Category: HerpDerp

Free Advice #003: Use a magnet, inside a plastic bag or beneath multiple layers of plastic wrap, to clean up shrapnel from drilling, cutting, or tapping metal

  • September 26, 2024
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Free Advice HerpDerp Makin' stuff and breakin' stuff Swarf + Copeaux + Scobs TØØLS
Earlier this month, I wanted to replace the bolt-feet on the bottoms of some filing cabinets with wheels, so I flipped one of them on its side, unscrewed one of the foot-bolts, and tried it in the closest-looking (size-wise) pieces of my bolt size-and-thread-check set, and found that it went smoothly into the female end […]

The Case of the Slumping Polystyrene Foam (Question for the Experts)

  • September 16, 2024
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HerpDerp Is that the way it is? Makin' stuff and breakin' stuff Mucking About With Things Questions for the Experts The Diary of Lupin Pooter
Recently, I mounted a few pairs of metal chests of drawers piggyback-style, which entailed drilling some holes. To keep the point of my drill from skittering away, I used a center punch to create a tiny dimple at each of the intended hole locations. Intending to clean the drill and the deburring tool that I’d used on the holes (a hex-shank deburring blade in a hex-shank handle as you can see in the photos below) once I had unpacked the tool-cleaning stuff (WD-40, Fluid Film, etc.), I laid them both — along with the center punch — on a fragment of one of the polystyrene foam sheets in which the metal drawers had been packed for shipment.

First nattering of September (cat footage, Alien: Romulus, Hodgson’s The Night Land, and metal drawer assembly observations)

  • September 5, 2024
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HerpDerp In the Track of the Bookworm Swarf + Copeaux + Scobs The Diary of Lupin Pooter Tygers, Tygers!
Much unpacking, assembling, and moving stuff around has been done. Regrettably, much more unpacking, assembling, and moving stuff around yet remains to be done. There’s an excellent chance, for example, that tonight I will be marking and drilling holes into the square-tube-steel legs of a computer desk to attach u-shaped brackets to hold a computer […]

Rainy Season Thoughts

  • August 20, 2024
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HerpDerp The Diary of Lupin Pooter
Hong Kong is enjoying its summer monsoon season and so rains are frequent, though often tightly-bound geographically. In other words, precipitation can be bucketing down in one spot whilst just a few minutes’ drive away the pavements are as dry as a bone. Snippet of video taken through a passenger-side window of a moving vehicle […]

The Intermission is Over. We’re back

  • August 7, 2024
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All My Friends Are Insects HerpDerp The Diary of Lupin Pooter
We really own and use a heck of a lot of binder clips. That’s one of my biggest takeaways from the packing phase of our current, still-ongoing relocation. Also, I probably ought to use wingnuts as much as feasible for cobbling stuff together if there’s even a tiny chance that I’ll have to disassemble my Merzbau-style fabrications at a later date.

I watch the ripples change their size but never leave the stream

  • July 21, 2024
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HerpDerp The Diary of Lupin Pooter We'll go much more a roving
Two short video clips taken from a balcony on a stormy day last week. This post’s title is a quote from the lyrics of the Bowie song Changes. Balcony view (downwards, floorwards) during a thunderstorm. Balcony view (downwards, floorwords) during a thunderstorm. Balcony view (outwards, seawards) during a thunderstorm. Balcony view (outwards, seawards) during a […]

Pink beams of light, at sunrise

  • July 7, 2024
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HerpDerp Is that the way it is? Spitting Images The Diary of Lupin Pooter To see a world in a grain of sand
At approximately 5:38AM, dawn had taken the form of three wide pinkish beams of light. A photograph is worth a thousand words, but I’m not an especially skilled photographer and my attempts at capturing a sunrise or sunset, as it appears to my eyes, always seem to go awry and end up inadequate at best […]

Tin-can time capsule

  • June 19, 2024
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HerpDerp Is that the way it is? Mucking About With Things The Diary of Lupin Pooter
Lid of the can of 2008-Olympics-themed band-aids. In the course of some tidying up, I happened upon this can of 2008-Olympics-themed Johnson & Johnson band-aids. They were manufactured in China but the labeling on the tin is Japanese. Front of the can of 2008-Olympics-themed band-aids. The can and all of the band-aids are adorned with […]

New vs. used T130-2.0SK ATTEN soldering iron tip

  • June 8, 2024
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Bizznezz HerpDerp Is that the way it is? Mucking About With Things Sodding soldering The Diary of Lupin Pooter TØØLS
New-in-tube ATTEN T130-2.0SK soldering iron tip. This is a mostly-photos followup to , which concluded with some photos taken of a lightly used T130-2.0SK ATTEN soldering iron tip, described online as a knife tip. It gets inserted into a corded handle that, in turn, plugs into an ATTEN GT-series soldering station (such as the ATTEN […]

More conical? Or more trumpet-shaped? Result inconclusive.

  • May 10, 2024
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HerpDerp Is that the way it is? Mucking About With Things Sodding soldering The Diary of Lupin Pooter
Post-soldering, post-cleaning pic of the protoboard and rows of pin headers used in this little test, labeled with the solder wire used for two pairs of 2×4 pin header blocks: 8 pins soldered with no added flux and then 8 pins soldered with Chip Quick CQ4LF liquid flux, done for each alloy. I’m saddled with […]

Never forget that rubber bands eventually go bad.
AND, if you need less-ephemeral, non-messy rubber bands, use silicone rubber bands (FREE ADVICE #002).

  • May 4, 2024
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Free Advice HerpDerp Is that the way it is? Mucking About With Things RECCIES The Diary of Lupin Pooter
Fragments of deteriorated rubber bands. At upper left: bits from rubber bands that were, IIRC, bluish-green originally. Or were they purple? They’re bluish-green now. At lower-right: parts of what were once white rubber bands. Rubber bands (here taken to mean solid, non-woven elastic rings) degrade. Whether they’re made from natural rubber or synthetic rubber (e.g. […]

Testing fresh solder wire: various flavors of flux-cored K100LD and Innolot

  • May 2, 2024
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HerpDerp Is that the way it is? Mucking About With Things Sodding soldering The Diary of Lupin Pooter
Post-soldering, pre-cleaning photo of the protoboard and rows of pin headers used in this little test. Numerous punishing soldering sessions have left this solderless breadboard stained, scorched, and cracked and it is not long for this world. Recently, I posted about picking up soldering again after a hiatus () and I’ve gotten some fresh spools […]