For the past few years, I’ve been enjoying following some blogs written by folks that make bicycle racks (the luggage kind) by brazing steel tubing. It looked like fun, so I thought I’d give it try. Following Alex’s advice, I purchased a few tools and some tubing, and for my first project made a torch holder out of bicycle tubing I cut out of a junky old Walmart bike.

My first rack was a rear rack for a bicycle I’m building up for my mom.

The picture above shows some of the pieces laid out prior to brazing.

I don’t have pictures of the completed rack, but this is picture of brazing a joint using 1/4 tubing inside 5/16 tubing. That’s NOT what good brazing looks like! The brass filler that[s dribbling down the side had to be filed off. The better you get, the less filing you have to do. I’m still quite the filer…

A few days ago I started on a front rack for the same bike.

Here’s a picture of the platform just before brazing two of the inner cross pieces. The middle piece was already brazed. I’m using two spokes and some small C-clamps to make sure that the pieces I’m going to braze stay in place.

Here’s a close up of one of the joints with flux applied.

Here all the joints have been brazed.

And this shows those brazed joints filed. The piece that will be the backrest is just setting on the rack. You can also see some of the finished (except for paint) rear rack in the background.

I really enjoy the slow, methodical process of making stuff with my hands, and brazing has been no different. There’s something extremely calming and fulfilling about hanging out in the garage in the summer with the humidity, the  radio and nothing on my mind but the project at hand. I’m going to greatly miss my tools and workbench while we’re in England (a close second to my family!). Hopefully I’ll find a place across the pond where I can continue this type of tinkering.

With all the planning and decision making related to the move that we’ve done to this point, it’s really been the sale of the car that has started to make make the reality of the move sink in. Any occasion where we would have previously used the car now becomes a reminder of what is to come. And while at times daunting and frustrating, it’s more often exciting, igniting my imagination about what life will be like in England.

Goodbye car.

This third post on refurbishing and reusing would be best served had I taken before and after photos. However, all I have photos of the finished result. This is my workbench. I found the black metal base rusting and discarded in an alley down town. At the time I already had a workbench, but I wasn’t too fond of it. I had pieced it together using lumber left over from a workbench by dad had built when he was overhauling his first Goldwing. So finding this hunk of rusting metal with some casters welded to the bottom seemed like inspiration enough to build a new one.

I had a friend weld some tabs in the corners for securing the 4×4 wood posts, as well as some plates on the bottom for attaching floor locks.  There’s a great powder-coating place about 20 minutes south of Goshen that is run by an Amish guy. I’ve had him paint several bike frames for me already and his prices are very reasonable, so I had him sand blast and repaint the base after the welding was done.

While waiting for the base to be painted I started working on the top. The top is made out of local 2″ maple that a co-worker of mine cut on his portable saw mill. The wood started out as very rough boards about 10″ x 12′ (though the width varried). I’m not super skilled word worker, so making the top took way longer than I had initially anticipated and it didn’t turn out quite as nice as I had hoped. But  after a lot of measuring, cutting, sanding, planing, gluing and clamping I ended up with something that is certainly useful, if not also nice to look at. It’s not completely flat, but I joked with my coworker that provided the wood that I intentionally made it ever so slightly concave so that if I dropped a ball bearing on it the bearing would roll to the center instead of off the end!

Fom the beginning I new I wanted a bench that could fold up some when not in use. The hinges were a little tricky to install as their resting position while open was not always straight with their resting position while closed. But a little trial and error and they went on without too much cursing.

I still have a bench vise that I might attach to a corner of the center portion of the top, but the vise is rather large and the bench is a little higher than a normal bench (makes for a better working height). All in all it was a great project that took a little longer than planned, but resulted in something I find extremely useful for a long time to come.

It’s not surprising that algorithms for bicycle directions are more complex than those for cars. Our transportation system has been developed over the last 85 exclusively for cars, so the best route for someone riding a bicycle is almost entirely chosen using locally specific knowledge of traffic volume, transportation restrictions or regulations, road conditions, short cuts, paths, etc. This information is so haphazard that it must be nearly impossible to write a program that can accurately give the best bicycle route from point A to point B.

Additionally complicating the process are vast differences in cycling ability. While I feel perfectly comfortable riding with traffic on nearly any road in Goshen, many others find even the tranquil conditions of South 8th Street intimidating.

However, Google anticipated these “road bumps” (if you will) and has included the ability for users to give feedback. So if, for instance, their directions tell me to take Madison Street from Goshen High School to downtown, I can suggest to Google that in the future they offer 10th Street to Jefferson as a better alternative.

Listen to the NPR review of Google Maps for bicycles at the link below.

A Bumpy Test Ride With Googles Bike Map
by JACOB FENSTON

Listen to the Story
NPR Morning Edition [3 min 21 sec]

via Do Right & Fear Not: Bike Billboard Remix.

This is the coffee grinder that belonged to my grandmother. I found it tucked away in a corner of my parents house and have been using it for the past several weeks to make coffee. I was surprised at how easy it was turn the crank and how quickly it turned a few beans into a pile of finely ground powder. It’s also much quieter than the electric coffee grinder I used to use.

This coffee grinder exemplifies what a real durable good should be: something you can pass down to your grandchildren (or great-grandchildren) that will work just as well for them as did for you.

This is the first of several posts that will feature some objects I’ve refurbished or reused.

This is a juicer that my grandmother used to use to make orange juice for my dad and his siblings. Admittedly, this is a bad way to start, since I didn’t really do any refurbishing. Ideally I would also now note that I make all the orange juice I drink with it. However, I’ve only used it once. I had a bunch of clementines that were starting to go bad, so rather than throw them out I thought I would make some clementine juice. Turns out that bad clementines also make bad juice! It was very strong and tasted very similar to Tang. Adding some water helped a little, but I still didn’t drink a whole glass.

What’s great about the juicer is that its durable construction (aluminum) will keep it functional for a very long time, and the workout you get from squeezing all the fruit makes the juice taste all that much better (if the fruit is good…). Most folks today are more likely to buy something like this, which takes all the found out of it.

Here’s to good juice and my grandma.

via Spyclists: how Hitler Youths cycling tours caused panic in prewar Britain | World news | The Guardian.

The Portland City Council unanimously approved the nation's most ambitious bike-projects initiative Thursday, with Mayor Sam Adams promising to submit a $20 million “kickstart” funding plan within 30 days.

The goal of the $600 million 2030 Portland Bicycle Plan is that 25 percent of trips in the city be by bike in 20 years.

At the heart of the proposal is nearly 700 miles of new bikeways that would make up a “safer and more comfortable” two-wheeled urban network for new cyclists.

via OregonLive.com

Despite what appears to be a very keen attempt to match my swim trunks to my kayak, I had actually purchased the swim trunks in Nashville months before I even knew what color the kayak was.

So far I’m still quite the novice kayaker, but  I’ve enjoyed lately reading fascinating tales from more experienced folks. Take a few moments to read about Greg Stamer’s, a.k.a. Kayak Vagabond’s, adventures kayaking around Iceland.

To help with this transition, my 200G purchase included a free 4G SDHC Eye-Fi card. When I use the card in my camera, it automatically uploads the photos I take to Picasa.

Here are two photos I took and auto-uploaded to Picasa of some granola I made this afternoon:

So far the card has worked. There are settings to automatically upload to one of many online picture sites (including Flikr, Photobucket, etc) and/or to a personal computer.  You can also turn of the auto-upload and manually control when pictures are uploaded.

I was disappointed to find out that you can’t just use any wi-fi spot to upload, you have to setup each wireless network through your online Eye-Fi account before it will work. However, I think as long as you have some way of connecting to your account on the network you want to use (and you can connect your eye-fi card to the device you’re using to access the network) you can upload via any network. I will try it out at my sister’s house this evening.