Genius DIY

 

So simple — how did I never think of this?!

Tricking Your Brain into Falling Asleep

Jim  Donovan explains

Rhythm as a way to calm yourself to sleep works — I discovered something similar many years ago.

He gives instruction on how he does it, and anyone who fights with sleep should try it.

But the key learning here is anything that helps you get out of your head and fall into any kind of peaceful, focused, rhytmic state will probably work.

That's what it's all about, turning off your brain and feeling the natural rhythm of your physical body and especially your breathing. 

I will explain my method in a future post.

Comparing Two Fuel Additives on a Lawnmower

 

If you have ever spent any time in an auto parts store you have seen the bewildering array of additives, cleaners, and other potions for fuel, oil, transmission, power steering, coolant, hydraulic brakes, etc.

Maybe some of them even work — who knows? I sure don’t, and generally steer clear of magic solutions of every kind … it’s in my DNA, I can’t help it.

But for some reason one day last year I spent like 20 minutes looking at these products, figured “why not?”, and bought some Marvel Mystery Oil and added it to my fuel for a few weeks (on my 2007 Honda Accord V6). 

It’s supposed to clean your fuel system, heads, valves, etc, along with increasing MPG. It seemed to help with mileage, but I didn’t check it that carefully, so I could very easily be mistaken on that.

This guy tries it on his lawnmower, along with a well-known competing product, Seafoam. He even hooks up a compression tester — but this is a little over my head since I don’t know how to interpret the results. Too little is bad, but so is too much, I think.

Seafoam vs Marvel Mystery Oil

Compression testing a lawnmower with some interpretation of the results — the numbers are specific to the motor, which makes sense. These numbers are published by the manufacturer.

An overview of compression testing and what it diagnoses — but for a car, not a lawnmower.

Getting Started with Soldering Copper Pipe

One skill I’ve wanted to learn for a long time is soldering copper pipe. Here’s a good video explaining the basics and what supplies you will need.

  

You will need:

1. Propane torch (I’ve already got one with a built-in igniter, they’re only $15-20 and very handy to have around) 
2. Wire brush to clean and smooth inside of fittings (different sizes required per size of pipe, 1 in, 3/4 in, etc) 
3. Sandpaper to clean and smooth outside of pipe
4. Soldering flux and brush to apply it
5. Lead-free solder (must use lead-free 95/5 on water supply lines, which is nearly always how copper is used here in the U.S., while drain lines are typically PVC, the cheap white plastic stuff) 
6. Cloth and miscellaneous clean up rags 

I’ve already got a little bit of soldering background from electronics a long time ago and as the video shows, the principles are the same:  heat up the material where the solder needs to go to create the connection, and let the heated material do the work of melting the solder. 

With plumbing joints, the video says to heat the bottom of the joint first first — the part where liquid solder would flow to — because if you heat the top first, liquid solder will flow to a cold area and not bond properly. 

What is flux, and why do you need it? 

In soldering of metals, flux serves a threefold purpose: it removes any oxidized metal from the surfaces to be soldered, seals out air thus preventing further oxidation, and by facilitating amalgamation improves wetting characteristics of the liquid solder. Some fluxes are corrosive, so the parts have to be cleaned with a damp sponge or other absorbent material after soldering to prevent damage.

Without flux, the solder either will not stick, or will weaken over time. You must apply it each time you heat up the joint, including when re-soldering over existing work.

I’ll get the rest of this stuff and some copper pipe to practice on, and post an update with some photos and maybe even a video.