Other Projects I'm Working On

[MurphCID]

I picked up the aluminum I ordered for the new backdoor steps (when I get them). This is a picture of the 1/8" x 4" x 36" aluminum flat bar I received:


1.jpg


I'm so sick and tired of dealing with incompetent and/or stupid people.

That seems a little short.... All sorts of jokes come to mind, but I will behave.

[rossdv8]

Looks pretty close to 1/8" x 4/4" x 3.6/4"

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Looks pretty close to 1/8" x 4/4" x 3.6/4"

And I thought I had bad eyes.

[Lady Fitzgerald]

I finally got a response from the joker. He wants pictures of the item, etc. Back to the waiting game.

It gets more interesting. The Fleabay listing shows the clown is located in Phoenix, AZ. The package shipped from a company in Joshnsburg, IL. The latest email from the bozo says he is located in Israel. The guy appears to be an illicit arbitrageur (someone who lists a company's products as their own without the company's knowledge, then orders it to be dropped shipped to the buyer.

I'm starting to think this guy is a kid with a laptop in his parents' basement.

[rossdv8]

Some people get the idea that Drop-Shipping can be a lucrative side business (it can), without realising that idiots and children often don;t have the knowledge or integrity to run that sort of business, nor to juggle kingergarten, or college, or a full time job, and a Drop-Ship business.

Sadly, there are far too many of them trying it on these days.

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Some people get the idea that Drop-Shipping can be a lucrative side business (it can), without realising that idiots and children often don;t have the knowledge or integrity to run that sort of business, nor to juggle kingergarten, or college, or a full time job, and a Drop-Ship business.

Sadly, there are far too many of them trying it on these days.

Drop shipping has legitimate purposes. For example, a vendor stocks a certain kind off widget. They receive an order for the widget but happens to be out of stock at the time. Rather than the vendor paying for shipping the widget to them from their supplier, then paying for shipping the widget again, also resulting in a delay getting the widget to the customer, the vendor will instruct the supplier to ship the widget directly to the vendor's customer, saving everyone time and money. Meanwhile, the vendor gets to pay a lower, bulk rate for shipping multiple widgets to the vendor to replenish the vendor's stock.

In this case, suspect the "vendor" who sold me my widget...er...flat bar maintains no stock at all. I also suspect the little poop has a program that automates the process for him, based on my name on the receipt being Jeannie Store. The name I use with vendors who do not include a business name field in their address form is Jeannie (my last name) c/o UPS Store in hopes a cheapskate vendor won't use a shipping service that uses UPS or FedEx (who I refer to as FedUp anymore now) to ship an order to the USPOS (USPS before Screwy Louie kneecapped them) in the destination city so the USPOS can make the "last mile" delivery.

This makes sense for residential deliveries since the USPOS goes by most, if not all residential address daily five or six days a week. Besides the fact this kind service is intended only for residential deliveries and not businesses, it's silly and time wasting for UPS or Fedup to deliver a package to the USPOS so the USPOS can deliver it to my shipping address that UPS and Fedup already make one or more daily scheduled delivery, the extra handling introduces more opportunities for the order to get damaged or lost in transit.

I use a UPS Store for my mailing and shipping address for privacy and to avoid mailbox bandits and porch pirates stealing my mail and packages. While a bit costly, the savings of money and time due to stolen mail and packages alone far more that offsets the expense. The privacy aspect is priceless.

[rossdv8]

Back in the 'olden days' we had a lot more involvement with our suppliers and it was also 'a little' more difficult to get into the industry in the first place.
Once ebay started to take hold - after about 2002 or so, people could buy stuff from overseas and have it shipped for not much more than my wholesale price, and cut out the 'middle man' (me, unfortunately). So I got out while the gettin' was good . .

[rossdv8]

I was watching this, on Hackaday, (https://hackaday.com/2022/10/27/a-homem ... ade-tubes/) and it made me think of the

'Give a woman a hammer, screwdriver and a hacksaw - then stand back and be amazed !'

thing.
I can just picture you doing this Jeannie !

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-UEfqAWb3fE

[Lady Fitzgerald]

I was watching this, on Hackaday, (https://hackaday.com/2022/10/27/a-homem ... ade-tubes/) and it made me think of the

'Give a woman a hammer, screwdriver and a hacksaw - then stand back and be amazed !'

thing.
I can just picture you doing this Jeannie !

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-UEfqAWb3fE

Yeah, I used to horse around with that kind of stuff. I still miss the glow from vacuum tubes, especially massive mercury rectifier tubes.

[RollyShed]

Tubes, valve radios. I built my first kitset one when about 12 years old. Better reception than the crystal set I had been using. My apprenticeship started with repairing valve radios, lots of them, over 60 years ago.

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Tubes, valve radios. I built my first kitset one when about 12 years old. Better reception than the crystal set I had been using. My apprenticeship started with repairing valve radios, lots of them, over 60 years ago.

My first kitset was a Heathkit shortwave/broadcast band radio. My parents though it would keep me busy assembling it during the entire summer break from school. I had it finished in a few days.

[rossdv8]

What fascinated me, as a trained radio tech who grew up with valve radios (after graduating from a cats whisker / galena rectifier short wave crystal set my grandfather built in the 1920s), was that the lady in the Hackaday post shows how she built her own valves, from glass tubes she blew herself, and a few stray bits of zinc sheet and wire (copper and titanium).

A fascinating process to watch, especially when you see her glass blowing gear and home made spot welder . .

So very 'Jeannie-ish'.

[Lady Fitzgerald]

I finally got a response from the joker. He wants pictures of the item, etc. Back to the waiting game.

It gets more interesting. The Fleabay listing shows the clown is located in Phoenix, AZ. The package shipped from a company in Joshnsburg, IL. The latest email from the bozo says he is located in Israel. The guy appears to be an illicit arbitrageur (someone who lists a company's products as their own without the company's knowledge, then orders it to be dropped shipped to the buyer.

I'm starting to think this guy is a kid with a laptop in his parents' basement.

Update: The "donkey excavation" (have to keep the mods happy ) offered to let me to return that tiny piece of aluminum, on my dime , for a full refund or keep it and get a $4.00 refund. I made it clear that his "generous" offer was not accepted and demanded he send the correct material or get reported. He instead gave me a full refund (which is still in progress) despite claiming to have the material still in stock. I reported his sorry, misbegotten "donkey" to eBay as a fraud and reordered the flat bar from another vendor (also gave him a bad review). I threatened to report him to the Attorney Generals of AZ and CA but I haven't decided if I'm going to bother yet.

[Lady Fitzgerald]

I had started to find some ants in my house so I bombed my mobile home last Tuesday. More accurately, I set off insect foggers, aka bug bombs, in the space underneath my mobile home that is surrounded by skirting. Shortly after I had replace the old skirting with new skirting, I added several what I affectionately call bomb bay doors to make setting the bug bombs under the trailer much easier.

I thought I had added one to the skirting on the front steps I worked on earlier this year but that was just wishful thinking (old age sucks). It must be spider central under the steps based on the number that keep adding webs around the steps so I need to be able to bomb under them. I had some extra bomb bay doors (actually 4" x 6" utility access panel doors) so, since I'm also going to also need one for the rear steps I'll be replacing my current rear steps with, I dug two of the doors and started prepping them for painting.

I disassembled them, sanded them with red ScotchBrite pads, washed them down with some 99% IPA, then applied masking tape to them. Here they are ready for painting (hopefully tomorrow; I also have a bunch of errands to run...er...waddle).

As soon as I saw the second photo, it dawned on the one functioning brain cell of the three I have left that I still needed more work to do on the door frames. First, I needed to cut down the sides to make the frames narrower. So, I waddled outside and measured the width of the bomb bay doors already installed in the house skirting. Then I set up my band saw and cut a strip off each long side. I cleaned up the saw cut marks, deburred them, and put a slight radius on the outside edge with a file, then finished up with some 180 sandpaper.

Next, I laid out holes for rivets to hold the doors to the skirting and center punched them.

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Next, I drilled the holes. Ideally, I should have used my drill press but I just didn't feel like lugging out of storage to my washing machine. Using a portable drill would be too awkward so I used my Dremel. The hole size I needed for 1/8" blind (aka Pop) rivets was .136", a #30 drill bit. The factory chuck on my Dremel won't take anything over .125" but, fortunately, I have an aftermarket wrenchless chuck that is a bit more forgiving that was able to handle the slightly larger bit.

Here, I've drilled the holes.

I manually used a #1 drill bit (the largest one in easy reach) to deburr the holes.

[Lady Fitzgerald]

The doors get installed on the ventilated part of the skirting which doesn't give the rivets anywhere to grab so, originally, I used some 1/16" x 1/2" aluminum flat bar to sandwich the skirting panel between the flat bar and the door frame flange. I didn't have any more of that flat bar but I still have plenty of 1/16" x 1/2" x 1/2" aluminum angle so I cut four 4-1/4" pieces to use in place of flat bar. The appearance won't matter since it will be on the inside of the skirting so I filed the ends only enough to get rid of any sharp points and edges.

The angles need to have matching holes for the rivets. The quick and dirty way to ensure accuracy, which is critical since hole tolerances are pretty tight, was to use double stick carpet tape to secure the angles to the end flanges. This held the angles in place so I could drill through the holes in the door frame flanges. I set the angles on top of some wooden blocks so the drill bit wouldn't push them away from the frame flanges. Here a frame with the holes drilled and deburred.

Since it's critical that the holes in the flanges match up perfectly with the holes in the angles, I'm going to leave the angles taped to the flanges until I'm ready to install the doors after they have been painted. Actually, I'm going to install one door after the paint has dried onto the front step skirting and just sit on the other one until I get the rear steps and install skirting on them (I still need one more part before I order the steps).

This is what the outside of the door frames are supposed to look like.

Now they are ready for painting.

[MurphCID]

Nice, very, very nice. Excellent idea.

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Thanks, Murph!

[rossdv8]

One of those doors in the right spot on the floor and with a spring loaded flap, might make a great option for putting the cat out ..

[Lady Fitzgerald]

One of those doors in the right spot on the floor and with a spring loaded flap, might make a great option for putting the cat out ..

It's only 4" x 6". It might be a mite snug for a cat.