76 posts from 2008

For Christmas this year, I made the kids wooden balance beams.  I was inspired by the balance beam I saw here.  It wasn't too hard, and it gave me an excuse to learn to use our router.  Here's how they turned out.

IMG_0006

A few weeks ago, my husband and I were sitting in the family room when a terrible noise came from downstairs.  Fortunately it was a terrible noise we recognized, the sound of a bearing failing on a motor, in this case the combustion blower for our furnace.  Initially we planned to call in an HVAC technician to fix it, but my brother shamed me into switching out the broken motor for a new one myself. 

The first step was ordering the replacement part.  I went through our furnace's owner manuals and found the original part number, and with that, google helped me find the current incarnation of the motor I needed at http://www.furnaceparts.com/ .  I sent in my order and waited.  Shortly before Thanksgiving, the new motor arrived, and since I was frantically getting ready to roast a turkey and continue my annual tradition of messing up the stuffing, I checked the part number on the outside of the box and set it aside.  After Thanksgiving, I took the motor out of its box and found this:

1stmotor

The shaft was bent too, so it was basically a big, ugly paperweight.  I contacted Dave at Furnaceparts.com and he sent us a new one without an argument, and it arrived a few days later (meanwhile my husband was out of town and the weather was chilly, so I kept my fingers crossed that the motor we had would hold out till we could get it fixed). 

Finally it was time to get to work.

First and most important step: CUTOFF POWER TO THE FURNACE AT THE CIRCUIT BOX.  I was tempted to just flip the switch next to our furnace, but my husband and electrical guru explained that occasionally a switch is miswired, and when it is in the off position, instead of having a very low voltage, it can have a very high voltage, so go ahead and make the trek to the circuit box, it may save you from getting zapped or worse. 

Here was our original (dying) motor:

Before

The motor is actually contained in the black squirrel-cage (you can see the copper windings), but the part we replaced included both the motor and the nautilus-shaped blower to which it's mounted.   The blower sucks air in through a hole in its back, opposite the motor, and then blows it out through the circular duct at the top when the motor turns.   

I began removing the old motor by cutting the black and white (?) wires, and disconnecting the red rubber hose from the old motor (it pulled right off).  Then I removed the screws attaching the blower to the ductwork and the screws holding it in place.  It came out easily, and this is what we saw:

Motoroff

When we removed the motor we found a new part:

Seal

This gasket was in between the motor and the hole in the furnace, and was covered in fiberglass.  Luckily the new blower came with new adhesive fiberlass rings.

Newseals

So I scraped off the old and stuck on the new. 

Next was the tricky maneuver of getting the blower in place while holding the gasket in place until the screws were tight enough to hold it for me.  Nothing complicated, just a situation where it was nice to have a third hand (from my husband.)  The blower is supported by  4 screws, and I put them in loosely at first and then gradually tightened them, trying to keep them all about even, to try to get a tight seal against the gasket.

While I was dealing with the gasket, my husband helpfully prepared the furnace's wires to power the new motor.  He stripped off a little insulation and crimped on connectors called FASTON tabs.  Once they were in place, it was easy to slide them onto the motor's terminals (it doesn't matter which wire goes on which side).  After taking the picture, I connected the red rubber hose to the nipple on the left.

Newwiring

Next I started to connect the ducts to the blower.  This required drilling holes to receive the screws.

Drilling

Unfortunately the bit was too small the first time, which became apparent when the head of the first screw broke off.

Ductcu

But once the holes were redrilled, the remaining screws went in fine.  We replaced the cover, turned the furnace back on, and enjoyed the knowledge that we'd done the job for $126 and about an hour of our time.

A disclaimer:  This is not a "how-to" post.  It's a "what-I-did" post.  I'm not an HVAC technician, just a cheap homeowner. 

I have been doing a lot of crafting lately.  I'll have to get some pictures online to show what I've done lately (cute little mini pinatas, and some super-easy fleece ballet slippers).  But here are things I have in mind for Christmas.  As an alternative to a gingerbread house:

It's based on the cardboard template here: http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2007/07/diy_minicomic_stand.html

For gifts, I'm thinking of making three of these for the kids:

Balance beam far away

Here's how my day goes-- {T} heads for the DVD player with a DVD chosen at random.  I say "no movies" and he answers, adorably, "but I WUV movies" and continues on his way.  Eventually he figures out that I'm not going to let it happen, and he heads for his candy bucket, and we go through it all again.  And then cookies.  And while all of this is going on, {B} is singing "Allouette" to herself OVER AND OVER AND OVER AGAIN, and {A} obviously needs desparately to go to the bathroom, but is apparently waiting till she needs to sprint.

Ah, motherhood.

Clean1

The other day we ran out of dishwasher detergent, and I didn't feel like running out to the store, so I did a google search for "homemade dishwasher detergent" and found a recipe:

• 1 cup Borax
• 1 cup baking soda
• 1/4 cup salt

Tooth-fairy

We know because she missed a pick up at our house last night.  In her defense, the tooth didn't fall out till about 9 pm, and the tooth's owner stayed up reading till probably 11. 

This morning, I mentioned to {B} that the tooth fairy just doesn't have as reliable a record as Santa.  Then, we realized that the tooth fairy is out gathering teeth every single night, and Santa only has to make his deliveries once a year, and if Santa had to do it every night, he might make a mistake now and then too.  {B}'s responded "If Santa came every night, I wouldn't care if the tooth fairy forgot."

Hopefully the tooth fairy will manage to squeeze her into tonight's schedule!

Purse

It started with my new purse-- it's made from woven candy and soda wrappers.  I really like it, and now that I'm carrying it around, I am having conversations with strangers and friends about other ways to make bags from recycled materials.  It's interesting. 

Anyhow, I was at the library yesterday, and the librarian told me that you can make a tyvek like material by using plastic grocery bags together. 

I was intrigued.  And I'm looking for another craft for my brownies to do at the next meeting, so when I got home, I started poking around on the web for advice.

Etsylabs has a tutorial for the basic technique.  Make has a video on youtube, showing how to make a messenger bag out of mainly black trash bags. 

Make a Messenger Bag Out of Trash Bags!

What I'm intrigued by is the idea of being able to make kind of a patchwork affect by using different colored bags.  I have found one person online who is doing the kind of thing I'd like to do, but, the instructions aren't dumbed down enough for me.  I'm going to have to experiment some, I guess.  Anyhow, here is the best fused plastic bag I've seen so far:

Heartbag

Isn't that neat? 

I spent a few minutes ironing some bags together today, and I'm wondering if I'm too much of a perfectionist for this-- they wrinkled up a LOT and it bugs me.  I had a mix of LDPE and HDPE bags, though, and I'm guessing I'd get less wrinkling if I used only one kind.  FYI, the crinkly bags you get at the grocery store are HDPE, and the shiny, thicker bags you get at Target are LDPE bags (bread bags are also LDPE). 

My basic idea for the brownie craft is for me to fuse a foundation material ahead of time, and have some shapes precut out of colored bags, along with having bags available for the girls to cut their own shapes. Then the girls can make up some kind of picture on their foundation, and when they're done, I'll use the iron to fuse it on.  Originally, I was thinking that they would be making either sit-upons (a girl scout tradition to keep your butt dry when you sit outside) or placemats.  But now I'm not sure that they'll be big enough for either, with the shrinkage.  Maybe we can fuse a "frame" around the picture? 

The craft is going to be part of a science badge-- how better to learn about plastic than see it melt?  I have some ideas about how to teach them about thermosets vs thermoplasts, so it is really science.    :)