Archive for the 'General' Category

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Welding

Published on 7/26/2009 in General. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

Last year I took an evening course in Basic Welding at Conestoga College. It was just an introductory course for people who want to learn how to weld for their own projects. No credit toward welding as a profession.

It covered oxy-acetylene and a bit of GMAW (aka MIG). I like oxy-acetylene, but i didn’t really care for GMAW. With GMAW, I felt like I had no control over the process. I couldn’t get an intuitive grasp of the effects of all the variables (voltage, current, wire feed rate, arc length), and the welding gun nozzle is so big that I can’t see what’s going on in there. With oxy-acetylene, everything is right there in front of you.

Besides, when it’s time to go buy yourself some equipment, an oxy-acetylene rig is cheaper than a reasonably-capable GMAW machine. And a decent GMAW machine may require a new electrical circuit to power it. And you can cut with oxy-acetylene: it’s two tools for the price of one.

Avoiding UPS/FedEx brokerage fees

Published on 1/26/2009 in General. 284 Comments

I wrote previously about the extortionate “brokerage” fees charged by UPS and FedEx for imports into Canada. That post has attracted a huge volume of response from other enraged people.  I have learned more since then, including an interesting response direct from the Canada Border Services Agency.
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Sticky snow-blower cable

Published on 12/30/2008 in General. 8 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , .

I’ve had growing problems the last couple years with one of the control cables on my Sears snowblower.  One of those cables like a bicycle brake cable, with the inextensible inner wire, and the incompressible outer sheath.  I’m sure there’s a technical name for cables like that, but I don’t know what it is.  (Update: They’re called Bowden cables.)

It’s the cable that directs the discharge chute up or down.  It became very sticky, so that I could pull the lever to lower the chute, but when I pushed the lever to raise the chute, it wouldn’t go back up by itself.

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Old memories, trapped in 126 film cartridges – Part 2

Published on 10/21/2008 in General. 0 Comments

Part 1

I got the processed films back from Film Rescue, quite a long time ago now. They didn’t really rock my world, I’m afraid.

I finally got around to uploading the images to my home photo gallery, here.

I hate Henry’s Waterloo store

Published on 8/18/2008 in General. 31 Comments Tags: , , .

I hate Henry’s Waterloo store. Why? Let’s review the security camera footage…
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