly level.

I dug out some 16"x12" pits, 8" deep and filled them up with 4" of gravel topped by 4" of concrete to the perfect height the back posts needed to be. Then I dug 4 holes (by hand, with the help of my neighbor's manual post hole digger and the kids who loved playing in the dirt), two feet deep and filled them with 4" of gravel and a 4" concrete base.

Friday: The next day, After another trip to the home depot with all the kids, I had the materials to get the basic frame started. I put up the posts and the support beams that would hold the rafters onto the concrete pads that had hardened enough to support their weight.

Once that was all done, I bundled up the girls (Nate stayed with a friend at his house), and drove up to Goguen Lumber in Cocagne to pick up the lumber for the roof as well as the railing because it literally saved me about $400 bucks than buying the lumber from the home depot. I should mention though that the price comparison is not quite "fair" as the home depot lumber would have been pressure treated whereas the lumber from Cocagne was not.

Once I had all the lumber at home and all the kids fed, bathed and put to bed I continued building the roof, then packed up for the night around 9:30

Saturday: After breakfast, while the girls were sleeping I spent about an hour in the shop cutting up the 4x2's into 2x2's and dato'ed the bottom and top plates for the railing. Once that was all done and the kids were fed I took them outside with me. While they played Nate and I finished the top of the roof and prepared the railing.

Once the girls were in bed (around 6:30) I put together the railing, the support struts for the roof, cleaned everything up and called it a night, again, around 9:30.

Monday: After a wonderful day off on Sunday and a great breakfast on Monday morning I filled in the area around the posts and cut up the shade cloth that I had ordered a few years ago for another one of my projects. Once I had it all cut to proper size, I wanted to sew up the edges nice and clean just to find out that something was wrong with my sewing machine so I had to Fix My Sewing Machine first. After that was done, all I had to do was put some hooks in the corners of the pergola and hang up the shade cloth. I am very pleased with how it turned out and my wife was very surprised and very happy with it.

Videos:

Pictures:

A sketch of what I envisioned

After I dug out the 3 patches for the rear posts

After the 8" holes were filled with 4" of gravel

Getting the kids to dig in the dirt for the front holes (they loved it)

First trip to home depot with the kids

After the vertical braces were installed for levelling

Installing the front 4x4 posts

The van loaded with lumber

After the roof rafters were installed

Getting ready for the 2x2s at the top

The kids observing

Half-way done with the 2x2s

After the 2x2s were installed

A view from the deck

Getting ready to install the railing

After the railing was almost done

All done

A view from the top bedroom

Close-up of sewing the shade cloth

After the shade cloth was hung up

Another view from the inside of the pergola

Tools:
Pick ax
Shovel
Bucket
Wheel barrow
Angle grinder with diamond blade
Drill
Hammer
Chop saw
Manual post hole digger
Van
Table saw with regular and dato blade
Chalk line
Level
Air nailer
Framing nailer
Compressor
Extension chords
2' step ladder
6' step ladder
16' extension ladder
Measuring tape
Pencil

Materials:
3 - 4x4-8' pressure treated (pt)
4 - 4x4-10 pt
2 - 2x8-24' pt2 bags of portland cement
2 wheel barrows of gravel
1 wheel barrow of sand
13 - 2x6-12'
20 - 2x4-8'
35 - 1x6 fence boards
10 - 2x4-10' pt
4 - 2x4-8' pt
2 - 4x8 sheets of "privacy plus" lattice
Galvanized 3-1/4" nails
3" Screws
6 - 6" lag bolts with washers
6 hooks
10'x14' shade cloth (80%)
1-1/4" staples for privacy lattice

Cost:
$600.00

Time:
25 hrs

Savings:
Probably at least $1000 to $1500

Conclusion:
It's really idyllic

Saving the Microwave at Work

Project:
Fixing the start button on the microwave from the kitchen at work

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

Process:
For about two and a half years the one microwave at work has been giving everyone a hard time in starting. After some time we all found the way to push the button just right (on the left push towards the center and down a bit) to get it working, sometimes after up to 15 seconds of fiddling around.

Well, I was off on leave for the last 9 months and kinda gotten used to getting stuff done so when I came back and saw that the microwave was still being a pain in the butt (well, a pain in the "finger" would be more accurate because you had to push that silly button so bloody hard...), I decided to have a "look" at it once and for all.

Out came the Swiss army knife during my lunch break and I took that thing apart just to find out that the soldering connection of one of the little metal connectors had broken loose. So I took the electronic display module off and took it home with me over the weekend, soldered it back in place and put it all back together Monday morning.

The lunch room conversation has been quite the entertaining event to say the least. I'm very pleased, not only that we saved the citizens of canada about $130 bucks but that we can now get through the lunch wait line twice as fast! Yeah for Swiss army knives and soldering irons!

Pictures:

The broken microwave in all its glory

After I took the case off

After I took the keypad module out

The keypad module

The broken connection (red circle)

Another view of the broken solder connection (red circle)

After it was soldered back on

Back in the kitchen fully functional

A nice coworker even made me a sign

Tools:
Swiss army knife
Soldering iron

Materials:
1/4" of soldering rod

Cost:
$0.00

Time:
20 minutes

Savings:
$130.00

Conclusion:
It better last or they'll be laughing at me during lunch time...

Bedroom Window

Project:
Fix our bedroom window

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

Process:
After one of our ridiculous snow storms back in February I was out on the back snow blowing my deck and noticed that somehow the bedroom window was cracked. We put a piece of black plastic on the inside to block out the light which (I'm assuming) heated up the window to such a high temperature that it cracked. That would also be the reason I didn't notice it until looking at it from the outside.

On one of my trips to Home Depot with my two oldest kids I asked the window guy if there was a way to just replace the window pane and not having to take the entire window out of the house so he showed me and it was actually remarkably easy to do.

Ordering the window took a little while, but the guys at Mitten (formerly Procana) have always been excellent in helping me out. And, they charged me less than $50 bucks. Way less than any other window place (the highest quote I got for the same window was $180 + tax)

All I had to do is jam my Swiss army knife can opener between the frame and the trim of the window, remove the 4 plastic trims, pull out the old pane, put the new one in and re-install the trim.

Aside from the double-sided tape that made it a little bit tricky to get the old window out and a few minutes of cleaning up that tape it went pretty smooth and was done in under an hour and less than $50 bucks.

Pictures:

The broken window pane

The plastic trim holding in the pane with some black duct tape residue

After the trim was removed 

After the window frame was cleaned up

Putting new double-sided tape on the frame

A view from the bedroom

The new window pane

After it was installed and putting the blackout plastic pieces back on

Tools:
Swiss army knife
Screwdriver
Hammer

Materials:
New window pane
Double sided foam tape

Cost:
$47.53

Time:
1hr

Savings:
Probably at least $100 bucks

Conclusion:
New and shiny now!

Ducati Cucciolo Kickstand

Project:
Create 4 kickstands and brackets for the ducati cucciolo.

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

Process:
This one was actually quite tricky because the brackets that screw into the cucciolo engine was originally created with a sand-cast/injection mold process. It had three different directions and not just up and down like most casts so when mom & dad came for a visit last month we must have spent 3 or 4 hours staring at that part and thinking how the heck we'd be able to cast this part.

After they went back home life got busy and a month later I finally decided to give it a go. The kickstand bracket was so complex that I ended up having to weld a metal insert just so I could position the part onto my sand mold without it tipping over.

First step was to fill in the drag, set the kickstand bracket with the metal insert on it and fill in the cope (top part). Afterwards I flipped it over and pulled out the bracket with the metal insert.

Second step was to put the kickstand bracket back into the mold and fill up the cavity that the metal insert left with sand/sodium silicate to create the core with the ribs on the side.

Third step, empty the drag, put it upside down on the cope and fill it with green sand.

Step four, take off the drag (which is now on top), flip it over to where it belongs, pull the kickstand bracket (with the core) out of the cope

Step five, pull the core out of the kickstand bracket and set it flat on the drag

Step six, clean up the cope, cut the runner, the in-gates, etc and put the cope back on top of the drag

Do this 6 times in a row! Took me about an hour the first time and by the end I got each mold made in about 45 minutes, not including the actual casting

Step seven was the fun part: melting aluminum and filling it into the mold, wait for 30 minutes and shake out the mold.

Step eight was cleaning up the casts with the table saw, a SS rasp and lastly with the angle grinder.

Phew, I am glad it's done! Now I can ship them off to England and Quebec where the guys live are that ordered them...

Pictures:

Welded metal insertto fill in the gap in the kickstand bracket and to keep it from wiggling

Insert in the bracket

Put the bracket, runner and risers on the drag

Baby powder to keep the cope sand from sticking to the drag sand

Put the cope frame on

Filling the cope with sand

After cope was filled and compacted

After cope was scraped off

Separate the cope and the drag to reveal the bracket, metal insert, runner and risers

Pulling the metal insert out of the bracket

The metal insert after it was removed

Pulling out the bracket

After the bracket was pulled out

put the bracket back into the cope

Using silica sand and sodium silicate (40%)

Using CO2 to harden the sand

Silica sand/sodium silicate core in the cope

Baby powder drag and putting the drag on top of the cope

After drag was compacted with green sand

Drag was scraped off

Separate the cope and drag

Pull the bracket with the sand core out of the cope

Remove the core from the bracket

Placing the core back on the drag

Preparing the in-gate and risers

Firing up the furnace and pour

After 30 minutes, shake out the parts

The rough cast

Amazing how the details of the screw shows up

The spent cores

After clean-up. The bottom center is the original bracket

The ridges that made this part so ridiculously hard to cast

Another angle

Turned out quite nice I must say

The legs that go with the brackets. I only made 4 last month with my dad

Another view of the kickstand legs

Tools:
Foundry furnace
Green sand
Copes and drags
MIG welder
Oxy/Acetylene torch
Angle grinder
Ear muffs
Goggles
Gloves
Knife
Spatula for the auto body filler
Markers
Measuring tape
Channel lock pliers
Hammer
Table saw
SS rasp
Screw driver

Materials:
4" piece of 2" pipe for the metal insert
Auto body fillerfor the metal insert
Aluminum cutting oil
Silica sand
Sodium silicate
CO2 tank

Time:
15hrs total (10hrs for brackets, 5hrs for kickstand legs)

Conclusion:
I hope it is acceptable to the people that ordered it.