Things With Strings

My banjo building plans got delayed over the past few weeks, because I've been making a bird-table for my parents as a Christmas present. We were not to happy with what we could find for the money commercially, so my wife suggested I build one for them. I saw it as an opportunity to learn a bit about using my new table saw and also get rid of some scrap wood that was littering the place. It's made from an old fence post, bit's of my old shed etc. Although I did purchase a sheet of plywood to use for the table itself. It can be separated into three parts for easy transportation: legs, pole, top. I think it looks OK. I hope they will like it when they see it later today. The bird table

I know you are probably thinking that this topic has no connection to what this blog is about, and you would be correct. However, it was such a trial finding any information for me that I decided I needed to document it somewhere. Here is the problem. I have a Sony Bravia TV (Model KDL-42W829B), and I also have a First Generation Apple TV. Both of there used to provide the ability to show YouTube content, but earlier this year Google changed the YouTube API and consequently both of the aforementioned devices could not longer play the videos (now appears to work again on the TV, see update below). update 26-Dec-15: although I swear blind that when I tried the YouTube app on my Bravia TV did not work yesterday, and brief research on the net informed me that it was no longer supported, when I came to try it again today it worked!!! When I looked at the settings for the Bravia TV, I noticed that it supported Screen Mirroring over WiFi with Miracast  and it also seemed that the Moto

I need to get some wood flattened and squared, and I don't have access to a planer or jointer, so what do I do? Answer: YouTube! I searched around, and found this great idea for a flattening jig from the ingenious Izzy Swan. I really like his no-nonsense approach, and he has some great ideas. So I made a SketchUp model of my interpretation of Izzy's jig. I'm a novice with SketchUp, so creating the model was a learning exercise in itself,  but here its is in all it's glory. SketchUp model of flattening jig The dimensions are my own, and are a bit of guesswork loosely constrained by what pieces of 3/4" plywood I had available. Let's see how it turns out in reality. Edit: I made it as pictured, but it didn't turn out too good (my fault), so I scrapped it, and made a better one, which is still not perfect, but is OK for now. I have some ideas how I can improve what I made further.

Since I made the DIY table saw a few weeks back from my old circular saw, I realised two things:- What a useful tool a table saw is What severe limitations my home built one had. The man issues I discovered were as follows:- The blade was too small. The blade in a circular saw is usually of a smaller diameter than that of a true table saw, and as such not as much protrudes above the table. This seriously limited the depth of cut I could make. Raising and lowering the blade was a major pain in the ass. The accuracy of cut was not great So, I bit the bullet and bought a real one. The DIY table saw is now officially retired!