So i went shopping in ALDI a little while ago and ended up coming home with a 3D printer and a bunch of other impulse items. The Cocoon Create 3D printer is actually just a re-badged Wanhao Duplicator i3 which is a very popular entry level printer with a huge online community. However after using…
A few spring showers and cooler weather this year meant that the garden picked up nicely, there is still a huge amount of work to do removing the nutgrass lawn and installing an irrigation system for the orchard, but it will happen. Trying to get the belgian d’uccle back into the hutch, she is a fast…
I was gifted with four old bantam chickens when I moved into my house, they were about 7 years old, so a little dusty and wobbly, but still great egg layers. But some weeks ago my gold pekin hen and bantam rhode island red went broody, so obviously it seemed a good time to contact…
A few months ago I spotted a very interesting and attractive looking valve amplifier on gumtree that I couldn’t resist. The amplifier was being sold for repair or parts as one of the valves was red-plating leaving one channel dead. This really didn’t phase me as troubleshooting valve gear is pretty straight forward, and red…
A few months ago I had the idea to drag my old aquarium out of storage, it had been stored away after my original fish died from old age (6 years is not bad for a goldfish). The aquarium base had been a quick job that I had made out of scrap timber from an…
Some years ago I found what I thought was a very cool electric clock in an opp shop. It was 240 volt powered and had rotating numbers as opposed to the usual flip down numbers. Upon getting it home I realized that the mechanism had seized, after disassembling the little geared engine assembly and re-lubricating…
One afternoon while sitting in a park a friend of mine drew an adorable picture of the Polaroid camera that I had with me. I thought the drawing was gorgeous and unique so really wanted to frame and hang it. She is an amazingly talented artist and I highly recommend that you take a look…
I came across a set of Marantz hifi speakers while I was cleaning out the garage not long ago. I knew the deal, they were mass produced entry level speakers from the 80’s with a bubbling plastic veneer covering, expectations were low. I thought very little of them, but decided to hook them up to…
When I purchased the land rover it came with an insanely heavy milk crate full of parts. In this was an Aeroparts capstan winch which had been disassembled. Obviously this was another job for the kitchen table. After measuring up for new seals and reassembling the winch onto its freshly galvanized plate it was time…
It made sense to compliment the roof with a set of doors. I had rebuilt a set of door frames previously, oxy blackwire welding up the cracks and welding hidden corner reinforcing inside the frames. These had been galvanized and waiting patiently for me under a pile of sawdust in the basement for quite some…