Filler

Last week’s project was to make a shooting board.

I had all the stock prepared and had started assembling it when I realized that the screws were too long. They poked out into the part my plane slides down.

This is not good. The project is on hold until I receive more screws.

A Joiner’s Box

This is a simple box to hold my tools. It is about 38″ wide, 15″ deep, and 13″ tall. I think. The design calls for a simple till, an internal box for small parts. I think I will do the more period-correct and have two sliding trays the length of the box.

I brought in my first glued-up panel for my wife to fuss over and tell me nice things. Ego stroking for sure.

She came clean and told me that it was just a board to her, not really worthy of praise.

This led me to think about that simple panel.

To get to the point where I could make that panel, I needed to build my workbench. This was a big build; it is done.

I needed work holding for the bench. I installed a leg vise and drilled holes for hold-downs. I made a batten to hold boards in place as they are planed. This was more than a bit of work.

The first step of making a panel is to be able to cut it to size. My skills at handsawing have gotten good enough that this is no longer an issue for right-angle cuts. It is fast enough that I’m not interested in using a power tool.

Next, the stock needs to be planed smooth and flat. My smoothing plane made short work of the smoothing, and my jack plane got the boards flat. I was able to quickly check for twist and flatness with my winding sticks and a straight edge.

The first board I attempted to smooth and flatten took me hours, and I did a poor job. Today it went quickly, with low effort.

That is because I’ve spent far too many hours sharpening plane irons and chisels. My slow-speed grinder now puts a 26-27° bevel on an iron or chisel; the three stones then bring that to 25°, and the strop polishes the bevel to a mirror-like finish. It is to the point where I only need to use the fine, extra-fine, and strop to bring an edge back to razor sharpness.

You can hear and feel when the blade is sharp. If I would only put the time into sharpening the irons of all the planes every day before starting, my life would actually be better and easier.

Even with a sharp iron, you need to know how to adjust the plane. Before I started this journey, I didn’t know how to do that. My planes fought me constantly. Now they are a pleasure to use.

Besides knowing how to tune, sharpen, and adjust your planes, you need to know how to use them. It is to the point where the process of smoothing and flattening a piece of stock is easy. I start with the #4, make it smooth, and move to the #5 Jack plane for the flat. Using the Jack plane at an angle to present a shearing action also makes the boards flat from side to side.

It only takes 5 to 10 minutes to make a board smooth and flat.

The next part of stock prep is to square an edge. Again I start with the #4, knock down the high spots until I have a smooth edge from end to end, and then I switch to the #5 again.

Checking for squareness is easy but humbling. Except that more and more often the edge is square after the Jack plane.

I’ve been playing with the Jointer plane. It is a huge, heavy, and long plane. The iron is wide enough to cover 2+ inches of wood in a single pass.

For my first panel, I clamped the finished faces together with the squared edges aligned with each other. Less than 4 minutes in the vise with the Jack and Jointer, and the edges are jointed.

The glue-up went very smoothly. There was a very thin bead of glue that came out of the glueline, as wanted. The final product is pretty darn good for my first glue-up in many years.

After the glue had dried for a few hours, I took the clamps off and gave it the once-over. It is not flat enough to plane the finished surface, so I worked on the back surface.

I think that this will be the last panel that I glue up that is full thickness. From now on, I’ll either rough plane the back surface or feed it through the (cheating) bandsaw to take 3/16 off the back face to reduce the amount of chips I make.

So that very unimpressive 12×13 panel represents an entire series of new skills. I’m looking forward to doing still more.

A few years ago, Miggy told us the tale of getting fit. He changed his diet, he added exercise, he did more, he ate less, and he weighed less.

At the time he was going through this, I was feeling pretty fat. Being fat made it difficult to want to do many things. I was fighting depression.

As part of the process of getting fit, I went to a local Zumba studio to use their treadmill. I started walking. Then I started walking rapidly. After a few months, I was actually jogging.

Unfortunately, my knee started to give me trouble. My doctor gave me a choice: jog and get a knee replacement or find something else to do.

I settled on a recumbent exercise bike. It helped. Then the panic hit. Things got bad.

Just as my doctor told me to stop jogging, my weight had plateaued at 285.

At my last doctor’s visit, the office scale read 312. This included full gear minus my EDC pistol. So spare magazines… Never , I’m making excuses for that very high number.

My morning weigh-in for the same day was 303.

Monday morning, my weight was 295. My weight loss for the week was 4 pounds, but I’m averaging about a pound a week.

For exercise I still have the exercise bike, but spending 2 or 3 hours using handsaws and hand planes to make things seems to be exercise as well.

I’m in this for the long run. In 1976 I was pleased to celebrate the 200th birthday of my country. I intend to celebrate the 300th as well.

If you ask a woodworker if they have enough clamps, the answer is always “no.” You always need at least one more clamp.

I’ve become that woodworker. I don’t have enough clamps. So I make do.

My glue of choice is Titebond III. This has a working set time of 15 minutes, it is an extremely strong adhesive, it is water resistant, and it is “easy” to work with. It comes in sizes ranging from your standard Elmer’s glue bottle to 55-gallon drums.

My local hardware and lumber store only had it in the pint size. I’ll be ordering more online shortly.

What I learned today is that I have not been using enough glue in my past glue ups.

Yesterday I went through almost half that bottle with an 11×48 three-board lamination. And I didn’t use enough.

The first board didn’t get enough glue, but I think it will be fine for what it is. The problem I ran into was spreading the glue. I had quickly made a spreading stick, but it just wasn’t working. I switched to using my finger and got better results, but I almost ran out of time working the first board in the sun.

Even a thin layer of glue is more than you expect.

I also took a page from the machine shop and looked up the specifics on the glue. It requires 100 to 150 PSI to properly work.

For those keeping track, that means we need to be providing over 65,000 lbs of pressure for proper use. A good clamp will provide 2000 lbs of pressure. This means that I should have been using 30 clamps on that one glue up.

I hate mathing.

Have a fantastic day; music tomorrow and SCOTUS on Wednesday.

I’m sure you all are tired of reading about my vehicle troubles. I’m sure this won’t be the last post about it.

Base problem, the truck is 15 years old. It was given a new frame, but it is starting to age out.

Major safety issues:

• Right front wheel bearing is bad
• Left front wheel bearing is going bad
• Right front caliber is likely bad or will go bad when pads are replaced.
• Left front caliber is likely bad or will go bad when pads are replaced.
• Front brake pads, both sides, are bad
• Front rotors, both sides, are bad. Wear pattern shows uneven application of force
• Right rear hard line to flex line at frame has bad crimp. It will fail soon
• Multiple other smaller, non-safety issues

The goal was to reduce my costs at the dealer as much as possible. His price on parts is reasonable, he puts a reasonable markup on those parts. He is willing to use customer supplied parts from me. I have told him that he can reject any parts I bring him if they are not up to his expectations.

The total cost of parts, from Rockauto was $514. Of that, only the brake calibers were the right parts. Everything else goes back for store credit, my choice.

Total cost of parts from local shop, over $500. This was ONE wheel bearing, pressed, instead of two, a pair of rotors and new brake pads. Moreover, there is the brake cleaner, brake fluid, two 12 in sections of brake line. I’m glad they know me. I wish they didn’t know me by name when I walk in.

I thought the right front went ok, after I stopped cursing about buying the wrong parts. It is verified that I made the mistake.

I will have my guy inspect my work and fix any errors I made.

The left front did not go as smoothly.

The wheel didn’t want to come off. The use of a long punch and a 5 pound hand sledge and my son’s help got that off.

The process of taking off the caliber is to first take off the flex hose to hard line bracket. This is a 12 MM (head) bolt.

That bolt head is now round and the bolt is still in place. I should have drilled it out with a left-hand drill and then used my other tools to remove it. My vice grips have gone on walk-about, so I couldn’t even use them.

I was able to break the line lose at the caliber and remove the caliber. The rotor gave way after jack bolts and banging.

It was getting late. The calibers did not want to line up. I finally got it installed, and the hard line would not go into place. I left it like that for the night.

Today started with a trip to the parts store for hard-line. Ally strongly suggested that having the part and not needing it was better than needing the part and not having it. Thank you, Ally.

After a bit of cussing, the hard line went into place. It would not hold pressure. It was time to try my hand at bending break line.

The hardest part of me was the fact that I had to stuff 12 inches of hard line where I should have been using a 6-inch length.

Moreover, did you know that the fittings will not slide around curves? They slide freely on the straight part. That was fun, straightening the line enough to get the fitting into place, then bending it back.

This was a painful process. Because there was no flex, I was bending the hardline with a mandrel in place. Think 2 foot long chuck of 1 inch diameter steel bar and a 1.5 inch diameter steel bar, 2 foot long. Yes, they are heavy. They get heavier the longer you have to hold them in place.

It got done. It was tightened to specification, see AVE’s earlier work. “Click”.

No leaks! I’m happy. I spend the time to find the right size for the bleeder valve. Wheel goes back on, the world is good.

It is time to bleed the brakes. The rear brakes go fine. When I go to bleed the right front, there is a puddle of brake fluid. It is leaking.

When I crawl under and review it, it is leaking where the hard line enters the calibers. At that point my daughter arrives home, I catch a ride with her to get another piece of brake line.

This goes a bit better as I could detach the bracket to get things into place.

So, going into the shop, they will replace the bad crimp, replace the left front wheel bearing, not the complete unit. They will check all the bits and pieces.

I did receive a few helpful comments. I do have an air powered impact gun/wrench. It does ok. I need to upgrade it, as it does not produce enough torque.

Because the gun is weak, I normally break the lug nuts loose before I lift the car. This makes it much easier after the car is up.

To access the axle nut, I need to remove the dust cover. To access the dust cover, I have to remove the wheel and rotor. To remove the rotor, I have to remove the caliber. To put the rotor and wheel back on and lower the car is more work than using a pry bar against the lug studs to keep the wheel hub from spinning.

This is filler as I’ve not looked at the news nor anything else on Friday.

As I’m writing this at 1830 on Friday, my hands are almost as grease covered as the worker’s hands in the image. I’ve been up since 0700 and have been at work on the Truck since 0930.

First stop, the auto supply store for cotter pins, brake cleaner, and brake fluid.

The first wheel comes off just fine.

Then it was time to take of the calibers. That is where I got my first surprise, these are big, and they do not float.

I’m used to calibers that are attached to the knuckle with two 14 mm headed screws. Torque specs are “yep, click”.

These bolts are normally greased and the calibers just float on the pin portion.

Not mine. They are attached with bolts torqued to 91 ft/lbs, and they are stuck. It took nearly 45 minutes to break them free using a 1″ black iron pipe as a cheater. The big issue was that there was not enough room to work the breaker bar with cheater. I got it done.

Once the caliber was off the truck, it was time to attack the rotor.

The rotor refuses to leave the truck. I whaled on it with a 5 pound hand sledge, it did not budge.

Second trip out, I sent my son to get some 6mx1.0 jack bolts. He returns with exactly what I needed. It only took three text messages. “What is grade 8?”, “do you want the type with the hex top?”, and “How long do they need to be.

Guess what? They don’t fit.

It is only then that I remembered that I have a nice thread gage checker. This is a steel cable with most thread sizes you would find in normal stuff. Each “key” (my son’s term for them), has an external threaded section on one side and an internal threaded section on the other.

In other words, you can screw one side into a hole, and you can screw bolts and screws into the other side.

Testing the jack boltholes I find they are 8m1.25 Off my son goes to get them.

With those in hand, the rotor comes off,

It is now time to attack the axle dust cap. This doesn’t want to come off, but a gentle (not really) attack with a cold chisel, and it gives me a gap for a pry bar to pry it off.

This revels the first clean metal I’ve seen, the axel, axel nut, and the lock for the axel nut.

With a bit of help from my son to keep the hub from rotating, I apply 300+ foot pounds with my foot. There is a load SNAP and all the tools let go. The bar being used to stop the hub from turning, the breaker bar, the 36 mm socket all went their directions.

We recovered all the pieces. I inspected the axel for damage, trying to figure out what snapped. The axle nut now spins off with just light finger pressure. Good news.

I then get the first “win” of the day. Driving the axel out of the sandpaper, err, bearing, was easy and just worked the way it was supposed to.

Driving the other side off? Not so much. After way too much effort, some stupids along the way, my son and I were able to drive the bearings off the knuckle.

The day is good!

After all that work, it is time to start reassembling the front right side. I picked up the “hub with pressed bearings” and compared it to the old part.

Not only does it not match the old part, I can’t make it work without someway to cut a spline in the damn thing.

I messed up. I wasn’t paying enough attention when I ordered front-wheel bearing assemblies. Yes, it had the 6 lugs, but it turns out that there was another version of the Tacoma which uses the heavy-duty brakes, calibers and all the rest, but it is RWD only.

I’m almost in tears. My son takes me to the parts store. They have it in stock. $195. Rockauto.com sells a better version for $106. OUCH! This is precisely what I was hoping to avoid.

It is too late to got back, I buy the parts and we go back.

With the correct part in hand, we can install the bearing assembly. I was just a question of tightening each bolt in sequence, the same amount.

I even have the right tools to torque the bolts. I’m a happy creature.

Time to install the new rotor.

This is where I started cussing to myself.

As I was checking out, I had the rotors, pads in the cart. The website suggested that I use a kit because it came with more hardware, and it was cheaper.

I went for it.

And missed that I had returned the 6 lug version and replaced it with a 5 lug version.

After a short crying jag, my son takes me back to the parts store. Yes, they have the parts in stock. 2 rotors and a set of pads. But because they only have premium in stock, $214.

The passenger side is completed. The bearing has been replaced, the rotor has been replaced, pads have been replaced, brake caliber has been replaced.

The only thing remaining is bleeding the brakes.

Starting work on the driver’s side. The damn wheel won’t come off the rotor! This required energetic use of that five pound sledge with a long punch to knock it off the rotor.

Jack bolts and a bit of hammering and the rotor came off. The brake caliber is stuck on and the head of the bolt holding the hard line on the hub side and the flex line on the frame side rounds over. I can’t get it off.

My son bounces on the breaker bar a few times before the bolts finally come loose. We managed to get the correct two bolts out, pay no attention to the extra bolt we took out.

We then got the hub ready for the new rotor. It took 30 minutes to get the rotor and caliber installed. It was then that I noticed that the hard line doesn’t line up. I take the top bolt out of the caliber and attempt to get the hard-line to attach.

That is when I called it. I was afraid I was cross threading the hard line to the caliber.

I’m tired, I’m grumpy, I don’t want to see the crap and noise that the leftist put out today.

I hope you are having a great weekend. I’m out there working on the truck. Only about 4 hours more of work.

Tuesday I picked Ally up at The Fort at No 4. On the way home, we stopped to do some banking and pick up some groceries.

As we were walking to the bank I said, “Oh, it is closed.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s Sunday.”

“Huh?”

I then got home and posted “Tuesday Tunes” to show up on Wednesday.

I’ve been working on a major website. This includes a content management system for the site that meets the requirements for that vertical.

What I decided on was a “management bar” for those logged in as manager. When they activate the “edit page” function, all the blocks that can be edited are highlighted. Click on the block to start editing the block.

Save your changes. When you are satisfied, click “make live” on the management bar to make all the changes at once.

There are a few good tools for editing text in place.

This left all the other blocks, image editor, carousel editor, calendar editor and a few others.

Design from the top, build from the bottom

I know what I want to do, how I want it to work. Fortunately, I only have to worry about the “working” part. Not the pretty part. I have a team member who helps with that.

What this means is that I see the entire system laid out. This thing will do this, this other thing will do that, the user will see this.

Which leads to a balancing game. How much is done in the template build out? How much is done in the JavaScript module? How much is done on the backend? And how much support does the Frontend request from the Backend?

Currently, I have three different editing models built, each one a bit different from the others. Why? Piece wise progression.

In my original implementation, all logic was done on the Frontend from data provided by the Backend during page load. These led me to a working edit for the carousel. Click here, drag and drop or upload an image. Click there, and you can rotate, mirror, flip, and crop an image, maintaining a fixed aspect ratio.

The next was the text editor. That was simple because the editor works in place, sort of. But it is working. I’ll be adding more features to it, but that is mostly done.

Then the new image processing came into play. Click on the image you want to edit, a dialog pops up, the original, raw image is loaded. Recorded edits are applied, the image can now be edited.

All modals had to be preloaded. All the content of the modal was preloaded. Everything works by modifying existing elements or modifying the DOM. The only communications with the backend are fetching the raw image.

Which led to the calendar editor.

Piecewise progression.

With this, the amount of data started to exceed easy storage in the DOM. Access to needed data was looking more and more like a call back to the backend. The need to serialize objects on the backend for the frontend to manipulate was starting to get stupidly complex.

This led to a redesign. Instead of multiple modals, there is now a single modal (dialog) which is fetched, on need, from the Backend. In this modal, there is a tabbed pane. Click on the tab, a different pane shows.

By listening for a pane to be displayed, we can determine what content we require and request that from the backend, which has full access to all the data and logic required to make this work.

Bingo, everything starts to get easier.

Which means, once this edit is completed, I’ll return to the image editor, make the same design decisions, which in turn will make the carousel editor a simple modification of the image editor.

Things are getting a little easier as I become more comfortable with TypeScript and “promises”

Why the concerns?

First, when I started programming, you didn’t do redundant things because there were no spare cycles and there were no spare bytes.

As an example, I like to write a = do_it(param)->do_other(params2)->do_different(do_wildly_different(param3)).

This seems reasonable to me. No extra cycles, no extra bytes.

Today, it is better to do r1=do_it(param); r2=do_wildly_different(param3); r3=r1.do_other(param2); r4=r3.do_different(r2); This performs the same actions, but it is often clearer to read and allows for checking results at each step. All good.

The other big thing is communications. My last project was a shopping app. Our family still uses it. It creates shopping lists that you can then use from your Android Phone. It has more to it, but that’s the gist.

Because communications is sketch around here, it was designed to work in a standalone state, uploading changes when it could, downloading changes when required.

This lead to an entire mindset of “Communications is expensive”. Which I’ve had to break. The new site makes seriously different design choices.

1. All Manager level actors will have modern browsers
2. All staff working with the site will have reasonable download speeds
3. All volunteers using the site will have reasonable browsers and speeds.
4. All visitors to the site will have a relatively modern browser.

In other words, If you are working on the site, and it takes 5 seconds to get an updated pane or modal, this will be acceptable, or you will need to upgrade your device.

In looking at the current usage of browsers on the Internet, more than 95% of the people using the Internet will do just fine.

Now back to the Bootstrap 5 grind as I design pretty forms.

My oldest son is on the spectrum. He has a job but does not have a license. He still lives with his mother, my ex-wife.

When he was in middle school, I attended an IEP (individual education plan). This is where we lay out what accommodations he needs and how best to get him educated.

I’m in a conference room with his “team”. This is the principal, multiple teachers, the special-ed coordinator and a few specialists. There are two males in the room. The principal and me.

As we start the meeting, the special-ed coordinator says, “These math classes are difficult. We believe that your son will be best served by removing the math requirement. Math is hard.”

I was livid. “Have you ever talked to him? Do you have a clue as to what is capabilities are in math? That is his easiest class? I’m betting that not a one of you majored in a STEM major. Math is hard? No, it is hard for you.”

This is one of the most important concepts in mathematics. Anything times zero is zero. Dividing anything by zero is undefined.

Calculus is about pretending you can divide by zero. Not because you are dividing by zero, but you are using a very small number in place of zero. Or, as calculus puts it, “as delta x approaches zero…”

• The parent has fail math
• Unless the third grader is Sheldon or Doogie, the correct answer is, 0. And for most people, of any age, the answer is 0. Context matters.
• Sounds like the parents gotta go back to third grade LOL
• I disagree that a number divided by zero is undefined. You had a number, 1, in this case. Then you didn’t divide it. So, 1 remains untouched. It shouldn’t lose its definition based on something you didn’t do.
• Teachers right tho
• Logically he is technically right. If you have one thing then divide it by nothing then you still have that thing cause there is nothing to divide by.
• Both the parent and the kids sharing the same brain cell
• She didn’t know the answer is infinity either.
• typical USA level education
• Yes, give up this fight. This is sufficiently correct for grammar school.

There are more idiots responding. Luckily, those that can do simple math out number them.

The follow up seems to be that the teacher wrote an apologized, claiming that she was taught that 1/0=0 back in the 90s.

I admit that I have horrible organizational skills. I use different tools to account for that lack.

I love me some Kanban and it looks so pretty when I start. And then it gets left behind.

Git allows me to make cheap commits. It allows cheap branches.

The development model should be “Create Issue. Create a branch to match issue. Work the issue on the branch. Resolve issue on branch. Merge master to issue branch. Resolve conflicts. Merge the issue branch back to master and delete the issue branch.”

I have a branch which was “Add MD5 to images”. By the time I was ready to commit, I had almost 40 files that had been modified. I spent about an hour making commits. Moving to different branches to get the changes into the right branches.

Once that was done, my workflows kicked the commit because of issues. Four hours to create typing stubs and to lint the added code. Painful.

Why? Because I got the md5 done but was in the middle of using the new code, then a higher priority issue popped which got its branch but which …

About once every two weeks, I have to spend a day organizing to get things back to reasonable.

I love working at the Fort at No 4. The current director is wonderful. She is also in over her head and struggling to get everything done that needs to be done.

This leads to her moving from most important to next most important until there is no organization, no completion.

Yet, she keeps it all going. I don’t know how she does it.

Today we had a longish meeting to go over Use Cases for the new website.

For me, use cases are formalized brainstorming. Every use case is written as

“As {Actor} I {Want|Need} {something}”

The something needs to be well-defined, and it must be a single thing. You don’t write, As a web visitor, I want to be able to read the EULA and the Privacy Statement.

That is two different use cases.

As we were working our way though one section of use cases, she told me that the process of writing use cases for the website was helping her to organize her job as the director.

Which is an extra benefit.

I’m a bit tired right now. I stayed up way too late Tuesday Night, 0300 late. I’m in the making good progress, fighting my way through the tangled web of code.

Today will be an even better day.

Now all I need to do is find time to read some more court documents, without taking my blood pressure through the roof.

This Representative is talking out of both sides of her mouth.

According to her, “they” went into the Delaney Hall premises, guided by the guards.

She claims that she has oversight authority to be there.

Let me see, what happens when you enter a federal property, look around, take pictures and selfies, then walk back out, thanking the cops on duty?

If I remember correctly, you get tossed in jail without bail to wait till a judge decides to hear your case. You are given an option to confess or to be returned to your cell.

The rest of the story is that the Mayor of Newark was arrested. He does not have any “oversight” authority.

The democrat representatives were there for a camera opportunity. Not oversight. I do not know if they even sit on a committee that oversees this facility.

So the good news, is these stunts are getting these showboating politicians arrested.

Ally and I have had some long conversations about winning the hearts and minds of the middle.

The common saying is, “Where there’s smoke, there’s fire.”

This is normally true. Sometimes it is not.

In 2016, my parents expressed their disgust for Trump. They were convinced that he was doing horrible things.

Today, there are people that scream and call him a felon. The “fine people” hoax still lives on.

If you are a normal person, you can’t help but be inundated with negative coverage of Trump.

His tariffs will destroy the economy! There is a recession coming! All those empty ships sitting in China means that the US economy is failing and prices are going to go through the roof.

What I see when I see all of those empty container ships is tariffs working. Those are sales China is not making. That is their economy burning to the ground.

But I can’t talk to those in the middle about it. Yes, it is my opinion. My friends that are thinking and on the left, can’t get past the constant barrage of “Evil Trump”!

They just tune out or they get TDS. My ex-friend went that way. It was Trump’s fault that Roe v. Wade was reversed, and that meant there would be no “reproductive care” for women.

It is years since that decision, there are still abortions happening in this country. In some places, more than before the Dobbs decision.

Most of all, I’m reminded of the people telling me that because there are so many accusations of Trump, there is so much smoke coming from the Trump Administration, there must be fire there.

What I saw were arsonists and smoke bombs.