Darkoshi

By happenstance, today I found out that:
A set of spanner wrenches (like the ones shown in the Wikipedia entry) laid out on a rug sounds like a xylophone when you tap them with another small wrench or other metal tool.

I took two videos to demonstrate it, and maybe someday I will post them. The sound may not have come out very good in the recordings. I will have to see.

That happens every so often, me finding that everyday objects make nice sounds. Another such thing is the empty tins from nuts after the nuts have been eaten; the ones with cardboard sides and metal ends. When I accumulate a set of them, it's neat comparing the different tones each makes even when they are from the same product; the same size. One of the last set had a special twang to it.

There was also that frying pan I mentioned in a prior post.
There was something else recently too, but I don't recall what. It's not always metal objects.

Metal tongs are also good for cleaning out gutters!

(They allowed me to finish the task even after being horrified to find tons of ants running around in the gutters after I'd pulled out a few handfuls of leaves. They must have built a nest within the decaying leaves and gunk in there. But the tongs would work well on ant-free gutters too. )

The tongs are narrow enough to easily pull crud out of the gutters with them, and they avoid me getting my hands/gloves dirty while doing it.

And now, what do I discover, hidden from view under a socket wrench set in Qiao's garage?

An unopened barbecue tool set, including *metal tongs*.

I had even looked out there before, when I was checking around to see if we already had any tongs anywhere. But I didn't look in *that* spot.

These tongs have the same kind of metal tab mechanism in the back that you push in or pull out to unlock/lock the tongs in a closed position.

Note to self:
I have a really neat fine pointed tweezer that was in my spudger set. As I didn't even remember it and would never think to look for tweezers there, I am moving it to one of the big toolboxes with the other tweezers.

Note 2: The tweezer handles are black, so they are hard to see against the black plastic of the toolbox compartment. But that is where I put it.

I already broke the tongs!

They are the metal kind with a spring in the end, but they were closed up with no obvious way to open them*. So I pulled on the ends, applying force, and got them to open a small amount (which would have been good enough). But then I decided that having them open further would be better, so I pulled harder, and the rivet holding it together broke!

I don't know if the label had instructions, but I don't think so. When I got to the checkout counter yesterday (right before the store closing time), the tongs were missing the label with the bar code and price. It was just a small square of cardboard clipped on with a plastic thread, so it might have fallen off somewhere, or maybe it was missing to begin with. I walked back very quickly to get another tong for the cashier to scan, and told her she could give me the one without the label.

I specifically chose those tongs as they were the only ones without plastic or rubber on them. I don't want plastic as it could get scratched up, and wouldn't be good in case I wanted to use the tongs for pulling something out of flames. I don't want rubber as rubber things tend to get sticky as they age around here, due to the humidity.

(That's another thing I wanted to gripe about. Aloe gel-based hand sanitizers leave my hands sticky even after rubbing them a long time. Even after they start feeling dry, they become sticky again when I touch something like my car's steering wheel. And god forbid it rains and I touch something wet - the residue on my hands turns to slime.)

.

It looks like it's about to rain too, and I haven't even showered yet. Not conducive for baggie-buying.
What to do, what to do?!


*Based on one of the online reviews, the tongs have a locking device on the end: "pull up for closing and push down for open"
Damn, so that is how it works. Would have been good to know. I should be able to fix them if I can find something to replace the rivet with, and if I can get the spring to stay in place while trying to re-assemble it.

I am drilling some 5/16" holes in some pieces of wood. The drilling was taking forever and wasn't making much progress depth-wise. It reminded me of how hard it was using the large spade bits on the tree stumps outside earlier this year. Drilling some slightly smaller holes a few weeks ago in the same wood pieces had been so much easier and quicker! I had thought it was only spade bits and brad bits that were difficult like that, so I especially bought some larger sized twist bits, which I'm using today.

So I do a web search to see why it's so hard to drill large holes in wood, and find this page: A beginner's guide to drills and bits. It mentions:
... many hand drivers are reversible, so if it's spinning but not cutting, make sure you're going the right direction.

D'oh!!! The button for reversing direction is so easy to accidentally press on this drill. It works much better in the right direction. Now I wonder if I had it going in the wrong direction last year too, when I was using the spade bits.

2 guys came by in November to check on the house repairs I needed done. They were supposed to get back in touch with me, but I haven't heard from them since. I never heard back from the guy I had used before, who had come by a month earlier, either. So the gutter still hasn't been fixed.

But they did give me another idea of how to deal with rain getting in under the garage door. I had considered putting in a "garage door threshold seal", but that would make it harder to sweep dirt out of the garage. They noted that the water was probably puddling against the door and then seeping under it. Even though the garage is on a rise, the concrete right at the bottom of the door isn't sloped enough. In the past, Qiao had wanted to grind the concrete down some, but at the time we didn't really have the right tools for it. These guys suggested cutting some grooves in the concrete to allow the water to drain away.

So I did some reading. An angle grinder can be used for cutting grooves in concrete, as well as for grinding concrete. But the tool sounds rather dangerous. I decided to first try using an old screwdriver, chisel, and mallet to cut out some grooves. I was surprised at how soft the cement part of the concrete is - moist from recent rains, it could be scratched away with the screwdriver, without even needing the mallet. But the granite chips in the concrete are much harder and difficult to gouge away. They do make lovely sparks though! Yee-ha!

I decided to go ahead and buy an angle grinder to speed up the process. I bought a flat turbo diamond blade for cutting grooves, and also a diamond turbo cup wheel for grinding some of the concrete down to increase the slope.

I'd never used an angle grinder before, and the instructions that came with this one were somewhat lacking. I did some more reading to make sure that I was attaching the blade correctly. More horror stories about angle grinder accidents momentarily made me wish I hadn't bought it. But at least the kind of blades I got are supposed to be the less dangerous ones.

Today I got up my courage, along with my safety goggles, dust mask, denim clothes and work gloves, and tested the angle grinder with the flat blade. It really does cut through the concrete easily, including the granite.




I was going to test the cup wheel today too, but that one says to use a full face mask over the safety goggles. I don't have a full face mask, and I'm not going to ignore the safety warnings. So back to the store I'll go. In retrospect, my brother's motorcycle helmets which I just gave away, might have come in handy.