Turning a floppy disk in to a Starship.

I had this old floppy disk left over and on a website I saw how to make a Starship out of it. So I wanted to give it a shot. All you need is the floppy disk and a pair of scissors.

Start by taking the floppy disk apart. Do not bend the metal cover.

Cut the cover like this.

Now fold the wings outwards. You can also fold the wingtips up.

Remove the "floppy" part to keep the metal disk.

The metal disk will become the "saucer". Hold it next to the rest to see where to cut away bits of the "neck".

The cut "neck".

Put the saucer on...

... and fold the metal strips around it to hold it in place.

Voila, there's your starship! :-)

Putting up blinds (IKEA Lindmon)

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I wanted to replace my see-through white curtains with some blinds. Nice wooden ones. I got them at Ikea.

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These are the contents of 1 packet of Ikea "Lindmon" blinds.

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Putting up blinds is no rocket science. These 3 parts are as difficult as it gets. They need to be side or top mounted and then you can just put the blinds in.

Make sure you do not hang them too close to any grips.

Once you know the correct measurements you can start screwing everything on to the wall/ceiling, in my case the top.

TIP: add 3mm to the required space between these holders. This is because the holder's hinges face inwards. This is really bad design that I overlooked and I had to cut 3mm off the rails :-(

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So anyway, you should end up like this.

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Now you can simply put the rails with the blinds hanging in to the holders and close those holders.

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1 window done.

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Two windows done :-)

Making a shop counter

You know, everybody is going to need a shop counter in their life at some point. So pay attention! Coz I'm about to show you how to make one!

It's nothing fancy really. Very cheap. But it looks quite good! Like a proper counter actually :-)

Get wood. This counter will be 250x92x60 cm. The wooden frame we'll start with however is 231x72x55 cm. I got 6 pieces of 300x69x44 cm.

Saw in to bits.

I made drawings first using Google Sketchup. This is what the first step should look like.

Not a bad start.

Next put on the smallest beams.

Voila. I used the counter top as a working surface because it's actually more even than the floor ;-)

Next up are the legs.

There they are. The shop was out of white ones so I used black ones for the back since customers won't see those.

Then the sides and top need to be put on.

I actually put the sides on while the frame was still lying on the top. That way everything is straight. Then I turned it upright.

Attach the top and you're done!

This is the rear-view.

Even that looks as designed ;-)

Making a gate

This post is about making a gate.

I wanted a small gate to close off the entry to my door. My dad had some leftover wood he "rescued" from being thrown away by someone. I'm glad he did because it's a high quality wood that is probably not allowed anymore these days.

So let's begin.

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The wood. High quality, straight planks. More or less painted. Good stuff.

I used a sawing bench since it's a fair bit of work. I used it to cut the pieces the right length and also to cut the tips.

Quickly put together after it was cut. Looks promising.

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Back home I have a tiled floor. The lines between the tiles come in handy. I used the lines to make sure everything was on a 90 degree angle.

The result of putting in a zillion screws. Well, not really a zillion, OK... The top 2 horizontal pieces and the bottom one have 2 screws on each intersection of wood. The diagonal piece has 2 screws at the ends and 1 everywhere else. You can see the screws reasonably OK in the next picture.

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The diagonal bit is crucial to making a solid gate. Without it, the gate would collapse after it was put on the wall. It is important that the bottom end of the diagonal bit is on the side where it is mounted against the wall.

So I painted the back of it first. That way I could paint the front after mounting it to the wall.

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You can see the separate piece of wood here as well. That's to put on the wall. The gate will then be mounted on this piece of wood.

To put it on the wall I needed some big screws and matching plugs. I wanted to know exactly where the holes needed to be so I drilled hole in the wood first, held it against the wall and then drilled holes in the stone with a small drill-bit, just to mark where the holes needed to be.

It needs to support a fair weight so I put in quite a few screws. Starting to look good there!

Next up are the hinges. I bought the biggest ones I could find. Since the wood is hard, I pre-drilled the holes for the screws to prevent wood-splitting. You have to be very careful though not to drill through the wood!

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I sat the gate on a small piece of wood to lift it off the ground a bit. It happened to have exactly the right height. This made it easy to mount the gate on the wall.

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Yay!

I don't want it to be smacked against the wall by the wind when it's open so I made a hook to hold it still.

I painted the front of the gate as well.

Not bad I think :-)

I had to think about how to lock the gate for a while. There's a gate and a pole. Hmm... In the end I decided to make a sliding lock that slides in to the pole. Except the pole is made of solid metal and the hole needed to be 1cm in diameter.  I drilled the hole by using 3-, 4.5-, 6-, 8- and 10 mm drills. I had to use my power drill for the last 2 bits.

After that it was a simple matter of putting the lock on my gate. I did this by holding it on the gate with the slide in the hole. Then I pre-drilled the holes for the screws and screwed it on.

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And so the gate got finished. This is the view from my hall way. I like the result very much.

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And there is the all finished gate from the front. It was a very satisfying bit of work and I enjoyed making it.

Mission accomplished :-)