Steam Punk

This isn't my toilet, I just like it. One day when there is water in my shop I will build one.
I spent today working on my vest plans, and doing a bit of research on line for cool ideas. I discovered Steampunk, and Teslapunk, which is a modern style I am quite fond of. I think there is a lot of interpretation to the style so I won't attempt to describe it, and leave it to anyone to google it and come up with their own theory. But it got me to thinking about my anoying cell phone that I am always losing, and don't really use much. I still think the 80s brick phones were better. Until I get an Iphone, I would like to get another brick phone, and embed my "digital" motorolla into it. Just for a good laugh, and fun. Sort of make a fully functional modern brick phone. Well you should see what brick phones are going for on Ebay! I feel a bit sick that I threw mine out... I think. Anyway, if anybody still has a brick phone, hook me up. I might be able to snipe one on ebay for as little as $50, otherwise the "buy it now" prices are $100-$400.

I am terribly disorganized without my office/man cave, so I will note this on the blog, where I know I can find it again. Guaranteed I will want to build something cool when I get back from Mexico, and I won't be able to remember the stuff I need. I found this cool stuff for making plastic things. It is called Shape lock. It is like play dough plastic. I think you boil it, then its play dough like, and when it cools it is plastic. This is next level for creating cool stuff. I haven't looked into it for years, but it was $20,000 to get a plastic mold made 10 years ago. Now one off inventions can be formed on their own, with a tub of Shape Lock, that costs less than $14. Very exciting, maybe I am easily excitable these days. I'll blame it on the egg nog lattes, I have been over dosing on. If I wind down after christmas I will have to find a spring source for egg nog.

Birthday

Seems the new Blogger version has "better image handling" but the add image link is missing, so back to the old blogger.

Michelle got me a super cool tractor cake, for my birthday, and a bunch of work pants, and jeans, along w a nice new pair of jeans. Seems I gained 20lb over the last 4 years and my plethora of jeans don't fit and rip constantly. I was down to one pair, until today. But thats not all. Since my new tig welder I have found it more difficult handling a torch and welding rod in different hands. It makes some sexy welds and I love it, but the other day I flipped my welding helmet up, with my work still red hot, torch tip red hot, and rod red hot. I was distracted by the beauty of my new weld in the day light. and wanted to continue it, after I got my torch aligned, and then my rod aligned, my helmet wouldn't go down. So I used my gloved hand and put my visor down, but I was also holding the, previously red hot, tig rod in that hand, and somehow it tagged my nose as I put the visor down. So I had a burnt red nose for a week. So Michelle bought me an auto tinting welding helmet with flames on it. I Tigged up a broken light stand this morning, so we can make videos of making electric vests. The helmet was amazing, so happy w it.

My jogging 3 times a week program quickly turned into once a week, if the weather is nice. So I have been jogging twice so far. Both times I got the hick ups from running. Very aggravating. Into my second day of the hick ups today, they usually last a couple of days. Still kind of confused as to what causes them, but previously they were just caused by drinking, which I believed caused heat burn, which seems to go along w hick ups for me. Maybe I should drink more water when I run.

Very exciting

Blogger has new webmaster tools, and I can see how my blog rates in searches. Number two for a "possum killer" search. Thats amazing, but I can see why, being slightly educated in the art of Search engine optimization.

file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/Malcolm/My%20Documents/My%20Pictures/possumanimation3.JPG
I upgraded Blogger, now I am not sure how to put pics in, but this is a pic of the edited possum, tried to put more life in him and move his hand so it doesn't look like his tung stickin out. If the pic shows up.

I have been talking to the plasma cutter guy. This is very exciting, how many people do you think are going to buy plasma cutter plans? I mean how many people even know what a plasma cutter is? He has been selling plans for one year, sold 700, without the affiliate programs. That is amazing! If a guy can come up with 10 different plans, directed at tiny markets like the plasma cutter, your making $70,000 a year. So I am even more focussed on the heated vest plans I am making. Then Electric bike plans, they will sell for more, but we will see if that effects the number of sales. But its all relative, you can buy a vest for $100 or buy plans for $10. You can buy an electric bike for I think $400 these days, but so I think $40 is an appropriate price for plans, and that will branch off into several different plans $40 each or 2 for $60 kind of thing. I have so much to say about electric bikes. Wow exciting.
Then I think it plans to build a kayak from 2x4s would be appropriate, and I will make a beautiful spruce strip kayak with that how to plans.
By then my truck should be back together, although I havnt even taken it appart yet, I can make the "how to run your truck on waste vegtable oil plans, have to just undercut the market on them, at around $40, or just make basic plans for $10 even, for those who have skills to figure stuff out.
"how to chop a yamaha special 650"
"10 modifications you can do to your car to get 20-50% better gas mileage"
"how to chop 3" out of the roof of an old dodge truck"
"how to shoot 10' flames out the exhaust of your hot rod"
"How to make a motorbike run on diesel and get 70mpg"
"How to fix old lawn tractors" I think I have 3 in the yard for examples.
All stuff I enjoy doing, and its kind of fun to film, and write about. If a guy is thinking of changing his breaker panel to a bigger panel, to get more breaker spaces, by himself, he would jump at the chance to buy a $10 video of qualified electrician doing the same job, with commentary. All stuff that takes time, and effort, potentially small markets, but I know I would buy every one of those plans for $10 just for the entertainment value, to see how someone else does it. Whats $10, nothing, till you sell 1000 plans, then you got $10,000. Thats just 30 sales a day to make $10k a month.

Near Disaster

Some art work I am playing with for the side of the truck and trailer. Any opinions are appreciated.

Yesterday was almost a disaster. I went to tie in the garage, and some other electrical work in South Edmonton, and electricuted my pliers. I didn't even get a shock w the nicely insulated handle, but I hate having a big notch out of the cutters of my pliers now I have to buy another pair. That wasn't the worst of it though. I pulled in to Tim Hortons for lunch, and I couldn't get into my parking spot. It was slightly up hill to park by the door, the parking lot was slopped up to the building, and the parking lot was sheer ice. With a little back and forth action, spinning the tires like mad, I eventually got up to an acceptable point, and decided this is as good as it gets. I think I just took my foot off the gas and threw it in park, which is normally acceptable when the truck is stopped as it was. But this time the back wheels were doing some 80ish km an hour, when I threw it into park. Well it made a lot of angry grinding noises and then felt like it engaged. I got out and it was rolling backward out of its parking spot. I went through my truck and found the dead low voltage heat control transformer from Kim's place, so I jammed it under the front wheel till I could have something to eat. After eating the truck hadn't made any ground down the hill, and it let me pull the transformer out without effort. So I opened the door and tried pushing it back wile watching the back tire, sure enough it just rolled, wile it was in park. I BLEW PARK OUT OF MY TRANSMISSION! No surprise, it pissed me off that I own 3 broken trucks now, and I was kicking myself for not getting on the Ranger rebuild faster. I drove back to the job and finished it, then drove home, and only in Andrew do I know of another hill, at the railway crossing, where I could try Park again. In hind sight, The differential works the same in Park as it does in drive, only locks one wheel, and so the passenger side wheel was locked and sliding down the ice, wile the drivers wheel rolled over the ice at Tim Hortons. I think its time to fix the emergency brake, and the Ranger.

My Tig welder works great. And now I am thinking next level, had I paid 3x as much I could have gotten a name brand inverter welder, that also does plasma cutting. The tig torch is essentially manipulating a plasma arc, so why can't I just buy a $50 plasma torch, hook it up to my welder and an air supply. Well there seems to be a potential problem starting the arc. Research found a guy, after my own heart, that made his own plasma cutter, and sells the plans for $10 with an affiliate program. I will buy these plans and feature them in the glorious web sight that I haven't made yet. But it got me thinking about cool stuff I could do, and make money doing it.

So I wanted to see if anybody had made a cool heated shirt like me, and tells how to do it. I found a kit available for $35, heated wire and plug, build your own, I am sure I can put th kit together for less than $10. And with a lot of lengthy research I did find a few home made vests, but they don't go into much depth. Now this is probably because the demand isn't there, and therefore the money isn't there. But I am going to give it a go anyway, it is something that I am passionate about and I could not live in a better market than northern AB. Detailed plans for $9.99 or the whole kit for $35. That would be really easy to search engine optimize and be the first to come up in google. With digital delivery, the world is my market. The real fun is essentially getting paid to go on biker forums post my opinions and a link to my cheap plans. This research has also spawned the possible cheap heated floor, and the heated coffee mug that is not in the form of irritating deep hard to clean plastic travel mug. Also the USB heated mug. Exciting stuff. Plus its all electrical, so its all Possum Electric work.

Jogging

Monday
I did a second trip to the mall this year, that almost killed me, I hate the mall. But I was really not sure where else to find running shoes. I am very upset that the apple store is in the West Ed mall and will probably require another trip to the mall, to check out the Macs. Hopefully I can postpone that till next year. Point is I got running shoes this weekend. I went for my first run this morning, and wow it was harder than I expected. I ran 2 of the 3 country blocks to the post office. I was out of breath my lungs hurt, and I could feel joggers nipple coming on. On Wednesday I will run all the way to the post office. I feel a lot more out of shape after my run than I did before. It even gave me the hick ups for a few min, not the 5 day hick ups that drinking gives me.

talked to Larry today, asked if I could get paid for work done, and he said "no". Money is too tight till the end of the month, then he intends to get a mortgage on the property, and pay everybody w borrowed money. This the same day as my EI claim ends. I am going to go against my better judgement and put another day in working for Larry and just have his bill ready for the end of the month.

Tuesday
I registered my electrical business. PK Electric was taken, I didn't want to always be stuck w Possum Killer Electric, so I registered Possum Electric, kind of random. The woman at registries didn't believe that it was me on my drivers licence at first. I have gaind 20lb in the last 4 years. But I got er registered. Then I went to the bank and got a business account. And the money starts going out. Business account fees, $0.95 for each deposit even. Then checks are $150 for 100, its $250 for the ability to accept visa/mastercard and thats not including the monthly fees, and the extra .9% they tack on to the 1.9% because I am not paying $70 a month for a machine, and I will do the credit cards over the phone. I feel I should have done all this when I get back from Mexico, but it is done now, kind of exciting. I worked last night, and I will work again tonight, for Larry, I told him I will need 2 checks, since he can't pay me yet. One personal, for up to today, and one business for today and after. I have a visa application in, but I should get a company master card, since Tim Hortons doesn't take visa. Now I have to get new business cards, paint the name on the truck and trailer. I am thinking I will go door to door in a local new subdivision and pass out cards and fliers for finishing basement wiring. The contractors that are building are not interested in finishing basements at all. If I get limited business because the basements aren't framed, I might get into the framing and wiring, might just do it all, but hire out the mud and taping, I know a few guys that do the drywall finishing. But first things first, I still have finishing to do on Larrys place, and mad paper work for accounts everywhere, plus I have to find paper work for the bank. I will include a pic o Larrys house in Veg, that is just about finished.

Tom Tom Problems

Tom Tom GPSs are garbage. I paid a little more for a Tom Tom at Wallmart. That is compaired to the Nextar that failed me with a software issue. The Tom Tom pissed me off rite away, firstly because it wouldn't turn itself on when the car turns on.
It wouldn't set its own time, I had to manually set it. I put in 50 street Edmonton and it said there are no addresses on 50 street, that is the biggest bunch of bull I ever heard. Tom Tom wouldn't let me set the voice to british, I had to listen to an american telling me where to go, which makes it all worse. All this and Canadian tire telling me they won't take GPSs back, made me want to return it. The experience was painless and smooth at wallmart, they had no problem, and I even told them about Canadian Tires polocy. The Wallmart GPS guy said there is no problem returning anything there, even if you want to return a GPS after a road trip. So I bought a nice Garmin, which is 10x better than Tom Tom. I also decided to boycott Canadian Tire. There is no reason to go there w their half ass customer service, and "customer is NOT rite" attitude. I need a new tire for my truck, and they are pretty much the only gig in Vegrevill here, but I will wait till I get to any other store to replace it.

My possum killer postal van sold for $9266.00 in the end. That makes me more certain that I will do the same paint job on the old Dodge. Today I have painted the spare rally wheel a similar burnt orange, we'll see what it looks like tomorrow, and paint another one.

Test drove a Nissan Cube today. I was very unimpressed with the dealer, and their pressure sales bull. They wanted a down payment to hold the brand new cube. We didn't even specially pick it or anything. We were there for 2 hours and left still not knowing what the cash sticker price was, what the gas mileage is and what the towing capacity is. Just the run around on all the questions, "but how much can you afford to pay per month?". I will not be going back to that dealership, or any other 25 owned by the "go auto group", which I believe is the culprit here.

New hot tub toy

I made my steam engine, and boat to put it in. It is very impressive. It just runs off a birthday candle. When I have the cover off the tub I will measure it and time the boat to see how fast it goes.

My oil furnace experaments are going ok. All that is holding me back from making the perfect oil burner, is a small metal lathe. And my favorate store, Princess Auto, puts them on sale all the time. But for the Lathing I need done, I should just find a machinist. The home made burner works a lot like a fuel injector, and is called
a babbington burner.

I noticed a commonality, between all the "hot" furnaces that you can shut off, and my wood stove. Simply put, they have a forced air feed. So why not put a forced air feed in the wood stove, and I could shovel coal, wood, oil, whatever I want in there. 20-25psi seems like a resonable presure. I thought the old "Cambell Hause...whatever" Canadian tire compressor would be great for this job. It was a freebie, as it couldn't keep up at the jobsight on Parker, Thanks Sarah. It has been made obsolete w the new Dewalt compressor that failed multiple times on the jobsight for Ron. Then he moved and couldn't bring himself to haul the broken equipment, another freebe. I fixed it, and I don't have a crew of guys waiting on it if it breaks again. Off on a small tangent there, but I was shocked at how poorly
the Cambell keeps up, even at 20psi. I tried to dial its pressure down from 130psi to a simple 40-60psi but the factory regulator screws don't really adjust anything. Screwed all the way out, its still 130psi. In order to run my new furnace
system I will use a bigger air tank, and a new pump switch.

I put together the brake drum oil burner tonight, and it kinda failed, just burned like a kerosene lantern. I think maybe if I make an oil preheat, and preheat the burner w alcohol this time instead of crumpled paper, I might have more success. Also not sure of my air inlet angle, I have it coming in on the side, so it spirals the flames around. But not sure if it is really helping. Shall play with that more another day.

The airbagit.com guys really loved my cheasy vid. They have it posted on their websight, and they are sending me a
bunch of free fittings.

Did I mention I bought a back up camera for the truck. It does work slick for hooking the trailer up, but i wanted it for the back of the trailer. Its a joke being "wireless" because it still needs to be wired to 12 volts, and then the
wireless doesn't work well at 30' back on the end of the trailer. I am taking that back today, wat a waste of money. I will buy a $10 'wired' webcam for the back of the truck to hook up the trailer, and just not back up the trailer in
busy areas.

New gate

An attempt at embedding my first youtube vid. Made this for Tom at airbagit.com, just cause I accidentally typed their name into youtube when I wanted to bring up their web site, and there was a negative vid on there about them. But they were so helpful to me, and I am so happy w my airbags, I had to make a positive vid. I picked up another package from the post office today, and the "Post Master" didn't say a word to me.

More related to my life, lets see if I can put my new gate vid on here after this paragraph. Its kinda boring, but I made it for Michelle wile she is in Kelowna.


I am finding it is not too cold yet, but it is still cold to be working in my shop. I love the new extra large fire place in there, Thanks Kim, but I hate leaving it burning when I am done in the shop, and I never spend that long in the shop. That whole shop is a big tinder box and asphalt shingles to boot. Plus I would like more heat. So I am going to make a used oil burner "furnace" that goes inside the fireplace. It will be made from large brake drums, and will get red hot, thats why its going in the fire place, to minimize fire hazards. But it won't throw sparks out the chimney, it won't create a lot of ash, and when I go inside to eat I can shut the fuel off, and hazard is eliminated. I have to work tomorrow afternoon in Vegreville but in the morning I am going to Darelle's wrecking yard, to find some drums, get a hood pin latch for my tractor loader dump, and pull the windshield from the bronco, being in better shape than the Rangers.

I got my steam engine half done today, I need to pick up a couple parts for it in Veg tomorrow, and I can finish it. So excited, which is silly cause it is a simple engine made from beer cans, but it is so cool.

Possom Killer

Why am I attracted to these old project vehicles? This one is being sold on Ebay, as a project, not sure what all is wrong w it, but its stated that it has no heater, and no wipers. It looks cool though, I really like the look. Hopefully its not the square postal look of this truck that I like, because I can replicate most of its look on my ol dodge quite easily and inexpensively. Not sure how best to change the square trim lines to fit the dodge, but I just have to learn to do the faux wood texture and I can paint over the white that I really don't like on my truck. Its funny I never really liked the red and white paint job, and here I have 2 trucks w identical paint jobs, the dodge and the ranger. Once I have another truck going (Ranger), I will retire the dodge to the garage for new paint and motor for a summer. Should be very exciting, I want to start it today, but I have to drive it.

I like this old ice cream truck name too, "Possum Killer Garage". Maybe I will name my company "Possum Killer Electric" and I can do a little drawing of a cute little possum, or possum pelts. I might have a chance at getting that name anyway, and I think it is a bit catchy. It demands a double take.

I have always wanted to make a steam engine, and finally found a simple candle powered steam engine that is used in toy boats and it doesn't take too long to build. Very excited about that, and a new hot tub toy to race back and forth.

I bought new glass latte mugs, which are really nice. Makes the latte feel even more fancy, seeing the distinked layer of foam and coffee. But it really shows what a bad dishwasher I am too, w spots.

Exciting update.

Just for the sake of having a picture, this is from the Toronto Zoo, from this summer. The sting ray/shark petting zoo. Called something like "Manta Ray Bay" Guess its only the sharks and rays that don't have scales, and can be petted.

I got my air bags from the post office on Saturday, without a bribe or fake ID. Of coarse the saturday woman didn't know me, and I hadn't alerted her to the issue at hand. So the truck is all fixed up now, no more axle hits frame bang, on the bumps.

I decided to pull the engine in the Ranger, and called the blockshop to order up a new motor, and they told me they can't even get parts to rebuild my old motor. I got all discouraged and didn't pull the motor. But not all hope is lost. They figure that Mitsubishi probably used a similar motor in a european car of some sort. Because Mitsubishi made the motor for Ford, for just 2 years, and it didn't sell that well, Ford and other supliers have stopped carrying parts. So it is going to take a bit of leg work to track down the parts, and no doubt they will be expensive. I did find some on Ebay, water pump and crank bearings. But I am not going to spend any more money on it till I get the motor out, get the #'s off it and see what Mitsubishi can do for me. If the European diesel trucks and delivery wagons make it to Canada before that happens, the Ranger might get scrapped, or get a 302 V8 or something silly. I'll start that when I finish the lawn tractor loader this week probably.

Michelle has gone to Kelona for 4 days, this week to visit Shireen. She took the bus, a 15 hour drive, kinda crappy, but same price as driving, just a few more hours. Plus her car really needs new front tires, they are rite down to the steel belts. I will take care of that this week, I had thought they were brand new tires when we bought the car, but they must be the original tires the car came with, cause I don't think she quite has 100,000km on it even yet, and no more than 40,000 since she bought it.

Tractor implements.

A week ago, Michelle came home from School on Friday all wheezy and having trouble breathing, so I took her to the hospital. Well they admitted her all weekend, and had her on breathing masks most of the weekend. She came home all better Sunday night, but word had got to her boss, so she had Monday off. She wakes up on Monday morning having trouble breathing, and says "I want my mom to take care of me". So we called her mom to see what she would do to take care of Michelle in this case. She says, "cook a goose, collect the grease, and rub the stinky grease on her chest." After getting cooking instructions I failed to fine a Goose for sale anywhere. Two people had said to talk to the Hutterites, and so I did. On the phone a gentleman said to go to the Hutterite kitchen and ask for Goose Lard, but they could not sell me a goose cause they were not government certified. So I went to the Kitchen, and the Ladies are like "What on earth are you going to cook w goose lard?" I said "My wife has really bad bronchitis" and they got all excited "oooh, I will give you some fresh chicken broth for her to sip on too." So that worked out well, and maybe it even helped clear Michelle's lungs at night.

I almost sold my little Ranger truck for $1000, then the guy talked to a mechanic, and was told any motor w a blown head gasket should have a complete rebuild. So I think I will have to do that, completely rebuild it. I worked out how much fuel I used in my big dodge, and it is quite sick, 28 liters a day, on average. It costs me only $500 a month, because its propane @ $0.60 a liter, and it is hard to compete with that. Anything else I drive would have to get better than 20mpg on gas to cost less. With the ability to tow the new work trailer, a sprinter van is the only competitor. The Ranger only gets 20mpg, but maybe if it was rebuilt it would do better, subsidized w some biofuel, thats big savings. I am going to pull the motor before we leave for Mexico, then put the Ranger back in back yard storage, and park the new trailer in the garage.

Some how I came across front end loader plans for lawn tractors. How cool is that? But after putting a hydraulic pump, and rams on the lawn tractor your looking at $1200+ in cost, not so cool any more. Plus you need rear weights, and the front wheels and spindles need to be replaced w heavy duty ones. I thought a rear loader would be the way to go. I found a "Johny bucket" available online, but it is still a front end deal, and doesn't lift very high at all, plus an $1800 US price tag. It is neat though, theres a 16 sec vid here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8DPRnmqv8LY
I had made a 6' blade for the bronco, but never installed it. Since taking 5 hours to try and start the old bronco the other day, I got it hauled away cause it pissed me off not starting. for a test, and functional implement, I cut the blade down to 4' and made a 2 point "sleeve hitch" type thing on the back o my tractor. Last night I had it all spot welded together w my new welding inverter, and I load tested it to 200lb. That is good enough to start building the bucket, though I am hoping it will be good for to lift at least 300lb, I broke one spot weld last night, so with the finishing welds this morning we will see.