Trash bag adapter Mark III

Recap - use smaller standard trash bags in a big trash cart for robotic trash collection trucks.

Mark I uses a wooden rectangular frame.  It was too clumsy to detach the trash bag from it after full.

Mark II uses inexpensive clips to attach the bag to the edge of the cart.  The clips aren't that secure.  The bag slags.  And tall bags are needed.

Now the new Mark III uses PVC pipes of course.  Crius clips are used to attach the bag to the frame. Any known issues are improved. 

Is it better than using a separate standard bin? Time will tell.

Perfect low cost custom pet houses

You know I have been building things to improve my bunny house.  The last time he was living in a concrete block bunker with a big grass yard to himself.  That didn't solve all the problems.

I was going to custom made an acrylic house with all the easy to maintain gadgets.  It would be perfect for indoors and outdoors and while we are on vacation.  It was never done because the more I think, the more it's impractical.

Acrylic is expansive and you have to be precise to glue pieces together.

I have been building small PVC gadgets for a while and it suddenly dawn on me why I don't try to build a pet house from scratch.

I have been building very precise PVC pipe structures using only standard tee's at less than 30 cents a piece.  PVC pipes are virtually free - less than $2 for 10 ft.  With the help of a spread sheet, I can build very complex structures.

For pet house, the first problem is the floor.  You can use pipe grids as the floor but still you need something to cover the gaps.  You can use pipe grids for the walls but the total cost of tee couplings can be high, even at 30 cent a piece.

Wood is still the best choice for the floor.  This bunny house is for indoors so I paid for a premium board, so I can nail ready made side guards on it to prevent spills.  The board has to look smooth for indoors and can be painted if needed.  For outdoors a flat particle board will do.  The wood pieces are of standard dimension so I don't need to do any precise wood work (I can't as I only have a jigsaw).

For the walls I use 24 gauge galvanized steel wire forming a 2" grid.  It turns out to be a great idea and looks neat too.  It's easy to drill small holes into PVC pipes with a plastic bit.  I sand the holes briefly with an oscillator tool.

It turns out that it's easy to tie the wire onto the pipes and tighten them.  If you go around the same holes twice or more around the pipe, it will be securely attached.   Add a Cirus clip on the endpoint and you can secure it further.  After you tighten a length of wire, you can keep the tension by Crius clips as in the last post.  Then you continue to wire and tighten the next part.  You can wire the entire structure without one single wire without breaks.  But for modularity I wire only one side at a time, and use separate wires for vertical and horizontal.

This bunny has been known to attack chicken wires and succeeded.  He had a go on the steel wires but can't do anything to it, yet.  Because the wires are hand tight, he managed to put his head through the grid, but fortunately not his feet at the same time.  So, the cage is secure.

This cage is open top with walls two feet high.  But I decided to put in a door so the kids can do the daily chores too.  What you see in the middle is a toddler-proof door.  I still have to add some legs so the vacuum cleaner hose can get under it.  Also, it will be ideal if I don't need to bend down to feed him or clean the cage.

This is 20" by 3'.  I'll build a 2'x4' for outdoors.  It will be higher than the sprinklers can reach so we can put it in his yard without turning off some of the sprinklers.

You can clip anything on the pipes like sunscreen, rainproof sheets, blankets.  The outdoor one will have a roof structure.  You can see the Crius clips in the picture, near the lower left and right corners.

Crius clips - attaching anything thin or flexible to any pipes securely and economically

This is my new awesome "invention" - Crius clips.

You can secure a thin or thick gauge steel wire to any pipe securely without slipping.  There's no slipping.

You can attach a towel or a plastic sheet on to a length of pipe for shelter or projects.  Not even high winds can detach it.

Say if your pipe is 1/2" PVC, pick the next size PVC pipe, which is 3/4".   Use a pipe cutter to cut out about 1/4" length of pipe.  From this O-ring, cut out about 90 deg, or a corner.  The remaining PVC pipe is a Crius clip.

Place the C opening on the pipe you want to clip on.  Push the clip on with your finger and it will go in easily.  It takes two hands to take it back out.

The clip itself is always PVC pipe.  The pipe to be clipped on to is not limited to any material.  For example, for galvanized steel 1/2" EMT pipes, the best clip is to be made from 1/2" PVC pipes (the OD is slightly larger than the EMT pipes).

If you want to clip thick power supply cable or a thick carpet, use two size larger PVC pipes.

I'm into PVC and EMT gadgets and found numerous uses for this Crius clip.

Environment issues: The manufacturing and recycling of PVC involve toxic materials.  PVC itself is stable and harmless as used in drinking water.

PVC and CPVC are supposed to replace expansive copper pipes.  There's no going back to copper as I myself witness micro pores that can form on copper pipes.  This is a nightmare as a leak can develop in any length of pipe.  The leaking can continue for a long period undiscovered.  The reason is still unknown.

The newer PEX are superior in many ways.  But I heard that rats like them too?

PVC will be around for a while.  They are also used to replace metal and wood window frames for energy efficiency.  They are not that environmentally friendly but they last a long long time.  They can be recycled too.

I can't find anything to replace PVC furniture.  Metal couplings cost 10 times more, and they are bulky.

PVC produces toxic fumes when burned.  Ironically PVC window frames and very popular.

There are ways to reduce PVC in furniture though.  For pipes that don't need to be tight fit, you can use steel EMT pipes that is about the same price.  You can still use PVC couplings but they won't exactly fit.  You can use loose pipes, for example, for the horizontal support of beds.  Or for vertical grids to keep things in.

The chemistry of baking soda and how to use it for hair

You can experiment on it.  Baking soda reacts with oil similar to the process of soap making.  Therefore thick layers of grease in the kitchen can be cleaned up in no time.  You just rinse it off.

On the other hand, baking soda dissolved in water does nothing to oil.  This is a common fact that most things that dissolve in water or oil, do not dissolve in both at the same time.

Baking soda is completely opposite to soap and detergents that works on surface, and have a hard time to work on bulk grease.

So BK is ideal especially for oily hair.  If you apply BK to your scalp even after a week of nature camping with no shampoo, any oil and grease and odour disappear immediately.  Because the whole mass of hair has so many surface area, it's impossible to strip too much oil from the hair shaft, which can eliminate the need for conditioner.

Dry BK is messy and mildly abrasive.  So I use wash/rinse bottles with enough BK and water in it.  I keep shaking while applying to guarantee enough solid BK delivered to the scalp.

BK is pretty safe.  On a pH scale of 1 to 14, BK is at 8, one from neutral 7.  BK is used a lot medically and often to neutralize acids and maintain a near neutral pH.

BK is of course you can say "natural" and therefore biodegradable.  It doesn't degrade much as some form of sodium salt will always be there, which is natural occurring.  BK with hydrogen and carbon dioxide atoms could be safer than common salt with chloride atoms.

There should not be long term effects if you always rinse thoroughly.  And avoid excess stripping off body oil.  It may be a good idea to neutralize BK with organic acid.  Harmless sodium salts will be left and excess organic acid will degrade into something simple.

As for any shampoo and body wash, you may need conditioner and moisturizer for your scalp and skin.

The engineering approach to shampoo

After trying a lot of things, I recommend Nexxus or some other expensive shampoo with visible immediate results.  I also recommend Dr Bronner's "pure liquid soap" as it seems to be gentle.  Tresemme works for cheap.  For the no-poo camp there is the baking soda.  But use it carefully.  Shampoo also depends on conditioner with different degrees.  See, I'm totally unbiased.

Your hair type is critical, which explains that there are so many shampoos on the market.  The scalp will produce body oil at the root carrying down to the shaft.  After shampoo and drying, try fingering your scalp for a while and see how grease your finger tips feel.  And try it the next day or longer if you don't wash your hair that often.

Do you need to disrupt the natural process that much?  If your scalp don't produce enough oil for the long shaft, I would think it's easy to remedy, if you don't want to cut short your hair.

The problem with oily hair is that bacteria will feed on it, accelerate skin flaking and results in dandruff.  I think that's from medical sources but that's not the universal cause for dandruff of course.  That's not really a big deal as I have dandruff but I have great hair and they don't turn grey and they don't fall down.  The other problem is that if you try fragrance free shampoo and not strong enough your head will smell weird.  It could be all normal - that everybody's head will smell different and weird like without deodorant.  But it's just not socially acceptable.

So be warned.  If you go no-poo carelessly, you could get dandruff and your head can smell weird.  It's hard to know if you have pre-existing conditions.  If you wash your hair everyday with a normal fragrance shampoo, any flakes will be minute and you can't smell anything other than the shampoo.

People always say this is good if you have dandruff.   But I really need somebody to say that I had dandruff, I used this, and dandruff never come back.  A pharmacist say that you have to rotate with different dandruff shampoo to keep dandruff at bay.  I have to wash my hair everyday so it makes little different whether I have dandruff or not.  Nobody is going to split my hair repeatedly and watch and count the minute white spots floating down my hair.

Baking soda is many things to many people.  If you use powder or paste, it can remove years of accumulated grease in your kitchen.  If you use a teaspoonful or two per cup to rinse your hair, it may be too mild.  Too mild that my head smells.  My hair is great though.  I will experiment some more.  The stuff is just too convenient and cost next to nothing and so many people swear by it.

Never drop baking soda on your hair after oil treatment or vice versa.  That's how to make solid soap.  Your hair will be full of soap scum. 

Dr Bronner's seems to be mild, even though it has lots of sud.  But it's not very pure soap.  I remembered it had some glycerin in it for moisturizer.  But everything should be organic.  As with pure soap for skin, if you don't have suitable conditioning, your hair can be messy.  Whereas for Nexxus, if you hair type is one of those, your hair hardly need conditioning after the shampoo.

Whatever you use, you have to use it for a while to see the effect.  For example, some conditioner coat your hair a bit.  So if you change to some other systems, it takes time for the coating to disappear.

My great discovery is that, if you hair need detangling, and if you don't use conventional conditioner, it's a great time for detangling in the shampoo phase.  Just use a detangling wet brush to comb your hair while there are lots of sud.  In the following procedures, just don't mess up your hair again.

The engineering approach to alternative hair and skin care

Alternative hair and skin is a big business.  People sell books and sell stuff.  Some use scare tactics saying that some common ingredients are very bad.  Some just appeal to those organic people that what you don't eat shouldn't put on your skin and hair.

Those are long stories.  The problem is, you find the same home made receipts all over.  I bet most promoters didn't try it themselves, not to say if they ever rely on the alternative stuff long term.  I bet even authors will use the most expensive shampoo and conditioner when they have to appear in public.  Those with good results are hardly applicable to many other people.

By engineering approach I mean looking into cost, and time.  Tell a man to do an oil treatment every few days!  Also, what's the long term effect?  What can go wrong?

Some receipts are hardly practical.  A few dollar a bottle of shampoo and it lasts for months.  No hassle.  If you are afraid, try to buy expensive ones with mostly good ingredients.  So I almost gave up.  But I am interested in answering the question - are the skin and hair care company selling you a big lie?  That you hardly need any shampoo, or at least much cheaper.

It's so easy: fix your misaligned door and jammed locks

Keywords: deadbolt / door latch misalignment, door gap

It's not even New Year resolution because I did it.

My entry door lock jammed because a plastic component inside chipped off.  I wanted to replace it long ago.  But either I have to change all the locks, re-key the new lock, or carry two keys.

Worse, my entry lock has a deadbolt and lock in one piece.  There is no obvious replacement in the local hardware stores.  I can do away with the deadbolt because I have another separate one.

Without direct replacement, I hate to repaint the door.  I would have replaced the door if the dimension is standard.  A beautiful lock on a beaten old door isn't sensible.

There is a new smartkey system that you can rekey in no time.  I don't know if it will work for my old key.  Anyway, I found out that it's easily breakable, at least if you follow the instructions in Youtube.

At the end, I fixed the lock by stuffing strips from cardboards into it.  That limits the trajectory of the broken plastic piece so it won't run off the rails.  It's not a security risk.  It just won't jam.

The bigger problem is the door.  It's heavy, in bad shape near the bottom due to weather, and badly misaligned that you can feel the chill when there is wind.

I always thought it's a two men job at least for the realignment.  And you have to be precise - need good power tools to drill precision holes next to old holes, which is rather impossible.

I found out that I was totally wrong when I tried out some of the instructions on the Internet, which tell me to use index cards or cardboard strips to fix alignments.  I wasn't hoping much but try it anyway.  It's so easy and let me explain.

You don't need to take out all the hinges.  You don't need to drill new holes.  You don't need help.  It takes may be 5 minutes.  No more wind blowing from outside the front door.  No more enlarging the deadbolt strike hole again and again.

Typically an old door like to "fall" down.  At the opening SIDE of the door, there will be a gap near the bottom.  The gap will be larger at the bottom than at the top.  There will be gaps at the top and bottom but that will be confusing you.  Just look at the side of the door, and not the hinged side.

All you need to do is to unscrew some of the screws at the bottom hinge and screw them back, plus some trivial adjustments.   5 minutes or less.

First check if all the screws in all the hinges are tight.  Replace any broken screws or loose screws with slightly larger sizes.  You may not need to do anything else.  Otherwise go on.

Open the door and support the door with stack of wooden shims at the opening corner. 

Unscrew only the bottom hinge, and only the screws attached to the door, NOT the door frame.  It should be easy to unscrew screws in an old wooden door.  No power tools needed.  Just be careful not to break the old screws.

Pry the hinge from the door using a screw driver.  It should be easy unless you don't want any minute scratches on your old door.

If you can feel wind through the gaps, and deadbolts cannot get into the strikes, use thin pizza boxes in the following.  For lesser misalignment, use index cards or nothing at all.  For anything, you can always use two stacked together.

Cut the cardboard or index card the same size as the hinge plate on the door.  It does not need to be precise as long as it can fit under the hinge plate and cover most of it.  Just cut with scissor free hand.

Put the strip of cardboard under the hinge plate, and screw the hinge plate back as it was.

You door is fixed.  If you still have significant gaps, use thicker materials or two of the same.  If you cannot close the door, use thinner materials.

That's it.  Why nobody told me since 10 years ago?

Update: The cardboard filler plate got compressed and I need to replace it every few months to a year or so. Also, the required thickness seems to be increasing and I need to use two cardboard thick and them some.

I thought of using hard plastic or metal instead but you need to saw, drill to match the hinge. The desired thickness is hard to match.

It's not a bad method nor it fails totally, but I have tried other usually recommended method such as longer screws to pull closer to the door jam. It's hard work and doesn't work that easy.

At the end I bought a wood chisel to enlarge the holes on the door jam so the locks can fit in.  I have a oscillator tool to cut out the raw necessary shape before that. It's a relative quick fix to have a few years of a smooth locking door, and that's not bad.

The door may be weaken a bit but many doors and locks can be opened by a hard kick.