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Today I gave some navy blue Rit dye a try.  The parts looked good after only 10 SECONDS!

Cutting the test blocks in half with a bandsaw revealed that the dye took only to the outer surfaces.  There appears to be some bleeding into the centers, but a closer inspection shows that the dye leaked in through tiny holes in the part.  The most noticeable was the part that was soaked for 45 minutes.  The dye leeching into the part slowly over time explains why that one stopped floating and sank.

Perhaps with some additional SkeinForge tweaking I can get my prints to be completely watertight.

Twin Cities Maker ordered 5 lbs of white abs along with our makerbot.  I’m aware that the MakerBot Store currently sells colored abs, but 5 lbs of white is nearly a lifetime supply and my method allows for more colors.  While Rit dye is relatively safe don’t use any cookware that will be used for food ever again, and be careful as it will stain just about anything.  I’m told that bleach will remove it from white sinks, counter tops, etc. but I can’t guarantee it will, so try to be careful.

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So remember that batch of cider I started a few weeks ago?

Sorry the photos are still rotated weird.  They look fine on my computer, but as soon as I upload them something happens.

Here’s what happens next:

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Here’s a quick overview on how to make your own 5 gal batch of cider.  I may or may not post more in-depth description of some of the steps, leave comments on what you’d like to see.

What you need:

5 gallons of juice – I like to use Indian Summer apple cider, its only ingredient is apple juice, no preservatives.

Some extra sugar (optional, to raise alcohol content) – I used 4 cans of apple juice concentrate, plenty of sugar, not much extra water.

Yeast – I used a starter made with the sediment from the bottom of one of my bottles of cider and 1 of the cans of concentrate, left on my stir-plate for about 48 hours until it started bubbling, if you can’t make a starter, I recommend Wyeast labs #4766.  My starter is a 3rd generation of that strain.

First step, clean and sanitize your container and add your first gallon of juice:

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Introducing the Stanheiser HD-201′s the new standard in yardwork audio…

This is a combination of my stanley earmuffs that I wear at work and my Sennheiser HD-201 headphones. This is my alternative to wearing earbuds underneith the earmuffs, which works, but can be troublesome. A lot of times a slight tug on the cord can cause an earbud to fall out, and if someone needs to talk to me I have to take the headphones and earbuds off. Most of the time I also have to take my gloves off to get the earbuds back in.

Features include built in strain relieve and a conviently placed 3.5mm stereo jack so that the earmuffs can be used alone.

Last night I realized that the end of semester stress sort of caused my blog to die.  Since it’s now summer I have no excuse to post more often.

I woke up this morning to this post from The Food in my Beard, one of my favorite blogs.  Realizing we had leftover burgers in the fridge I now had a source of inspiration for my lunch. (continue reading…)

One of my favorite things to do to/with my dog is to start throwing a frisbee, but stop midthrow and turn around and throw it the other way.  Of course, he runs off in the direction he thinks you were going to throw it before it even leaves your hand.  Since he can tell that you don’t have it, and that you’re not hiding it, he starts looking for it.  One problem, he’s not going to find it in the area of the yard he’s running in.

I want to make something that can track his path as he searches.  It could be done using gps, but I wonder if the accuracy of gps would be suitable for the kind of data I’m looking for.  I could attach some bright led’s to him and take a timelapse photo, but it’d be difficult to get high enough to get a good shot from above.

It’d be cool to see if any sort of pattern shows up after several runs, maybe something awesome like this shot of a roomba?

Started with some extra filling left over from the stuffed shells my sister made the other night.  Cooked until I was satisfied the raw egg was cooked and the parm was crispy.

Added 2 eggs and scrambled. (continue reading…)

Last day of the April Maker Challenge, I made bagels!

I used this recipe as advised by my favorite food blog