Thursday, December 30, 2021

Wednesday, December 15, 2021

small machines moving in and out...

When the pandemic came to North America I already had a pile of things waiting for me at the mail pickup place in Ogdensburg NY.  Lots of us in Ottawa would send packages to places like MyUSAddress and pop over the border to grab things.
There was a brief window when the Canada / US border was open and didn't require an expensive PCR test, and I took the opportunity to run down and grab 2.5 years worth of packages.

it was a lot

I say "brief window" because with the Omicron variant on the rise I presume that any day now the borders will once again have limitations.  Thankfully I was able to get my entire haul.  

There were 4 big items in the batch:


Wednesday, December 8, 2021

the 6 most useful tools (I never knew I needed)

I'm not a super hands-on technical person, and mostly have learned how to repair stuff as I go, and perhaps not to the standards of a someone you might describe as "competent".  I don't have a "workshop" space, and tend to just fix stuff on my couch and/or coffee table when needed.

For working on random coin-op, here are the 6 tools I appreciate the most, but which I hadn't realized I'd need when I started:


1) digital micrometer
2) leaf switch adjuster
3) telescoping magnet
4) angled-wedge lifter thing that kind of looks like a screwdriver? Also has a magnetic tip.
5) dental pick



6) wood clamps