What have you fettled today?

[TimC]

Been fettling my upstairs windows - draughty, overpainted, glazed with 2mm gossamer(!), and a pain in the arse. Now straightened, stripped, double glazed (don't tell the conservation officer, for whom originality (hah!) trumps efficiency every time).



Before:



After:

[robgul]

Dismantled the garden parasol and folded up the reclining seat. Now in storage as an acknowledgement that winter is on its way. It got down to 3.6C in the garden last night.

I fear the time is near to pack away our garden furniture in the newly constructed lean-to shed at the side of the house . . . it also doubles as the parking area for the pub bike.  Pretty cold in the greenhouse lat night so Mrs robgul tells me, reading from here spangly thermometer recording gadget.

Was Mrs.Robgul kipping in the greenhouse?

  not quite, but she does spend an inordinate amount of time in there.

[ElyDave]

Recumbent seat remounted ready for today, inwas going to remake the connections to the rear dyno light as well, as the old ones had corroded at the point of the spade connectors, started stripping back the wire only to find CUI all along with the strands just parting and obviously ver-de-gris in nature. Need to find some more cable.

Replaced the adjustable plastic front light mount onthe Faran with the original fixed metal one. The plastic was just compressing, even with a washer

[ElyDave]

A bodgetastic fettle on the turbo trainer er bike, the 18 year old Sora triple shifter finally went kaput and I bought a friction shifter to mount on the flat of the handlebar. Only problem was that I didn't notice it was sold as for MTB, so a bit of filing, some judicious use of TEH PLIERZ and it fits ish. Its a little stiff at the top end of the range, but fit for purpose on that bike until I decide to put it back on the road again.

[MattH]

Got around to fitting solar to the campervan (175W - the most I could fit to the already fairly crowded roof). Was supposed to have been done weeks ago, but the panel was out of stock then work things got in the way. It's always interesting trying to sort out cable routings and work out the idiosyncrasies of the wiring in the van - it's a "proper" one, not a home conversion, but that still means there are some interesting choices made in the design. And routing cables between the roof and the ceiling boards, then down the space between the wall boards (behind fitted units) and the van walls is challenging.

I had to modify the hab module Nordelettronica fuse box/controller to remove the split charge relay, which is soldered onto the board, in order to let the solar controller take command. It'll now top up the leisure battery from the alternator if the vehicle is running, charge the leisure battery from solar or electric hook up, and if the leisure battery is full it'll top up the engine battery. The original setup wouldn't charge the engine battery from anything but the alternator, so if the vehicle wasn't used for a while I'd have to plug in a smart charger to just keep it ticking over.

So that should both make it easier to be off-grid, and mean I don't have to worry about checking that either of the batteries are OK if I've not used it for a while.

[The Family Cyclist]

With help of I think Simon3 (can't remember his username on here and he hasn't actually posted) shifted my girls beds to allow us access to the radiators, the rooms are so small had to remove them to assemble the cabin beds. Rads checked and turned back on with me downstairs checking system pressure

Then took doors off to plane so fit over new carpet. Was taking an age then Sim mentioned I've got an electric plane so job postponed till can do easily with the electric plane

[T42]

Was taking an age then Sim mentioned I've got an electric plane so job postponed till can do easily with the electric plane

That's one of the cases where the vacuum-cleaner port on a gadget is really worth using, if you can get the damn thing to fit.  Otherwise, duckt tape.

---o0o---

Got on with painting the barn door.

[Kim]

That's one of the cases where the vacuum-cleaner port on a gadget is really worth using, if you can get the damn thing to fit.

Isn't it a regulatory requirement that they don't?  I can't imagine that they're all different sizes purely by accident.

[T42]

That's one of the cases where the vacuum-cleaner port on a gadget is really worth using, if you can get the damn thing to fit.

Isn't it a regulatory requirement that they don't?  I can't imagine that they're all different sizes purely by accident.

Pretty well, but Screwfix have a wee vacuum cleaner with tapered nozzles that'll jam into most hoses, and their hose fits a standard 5 cm hose connector. I have one of these sucking the air out of an old 20-litre shop-vacuum drum with a cyclone doodah in it. It lives through the wall from my workshop at the end of a 7-metre hose. Bloody noisy but I don't hear it.

[Mrs Pingu]

I finally got too annoyed with the horrible squeaking/scraping noise coming from the kitchen door handle (the one I replaced last year just after we moved in). So I took the handles/plates off and even took the old latch assembly out of the door, opened it up (I stupidly didn't take a photo before making the pingfuckits explode out of it but I seem to have got away with winging it), lubed absolutely everything that moves and then put it all back together again.
It still feels a little bit grunchy but it's almost silent now. Ahhh, quiet and quite satisfying. Hopefully stay it'll quiet until such time as I find the beans to GAMI to replace the door.

[T42]

MrsT & I painted* both sides of the barn door yesterday, so it's got two coats outside and one inside and is officially finished (ta-da).  Now have to clear away all the clamjamfrey that's accumulated while building it so that the winter-wood chappie can offload next week.  Thereafter I need to re-panel my workshop door and plane our bedroom door, which is rubbing the floor because 0.5-timbered houses shift with the weather and this summer was dry.

My mum always told me that if I didn't do well at school I'd end up as a doorman.

* "painted".  The stuff we used is called lasure in French, which according to Google et al. means stain, but the stuff dries clear and just leaves a slightly shiny surface, like clear varnish - which in French, is vernis, so it's not.  Its main function is to protect the wood, which it's supposed to do for 12 years - at which point someone else can do it.

[rr]

Replaced the batteries in my 10 year old Braun shaver.
Old ones were down to 130 and 300 mAh, new ones 660.

Sent from my motorola edge 20 using Tapatalk

[Wowbagger]

A puncture on someone else's bike.

[ElyDave]

The nebuliser that MrsED decided to dismantle in her attempt to change its batteries

[Hot Flatus]

Nothing yet. But I'm about to swap out the rear brake outer on my new gravel bike for some better compressionless housing. Its internally cabled, with all the other cables installed, which is a ballache, so unless somebody has a better idea I'm going to detape the left bar, and pull the outer out from the brake end leaving the inner intact, cut a new outer to the same length, then slide it up the inner from the rear.

[MattH]

I'd worry that the new outer would snag somewhere (even just a kink on the inner where it has been clamped onto the brakes not sliding smoothly), and as you won't be able to grasp the inner you'll be pushing against a flexible wire.

Can you fasten (tape?) a thin wire to the outer at the bar end before you pull it out, so you end up with a cable pull? Or pull the inner out, then feed a long wire through the outer (at least twice as long as the outer), and pull those out together, again leaving you with a cable to thread through the new one and pull it back with?

Disclaimer - my bikes all have cables on the outside, where they are supposed to be!

[Hot Flatus]

Yes, it'll be fiddly, but brake cables are quite stiff and the tricky bit will only be pushing it into the frame, then it should be easier. I know it sounds weird, but it can work.  Alternatively I can pull the outer off, cut the inner, then crimp an outer onto the end of it and pull it through.

Already had a mare when I cabled it up, congratulated myself then realised I'd forgotten to fit an inline adjuster into the front mech outer.

Will report back in a bit

[Hot Flatus]

OK. So I've done it and my method worked...

...up to the point where I couldn't get it past the gear housing in the guide plate at the top of the down tube. So I unscrewed the down plate took it all out and fed it through the hole in the tube, ran it under the bars, retyped bars, zip tied the other end to chain stay guides, then realised I had forgotten to feed it through guide plate.

So I had to disassemble it all, pull it all out and redo. Which I did. Got it all connected up and then went to reconnect rear gear cable. Did it, and took relief out of cable by tugging it under chain stay.

And the guide ferrule in the cable guide on the down tube pulled right through.  Cue re-doing everything again.

2.5 hours of utter farce later and it is all done. What have I learned? Never attempt bike mechanics when you have a head cold 

[Sergeant Pluck]

Nothing. Not going to fettle anything today.

Having acquired 3 new bikes this year (well, one is a total rebuild on an old frame), I feel as if I have been building, adjusting, figuring out, optimising, changing, and readjusting thing 2 because it was affected by optimising thing 1, every spare day for months.

[Mrs Pingu]

I have just drilled 138 holes. That was very boring.

(I had 2 boxes of loft stilts which I was pre drilling holes into for the screws into the joists.)
More on this story at a later date, no doubt.

[Jurek]

I have just drilled 138 holes. That was very boring.

(I had 2 boxes of loft stilts which I was pre drilling holes into for the screws into the joists.)
More on this story at a later date, no doubt.

My bold.
I see what you did there.

[T42]

Nothing. Not going to fettle anything today.

Nor yet I.  Although I did tidy away all the trestles, hoists, ropes, spare boards, off-cuts, paint cans, brushes & ladders that remained after the barn door epic.

I have just drilled 138 holes. That was very boring.

Hah! Beat ya. 200+ screws into the barn door, though not at one sitting.

[ElyDave]

In our chem eng common room at uni, we pinned up a page from the Yellow Pages "Boring - see civil engineers"

What japes we had

[Kim]

Reminds me of the Engineering Mathematics students doing a statistical analysis of how much sexual activity the various disciplines of engineering students got up to.  Embarrassingly for them, it was the Civils that had the most.  I forget who came least last, but it was probably one of the ones that involved electronics.

[ElyDave]

Reminds me of the Engineering Mathematics students doing a statistical analysis of how much sexual activity the various disciplines of engineering students got up to.  Embarrassingly for them, it was the Civils that had the most.  I forget who came least last, but it was probably one of the ones that involved electronics.

Actual, or self-reported?