Mark and I have been working on a low-rider rack for his bike for the past many months. One of the last remaining pieces was to make these special fasteners:

If you click the link you’ll see a slideshow of how I made this.

I’ve also been working on a generator headlight. It is using a couple of CREE XR-E LEDs and will have a built in standlight which uses a supercap. I figured out the standlight circuit with a lot of help from Steve Kurt and others on this CPF thread. I’ve built most of the circuits on that thread on a prototype board and came up with one that I like.

I made the housing on the lathe. It is a bit large (the outer diameter is around 55mm) and a little heavy, but it looks nice. Click on the link to see more (and I’ll keep adding to this gallery as I do more work, but I probably won’t mention this project again on the blog until it is finished).

Larry was visiting a couple of months back and asked if all of my lathe bits should really be loose in a drawer and knocking into each other. It’s a good question, and the right answer is no. I spent a little while trying to find good tool foam online, then happned to find a nice package of it at Sears. An hour’s work later and my lathe tool holders were organized. I also found a 12×12” section of foam at Rockler Woodworking which has a hundred or so holes that lathe bits fit into very nicely.

We hired a landscape designer and company to overhaul our yard. The work started this week and so far the progress is awesome. I can’t wait to see it all put back together. For now I just have a teaser of the plans.