Hi! I've only posted here maybe once, but I'm looking to change that and have been working to improve my joinery.

Specifically, I recently had the geometric realization that adjusting the horizontal angle on my miter saw is one of the least precise adjustments I can make, when trying to make two cuts that add up to 90 degrees. So instead, I now set the angle for the smaller angle, make the first cut, then set the workpiece for the second piece using a square against the fence. Basically, I'm rotating the piece so it's 90 degrees to the saw fence, and that lets me cut the complementary angle without realigning the saw angle.

The new problem is that because I'm still using slightly-warped and slightly-twisty stock, the surfaces aren't terribly great for gluing up. In one case, I glued up one end of a diagonal brace but the other end was lifting up, off-plane. Hand sanding with a block helps, but more often than not, I end up rounding off the edges and glue leaks out. So I'm now seeking recommendations for a small hand plane, so that I can have better, flatter surfaces to glue together.

Is this the right approach? If I'm mostly working with narrow stock like 1x4-inch, is there a correct-sized hand plane to smooth out an end-grain on that small of stock? Apologies in advance for not really knowing all the right wood terminology. I'm still learning.

Ideally, I'd like to buy something that will be versatile and serviceable for a long time. So cost isn't too important, but ideally it'd be proportional to my (few) other tools. If I know what to look for, I'll keep my eye out for such a specimen while at the thrift store.

EDIT: To clarify, a use-case would be if I'm gluing a diagonal brace at mid-height of a post. If i had a plane, I could work the post so that it has a flat face, so that the brace won't deviate left/right. For the diagonal brace itself, I can mostly trust my miter saw to cut the angle reasonably plumb.

EDIT 2: Might I actually want a card scraper instead?

EDIT 3: y'all are awesome and I now have a fair number of suggestions to consider. I guess there goes all my disposable money for September, once I go visit the nearby woodworking shop.

cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/45285572

I've put off the overhaul of my ebike's Bafang G510 mid-drive motor for so long that it has never actually been serviced since I bought it 3800 km ago. Over the past weeks, I slowly pulled the motor off the bike, carefully disassembled it, and found the rotor shaft gear in a poor state. Metal flecks were visible within the blackened grease, making a mess within the housing.

To get the sprockets off of the motor, I did have to obtain a deep-socket YC-29BB tool to remove the "spider" from the crank shaft. A standard wrench for the Bafang lock ring will not work, because the spider itself is in the way.

This motor has an all-metal gear arrangement, consisting of the primary gear axle which is coaxial with the cranks, a secondary gear axle, and a tertiary gear axle which is driven by the rotor shaft gear. It was the gears where the tertiary axle and rotor shafts meet which were substantially ground down, resulting in play between gears that causes additional wear every time the motor accelerates or decelerates.

Note: some references online say that the G510 pre-2023 had a nylon gear. I could not locate any images of this, and my motor appeared to have all-metal parts. So idk.

Part of the issue is that the tertiary axle used a gear which isn't as deep as the rotor shaft's gear, resulting in wasted gear-to-gear surface area. A newer gear design for both the rotor and tertiary axle came out in 2023, and can be swapped in but requires recalibration of the motor.

So with the motor half disassembled, I figured the only sensible way forward was to order both the new rotor shaft and new tertiary axle, plus the CAN bus-specific Bafang dealer tool to perform the recalibration. I purchased these from greenbikekit.com, which didn't have the most intuitive ordering process but they did deliver in the end.

Perhaps the most arduous process was cleaning out all the old grease, which requires some solvent to shift. And even then, some crevices were unreachable without a very long cotton swab. In any case, I then re-greased using Permatex 80345 white lithium grease, since this has a higher temperature rating than typical white lithium grease, according to its data sheet. I obtained this from the local auto parts store, and this was the best I could get locally; Mobilgrease 28 was not available near me.

For the recalibration procedure, I knew that I wouldn't have -- nor would want to register for -- the Bafang dealer software to use with the programmer tool. Also, I'm a believer in the right-to-repair and having to beg for software is antithetical to this notion. Fortunately, someone has a FOSS project that can control the programmer and issue the recalibration command, among other neat features.

After dealing with a file permissions issue for /dev/usbhid2, the programmer was able to issue the calibration and the motor was set for reinstallation into the frame. This was basically all the earlier steps in reverse.

During testing, it is notable how much the new gears add the characteristic "whirling" sound of an electric motor. However, because the play within the gears was reduced and with new grease added, I found that the overall noise signature of the motor is substantially reduced. Also appreciated is how much less current the motor draws when riding at speed, compared to before the overhaul.

While it did take a while to assemble the parts and procedure for this endeavor, I am pleased with the results and would suggest periodic re-greasing for ebikes in regular service.

From my earlier post, y'all helped me fill my micromobility niche with a refurbished Segway Ninebot G30LP. So I wanted to give my first impressions after having it for a week.

To start, the scooter arrived in a fairly sizable box, some 100cm by 50 cm by 25 cm. There was a small hole in the cardboard box, but it looked like typical handling and broke into a void, rather than impacting the scooter.

Opening the carton, I removed the scooter itself, the charger, manual, Schrader valve extension tube, and the recall-related maintenance kit. The latter consisted of various sizes of hex wrenches and a rather-long screwdriver. As my first (electric) scooter, I figured I should RTFM before getting ahead of myself.

That's when I realized that I am missing some parts: the six screws needed to secure the handlebar component to the stem. So already, I could not perform the singular assembly step. Oh dear.

From the manual, I sent an email to Segway support with my scooter's model and serial, and they replied the next day for my mailing address. The day after, they had a tracking number for me for that parcel, which reached me three days later. So five days after writing to them, I had the screws in hand. Not bad at all.

That said, I did notice that these screws are slightly out of spec. From what I could gather online, the six screws for the stem should be countersunk M5 screws with length 16 mm. However, I measured these closer to 18 mm, and given the angle of how the screws insert, I think the extra length is causing the left-side screws to collide with the right-side screws.

While I could leave the screw protruding by about 1 mm, I figured I'd cut the screws to length, as that's within the capabilities of my metalworking. They did, after all, send me a pack of ten screws, so I could cut the four spares down. Now they sit flush with the stem.

Anyway, with the handlebars attached, I could continue through the manual, which basically had other advisements for safe operation. Separately, I had seen advice online that the air pressure for these tires should be closer to 40-50 psi (~3 bar), to avoid flats but would trade off some springyness. From the factory, I measured 37 psi, which is what the manual recommends. I tend to run my bicycle tires closer to the sidewall rating, so I wanted to shoot here for at around 45 psi.

The Schrader valves on these tires are quite something. The front is workable, but the rear has a very short stem, meaning only my digital air gauge could be attached to read out the existing pressure. But to add pressure with my manual floor pump for the rear tire, I needed the extension tube. Note: this tube does not have its own one-way valve. So once the tire is pressurized, some air will leak out when unscrewing the tube from the tire stem. And of course, it's a cramped position. But hey, at least I can check the air pressure without the extension hose.

Out of the box, the battery has a state of charge around 60%, so I was able to test basic operation by gliding around my driveway. But it does beep persistently, due to not being activated with the app. I personally don't like devices which must be chained to an app -- which might disappear one day -- so I was pleased to find that there's a community app that can do the same.

Using this app, I was able to activate the scooter and confirm other parameters about the its manufacturing, the battery pack, cell voltages, and the odometer reading, which is precise down to 0.01 km. What I couldn't figure out is how to commit the global or eco speed limits, as I have no need to run faster than 13 kph (8 MPH).

During testing around the neighborhood, I resolved to wear at least the same gear I would wear (helmet, goggles, gloves) for riding my acoustic and electric bikes, and found that with cruise set at 15 kph (9 MPH), this was a reasonable saunter through the quiet streets, with bumps amplified by the short wheelbase. But still manageable. Kinda like a brisk walk.

When discovering that switching from Eco mode to S mode permits the full 25 kph (15 MPH) limit, I decided to try the top speed after doing a few loops. But already at 22 kph, I stopped, being unable to understand how anyone can ride a scooter at this speed without 100% focus and both hands on the handlebars. And I've seen riders on shorter electric scooters with smaller, non-pneumaric tires. It's utterly terrifying, and I say that having negotiated 45 kph, lumbering ebikes through harrowing city traffic.

But my own sensibilities aside, it's fairly capable with large -- but still jarring -- dips in the road surface, and does not bottom-out at sidewalk ramps or turning into driveways.

Here in California, the laws on electric scooters are substantially nerfed, prohibiting sidewalk operation or even just making left turns in the street. They intend for electric scooters to operate in the bike lane, though most riders I see will use the sidewalk anyway. As a long-time bike rider, I fear the poor running surfaces of sidewalks and prefer the smoother asphalt surface of the bike lane. Though I grant you that the motor vehicle traffic whizzing by is not exactly totally comforting, especially when I intentionally operate at a lower speed.

But taking the scooter out for its first ride, it was mostly uneventful and I met up with a friend, who later took me and the scooter home in his car. It fit perfectly in the trunk, which proves the multi model credentials of this scooter. So far as I can tell, the odometer is fairly accurate and while I've only done 11 km so far, the app suggests a range of 40 km at my speed.

I'm still figuring out how to ride this safely, but seeing as my needs are very specific (see prior post), it's likely I can optimize to a high degree.

Hi everyone!

Once again, I come to you all for advice. Currently, my fleet consists of my trusty acoustic bike, my Class 3 electric bike, and my own two feet. Couple this with my transit card and I've eliminated a lot of unnecessary automobile trips. Roughly, my trips fall into:

• trips within town that I can run them with my acoustic bike, or the ebike if I'm short on time. Usually sub 8 km (5 mi)
• trips to the outlying suburbs by hourly bus, getting me within 2 km of my actual destination, so I just walk
• trips into the metro core by bus + LRT, within 4 km of my destination, so I might walk or might wait 30 minutes for the bus. The ebike won't fit on the bus, and even with the acoustic bike, this bus line often fills the front bike rack.

That latter one is what I want to optimize, since I missed that bus by 1 minute and then proceeded to walk in 38 C (100 F) heat to the LRT station. That was brutal.

So I wish to consider adding an e-scooter, as a faster-than-walking solution for short distances. This would be more compact than bringing either bike, and easily brought onto the bus or train. If I were going any farther than 2-4 km, or bringing more than I could carry, then the bike is needed.

That said, I know enough people that have eaten dirt on an e-scooter, so I would easily accept a scooter that is limited to some 15 kph (9 mph) -- still faster than walking -- so long as it can climb 3-5% grades. I would also like the largest diameter wheels I can get; 10-inch would be great. Suspension would be nice, but I'll take what I can find.

I've searched locally on Craigslist for options, and predominantly see used GoTrax and Niu e-scooters, but these have 6-inch wheels and no suspension, as well as clones of the Xiaomi M365, like Maxshot. These are cheap, but still don't meet most of my criteria, and it seems these clones have a habit of failing due to poor quality construction.

As extra background, I've never ridden a skateboard, so an electric skateboard is not being considered. Nor rollerblades. I would consider a really small folding bike or ebike, but this is only marginally better than what my current fleet can offer. Hence why I'm looking to e-scooters.

EDIT 1: forgot to mention that I'm in California/USA

EDIT 2: thanks to @Showroom7561@lemmy.ca , I honed in on the Segway Ninebot Max family, and settled on a refurbished G30lp for $315+tax.

A while ago, I wrote this overview of California's Coast Rail Corridor project, which would run conventional trains between the existing, popular, state-subsidized commuter rail systems in Northern and Southern California. This is nowhere near as sexy as high-speed rail, but imagine a single seat that rolls through the rice paddies outside Sacramento, past the oil refineries of Richmond in the Bay Area, down through Oakland adjacent the Coliseum, bisecting Silicon Valley, then hugging the coast of Central California towards the beaches of Santa Barbara entering Los Angeles County and then further to San Diego.

Then make it affordable and timely, and all of a sudden there's a way to spend time watching the scenery slowly, while also being practical. Trains are much less of a slog than sitting on a bus. High speed rail is important and laudable, but this humble, rather dull project will likely carry passengers between north and south a decade or more before high speed rail does, which is why the state is pursuing it in parallel.

I hope this type of content is an alright fit for this community.

(Does this community allow posts about product restorations? I didn't forge these skillets, but I did make them usable and appealing again.)

cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/30170080

(long time lurker, first time poster)

A few months ago, a friend convinced me on the benefits of cast iron skillets. Having only used Teflon-coated non-stick pans, I figured it would be worth a try, if I could find one at the thrift store. Sure, I could have just bought a new Lodge skillet, but that's too easy lol.

So a few weeks pass and I eventually find these two specimens at my local thrift store, for $5 and $8 respectively. It's not entirely clear to me why the smaller skillet cost more, but it was below $10 so I didn't complain too loudly. My cursory web searches at the store suggested that old Wagner skillets are of reasonable quality, so I took the plunge. My assumption is that the unmarked, smaller skillet is also a Wagner product.

10-inch skillet ($5)	9-inch skillet ($8)

It's very clear that both these skillets are very crusty. Initially, I tried to remove the buildup using a brass wire brush. This was only somewhat successful, so I switched to a stainless steel wire brush. That also didn't do much, except reveal some of the inscription on the bottom.

Some research suggested I could either do an electrolysis tank, a lye bath, or try lye-based oven cleaner. For want of not over-complicating my first restoration attempt, I went with the oven cleaner method, using the instructions from this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Pvf0m9jTeE

For both skillets, I had to apply the oven cleaner six times to finally shift all the crud, each time leaving the skillets in the garbage bag for a full day-and-a-half in the sun. In between applications, I would brush off more buildup, with the handle root and the skillet walls being the most stubborn areas. The whole process smelled terrible and hunching over the garage utility sink to brush pans is not my idea of a pleasant time.

Nevertheless, having stripped both pans, I proceeded with six rounds of seasoning with very old corn oil -- it's what was handy -- at 450 F (~230 C) using my toaster oven. This happened over six days, since I wanted to use my excess daytime solar power for this endeavor. I wiped on the oil using a single blue shop towel, to avoid the issues of lint or fraying with paper towel.

I don't have a post-seasoning photo for the larger skillet, but here's how the 9-inch skillet turned out. I think I did a decent job for a first attempt. And I'm thrilled that these are as non-stick as promised, with only minimal upkeep required after each use.

We live in a very strange timeline where the Ontario Premier is outdoing American governors on what constitutes "really dumb ideas". If you live in Ontario, I would urge you to watch to the end of the video and file a public comment during Bill 212's consultation period, ending on 20 November 2024.

https://ero.ontario.ca/notice/019-9266

The median age of injured conventional bicycle riders was 30 (IQR, 13-53) years vs 39 (IQR, 25-55) years for e-bicyclists (P < .001). Scooter riders had a median age of 11 (IQR, 7-24) years at the time of injury vs 30 (IQR, 20-45) years for e-scooter riders (P < .001) (Table 1 and Figure 3). As a group, those injured from EV accidents were significantly older than those injured from conventional vehicles (age, 31 vs 27 years; P < .001) (eTable 1 in Supplement 1).

e-Bicycles have lowered barriers to cycling for older adults, a group at risk for physical inactivity.9,10 Biking has clear-cut physical and cognitive health benefits for older adults, so this extension of biking accessibility to older e-bicyclists should be considered a boon of the new technology.22,23 However, as injured e-bicycle riders are older than conventional bicyclists, the unique safety considerations for older cyclists should be a focus of ongoing study.

There is a popular conception that ebikes are ridden recklessly on streets and sidewalks by youths, doing dangerous stunts, riding against traffic, not wearing helmets, and incurring serious injury to themselves and others as a result. This conception is often used to justify legislation to restrict or ban ebike use by minors. However, the data suggests quite the opposite, as it is older riders which are racking up injuries.

The data does not support restrictions on ebikes, but rather their wholesale adoption, especially for audiences which are at risk of inactivity or disadvantaged by a lack of transportation options. Ebikes are not at odds with conventional bicycles.

The California Bicycle Coalition offers this succinct summary:

“We think this backlash against e-bikes is the wrong direction for what we want for safer ways for people biking and sharing the road,” said Jared Sanchez, the policy director for the California Bicycle Coalition. “We don’t believe that adding restrictions for people riding e-bikes is the solution.”

They also have a page on how to fight against "bikelash", aka naysayers of bicycles and bikes: https://www.calbike.org/talking-back-to-bikelash/

cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/22165919

This entry of mine will not match the customary craftsmanship found in this community, but seeing as this was formerly a pile of miscellaneous, warped scrap 2x4 segments recovered from old pallets, I think I've made a reasonable show of things.

This bench is for my homegym, designed to be stood upon, which is why there's a rubber mat inlaid on the surface, a leftover of the gym floor. My design criteria called for even the edge of the top surface to support weight, so the main "box" of the bench uses 2x4 segments mitered (badly) together at 45 degrees, held together with wood glue.

I then routed the inner edge to support a 1/2" plywood sheet, which is screwed into the box. And then the rubber mat is glued down to the sheet, so there are no visible screws.

Finally, the legs are also 2x4 segments, cut so the bench sits 43 cm (~17 inch) from the floor; this is only coincidentally similar to the IPF weightlifting bench standards. I used screws instead of glue, just in case the legs needed to be shortened later.

All edges were rounded over with a 1/2" bit, as the bench is expected to be picked up and moved frequently. And everything stained in cherry and clear-coated.

Some of the annoyances from using scrap included:

• Stripping old paint off. Awful chemicals, awful scrubbing, awful disposal.
• Sanding away twists along the 2x4 segments
• Filling nail holes or arranging them so they don't draw attention
• My lack of experience with clamping and gluing wood that's not dimensionally consistent

If I were to do this again, I'd figure out a way to reduce the amount of routing needed for the inner edge, since I essentially removed 0.75 inch by 1.5 inch of material all around the edge. This took forever, and perhaps a CNC machine would have simplified things, in addition to squaring and planing the surfaces before mitering.

This entry of mine will not match the customary craftsmanship found in this community, but seeing as this was formerly a pile of miscellaneous, warped scrap 2x4 segments recovered from old pallets, I think I've made a reasonable show of things.

This bench is for my homegym, designed to be stood upon, which is why there's a rubber mat inlaid on the surface, a leftover of the gym floor. My design criteria called for even the edge of the top surface to support weight, so the main "box" of the bench uses 2x4 segments mitered (badly) together at 45 degrees, held together with wood glue.

I then routed the inner edge to support a 1/2" plywood sheet, which is screwed into the box. And then the rubber mat is glued down to the sheet, so there are no visible screws.

Finally, the legs are also 2x4 segments, cut so the bench sits 43 cm (~17 inch) from the floor; this is only coincidentally similar to the IPF weightlifting bench standards. I used screws instead of glue, just in case the legs needed to be shortened later.

All edges were rounded over with a 1/2" bit, as the bench is expected to be picked up and moved frequently. And everything stained in cherry and clear-coated.

Some of the annoyances from using scrap included:

• Stripping old paint off. Awful chemicals, awful scrubbing, awful disposal.
• Sanding away twists along the 2x4 segments
• Filling nail holes or arranging them so they don't draw attention
• My lack of experience with clamping and gluing wood that's not dimensionally consistent

If I were to do this again, I'd figure out a way to reduce the amount of routing needed for the inner edge, since I essentially removed 0.75 inch by 1.5 inch of material all around the edge. This took forever, and perhaps a CNC machine would have simplified things, in addition to squaring and planing the surfaces before mitering.

cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/20965205

This is the story of how I turned a 15" Titan adjustable dumbbell to be 80 cm (31.5 inch) long. Why? Because I have a space-constrained home gym but still wanted a leg press, and so I had to remove its original barbell.

In its place, I built a pair of wood mounts for a normal barbell to rest upon, covered in that earlier post. However, since this machine is wall-adjacent, such a barbell would have to fit inside the width of the leg press, so about 80 cm. But must also be wider than the spacing from outside-edge to outside-edge of the wood mounts, which is 60 cm.

Such a short barbell -- or long dumbbell -- does not readily exist commercially, with the narrowest one I've seen being 48 inch barbells, which are still too wide. So I decided to build my own, using my spare Titan dumbbell as the base.

To start, the Titan dumbbells are excellent in this capacity, as the shaft diameter is 28 mm -- not 32 mm as the website would indicate -- which is a common diameter, if I am to cut short a cheap barbell to replace this dumbbell's shaft.

In keeping with my preexisting frugality, I purchased a cheap 1-inch barbell, hoping that it adopts the Olympic 28 mm shaft diameter, and not the 29 mm deadlift bar shaft diameter, as the Titan collars have small clearances. Matching neither, I find that this bar is closer to 23 mm, which although will fit into the existing collars, poses its own issues.

Nevertheless, this 7 ft barbell can conveniently be cut in half to yield two 42 inch segments. And then the included bar stops can be loped off, and then the length further refined to 77 cm, thus hiding the marks from the bar stop within the Titan collars, and also centering the (meh) knurling from the cheap bar.

But perhaps a picture will be more explanatory. Here, the original collar is dismantled at the top, showing the original shaft with a groove cut into it, about 1/4-inch from the end. Into that groove would fit two half-rings with an inner diameter of 20.4 mm and an outer diameter of 40 mm. In fact, all the parts inside the collar use 40 mm outer diameter, except the spacer cylinder, which is smaller at 37 mm. All of these parts are held captive within the collar using the C-ring and the geometry of the collar itself.

To deal with the difference between the collar expecting 28 mm, and the cheap bar's 23 cm, I designed an ABS 3d printed part in FreeCAD to act as a bushing, upon which the original Titan brass bushing will ride upon. This ABS bushing is held captive by way of its center bulge, which fits within the dead space inside the collar.

As for how I cut the groove into the end of the new shaft, I still don't own a lathe. So the next best is to mount an angle grinder onto a "cross slide vise" taken from a drill press, with the shaft secured in a wooden jig to only allow axial rotation manually. The vise allows precision control for the cutting wheel's depth, with me pausing frequently to measure how close the groove is to the desired 20.4 mm inner diameter. This is.... not a quick nor precise process. But it definitely works.

After reassembling both collars onto the new shaft and lubricating with white lithium, the final result is a long dumbbell (or short barbell) with Titan's 3.5 inch collars on the end, with 63 cm of shaft exposed and 80 cm from end to end. The ABS bushing is remarkably smooth against the brass bushing, after some sanding with 180 grit. The whole dumbbell weights 5.48 kg empty.

Here is the comparison with the stock Titan dumbbell. It's pretty amazing how the knurling conveniently lined up. It fits well onto the wood mounts of the leg press.

But why would I do all this just to add a weirdly long 3.5-inch collar dumbbell to a leg press, when it already can accept weights underneath the carriage? I will answer that in a follow-up post.

As is their custom, FortNine delivers a two-wheeler review in the most cinematic way possible, along with a dose of British sitcom humor.

I'm not sure I'd ever buy one, but I'd definitely borrow it from a friend haha. I've said before that I like seeing what novel ideas people will build atop two wheels, and this certainly is very unique.