Thash Garden

Well I have been saving up milk jugs for making my pocket lawn 2.0 as well as another project that is in it’s infancy (AKA a thought that passed through my head). The thing is I can only use one side of the gallon milk jugs for vacuum forming as the other sides yield pieces of plastic that are too small to work with. So long story short I was left with five one gallon milk jugs with a hole in one side. That’s when it hit me I could use them as planter boxes.
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Update: 30 days = Fail.

Well I did not make it the 30 days I was trying to with a post a day. As I am sure you noticed. It was because I took an awesome vacation. Now I am back and I am not sure I will be posting every day but I have some awesome stuff in the works so I will be updating with a greater frequency than in the past. So I hope you will continue to monitor my various random projects.

Unexpected road blocks

Well to day was sadly a slight set back. My High power RGB LEDs were sadly just GB LED’s. It took me most of the day to suss out that it was not my power circuit. On the plus side I got Arduino development software installed on my laptop runing under my linux. This took a bit of doing but I a glad to say I got it done. I made a rudimentary program to test my power circuit. So after about 6 hours I ended up being able to pulse my led to prove my circuits functioned correctly. So now I am waiting on possible RMA ticket to get new LEDs. I picked up the parts to make my banjo electric today. To the future.

New banjo bridge

I made a new bridge for my banjo today and it sounds a bit better. I still need to reset the top pins to get my strings lined up properly. My neck is a bit too small. All in all the banjo turned out pretty well I think with a few more tweaks I will be ready to hunt down internet lessons for how to play it.
In other news parts came in today. So tomorrow is looking like it should be a fun day off.

BANJO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well I did it. I got my tuners today and now have a 4 string banjo. I made a quick bridge for the banjo and strung it up. Quickly some mistakes became apparent the first being my bridge was two long and coused my strings to place incorrectly. The second mistake I noticed is my nuts on the head need to be more precisely placed. Other than that I just need to figurer out how to get the thing properly tuned and how to play it. Here is another picture and an MP3 of what the banjo sounds like. Enjoy.

Tail-peice

Check out my anodized aluminium tail-piece. Who said old Macbook batteries weren’t good for anything. I cut up one of the face plates for the batteries and using my awesome metal punch I got for fat omnipresent man day made my tail-piece. I am super excited my tuning knobs should be here soon.

Rhubarb Pie

Today my project was in the kitchen. One of my co workers gave me some rhubarb so of course I made a pie. I could not wait to try a slice.

Bob

Click on the image to see it full sized.

The imortance of parts

Today I hit a wall. I am out of parts or to better stated ran out of parts needed to finish projects. Today my high power leds came in and with glee I discovered I had forgotten to order the resistors. So without further ado.

Parts

Containers of magic smoke pieced together by modern day alchemists.
Building gold from sand, carved and shaped with logos like long lost runes on a pocket sized stone henge.
The smoke is forced into movement by tamed lighting.
And the bricks fill with life.

Banjo’s

I decided once while watching a busker play the banjo that if I won the lottery I would hire a banjo player as my minstrel. Just to follow me around and play a soundtrack to my life. Well I don’t play the lotto so that won’t happen and banjo’s even cheep ones are over a hundred bucks. So I did what any sane even minded person would do I googled “Make your own Banjo” and 13 sites latter I had made up my mind I was going to make a four string tenor banjo. I got alot of it done to day. I ordered some old tuning knobs from ebay for five bucks, picked up a 10″ cookie tin for twenty five cents and a hunk of hard wood railing for a buck fifty. So unless my fishing line strings cost more three twenty five. I should have a banjo for less than ten bucks.
If it sounds good at all I will record an mp3 and put it up as well as install a pick up so I can use my cookie tin banjo with one of my cigar box amps. I think Oscar the grouch said it best when he said ” I Love Trash” Click the picture of the banjo to see some more pics in the gallery.