woodchips

12,114 reputation

11446

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	location	New York, NY
	age	57
visits	member for	2 years, 9 months
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In no special order, bridge, woodworking/woodturning, applied mathematics and numerical analysis and mathematical modeling.

	12,114 reputation	bio	website		visits	member for	2 years, 9 months
11446 badges		location	New York, NY		seen	yesterday

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225 Comments

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Apr 26	comment	Is my kitchen cabinet door beyond repair? Expanding anchors won't work in particle board at all well. Worse, they are not designed to go into a thin board, which that island wall is.
Mar 3	comment	When I turn down the dimmer switch on my lights, do I actually use less electricity? @JayBazuzi - I just remembered that Random832 did write out the math. Read his response, which agrees with my statement (in principle) though I won't claim to work out exactly what happens with a 1000 watt bulb.
Mar 3	comment	When I turn down the dimmer switch on my lights, do I actually use less electricity? @JayBazuzi - the fact is, the LOWER you set a dimmer switch the more energy is pushed through the resistors inside that dimmer, thereby generating heat. What I have not seen is an actual statement that says the relation is an EXACTLY as you state it. And a dimmer switch will not go down all the way to zero anyway. But I have tested my claim. Drop the setting on a dimmer, and it heats up dramatically. This ONLY applies to the old style dimmers that use this scheme.
Feb 19	comment	Is a built-in oven easier to maintain than a standalone one? @JeremyStein - sadly, no. It was an old GE unit, and really it was the controls for those burners that were the problem. They were difficult to obtain. We did it once at a cost of hundreds of dollars, and they died again quickly. And of course, those controls were built into the fan unit that was also built into the upper cabinets. Replacing the cooktop meant finding one that would fit into that old hole in the counter, or replacing the counter. It also meant redoing the cabinets above to tear out the vent/controls above. In the end, it would have been a complete kitchen redo. Sold the house.
Feb 19	comment	Is a built-in oven easier to maintain than a standalone one? We once had a built-in cooktop that died. It looked nice, but when it needed replacing, we found out that we would be forced to redo major parts of our kitchen, at a cost of many thousands of dollars. So we lived with a cooktop that had only one burner working (out of 4) for years.
Feb 5	comment	What are the most common electrical distribution systems around the world? Actually, the last time I checked, America was not a continent.
Feb 4	comment	How do I repair a garage door with a rusty bottom? I'll echo what Sean has said about rusty metal primers. Get the rust off, but then these primers will do a splendid job of inhibiting further rust. I'd be tempted to use the primer, and only then fill any holes with a body repair compound, so no further rust will set in.
Feb 3	comment	How can I cut regularly spaced 45 degree grooves in a piece of wood? Exactly - a dado blade can give flat bottoms. However, a CHEAP wobble dado blade can give a bottom that has a bit of a curve to it, so this might even be best for your goal.
Feb 3	comment	How can I cut regularly spaced 45 degree grooves in a piece of wood? In any case, a backer board is necessary to prevent tear out as the bit/blade comes through the back of the wood.
Feb 3	comment	How can I cut regularly spaced 45 degree grooves in a piece of wood? +1 A router table will do this nicely, or a tablesaw would do as well using a similar setup. If the slot is wider than the width of a blade, a dado blade would help there.
Jan 22	comment	What is the cheapest way to stiffen a tube/pipe? @MichaelKaras - yeah, I was going to add that point about being able to bend the tubing at all, and I agree that adding foam is of little value. I was merely saying that it would help a little. Not much though.
Jan 22	comment	What is the cheapest way to stiffen a tube/pipe? @MichaelKaras is probably correct here. However, the foam WOULD serve SOME purpose, by reducing the tendency of the tubing to flatten under load, which would greatly reduce its load carrying capacity. This trick is how one can bend copper tubing (without causing the tube to flatten) by filling it with ice.
Dec 7	comment	What could I have done wrong while changing to LED bulbs in my recessed lighting? +1 Those little proximity testers are wonderful things. Anytime I go near a box, I wave one of them around it. I very much want to know if there is a live circuit in my vicinity before I poke my fingers in there.
Dec 7	comment	What could I have done wrong while changing to LED bulbs in my recessed lighting? Is this a circuit with a dimmer switch? If so, some LED bulbs will not be compatible with all dimmers, and at the least, you do need a dimmable LED.
Dec 7	comment	What could I have done wrong while changing to LED bulbs in my recessed lighting? +1 Exactly. Just start at the breaker. Verify that it is reset, as sometimes you need to push the switch firmly into place. I've got some breakers that look like you have flipped them into place, but need a nudge to make them active. If you determine that it is not bad, then move on to the next point in the chain. The proximity testers are nice, since they will beep/flash whenever they are close to an energized line. Always take great care with electricity.
Dec 7	comment	How could I go about modifying (or building) a hand dryer to be more efficient? Encouraging anyone to do something like build a hand dryer from an open propane flame is nothing that should ever be recommended on this site. Suppose someone tried it, and potentially died from the resulting burns from an experiment gone wrong? Can you spell lawsuit?
Dec 6	comment	How could I go about modifying (or building) a hand dryer to be more efficient? This is a bit crazy. Playing with large bursts of open propane flame merely to dry your hands is dangerous to you and potentially to others. One second of inattention will leave you with serious burns, or may kill someone else who inadvertently uses your contraption without knowing what you have done. If you are going back and forth so many dozens of times between places every day that the seconds spent drying your hands is truly a problem, then just arrange your schedule more carefully.
Dec 2	comment	What could be causing water pressure to build up after changing my under sink filter? +1 Good answer.
Nov 29	comment	Can I use flexible tube to replace a segment of copper pipe? I'm pretty sure the question was about water lines, not gas. A gas supply line would generally not be copper anyway.
Nov 25	comment	Why doesn't my freshly painted door fit back in the frame? Were the hinges set properly?