Skip to main content

Featured Post

Now blogging over at Onemanmanyplans.com.au

It's been real, thanks Blogger! Hey thanks for checking out this page! After 10 years of posting here and over 600 posts, it's time to try something new at over possibly greener pastures. Which means you can now find me and all my random adventuring ways over at One Man Many Plans . 

Last M.A.M.E Standing 9: Out of the swirling dust fallout

On one front things are moving quicker than a turbo fed circular saw. But on another the problem is terminal and has required some drastic measures...


Here to cut shit up!

IT'S CUTTING TIME BABY!

Having drawn the template out last week now it was time to really break out the tools and turn a once semi clean shed into a warzone full of broken hopes and dreams. And in the process of screaming saws, drills and jigsaws, I learnt quite a few helpful tips pretty damn quickly.

  - You can never have enough clamps. My collection of clamps include 2 x 3 inch G Clamps, 3 x cheap spring loaded mini clamps (now 2 as one broke) and now a giant 1000mm F Clamp (which I have dubbed Frakenclamp given the size of it). However when clamping the MDF to WarSawHorse and my bench, do you think I could find any? Of course not. I constantly lost them all many times over and each slab of MDF laid down became a mini mission to unearth whichever clamp I could find to hold it in place.

  - I also lost my marking pencil, straight edge, ruler, tape measure and even coffee cup time and time again. Start the workday off by tidying up things first people, it'll save you heaps of time in the long run.

  - Wait til the circular saw blade stops spinning before moving it out of your cut. Somehow I sliced into one of the cabinet sides on the way out. It's not really noticable and I'm going to patch it up with filler but still..

  - If you've bought a Jigsaw, only use the supplied blade for ripping things to pieces...cos it's crap. Even with a straight edge the factory blade flexed more than a guy called Funkmaster and my supposed straight cut was all over the shop. Luckily I rectified this by buying some Vermont American blades specifically designed for different applications. The curved blade was far easier to control making the curves a breeze while the straight blade was true to it's word and made short work of difficult cuts. I can't recommend them enough in this application.



Worth the ten bucks. Also the file has been very useful too.

  - The second cabinet side will never match up to the first and be out by a number of mm. But if you squint it looks just fine. I can live with that c:


- Even having a cheap vacuum on hand is better than no vacuum at all. Working with MDF? It's an essential!

  - Don't be surprised if your partner won't let you through the door looking like you just walked out of the dessert. 


Jigsaw flex at its finest..

Still after a few hours over the last couple of days, things are really starting to take shape and I'm impressed that nothing is currently smoking and I'm not sitting in casualty starting a conversation with 'You'll never guess what happened to me...' Parts of it need smoothing out but the dimensions look perfect and I can't wait add more to it.


Not bad for...uh...me :D


Getting a rough idea where things are going to sit..
Motherboard: $20
New capacitors: $6.40
Bosch 1500w 184mm circular saw: $79*
Irwin 40T Carbide blade 184mm: $22*
Oh hey you look damn good safety work shades: $12
Some proper blades for the Jigsaw to actually you know, cut things smoothly $10
Decent file to work away at the rough bits $10
Speakers: Free
Speaker amp: Free
2 Gigs of random DDR2 Ram: $10
Wire for speakers: $5
Logitech K120 Keyboard: $14.40
4 x 1800mm x 600mm x 18mm thick sheets of MDF: $39.60


Total so far: $228.40 ($95.40 if you borrow the tools and shades)
BUT WHILE THAT IS GOING WELL...
..I ran into a problem that seems to have plagued Windows 7 users from day dot = My USB keyboard just flat out refused to do...anything. Yes the new one I was so happy with in my last post.

I tried EVERYTHING. Allowed USB access in BIOS (this allowed the keyboard to work in BIOS but nowhere else.) Gave it permission not to switch off to save power. Allowed the system to not worry about signatures of drivers. Borrowed another USB keyboard that worked before..that didn't work now. Launched a nuke into the registry. Googled for days....nothing!!! Restart and the lights would be on until Window's launched and then they'd shut down again. 

So after trying absolutely everything I finally bit the bullet, backed up everything and reinstalled Windows 7. Amazingly my Logitech K120 works just fine and it's business as usual. Well it will be hopefully when I load everything back up again...

If you are struggling with this problem yourself and you've tried just about everything, I suggest you start again with a clean slate - otherwise you'll be going for months chasing your own tail..

Up next - more cutting, dust and hopefully parts that stick together! Stay tuned!


Comments

Popular Posts