Take the Hong way home!

Mom's Birthday Present

2011-10-07T18:54:00.000-07:00

It has been ages since I posted an entry into my blog, but I recently completed a project that I am pretty proud of, so I figured I would share a picture and explain how it was made. This is a necklace rack that I built for my mother as a birthday present.

The base is a disk that I cast out of aluminum a while back. I machined the casting and added a step to it using my 1943 South Bend Lathe (thanks to Kirk Stephens for one of the coolest gifts ever). With the disk machined, I set forth to do another casting. Being sick of the smell and soot of using a charcoal fueled foundry, i decided to upgrade to a propane burner. I got the design of the burner from the web. It was designed by Ron Reil. He has an excellent website. I actually had most of the burner built a while back, but was waiting for the right time to approach the minister of finance about buying the high pressure regulator, hose, and propane tank. Well, last weekend was the right time, and with my purchases in hand, i finished the burner, fired up my new gas fueled foundry and cast the cube at the top.

The new burner worked very well and cut the melting time in half or less, compared to using charcoal. It didn't smell at all, and I was very pleased with it's performance. I quickly got the furnace up to temperature, and with the sand mold ready, I poured the first melt using my new burner. After the cube was cast, I chucked it up in my four jaw chuck and faced off all six sides using my lathe. The next step was to create the center post. This started off as 3/4 inch round aluminum stock, I secured one end with the 3 jaw chuck, and the other was center drilled and supported with a dead center mounted in the tailstock. I machined this part, and then center drilled both ends about 1/2 inch deep with a #7 drill bit. The holes were then threaded with a 1/4-20tpi tap.

With the center post finished, I center drilled the base disk and threaded it with the same thread as the post. The cube was next and I drilled straight through the center of two adjacent faces, and halfway through the bottom face. I tapped the holes with the same 1/4-20tpi tap and then used 1 short length of threaded steel rod to attach the base to the centerpost, and another piece of threaded rod to secure the cube to the top of the centerpost.

The four arms started as 1/4 inch round bar about 6 inches long each. I turned a recess on one end, and threaded about 3/8 inch of the other end using the lathe. The quick change gearbox on the old south bend can make just about any standard thread pitch. After finishing the four arms, I threaded them into the cube and VOILA, my project was finally finished.

Seasons

2009-04-14T16:01:00.000-07:00

While I do enjoy winter, spring is a whole lot of fun. You can still do winter sports like snowboarding, skiing etc, but then the door to summer fun is open as well. Mary and I just got back from a fun 40 minute motorbike ride, and we are planning on doing some more rock climbing in the very near future. My Bike needs a bit of work, and I think that some new steering head bearings, as well as a valve adjustment and carb tuning is going to take place in the very near future. I would like to document that work and post it on this blog, so keep coming back and there might be some pictures on the horizon.

It is Sushi time, so I have to run for now.... check in later folks!

projects by the wayside

2009-01-20T17:54:00.000-08:00

I haven't really been doing much in the way of projects lately. I think that the cold weather really saps my enthusiasm for working on the cars and bikes, and the only things I really do are: eat, sleep, work and sometimes go snowboarding.. I think that once cabin fever sets in a little further, i will tackle the closet renovation project that I have been thinking about doing for quite some time now. Mary will be happy to have a closet that she can actually work with if I ever get around to it. Until then, we are happy to just hang out and play scrabble, watch movies and make yummy food to eat!
till next time, folks!

Weekend of snowboarding

2009-01-11T18:43:00.000-08:00

With Mary out at the movies on Friday night I hunkered down at home and tuned my snowboards, and watched a documentary about Troy Bayliss. Any documentary about motorcycle racing that is narrated by Ewan McGregor must be pretty good right? Saturday, I ventured over to my friend Kevin's house and met up with him and his buddy Rich. We headed out to Hunger mountain and slogged our way up. It was a long haul, and I would have really suffered if I didn't have the both of them breaking trail for me the whole way up. Riding down was a blast. There was quite a bit of fresh snow, and some great lines through the trees. We hung out for a bit back at Kevin's house and then I hopped back home to have a quick shower and go out to dinner with Mary and our friend Angela. We had a great dinner at Sweetwaters, and then home for some much needed sleep.

Today, Mary and I went snowboarding at Sugarbush. We rode an afternoon half day at Mount Ellen. The snow was good, but the powder was well ridden and the choppy conditions were a challenge for Mary. She handled it well and added another skill to her repertoire. We watched some movies on netflix and now it is time for bed..

mouth to mouth!

2009-01-04T16:58:00.000-08:00

I think it is time for me to resuscitate my blog..
Christmas and New Years were filled with family and fun, and Mary and I have even made it out snowboarding a few times this season. We got a new snail for our fish tank! Mary got a Subaru to replace her Golf... Everybody is healthy, happy and looking towards a good year...
More later!

NEW YORK ROCKS!

2008-10-14T21:16:00.000-07:00

Yes, the thing on the left is not actually a tree, it is my wife mimicking her environment in an attempt to become invisible. We had a great weekend, staying in Plattsburg on Friday night and then at a bed and breakfast in Elizabethtown for Saturday night. We went to Ausable Chasm on Saturday morning and then did a short hike up Baxter mountain in the afternoon. We had dinner in Lake Placid at one of our favorite restaurants, and then grabbed a pint of ice cream and some whoppers to bring back to the inn. Sunday, we had breakfast at the in and drove down to Slingerlands to visit with family. We hung out with relatives and stuffed ourselves with home cooked goodies, and then I slept for half the car ride, while Mary managed to make fantastic time on the throughway. I am a slow driver, but she has pretty heavy boots, so we make better time with her behind the wheel. I tend to want to stop and see stuff, get a soda, go to a yard sale, ya know all the stuff that keeps you from getting to your destination. We love visiting New York, and have high hopes to get back over there to enjoy some climbing in the Adirondacks.

Winter is a coming!

2008-10-01T19:02:00.000-07:00

So.. My sister sent me an email today that read something to the effect that my blog was dying. it must have been some kind of reference to the fact that I have not written on here in quite some time. If anybody actually reads this blog o mine, they must be very disappointed in me. Now is when I make up excuses.... you see, I have been very busy at work, and I just come home and go to bed. Nah, that isn't very believable. How about my fish ate through my computer wiring? Okay, here is the truth. I have been goofing off, riding every chance that I get with my beautiful wife, and spending way too much time on facebook. I will try not to disappoint again.

Life is going very well, in fact. The wife and I have really been enjoying the cooler weather, and this past weekend, we lounged around, and even got around to detailing our cars! I think I managed to suck up about 5 pounds of dirt and gravel from my interior. I even found a water bottle under my seat and 87 cents. I have a few projects to attend to this weekend. I need to do some brake work on the VW Golf, and also build the wife something to hang all of her necklaces on. She thinks it is going to be made out of wood, but I am toying with the idea of using metal instead. I haven't done much welding lately:)

On the Rock!

2008-09-02T21:22:00.001-07:00

My beautiful wife and I managed to get out for some climbing this weekend together, and we had a blast!! The picture is of her relaxing at the top of what I believe to be her favorite climb at the upper cliffs in West Bolton. We are both excited to get out on the rock more, now that the weather is starting to dry up a bit and cool off. The end of summer, and fall is definitely our favorite time to climb. The crisp cool air, fewer biting bugs, and scenic views of foliage make us look forward to the upcoming months for vertical adventures.

Update

2008-08-27T21:16:00.000-07:00

So, last weekend I went down to Lancaster, PA to visit a friend, and let me tell you.. that is one long drive. I really enjoyed my visit. Lancaster is a cool town and I couldn't believe how cheap rent, food and everything else seems to be. It seems like a cool place to live, too bad it is so far from our families. I went skateboarding almost all day on friday, while my host was at work. I haven't been skating in a while, so it took a long time to get my legs back. The drive back was pretty awful, but i made it home before midnight on sunday, and even got to work on time monday morning!

Today I went climbing with my coworker, Kevin at the upper cliffs of West Bolton. I was so out of shape, that I barely made it up the climb. Kevin had to help me up a bit through a section, and I had to rest on the rope a lot. The sad part is that I cruised up that climb two years ago without nearly as much drama. The good thing is that it motivated me to get out climbing more. It did get dark right as I topped out, so we had to rap down and hike out by headlamp. We celebrated with a Saint Pauli's non-alcoholic beer, and ate a bunch of black raspberries that we found growing at the side of the road where we parked. Oh, we also found some delicious blueberries at the top of the cliff. Nature provided very well for us tonight!

On the road.....

2008-08-15T19:16:00.000-07:00

Wednesday was a big day for the wife. After three visits to the DMV and one to the insurance agent, We now have her bike registered and insured, and Mary now has a learner's permit that allows her to ride during daylight hours without a passenger, within the state of Vermont. Be sure to congratulate her on passing the permit test. She is quite happy that she scored a 92%. When I got home from work, we took the little KZ200 down to the high school parking lot, and she spent some time practicing on her now legal motorcycle. Tomorrow, I will be riding down to the motorcycle shop to see about an inspection sticker, and to also get some advice on making it run a little bit smoother. I have fiddled with the carburetor enough to get it to run, and idle and it feels pretty good, but I think with a little more fine tuning, we might be able to get some more power out of it. When you only have 18 horses, every one of them counts!

I rode it into work today, and boy is that thing a hoot! On my suzuki, anything under 60 feels slow, but the KZ is so lightweight and little, that it always feels like you are going about 10mph faster than you really are. No need to worry about accidental speeding on the little one lunger! In fact you pretty much have to beat the snot out of it just to get it to 50. I must say that even though it is small, and far from fast, it does have nimble handling, and seems to take a flogging quite well. I put it through its paces today, and I now feel comfortable letting Mary loose on the road with it.

Asian Bistro!

2008-08-08T19:49:00.000-07:00

Well, nothing major to report today, but still it was fun. Had a great takeout meal at my sister Tania's house with her and her fam. Then we watched the opening ceremony for the Olympics in China. Wow! The performances were fantastic, despite all the gas coming from my nephew and their dog....
Going to the dump in the morning and then the whole day is free!

Spark, Fuel, and compression

2008-08-03T18:56:00.000-07:00

The KZ200 lives! I woke up this morning with one purpose... To get Mary's motorcycle to run. I am thrilled to say that the bike is now running well and ready to be registered and inspected. The little single cylinder 200cc bike is pretty simple, and after consulting the service manual, calling a friend for advice and doing some "on the fly" repair, I took it for a couple trips up and down the driveway, and around the lawn.

18 horsepower sounds pretty weak, but the bike is so light that it actually feels sorta zippy. I started out this morning by filing down the points and while doing so, I noticed that the pivot for the points had a little too much play. I pulled it apart rolled a piece of paper on the outer part of the bushing and jammed the points back on, removing the play. I think the bushing was originally pressed into the fiber part that the point mounts to, but it had worked itself loose. The paper sleeve gave a nice tight fit. This allowed me to adjust the ignition points and actually have them stay adjusted. I know that a piece of paper doesn't sound like a good way to fix a motorcycle, but i just needed a small amount of thickness, and while I could have just used some epoxy, the paper will probably work even better. The points are mounted to a fiber part to begin with, so why not, right? It sure beat buying a new set of points for 30$.

Now that I had the ignition timed, I double and triple checked it, and moved on to the carb. I don't really have that much experience working with carburetors, but I took it all apart, cleaned it up, blew out the jets, and passages, made sure nothing looked sticky or worn, and put it all back together. Piece of cake. I took out the spark plug to test for spark and also do a compression check. The compression was over 160psi. the service range is between 130 and 195. I was smack dab in the middle. I cranked it over with the plug out and could smell fuel, and the plug was firing, but the spark didn't look so great, and the plug looked carbon fouled...
I took a trip to the parts store and purchased a new plug, some starting fluid, just in case the problem was with the carb, and some carb cleaner. When I got home I gapped the plug, popped it in, and sprayed some starting fluid in the airbox. I hit the starter and the bike fired righ up! I was almost expecting it to sputter out once it burned up the starting fluid, but it kept running, and running really well. I revved it up and blew out the cobwebs, let it get up to temp and then shut it down. It was even starting with the kickstart, with only one or two kicks.

I took it up and down the driveway to check the clutch and brakes. The only thing left to fix was the headlight, which I took care of, and then I called Mary to brag about my mechanical prowess. When she got home, she started it up and with a little bit of coaching and a couple stall-outs from trying to launch in second gear, she figured out the clutch, and took her first ride up the driveway and back to the garage. If it hadn't been raining, she would have probably played on it longer. The grin on her face was fantastic, and I think she will probably be riding for many years to come.

I want to thank my brother in law Charlie for the wonderful present. Even though the bike is Mary's, It feels like a gift to me too! I can't wait to ride it to work!

Weekend Excitement

2008-07-21T14:04:00.000-07:00

There never seems to be a dull moment for my wife and I. On Sunday we were driving home from visiting my relatives up at beautiful Seymour Lake and we were involved in a car collision. A young lady driving her blue Subaru, was attempting to make a left from a sidestreet onto the road we were traveling, right in front of us, mind you, and a "crunch!" was the result. My wife was piloting the car, and made an attempt to stop before hitting the Subaru, and even tried steering around the car, but the girl in the other car saw us coming, and panicked, and instead of getting out of the way, she tried backing up... that didn't work too well! The car we collided with had a very good dent on the drivers door, and it probably trashed the rocker panel as well. It was a pretty low speed impact, probably less than ten miles per hour at the impact.. My wife can panic stop with the best of them! The damage to our golf wasn't too bad, it is still driveable, but the fender, hood, bumper, headlight and radiator support will all need to be repaired, or replaced.

The most important thing is that nobody was injured. We drove away with a little damage and the the other car drove away with some damage and a traffic ticket for violating the stop sign. We will see how the whole insurance claims go... but in the meantime the car still works, it just looks a little rough.
It's just a car, anyway!

Saturdays are for napping!

2008-07-20T05:32:00.000-07:00

Well, While my wife was super productive all day, I rediscovered the art of napping.
I accomplished nothing, and it felt pretty good. For some reason I am unable to tolerate temperatures above 80. I get whiny and lethargic.. it's a real pleasure to be around.
Today seems to be much cooler and I am up at 8am and ready to attack the day!

This morning we are heading up to visit my Aunt and Uncle on beautiful Seymour Lake.
It has been ages since I have been up in that area. We are excited to spend time with my Aunt and Uncle especially since they barely know my wife at all, only having met her once.
I was hoping we would have sunny skies so we could take my bike up there, but the weather looks iffy, so we will be jumping in the car any minute now and heading out.

catch y'all later!

House Sitting is like Vacation!

2008-07-18T06:35:00.000-07:00

So it turns out we won't be traveling to pick up the motorcycle after all. We almost forgot that we will be taking care of lucy the dog for the weekend for one of my wife's colleagues. That's fine, since arrangements are already in the works to pick it up sometime next week. My wife seems to be the go to girl if you need somebody to watch your house and pets while you are on vacation. This works out great for us. We have a very tiny apartment. Seriously, it is really small. Don't get me wrong, we love it, and it has everything we need and more, and our yard is HUGE, so we don't mind, but when we get the opportunity to watch pets and sprawl out in bigger living spaces, we take it!

Another bonus is that the folks who's homes we watch all have pets, and cable television!
for those of you who have never visited us, we don't have cable or an antenna for our tv, so we rely on Netflix for video entertainment. We both love pets! Our place is too small to have a dog or cat, so we have fish! They don't like you to touch them, though...

So we are packing a weekend's worth of clothing, and my allergy pills. I am allergic to cats, but I love them, so I just take drugs to deal with the sneezing.

Another exciting thing is happening this weekend. We are going to visit my Aunt and Uncle up in the Northeast Kingdom. We are hoping to hop on my bike and cruise up there for a few hours to catch up with them at their home on Seymour Lake. They have not yet had a chance to get to know my wife, so i have to bring her up there to show her off!

Wow, now that i am thinking about the weekend I realized that there is another exiting thing going on..... MotoGP! for those of you who are not familiar with it, MotoGP is to motorcycle racing what Formula 1 is to automotive racing. The race on Sunday takes place at Laguna Seca, home of the "corkscrew" This race is a big deal for American fans because it takes place on US soil, and the track is spectacular! The man to watch is Nicky Hayden. He has a history of winning races at this venue. He stands 8th in points right now, and has very tough competition from Rossi, and Pedrosa who are 1st and 2nd right now. You can't count out Edwards either. He is another US rider who's familiarity with the track may help.

So, the weekend is shaping up very nicely, and with any luck, my wife will tell me to go climbing with my coworkers Saturday morning instead of helping out with our part time weekend cleaning job...

New gear for the wife!

2008-07-16T19:27:00.000-07:00

Everyone knows that women love clothing. I am slightly guilty of exploiting this known fact in an effort to get my wife to be more enthusiastic about motorcycles. I planned it out carefully. First I monitored the funds in the bank account. Seeing that there was a bit of extra cash that could be spent I selected items that I thought my wife would find to be cool and fit with her style. My goal was to accomplish several things... get her into some protective motorcycle gear, make her more comfortable when going on rides, and satisfy her desire to look fashionable.

The helmet she has been using is of unknown age and condition. It smells kinda funny, and has to be well past the recommended 5 year replacement interval for motorcycle helmets. We both agreed that she was going to get a new helmet some time ago... This was easy to get approval to purchase. She has also been wearing her casual leather jacket, and a pair of my snowboarding gloves. This is not ideal protection in the event of hitting the pavement. I surfed over to newenough.com, which sells brand new clearance and sale motorcycle gear. I located a very stylish baby blue helmet, a white and baby blue leather jacket and some white leather gloves. I feel I did a good job finding gear that she would like wearing, that I knew would provide her with a great level of comfort and protection.

I waited until she had just fallen asleep, and went into the bedroom, speaking softly to her, I mentioned that I found some motorcycle stuff that I wanted to buy for her. When she is sleeping, she agrees to anything, and usually doesn't remember it in the morning. She said "mmm.. okay" and promptly fell back into a deep slumber. I bounced back over to the computer with our debit card, and ordered up!

The next day she figured out what I had done, and I showed her what I ordered for her. She didn't seem that excited.. I was a little dissapointed, but still hopeful that once the items arrived, she would try them on and like them.

The order came in three different boxes on different days. The helmet came first. It is an HJC CL-SP Type O helmet in flat powder blue. Her reaction was good. She seemed to be happy, and immediately wanted to go for a ride to test it out.

The Gloves arrived yesterday. They are the Joe Rocket Trixie gloves in white. They are nice, supple, yet thick leather, and have padding, and knuckle armor. They fit pretty well, and she seemed pleased, wanting to go for a ride again to test them out.

Today is when it all paid off. The Cortech LNX Jacket in white and powder blue, matched both the helmet and the gloves rather well. It has a very sporty fit, excellent features, and all the armor that any sport riding jacket usually comes with. She tried it on, and it fit well, so she cut off the tags and grabbed her new helmet and gloves, so we could go for a ride...

This has all worked out very nicely since after I ordered her gear, I found out that her brother got her the KZ200 for her birthday!

She still needs some leather riding pants... She went to bed about 30 minutes ago. This is probably the perfect time to ask her if I can get her some pants.

1978 Kawasaki KZ200

2008-07-15T21:20:00.000-07:00

My fantastic brother in law recently gave my wife an amazing birthday gift! I already know that I am going to enjoy her gift as much as she will. We have yet to see it in person, but have received photos of a very good condition Kawasaki KZ200. This small single cylinder motorcycle has both electric and kick start, a mechanical front disk brake, and a whopping 18 horsepower! My wife has never piloted a motorcycle before, so this small 200cc machine, weighing in around 300 pounds is a perfect way to learn.
I spoke to him on the phone and it sounds like it is going to need a bit of electrical work as far as the signals and lights are concerned, and it will also need to have the ignition attended to. I promptly located a service manual online, and have already started dreaming of how we can make this bike perfect for my wife. We are both going to cut out of work early on Friday to drive over and pick up the new ride!
In the meantime I will be busy organizing tools and making space to work on the bike when we get it home. My goal is to have it in safe, legal, riding condition before the end of the month.