Archive for tag: My Projects

Another 3D stamp: QR codes

November 20, 2024 | My Projects | By: Mark VandeWettering

After tinkering with making a 3D stamp yesterday, I thought that maybe I would tinker together a stamp for the QR code that would send you to my resume-ish site mvandewettering.com. I had used the qrcode library in python to generate them before, but it wasn’t clear to me how to use that to generate […]

3D printing an ink stamp, or “Welcome to Stampy Town, Population Five!”

November 19, 2024 | 3D printing | By: Mark VandeWettering

Apologies to Hermes Conrad. Further apologies to those who won’t get this Futurama quote. During COVID, I spent some time in my shop doing more woodworking. At the time I was trying to figure out how I could sign the work that I did, mostly for fun rather than ego (my woodworking skills remain modest […]

Practical uses for 3D printers…

November 9, 2024 | 3D printing | By: Mark VandeWettering

I’ve been an on-and-off enthusiast for 3D printing for quite some time, but in the early days, it wasn’t what I would call “practical”. They used to be fairly unreliable. In particular, my aging Creality CR-10 had difficulties with bed leveling, and while I kept modifying it to add sensors like the BL-Touch to automate […]

Post Field Day Report on K6HX Beacon Operations…

July 1, 2019 | My Projects | By: Mark VandeWettering

So, part of my incentive on working on my WSPR beacon was one of my coworkers decided to try to do some operating from the local Emeryville Marina, and I thought it might be nice to use the opportunity to try to pack up my WSPR setup and see if I could get some spots […]

More adventures in the shop and around the house.

May 5, 2019 | My Projects | By: Mark VandeWettering

Okay, it’s not really a “shop”. It’s really just my garage. But then again, it’s hardly ever had a car in it in the last two decades, so calling it a garage is perhaps even a bit more of a stretch. But I’m trying to convert it into a place where I don’t mind spending […]

I can delay the simplest tasks with endless questions…

May 1, 2019 | My Projects | By: Mark VandeWettering

So, last night I didn’t actually get any woodworking done. Carmen actually did more than I did: she took the orbital sander to some (very rough) and cheap fence material that I’m going to use for the slats on the shelving and cleaned them up. They looked much nicer after this process. At just about […]

Monday night sawdust creation…

April 29, 2019 | My Projects | By: Mark VandeWettering

I got home from work today, and decided that the best way to lower my stress level was to go into the garage and make something. I didn’t really have a project in mind. I’ve been pondering making a drill press table and have been thinking about a couple of design options, some of which […]

Update on tool caddy, with a few lessons learned on designing and order of operations

April 25, 2019 | My Projects | By: Mark VandeWettering

Got home from work after seven last night, so didn’t have a ton of time in the workshop. I was also impatient to actually get the parts for my tool caddy actually glued up, so I worked rather more quickly than I should have. I taped the edges, spread some glue, rolled up the sides […]

Building a tool caddy…

April 24, 2019 | My Projects | By: Mark VandeWettering

A few weeks ago I was at a garage sale, and picked up a few old tools for just a few bucks. One of the things I got was a little tool caddy for $1. It basically is a box with a central handle, constructed from 1/4″ plywood and divided into a number of compartments. […]

My first real table saw jig: a cross cut sled

April 21, 2019 | My Projects | By: Mark VandeWettering

After yesterday’s success in building a little garden stool, I wanted to get back into the garage to do a little more woodworking. Sadly, today was the last day of my “staycation”, and I still had quite a few chores. I spent part of the afternoon breaking out the pressure washer to clean the mold […]

How to turn pulling weeds into a wood working project…

April 19, 2019 | My Projects | By: Mark VandeWettering

Okay, after all the drought-ending rain we’ve been having, our yard has turned into a lush jungle of various kinds of weeds. Part of it is just grass which has sprouted above the black landscape cloth in the mulch, but other areas were more or less unimproved since we finished our retaining wall project last […]

My Dust Collection “Cart”

April 16, 2019 | My Projects | By: Mark VandeWettering

I have been trying to do a bit more wood working in my garage, with the net result that a fine layer of sawdust is settling everywhere. I had started to use my aging Ridgid WD12000 4.5HP 12 gallon wet-dry vac attached to my table saw and my newly finished router table. But just using […]

A rolling stand for my Harbor Freight Router Table

April 13, 2019 | My Projects | By: Mark VandeWettering

I’ve slowly been trying to do some woodworking projects. I have very little skill and experience. In the past, I had (barely) enough skill to put together some simple Dobsonian telescopes out of plywood, using mostly a handheld router and a jigsaw, but they weren’t actually very accurately made (especially compared to the tolerances the […]

Template Program that uses a DS3231 RTC to wake up an Arduino

April 3, 2019 | My Projects | By: Mark VandeWettering

So, my idea is to use a cheap but reasonably accurate RTC chip module based upon the DS3231 chip to periodically wake a sleeping Arduino. I tried getting it working yesterday, but had little luck. I don’t know whether it was Bailey’s insistence on being petted or simple sleep deprivation, but it eluded me yesterday. […]

Baby steps with the DS3231…

April 3, 2019 | My Projects | By: Mark VandeWettering

Last night, I did a small amount of work on two projects. I applied some Wood Bondo to a couple of bad defects in my garden bench project. I hadn’t used it in a while, and forgot what a pleasure it was. Sanding should be finished up shortly and I’ll definitely have it painted and […]