The Garage: A craft-y type thread for handypeople

Pretty much. The filament was shredding inside the extruder and gumming up the nozzle.

After a year's hiatus, I bought another fountain pen to fix. Checked eBay on a whim and found a Sheaffer Balance in "ebonized pearl" that looked like it had pretty good color. These are what Ebonized Pearl pens look like - 2nd from left has near-mint color, the rest have varying amounts of discoloration (ambering).

Got it yesterday, and the color is wonderful! Not ambered at all.

Thing is, ambering is caused by gasses given off by latex rubber, which is what this pen's (now ruined) ink sac was made of. I usually just stick a new rubber sac in. For this one, I'm going with silicone. Not as good as rubber, but it'll preserve the color.

Scion, your collection of pens never ceases to amaze me. I'm a Bic guy, though. ;)

For the record, that wasn't my photo. Mine aren't as nice.

Because I am that much of a pen nerd, here's a Bic fact: The Bic Cristal has been pretty much the same pen since its debut in the 1950s.

Well, it is a simple, solid, and functional design. The Skilcraft pens the US military likes are their own critter as well.

My Missus has purchased a jewelers saw for me to practice some jewelry work on. Just need a few more basic supplies and I can tinker more actively.

The downside is finding something you can do soldering with that is not horribly dangerous in an apartment.

Edited by TuefelHundenIV on Mar 9th 2019 at 1:51:45 PM

Oh boy, here I go again.

So, I'm supposed to partially hollow out a log. And we're talking serious woodworking, our patient is made of pinewood, two feet long, some twenty inches in diameter, and not quite dry. What I'm dealing with is scooping out a cylinder of heartwood a foot long and a foot in diameter, because if I'm supposed to lug it out of the basement as is, both of my Lichtenstein meshes gonna tear, and that if my spine doesn't give up first.

And to make it even more fun, I'm limited to cordless tools. And hand tools. Possibly not chainsaws.

I think that the wood dried a bit in the basement, but I'll have to get myself some extras to be able to drag it out for sanding, hollowing, leveling the bottom and painting the entire thing.

Also, I just bought a SL8 replica, a spare top rail (the replica I got has that combo optic that was mounted on G36), a cheapass scope and a dummy security camera that I'm intending to rebuild into a high-tech scope (think: Eraser and sci-fi shooters). Expect some gun porn when I'm done.