The Garage: A craft-y type thread for handypeople

I'm thinkin' maybe I should have sent the ornate pen to a pro. I was trying to heat-set the nib & and a new feed into the section (the original feed was in terrible shape) and cracked a little piece off of the section. *headdesk* I've got some ideas about using JB Weld on it - it wouldn't be an invisible fix, but I could do worse than a few thin silver veins. Black hard rubber is so fussy. Worse than plastic.

Still a gorgeous pen, though.

I have a convertible couch. The bottom slides forward, so that the rear part of it is supported by the box where you store pillows and blankets, and the front part has two alloy-cast legs. The thing is, those legs are cantilever, and one of them snapped clear off yesterday.

So I had to buy a pair of 4" straight metal legs at Home Depot, take the movable part off, flip it upside down, unscrew the remaining leg and whatever was left of the broken one, then screw the new ones on.

Which also meant that I had to drill through the bases of new legs, because they were too wide and two of the screw holes didn't line up with the bottom of the movable part.

You're more dedicated than I am. I'd've junked the couch. But then, I've never liked hide-a-beds.

Am going back and forth with a professional pen repair guy over a tiny brass widget missing from another Vac-Fil. Good ol' Sheaffer, coming up with a million variations of one thing. Also, I am going to try to repair a Parker Vacumatic. Wish me luck! They're fiendish things, apparently. Delicate & overcomplicated.

Worse comes to worst, the nib's worth as much as I paid for the pen.

I can't afford a new couch and the legs were buck fiddy a piece.

Fifteen minutes with a cordless drill. Good that I had a spare battery charged, one died on me when I attempted to drill through a metal plate after trying to remove a particularly unruly wood screw.

My Edwardian corset is 95% finished!!! I still have little tiny things to do like sew on the suspenders, floss the bone channels, and make sure my padding is not crooked next time I wear it, but other than that it's functional. Not perfect, of course, but perfection is overrated for things that should properly be hidden beneath several layers of clothing.

Lera! It looks amazing!!

Thanks! I'm so excited!! Take that, pushy salesperson who thought Edwardian corsets were too hard to start out with! Now I'm working on a petticoat and THEN I'll finish the dress, which I really shouldn't have started working on first haha.

...Though I did get earrings and start looking at hair accessories and shoes. THEY'RE TOO FUN!!!

Here are my beautiful shoes from American Duchess!! IGNORE THE SIDEWAYS TUMBLR PICS. I did not take the pictures that way. Anyway they were discounted from 150 to 105 something because there is a tiny, tiny little scratch near the sole of one of the shoes. And then I got two pairs of stockings and a whole load of leather maintenance stuff so it totalled out to 150 anyway. I also put on some earrings because, well, I spent an hour trying to dress myself and I just wanted something sparkly to flounce in.

The shoes are half a size too big, but since 6 is the smallest size, I'll just pad them with heel grips and whatnot. Easier than stretching them, at least!

Crafting part: I sewed suspenders on to my corset. All that's left is the corset flossing. And the stockings are too long, so I'm hemming them.

Very cute! All of it!

I'm making a petticoat! This one is plain cotton, but I might make a second one with actual lace for prettiness. I'm not using a pattern, I'm mostly just taking rectangles and gathering them in. Very quick and easy, unless the thread snaps while I'm gathering. I'll take a picture when it's done.

Yeahhhhhhhh, I underestimated how much time and fabric I would need so here's a progress shot of my petticoat. The last tier is TWENTY TWO FEET LONG. I'm taking a break in the middle of this long-ass seam.

Nearly finished! Front view, side view, hemmed stockings and new shoes, and then a silly Moulin Rouge type pose.

I'm going to add horsehair braid to the hem for more fullness at the back.

The time it takes for me to put on my corset and underpinnings has shrunk from half an hour to 20 minutes.

The petticoat is finally done!!! Front, side, and what it looks like with three-quarters of a dress over it because I couldn't resist.

Now I can make the actual clothes!!!

edited 1st May '17 4:58:46 PM by Leradny

Two days, some nice blue cotton twill, and ornamental buttons. Ignore the slight droop at the back. I used the laziest tacked on cord buttonhole ever and I'll be fixing it momentarily.

Y'know, it amazes me how much of a difference the right undergarments make. I mean, your profile in the photos looks straight out of an old advertisement.

I know, right! Of course, old advertisements were exaggerated somewhat, but once I'm done with this I want to take two pictures with and without them just to show the difference.

I took a picture in the park. And a video. And then I slowed the video down and added a filter.

Y'know, design-wise, old Esterbrook Js are pretty spiffy. The nibs are made to swap out without fuss, the metal parts are solid stainless steel, and they're lever fillers, which is just about the easiest mechanism to fix. Just gotta say that after getting thoroughly frustrated at other pens. Looking at you, Parker Vacumatic.

I scored a Conklin Endura last week. It doesn't look all that great (dull green/black marbled plastic), but it cleaned up well and writes beautifully.

I'm up to four working Parker 21s, two repaired using my Super Glue method. Woo! A fifth just needs some tweaking, and then it should be fine. I've started using them at work.

Got this little golden Sheaffer ringtop that's just... well, it's entirely gold. Cap, barrel, section, and nib. I polished it up to the point of "eye-watering": it's some serious bling. Sadly, it's so thin that it's difficult to hold.

I've got one pen that looks like it's made of glitter. Like, they took a vat of clear celluloid and poured a ton of green glitter into it. It's so obnoxious it's funny. Sadly, the nib was terrible. I want to get a new nib & feed for it and so far have found nothing. Argh.

Since my medieval/fantasy outfit is pretty much complete (I'll just have to pick the leather vest from the leatherworker at the local Comic Con), I started thinking about finally building the post-apocalyptic armor. I managed to find a Chinese motocross armor on sale for sixty bucks, and it's built in a way that allows bolting it onto the football shoulder pads that I have. Some spackle and a respray later it's gonna work.

I got all the way through cleaning, polishing, and replacing parts on a Balance Vac Fil in Ebonized Pearl (they look like this◊), only to find out that the section is the wrong size. I'm not sure how that's even possible. It screws into the barrel just fine, it's just too wide for the cap to fit over it.

I guess I'll have to find a junker pen. Of the proper size. That could take awhile. Argh.

In better news: so I'm trying to collect one of each kind of Sheaffer Balance finish - at least the fancy not-solid ones. There are twelve. Some are rarer than others. I have most of the common finishes, and this weekend I scored the second-rarest, which is called "Rose Glow".

(The rarest is "Blue". I've seen one.)

edited 22nd May '17 8:04:27 AM by scionofgrace

So that Balance Vac-Fil with the cap that wouldn't fit? It wasn't the section at all. I think the barrel warped or shrank somehow. Fixing it involved shortening the barrel, strangely. But the cap screws down nice and tight now.

It had another problem, too. There's this little gasket at the end of the barrel that has to be replaced, and to do that, you have to drill it out. I accidentally drilled out slightly more than I wanted. It glued back together okay, but now the plunger cap doesn't screw down flush to the barrel.

But it writes! It draws ink like it's supposed to, with no leaks. I'd nearly given up on it, too. So now it's loaded with Diamine Emerald ink, and I have dubbed it "Misfit".

Got a bunch of gold-plated ringtops: a Sheaffer, a Wahl, a Carter, and a positively stunning Redipoint. Gonna fix that sucker up today. The Sheaffer's got some brassing (missing plate), but the other three are in excellent cosmetic condition. So shiny!

I picked up the Chinese bike armor from the post office.

Turns out, everything holds on hex screws, so eight longer screws and holes drilled in the football pads later, I'll have a decent torso armor with Shoulders of Doom.

And guess what, I have the necessary screws already. Now, let me think what to do with the vent holes and torso area of the chest plate. I could slap some decor onto the latter and possibly tweak the former to have some lightshow, but I'm not sure.

I thought this fountain-pen kick was winding down, and then I bought four more.

Been running into that barrel-doesn't-mate-with-cap issue again, with different pens. Makes me curious as to what causes it. One's a hard-rubber pen. Pretty sure hard rubber doesn't shrink. Maybe the section was replaced with a longer one? Or did the inner cap shift? At any rate, I'm trying various ways of solving the problem without breaking anything.

Saw a Sheaffer Balance in "Blue" on eBay and chased it for awhile. Did not make the winning $160 bid. (For comparison, if it were a common color, being unrestored and lacking Sheaffer's "White Dot", it would have gone for maybe $30.)

I'm getting better at adjusting nibs. Still hit and miss sometimes, but hey. Went back to one of the first vintage pens I fixed, a Waterman 52½v, and tweaked the nib a little more. Was able to get a wonderful crisp line out of it.

I have a red boiler suit and some loose hardware, so I was looking for a pair of rectangular-visor welding goggles and a tanker helmet to build a Psychoscope. Sadly, the cheapest tanker helmet I found was $85 shipped from Bulgaria, and right now my budget is strained, so I can't really afford it.

OK. Managed to find Size 3 Soviet tanker helmet for $67 in Belarus and a Polish milsurp shop that has them for $60. Now, do I want to do this and am I entirely sure that the ATTiny and wiring can't be fitted inside one half of welding goggles? Involving a microscope diaphragm, because why not?

edited 30th Jun '17 5:34:17 PM by NotSoBadassLongcoat