The Johnson Blog

Ramblings of a geek with a few hobbies…

Author: eajhnsn1

  • RV Breaker Check Valve

    RV Breaker Check Valve

    We own a 2024 Forest River Shamrock 233s and recently encountered a problem I figured would be good to record a solution to.

    This year whenever I went to flush (clean) the black tank with the flush inlet, (clean!) water would start to flood the bathroom floor. We were in a rush to get packed up and checked out, so we cleaned it up and didn’t inspect it further.

    Fast forward to last week when we were on the road. In our downtime I did some reading and learned about the existence of the RV Vacuum Breaker Check Valve – specifically the cheap plastic version they put in campers which often breaks. And the symptoms were exactly what we were experiencing.

    This little thing sits up under the bathroom sink in the Shamrock (and Roo).

    I ran to the hardware store to quickly bypass it, with 1/2″ NPT nipple and elbow, just to get us temporarily up and running.

    Note – only do this as a temporary measure, and only when you’re using a separate hose to do the flush. Without the check valve, if the campground pressure were to drop, bad water and/or vapors could siphon backward into your fresh water.

    I then immediately ordered a non-plastic version, and installed it when we got home. Here’s to hoping we never have to think about this again.

    Here’s the one I purchased.

    As a side note, we had also recently noticed unwanted odors in the bathroom of late. I suspect this was the culprit.

    Hope this helps anyone else having that problem!

  • Bottle Opener

    Bottle Opener

    Last year I received some curly cherry wood. It’s been air drying and over this long weekend I decided to give a small piece a turn.

    It’s great looking grain, for sure. I’m glad I have several more pieces and will be looking to use it on nicer items in the future.

    As far as the shape goes, I messed up a little while turning so it’s about a half inch shorter than intended. I think a longer neck will more closely resemble a beer bottle.

  • Cherry with Character

    Cherry with Character

    I rough turned this Cherry bowl several months ago and it has been drying in my basement since. I didn’t have high expectations for the finished bowl because it just looked a bit plain.

    Happily, this turned about to be incorrect – it has far more visual interest than I expected.

  • Wooden Passive Speaker

    Wooden Passive Speaker

    A friend sent a video to me a couple of days ago, showing someone making a “passive speaker” on the lathe – one of those horns (for lack of a better term) you place your phone into to amplify the sound.

    I’ve had a piece of Cherry sitting on my shelf for a couple of years now for which I just haven’t had the right project. This seemed like a great use.

    I started off with this piece, maybe 6″x6″.

    After 3.5 frustrating hours Wednesday night, I completed the shape – inside and out. It was an incredibly frustrating experience on my lathe, trying to hollow out the horn into end-grain, when the piece was this long and I don’t have any support other than this small chuck.

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    The next step, after work on Thursday, was the nerve-wracking step of taking a saw to this nicely shaped horn! It isn’t perfectly symmetrical, but is close enough.

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    It’s starting to actually look like a thing!

    The last piece was to flatten the bottom of the rear portion so it doesn’t roll. I adhered a sheet of sandpaper to some plywood and quickly ground down a flat bottom. Nice and stable.

    The best part, finishing, was done with a 1:1 mixture of pure Tung Oil and citrus solvent. I’ve applied one coat so far, and it’s looking great. Sounds pretty good too!

  • Larger (Cherry) Bowl

    Over the weekend I finally turned one of the Cherry wood blanks that has been drying in my basement for over 2 years now. The blank was on the larger side, and I didn’t want to waste a bunch of the wood, so I decided to try a taller bowl than usual.

    I think I found the limit, height-wise, of a piece like this on my lathe. It just caused too many vibrations and too many tool marks. To top it off, there were plenty of knots and soft-ish spots inside.

    Better luck next time.

  • Elm

    I recently turned a small Elm bowl/dish. The knots and cracks were a little bit of a challenge to deal with. I wanted to keep them in the final result so I filled them with dark brown CA glue.

    Decent results, lots of character to this one.

  • Antenna Move

    Two weeks ago I moved my main antenna from my front yard to the first floor roof – above my garage. I was skeptical of how well it was going to work, but tried it anyway, screen and all.

    The results were positive – that little antenna continued to do great for DX on 10 meters and the new position provided an improvement for the local 2 meter and 70cm nets. I was sold!

    It just didn’t look great with a mag mount antenna, sitting off kilter on the roof.

    Two days ago I ordered 75′ of coax and it was delivered today. As I sat at my desk after work, poking around on FT-8, I couldn’t resist the urge to see how it would do on the SECOND story roof. Longtime followers may remember many years ago I had a wifi antenna up on the (fake) chimney column, so I’ve been itching to see what this antenna would do up there. 30 minutes and a nervous climb later, the mag mount was happily resting on the chimney column. (No photos, I didn’t take my phone up with me).

    The real test came later tonight when I tuned into the local ARES Simplex net – one I’ve historically struggled with. I’m usually hear a fraction of the operators, and only a handful hear me.

    Not tonight! All but one was crystal clear and many reported hearing me very well. YES!

    So now the research will begin for a more permanent antenna, but this one will do for a little while! You know what they say about permanent temporary solutions… 🙂

    73.

  • Honey Locust Bowl

    Honey Locust Bowl

    This week I wrapped up a pretty cool looking bowl. I believe it is Honey Locust, and it has some of the best looking grain I’ve ever encountered.

    I don’t often turn a bowl like this, a so called a natural edge bowl, but it made sense to do so with this wood. If only I had an actual use for it 🙂

  • Majestic Fountain Pen

    Majestic Fountain Pen

    I was finally able to order the remaining part for this Majestic fountain pen kit. I’ve yet to write with one of these myself, but they sure do look great.

  • Majestic Junior Fountain Pen

    Majestic Junior Fountain Pen

    I recently completed my first fountain pen, a Majestic Junior model from Penn State Industries. The wood is a piece of white oak from the Shawshank Tree, the tree at the end of the movie The Shawshank Redemption.