Paint booth installed

Anyone who owns their home will be familiar with the way jobs stack. You just want to change one little thing, but before you can do that, you must move that other thing, and replace the bit there. Before you know it, fixing a light bulb has turned into replacing the drain tile. So it […]

Paint booth turntable

I seem to spend a lot of my time making turntables. Given the amount of stress I feel when I fire up the air brush, I’ll take anything that helps. I left a hole in the fold-down leaf for the spray booth to allow for a zero-height lazy Susan that’s sure to make painting more […]

Test fitting the spray booth

It seems a hundred years ago that I bought that range hood for a deep discount at Rona. It sat for all those years beneath the pile of junk in the heavy shop, awaiting its moment to be installed. I’d bought it early so I could be sure of the vent location, and it seems […]

Plans for the Heavy Shop

It’s time to admit it: we have a small house. When we bought it, 1800 square feet (167 m²) felt like a palace. Indeed, we turned down larger homes because we felt we would rattle around in them. Now that this one is filled with two kids and a dog, there is little hope of rattling around. […]

The heavy shop emerges

For a little over a week, I’ve been pecking away at the huge pile of boxes that has filled the part of the basement that has always been tagged for the “heavy shop.” They’ve literally been packed for years, and occasionally I’ve come down to find another heaped on the pile. Now that the cabinets […]

A lathe joins the workshop

I’ve wanted a lathe for about as long as I’ve been able to spell the word. Even before I got into Proto:87, I knew one would be a part of my workshop someday. Since getting into the finer scale, it’s been inevitable. My friend, Andrew Hutchinson, has more machine tools than a single person should […]

Exploring the Cricut

There were about 35 folks in the audience for this morning’s clinic at the Railway Modellers’ Meet. That was pretty good, considering it was the first clinic of the day, and many attendees had a late night of operations on Thursday. As usual, I’m offering the slides under a Creative Commons license. Also, here is […]

SketchUp! goes online!

You might think that I’m no longer a fan of SketchUp! After all, I think my review of OnShape came down pretty strongly in favour of the parametric modelling tool. However, I will say that SketchUp is great for quick drawings. If you want to quickly mock up some buildings to see how they look, […]

Scribed and cut lines on the Cricut

Up to now, when I’ve wanted some lines scribed and others cut, I’ve simply run the whole pattern on the Cricut with a lighter touch. Then I have chased the scribed lines with a knife to cut them through. It’s simple, but tedious. Tonight, as I was cutting out the inside layer of the rear […]

Even on Linux, I blame Microsoft…

I’ve been waiting for parts for the wheels for 622 for a couple of weeks now. They are coming from Apogee Vapeur in Switzerland, and I suspect they have been held up in customs, while they decide if they’re dangerous or not. Hopefully I don’t get hit with some huge brokerage charge when they finally […]