Mucking About With Things – Eat Dirt, Shit Rocks

May 1, 2019

Chrome Vanadium Chinesium: Finest quality. Superior workmanship.

A recent haphazard domestic DIY escapade furnished me with the above photo: replacing the shredded sisal twine and fabric on our cats' scratching posts. →

March 26, 2019

The scourge of planned obsolescence, in Magic 8-Balls

There are innumerable how-to videos and static, step-by-step online guides to replenishing the water inside the fluid reservoir of a Magic 8-Ball, but →

March 21, 2019

And idle sat the cordless rotary multitool in its case a few feet away

I would have saved some time and gotten a much cleaner result if, to begin with, I had used my Bocsh Dremel-alike, but the result was acceptable. Tonight, →

March 19, 2019

How heat-shrink tubing reacts when exposed to the arc of an electric-arc lighter

LEFT: tubing shrunk by exposure to a flame. RIGHT: tubing shrunk via placement very near the arc of an electric-arc lighter. If you've ever wondered →

February 1, 2019

Knocked together several different cheap Chinese PCB-plus-through-hole-parts electronics kits

Knocked together several different cheap Chinese PCB-plus-through-hole-parts electronics kits as a means of trying out a couple of different soldering →

January 30, 2019

When batteries splooge, electronics are the first to suffer

You go a week or so without looking at your TV, only to pick up the remote control and find it stone dead. Then, when you pry off the battery cover to →

January 29, 2019

Another chakra unblocked: first use of J-B Weld

A new bit of hardware needs to be bolted down to the benchtop during use but I'd like to be able to stow it away the rest of the time. The base of the →

January 22, 2019

Seems Legit: Mitutoyo 500-196-30 AOS Digimatic Calipers

A skim of various Google results (e.g. How to tell if my mitutoyo calipers are fake? and Is it an original mitutoyo vernier caliper?) followed by a quick →

December 12, 2018

赠品 is Simplified Chinese for free gift + GOOP really has CHAINGED!

赠品 is Simplified Chinese for free gift. In Traditional Chinese, it's 贈品. The same reasoning that comes into play in trying to reason out →

December 6, 2018

Butchering an LED bulb

This light bulb (Philips 18W 6500K 2000lm 150mA 220-240V ac 50/60Hz 9290011650A) had the temerity to flicker, so it got to taste the cold HSS of my hacksaw →

November 29, 2018

Butchering a BMO

Forgive me, BMO! Tonight, I extracted an MTR Octopus card NFC thingamajig and implanted it in a purchased-for-this-purpose hollow BMO figure from, →

November 18, 2018

Better late than never: carbide-tipped hole saws, M35 HSS-Co step drills, and deburrer

My second batch of Bosch TM5 carbide-tipped hole saws, with a rubber band holding the packaging on the largest one closed after I opened it, three no-brand-but-putatively-M35-grade →