Author: Doozer

  • Workshop Lighting – Cable

    Understanding Cable Markings Cable from a laptop power supply supplying 12Vdc at 2A over 1 meter. Text on the cable: E157914 PRIMAX RU AWM 1185 80 degC 300V VW-1 CSA LL110529 AWM I A/B 80 degC 300V 18AWG FT1 LM The text on the cable tells us a lot about the cable but most of…

  • Workshop Lighting – Power

    Powering your LED lights is as simple as attaching a 12V power source and basking in their cold white glow. Powering your LED lights and getting the most out of them is a little harder though and will require some calculations and experimentation.

  • Woodcarving Tool Brands

    Brands The majors brands in alphabetical order are Which brand you go for is a matter of personal preference and it’s a good idea to hold the chisel in your hand before purchase. The Kirchen tools all have an octagonal handles which you’ll either love or hate. The Pfeil tools often get praised on-line for…

  • LED Lamp Projector Upgrade – Optoma HD70

    Spurred on by my success with the cBright XG2 lamp bypass surgery I decided to have a go at doing the same for the Optoma HD70 I own. This projector is about 5 years younger than the XG2 and is native 720p so from my point of view this is a much more appealing conversion…

  • LED Array Lamp Part 1

    I’ve wanted to play with individually addressable LED’s for ages and I’ve finally got around to buying some so it’s time to go it. For this project I’ve decided to build a 16×16 array of LED strips based around the common WS2812B chip. Power Since I’ll have a 16×16 array of LED’s the total count will…

  • Turned Pens – 2023 and Earlier

    I occasionally turn a pen or two and I thought it would be nice to catalouge what I make. I’m not great at turning but I get the job done and I’m happy with the final result. This isn’t a complete list of every pen I’ve made but it’s close, I seem to recall I…

  • Yeti – Machine Build Part 1

    Yeti – Machine Build Part 1

    Looking at the date on the last post it’s been 6 years since I last touched this project. Over on mycncuk, where I was getting input from people who know what they are doing, it seems to be saying it’s been 10 years since I started planning this machine. By either measure I think it’s…

  • Wooden Rosette

    Wooden Rosette

    A friend asked me if I could make some wooden rosettes / bosses for the house he is doing up. The doorways (and windows) have decorative surrounds and these are positioned at the top corners. I made a around twenty in total. The picture below shows what I’m aiming for. Prepare the Blanks I’m going…

  • Progressing with Lock Picking

    Well it turns out that lock picking is addictive. I’ve been going a few days and I’ve already got my yellow belt and I’ve opened a lock for my orange belt (Master Lock 150). I’ve bought another lock for my orange belt and locks for my green belt. I suspect the green belt locks will…

  • Owned and Picked Locks

    Below is a table of the locks I own and, if I’ve picked them, a date when I first picked it. I started picking Christmas 2022 so you can see how long it takes to learn the skill. I’ve organised the list by belt colour based on the ranking found at the lockpicking sub on…

  • Jet JPT-260 Planer Thicknesser Chain Replacement

    For a while now I’ve been having a problem with the outfeed roller on my planer thicknesser. While thicknessing the machine will make a loud banging sound and the wood will fail to emerge from the machine. For a while I couldn’t figure out what was going wrong as everything visible seemed to be working…

  • Beginning Lock Picking

    I was recently given a set of lock picks and I’ve found it to be a surprisingly addictive pastime. The picks came with some acrylic learning locks which were far too easy, only the Euro lock cylinder even vaguely put up a fight. I then tried picking a Yale Y220/51 as that was the only…

  • Our Garden – May, June 2022

    End of April to Early May I’ve been a slack when it comes to updating the garden diary lately but it’s doing pretty well. All but the lettuce has been moved out in to the cold frame I built a couple of weeks ago. the tomatoes (right in the image) are doing well enough. I…

  • Triple Decker

    While sharing a Double Decker with my son the other day I mentioned to him that we could do better, we could make a Triple Decker. So we did, this is the recipe. Just make the nougat first and then layer on the caramel before topping it off with rice krispy cake. It takes ages…

  • Our Garden – Feb, Mar and Apr 2022

    I decided to skip the February article because, well, not much happened. The entire family came down with covid and us olds were hit pretty hard, certainly hard enough we couldn’t do anything other than watering. Right at the end of the month (22nd Feb) we planted out the radishes with the kids. In the…