Recycled folders

This is just a short note – while paging through the Levenger’s catalog the business card sized notecards caught my attention as they always do, because I lust after them and then realize its a lot easier (and cheaper) to write on the back of old business cards. They still haven’t gotten me yet. But this last time around I had a crisis of lines – old busniess cards don’t have lines on them and Levenger’s cards are horizontally lined.

Angst over lines gave my only slight pause – I went to my current favorite art store (Utrecht in Boston, the others are Pearl Paint on Canal Street in NYC and Guild Art in Northampton, MA) and found my notebook missing (as usual). But in my wallet were some old cards from when I was trying to design my own collectible card game (abandoned). I used one of those cards and that made me realize I had at my disposal a way to make my own lined cards.

Awesomely easy. Cut old folders into a size that will fit my printer. Set up a file with just lines. Print onto the old folders and then cut into size.

Things you should know:

Business card size is 2 X 3.5 inches or 5.1 X 8.9 cm.

Trading card (baseball card) size will fit in your wallet where the money is supposed to go. That size is 2.5 X 3.5 inches or 6.4 X 8.9 cm.

If you prefer pristine you have a few options: for business card size you can buy perforated business cards. Most word processing programs as well as most graphic design programs have templates that you can use to set up a business card – you can make a to do list, address book style, introduction card, or just put lines or a grid. For baseball card size you’re on your own for design, but you can buy cardstock and cut it to size.

In case you don’t have software that can set up a business card, here’s a couple of online options:

Avery: I’ve been using their products for years. Great templates, all free. A word to the wise: it *is* their site, so expect the templates to work best with their supplies.

business card land – they let you design a business card and save it as a pdf file.

Beware of other sites – some of the ones I explored not only were difficult to navigate, but also they were chock full of clickable ads that misleadingly looked like navigation links.

😛 Any questions?

1999 Camry Headlight Assembly – Replaced!

This I did because my car failed inspection for a foggy headlight and a frame on my back license plate. When it failed I got the distinct impression that it was because the previous week I had a favor from the mechanics, whose boss told them to fix my car after they’d told me they were too busy.

They not only wanted to charge me an exhorbitant amount for the repair, but they refused to do it that day, or even while I waited the next day. They sneeringly told me to take it to someone else if I wanted it done faster (knowing that it was the end of the day and the week).

They made a big deal of telling me it was a big safety issue and not to drive the car until I got the problem fixed. Another one made a big deal out of opening the car to show me that the assembly was cracked. He grabbed the bulb and rattled it – it might have broken further, but I will only say that I am really good with duct tape.

I have 60 days to repair the car. The mechanics quoted me a price of $128 for the assembly and an hour labor/repair time. Close to $200.

I had already done research, but I wanted to see if I could get a fast part so I went to a local junkyard. $102 if I wanted to order it; they usually did not have the part in stock. I took advantage to being there to replace my wheelcovers.

I went to ebay, hoping to find the same deal as I’d seen before – $25 and free shipping. I didn’t find that one – instead I got both the driver side and passenger side lights for $45 with free shipping.

It took me an hour, because it was cold and I dropped two of the three bolts inside the car. I went back into the house three times to get warm and twice to get things to get the bolts back.

The new headlight assembly

The first thing I did was disengage the bulb plug. Then I removed the bolts on the top part of the assembly, and then moved the turn signal/parking light assembly to the side to get at the bottom bolt on the right , or outside edge of the headlight assembly.

It was easy to remove the old assembly because it was broken. I took off the bolts and pulled it out. The third bolt was difficult access – it’s on the outside bottom edge.

Difficult access

On my car it was easy to remove because someone had removed the plastic plug that holds the signal light assembly to the fender. I took that off, moved the signal light assembly to the side, and took off the bolt.

When I dropped the bolts, one went into the front bumper assembly, and the other went between the radiator grill and the radiator. I could see both, but I couldn’t reach either one. I have a magnetic pickup tool, but it’s a likely bet that its in Florida. I dropped the first one trying to replace it into the new headlight assembly. I put it into the bolt driver and it fell out since the driver isn’t magnetic. I probably shouldn’t have tried it a second time when it fell out the first. Sigh, and the second one fell out when I was trying to figure out how to get the bolt to stay in the driver. Always have a cup to put parts into, and USE IT.

I was at my exes house, and surprise of surprises, she had a telescopic magnetic parts retreiver – she’d never used it, but her current boyfriend had given it to her as a stocking stuffer. I can’t imagine her working on a car, but they do live in an old house, so I guess she might at some point drop something that could be picked up by a magnet.

The pickup tool and my makeshift magnetic bolt driver

But for me, with that tool I got the bolts within about ten seconds. I had been making my own tool from a powerful magnet and a cat toy, so I had a magnet with masking tape on it. I put that on the bolt driver and used that to hold the bolt in the driver.

While replacing the bolts on the headlight assembly, I noticed that the signal light assembly had tabs on both sides –  one connected to the headlight

assembly, the other fit inside an opening on the fender. I made sure those were engaged before tightening the bolt on the signal assembly.
I did some research on the internet about how to align the headlights after installing the new ones, and opinions varied. One fellow, a champion repair specialist opined that no adjustment is needed as they normally come preadjusted. I think mine is aimed a little high, but I’ll know for sure when I take it for inspection. I want to put in the other headlight before I do, and that will require both good weather and being parked outside an auto parts store in case I break the clip – a plastic thing that looks like a plug, that, on the other side of the car, attaches the parking/signal light assembly to the passenger side fender.

But for now, my car is repaired!

Plastic Refrigerator Shelf: Repaired!

This is not by any means my first repair. But it is the first one I will publish.

This shelf is in my mom’s refrigerator. It has a six inch crack that likely will get larger. I bet I could order a new shelf and consign the broken one to a dump where it will deteriorate over time – like a thousand years. And why pay huge bucks when I know I can fix it?

My first plastic refrigerator repair was the plastic bar that held things on a shelf in my old apartment in Florence. No glue I could find would hold it because the moment any weight was put against it, the glue would separate and everything would fall. I found (in my car, lol) a bar that I bolted to the plastic and it never fell, and, the  best part, it’s not visible to the casual view. Its not the first time I inherited a problematic refrigerator – that is one of the biggest hazards of renting. The one before that was a refrigerator that was ancient – no replacement parts, and only one shelf! I built a shelf out of a rack from another refrigerator that I found at a flea market. The only tool I needed was a rotary tool. The only tools I needed for the one in Florence were a hand drill and a screwdriver.

That’s all I will need for this one. Instead of the drill I am going to use a screwdriver (i will show you how) and I am going to use shelf supports for the repair.

I measured the crack in the shelf and the thickness of the plastic. I also took a picture of the top and bottom of the shelf to take with me to the hardware store.

At the hardware store I used my measurements to buy something called a mending plate. I bought the shortest bolts I could find that also would fit the mending plate. P also bought some quick change power drill bits – since I didn’t have a drill, I decided to see if I could use the quick change bits with the ratcheting screwdriver I already had.

The bits were a little long, and i had to put in a shim to make them stick, but it worked! I measured the holes for the mending plate while holding the broken bits together as tightly as I could. Then I predrilled the holes using my screwdriver drill bit concoction. I assembled the whole thing and put it back in the regrigerator. The project, including the trip to the hardware store, took about two hours.

After looking at it both ways, I ended up putting the bolts through the other way (on the top of the shelf, not on the bottom as it appears in the photo) because even though a longer bolt was required, the nuts on the other side didn’t look that great. Things will still catch on the bolt heads but not as badly as on the nuts.

The repair works great! It held the weight of everything that was on it when it broke.

I had considered putting on two mending plates but given the weight bearing capacity of the single mending plate, it wasn’t necessary. I used the mending plate method to fix a door shelf on a refrigerator in an apartment I lived in last year.

Pochade Boxes on Hubpages

HERE is a link to my pochade box article on hubpages.

It just has the basics; here I am going to go into some detail on making various kinds of pochade boxes and include links to pochade box and ATC sites.

So far I have made and tested three kinds of box: candy tin boxes for watercolor and oil paints. I built a pochade box for acrylics but haven’t done a field test.

It doesn’t seem possible to make a pochade box from a candy tin and accomodate all the accessories for oil painting. However, the acrylics box is passable and the watercolor box worked well enough that I am going to try selling one on eBay. Unsure how it will work to add pics here; I will be experimenting with my refrigerator shelf repair. Depending on how that works I will get pochade box pics up here.

Hidden Program, Jumpdrive Tiger

My mother’s friend brought his whole computer for me to look at: once again, I don’t advise your doing what I do – I am not afraid to break an XP machine as they are relatively easy to be had. His problem was that he was trying to install a new program on his computer and he couldn’t get rid of the old version.

He had nothing on the desktop – the program was not on the computer. He had not installed it on the computer. He’d installed it on a jump drive and was running it from there. But when he tried to run it on this computer, he got an error message saying he could not install as it already was installed. Yet when he went to add/remove programs, the program was not listed. There was only one thing in the recycle bin – a shortcut to the program. I clicked restore and it went to the desktop. I clicked on it and it attempted to install the program from the E drive.

No problem, right?

Wrong. He had the software and when we inserted the disc, it came up as D. We tried to change the target drive and the error message came back the same: nothing on the E drive. I asked him if he had installed the program anywhere else and he handed me a portable hard drive. That came up as drive G. I asked again, and he handed me an 8 GB jump drive – a SanDisk Cruzer. We got a different message this time: The E drive was full.

I asked him if he had interrupted the installation and he said yes, how did I know? It was because the icon didn’t point to the program – it pointed to the installation. The jump drive proprietary software that took a drive to itself and was protected – hence the inability to write to it.

Some contemplation suggested to me that we put the software onto a generic jump drive and plug it in. Voila. Installed. Now I could uninstall it and he could install the correct program.

Fixed!

Note: I could have done a system restore, but there were things I didn’t want to delete that way. Also could have copied those things onto a disk, but that would have taken longer than I wanted to spend solving the problem.

HP Mouse – Repaired

This mouse was tossed by my job because it wouldn’t right click. I hate just throwing things away, so I thought I would bring it home and try to fix it.
The reason I tried was because the key wasn’t broken – it just wasn’t clicking. When I took it apart, I found some sticky stuff on the cable. User error, lol – someone had spilled something on the mouse, and likely washed off the outside. The liquid had traveled up the cable and onto the inside button. It was stuck as if with glue.
Don’t try this under warranty!
I don’t advise your trying what I do. I’m not afraid to break stuff, especially if its mine and I learn something from it. SO while I don’t advise using alcohol on a mouse unless you really know what you’re doing, that is what I did. I put some on a q-tip and then on the button. Nothing happened, but I knew that if the sticky stuff came off the cable with the alcohol, it might dissolve after it had some time to sit. As the button began to move, I used the dry side of the q-tip to absorb whatever liquid came out. Luckily for me, the stuff was red. I kept repeating the process until the button moved freely and the q-tip came away clean.

Free mouse!

Using it now.

Recent Repair requests (with rambling)

An electric griddle – pics to come.

A refrigerator shelf – still working on that one.

A mouse – the computer kind (i don’t fancy myself a vet).

At some point I will be repairing a cut on a leather jacket – but those are easy.

Keep your fingers crossed for me. I am going to Boston on Friday to see if my back can be fixed. A lot less pain and drugs for me if it can be done. If not, a lot more working from home…:P

Today I am making pochade boxes aimed at the Artist Trading Card crowd – still struggling with how to do oils – too many accessories. Getting close on scrylics for those who can work with a limited palette. My plan is to get some of my hubpages fans to try the watercolor pochade boxes and write reviews.

I do have a pochade box project for a cigar box as oil paints are a long loved medium for me. It’s a texture think, I think – the creamiest textures and variable finishes, and always more to learn. I experimented with cheap acrylic as a prep for the supports – interesting that the more of a matt finish i had on the support, the more of a matt finish i had on the finished painting. Also, I won’t believe the advertising that says oils can dry in two days – the two day oils I did are still wet after 4 days. I’ll have to do my own additives to make it true.

It’s been fun trying oils with a limited palette – i am hoping i saved the pics because i made the most wonderful chocolate brown and a passable purple. but i will post pics of the paintings – ATCs all. If you want one and you’re not an artist, don’t let that stop you – I take all kinds of barter.

Series on Portable Art Studios: 1. Pochade Boxes

This is my newest fascination. I have autistic patterns of exploration: if something fascinates me enough, I will pursue it until I have attained some expertise at it. I will think of and talk of nothing else, and all my resources go to developing that expertise.

To that end I have been experimenting with building the smallest possible pochade boxes. The largest ones, of course, are briefcase sized, and I own three of those as well as a french easel and a clipboard sized box. In fact, if you properly outfit it, anything that holds things can be a pochade box. I am thinking of converting one of my four or five styles of storage clipboard into a pochade box, but first I experimented with cigar boxes and candy tins.

I found one article on making a pochade box out of a mint tin, but in my mind the tin was too small for anything more than a paint box. That leads me to definitions.

To me, a pochade box should contain everything I need to complete a quick, on location sketch in whatever media I decide to use. My most favored media are watercolor and acrylic. There are also oil paint, pencil, pastel, pen and ink, and even “airbrush” possibilities. My intent is to explore them all. I have access to everything above except professional airbrush supplies.

The first experiment was with a cigar box. Pretty easy to plunk a box of cheap acrylic tubes into the box, cut a palette from a plastic cutting board, and stick a jar of water into the box. Add some acylic paper cut to size, and voila! Pochade box. But of course, I could not stop there. I had to see if it worked.

A cigar box is fine if you are going into the field to paint and nothing else intrudes on your day, but I am an amateur artist with a job where often I work lots of overtime. Sometimes there are no more than down moments during the course of my day, and occasionally the shifts are so busy that my break consists of sneaking to the bathroom to – well, to use the bathroom. So I can’t be hauling around a cigar box and tripod with me. Smaller would be better.

I have several small paintboxes, including one that is half the size of a business card. I LIKE small. So I began searching for something small enough to hold everything a larger pochade box would hold. I am also a jack of all trades, and a Hubpages author, so I was looking for any and all things interesting in a local dollar store when I came on some candy tins. These are made to look like lunchboxes, complete with handle, and the light went on! I brought home two sizes and the experiments began.

So here, in excrutiating detail, I will give you the steps to creating the pochade box of your dreams – big enough to tackle your on the spot sketch in watercolor, acrylic or what have you, and small enough to fit in your pocket (and not leak and stain it).  I am not a plagiarist AND am in favor of making things easy to find, so I will show you what else I have found in the way of homemade pochade boxes.

If you decide to make your own, great! If I can help, contact me! I’d rather you made your own, but like everyone, I can be bought. Or I can show you where to buy them, whether you want the awesome and expensive or the awesome and inexpensive. The best way to reach me is to comment me on Hubpages or here because I collect email addys (sigh, amongst other things) and I seldom am organized to check more than a few a day.

NEXT: Pochade box basics and online instructions.

Hello world!

Welcome to Nick’s Knack. Need to fix it? Know how? This is the place! I figure I can fix just about anything. This is where I show you how. I will have photos, videos, and best of all, if you ask me, I will try to fix it and post it here!

Having boasted, now I will tell you the limitations. I don’t fix anything that moves – that includes car motors and anything else that has a motor or uses fuel. If I happen to fix something like that, I will still post it, but I can’t claim to solve those problems as easily as I repair, say, a refrigerator shelf (my first project here, I think).

There are other limitations that will become apparent,  but otherwise this will be a test of my friends’ opinion that I am some kind of fix it McGuyver.

Try me.