It’s who I am

I’m a home inspector, I’m a farmer, I’m an author and I’m a husband. I’m a parent of two boys, two girls and so far, I’m a grandparent of four grandsons. I grew up on a small ranch in central Oregon and we were poor. My dad was a cop, a carpenter and a cowboy. When something broke, he didn’t run to town and buy a new one. He first tried to fix it and if he couldn’t fix it he figure out how to make a new one. That was the beginning of my education.

Following in the footsteps of my dad, I became a D.Y.I.er, an inventor and a “Mr. fix-it”. When my wife ran the front-end loader into the back porch of the house I was building, or one of my sons crashes and wrecks a motorcycle, I don’t get mad I get busy and fix it. My first thought is always, “how am I going fix this?” When I need something I don’t go out and buy it, I see what’s out there and think, “I can make that” or “I can make that better”. That’s who I am, a Home-Grown-Engineer.

If you enjoy my blog and writing style you can also enjoy my books. Find them at http://www.amazon.com/Lance-Larson/e/B004C1SG7M.

Skinny Mirrors for Everyone!

This morning on the news there was a report on clothing retailers using “Skinny Mirrors” in their dressing rooms. The mirrors are designed to make you look taller and thinner and this made people buy more clothes. It reminded me of a mirror we had in a house we bought in 1985. When we bought the house there was a cheap full length mirror mounted in the hallway. Every time you entered the hall you would see yourself in this mirror. Back then I was actually taller, by one half inch, and thinner, by about, well many pounds. The thing that bothered me about the mirror was that it made me look shorter and wider. It bugged the heck out of me, because who wants to look shorter and wider. The thing that I soon discovered was that it was the only mirror that made me look that way. This made me realize that the mirror was distorting my near perfect image.
Many of you have seen the mirrors in carnivals that make you look distorted. This is accomplished by simply twisting, bending or bowing the mirrors when they are being made. What I discovered was that the mirror in the hall was had been slightly bowed when it had been mounted it to the wall. There were two mirror mounting clips at the top, two in the middle on both sides and two at the bottom of the mirror, holding the mirror to the wall. What had happened was that whoever mounted the mirror had tightened the two top and two bottom clips too tight making the center of the mirror bow out slightly. This distortion made the image look shorter and wider. When I discovered the reason for the distortion I simply loosened the top and bottom clips and the mirror gave a normal reflection. However, I didn’t stop there. I discovered that if I loosened the top and bottom clips a little more and shimmed the top and bottom out ever so slightly with some folded cereal box card board I looked taller and thinner. And who doesn’t want to look taller and thinner? I left the cardboard in place and after that I enjoyed a more taller and thinner me.
Anyway…for what it’s worth.

Stiffen Your Hat With Wax

There is nothing worse than a floppy cowboy hat. Steaming a cowboy hat will stiffen it for a short time, but just a short time. What I want is to steam my cowboy hats, shape them and never have to do it again, but when you spend $35 for a hat or buy one at Bi-Mart for $19.99 you can count on re-steaming on a regular basis to bring back the stiffness. I’ve tried spray starch and some formula that I got off the internet which included corn starch, but nothing really works for long and I’m back to steaming and shaping my hats again.

When I was a kid my brothers and I wore cowboy hats. Usually they were hand-me-downs from my dad or what he’d picked up at a second hand store. And usually they were too big and out of shape when we got them. To adjust for the too big size, my dad would roll up a sheet of newspaper and tuck it in behind the sweat band, adding more or less paper until it fit our tiny heads. One time, my mom sewed the crown together so the hat wouldn’t slip down over my ears.

My dad would always steam them and shape our new/used hats to our desired style and to stiffen them again, but kids are tough on hats and we would be begging him to re-steam them again for us. He too got tired of steaming and shaping hats, so using his vast ingenuity, he decided to wax our hats. I can still remember him melting the wax on the stove and painting it onto my white cow hat. When the wax cooled it was stiff as a board and as waterproof a ducks’ back! I also remember that it looked like it had a layer of wax on it, but that was okay because it was a white hat and the wax is white.

I have a brown cowboy hat that I wear around the farm when it’s cold and rainy. It keeps my head warm and the rain off my spectacles. But it does get beat up and out of shape fairly quickly. I don’t really care how it looks as long as it works, but I do reshape it occasionally. I also have a black cowboy hat that I wear at work when it’s cold and raining. It gets tossed around in the truck and before long it needs to be re-stiffened, re-shaped and occasionally, waterproofed. In the back of my mind, I kept remembering my dad waxing my hat and how nice and stiff it was, so I decided to give it a try.

The first thing I needed was some paraffin wax. You would think it would be easy enough to buy paraffin wax, but unless it’s canning season, it can be hard to come by. I finally settled on a white, unscented candle. I chose unscented because scented candles put out too much soot when they burn, and I didn’t want my hats to smell like a flower.

I thought I’d melt the candle with the old griddle that I have in my shop for heating things, but that was too slow, so I fired up my Harbor Freight heat gun, which melted the candle much faster. With the wax melted, I used a small paint brush to paint the wax onto the underside of the brim and the inside of the crown. I painted the inside and underside because if there was a waxy residue, it would be less noticeable on the inside/underside. There was a waxy residue when I got done, because the felt didn’t absorb much of the wax. Now this is where my dad stopped, he just painted the hot wax on and let the hat felt absorb as much as it would, which is fine on a kid’s white hat, because who cares how a kids hat looks, right? Well, as I mentioned, my hats are brown and black and I’m not a kid. So, to get the wax to melt into the felt I used my heat gun and heated the wax on the hat. To my delight and surprise, the wax melted and was absorbed into the felt almost completely. What didn’t absorb, I brushed with a stiff bristle brush, removing what wax I could, and then heated the wax again until it was all absorbed into the hat.

When the hat cooled, it was stiff and waterproof. The process worked so well that I also waxed my black hat. I’ve been wearing my hats for about a week now and I am very pleased. I may have put a little too much wax on the inside of the crown of the black hat because there is a slight white waxy residue. However, no one but me knows it’s there and I don’t care. Would I recommend that you wax your $200 Stetson? No! But if you have an old hat that just won’t hold its form anymore and you are going to toss it, give waxing a try and it just might become your favorite kick-around- in- hat.

Anyway…for what it’s worth.

Biker Sport Coat

DRESS YOUR BEST WITH THIS VEST

My shop is organized like a home improvement center. I have a hardware section, a plumbing, an electrical, a tool, an automotive and a woodworking section. I have collected over the years some unusual tools from my father, father-in-law and yard sales. One tool that I value and use more than you would think is an old Kenmore sewing machine.

That’s right, I drive a Kenmore. I like the old Kenmore, because unlike most new machines, it has metal gears, not plastic and even though it’s probably not designed to sew through heavy duty material, it will.

Mostly, I use my Kenmore to make motorcycle bags, pouches and repair my motorcycle gear, but on occasion, I get a wild hair and make or tailor clothing. That’s right, I can sew. I’m self-taught, not very good and I don’t care that I’m not very good.

Some people would probably consider me to be creative. If you read the rest of my blog you may also draw that conclusion. Maybe not. I find life more exciting and interesting if I do most of my thinking outside the box. Some of my ideas are original and some are just an improvement on something I’ve seen. As in the case of this project, sometimes I think I see something and it turns out that it’s not what I thought it was at all. But then I think, still, that would be pretty cool, so I make one. That’s how the Biker Sport Coat was born. I was watching a TV show and thought I saw a sleeveless sport coat, but it wasn’t and then I thought, “why not?”

Some people may call it a Redneck Sport Coat, some may call it a Sport Coat Vest and some may call it idiotic, but I prefer Biker Sport Coat because spend as much time as possible straddling a motorbike. I like vests because they give me more pockets to carry my stuff and hide things from view.

I like shopping at Goodwill or other thrift stores because I know that if I buy something used, then I have just saved the environment a little. I figured the easiest way to make a Biker Sport Coat is to start with a sport coat and cut off the sleeves. This is how I make the first vest. I found a sport coat at Goodwill that fit me and paid the $12.99. I took it out to the shop, cut off the sleeves, trimmed the sleeves with car trunk felt, added some felt on the pocket flaps and the Biker Sport Coat was born.

Surprisingly, it turned out okay. I put it on and wore it into the house. My wife, who is my biggest clothes critic, was working in the kitchen. I approached her and asked if she liked my new vest, not telling her that I had just made it. She was amazingly thrilled by it, very complimentary and thought I had bought it. That evening we went out with my two daughters and their spouses and a couple other people. I wore the vest and they liked it too. No one suspected that I had made it.

Last month I was at a franchise convention and I wore my vest. One of the vendors at the convention called me over to his booth and told me how much he liked my vest. When I told him that I had made it from a sport coat he was amazed and asked me if I’d make one for him. I’m not in the business of making vests, but I told him I would and I thought it would give me a chance to add this project to my blog. His is actually the third one I’ve made, first two were for me, and I’ve learned somethings since the first. First you need a sport coat. Goodwill is a great source and you can buy them from $10-$15. Don’t worry if the sleeves are too short or too long, but it should fit well at the shoulders. Then you’ll need something to trim the vest with. I used trunk liner felt, but after the first one I broke down and bought some regular felt at a fabric store.

The first one I made, I cut the sleeves off, but that made kind of a mess and created some problems when I went to trim them. My advice is to take your time and using a sharp knife or razor, cut the stitching to remove the sleeves. You should be able to cut the stitching for the liner at the same time. After you have the sleeves removed, remove the shoulder pads and then run a stitch around the arm holes to stitch the shell and lining back together. This will save you some grief when you trim the arm holes.

To trim the arm holes you’ll need to measure around the arm holes and so you don’t end up short on material add 2” to the length. Now cut two strips of felt the length you measured +2” and 2” wide. Fold the strips in half the long way and iron them flat. Ironing the trim into a folded 1” strip will make it easier to pin around the arm openings, which is the next step. Start pinning the trim in the arm pit area so that the seam where the two ends of the trim comes together will be hidden under your arms.

Sew the trim on. Remember that you cut the trim 2” long and if by the time you get all the way around the arm hole you have extra trim, cut it off and finish sewing the trim.

To further customize your vest, you can add felt to the pocket flaps, trim the chest pocket with felt and the lapels. On two of the vests I inverted the collar. The underside of the collar was felt, so by inverting it and sewing it in half the opposite direction it gives the vest a Nehru sort of collar and it matches the trim. I also made the lapels half the original width by ironing out the original lapel and folding it in half.

If you know how to sew, this is a very easy project that will draw some attention for its uniqueness. If you don’t know how to sew, learn.

Anyway, for what it’s worth…

Journey of the Cart

This blog isn’t about making an ATV cart. It’s about a trampoline legs, a piece of ½” rebar, two 5/8” pieces of pipe, a plastic barrel, some washers, nuts and bolts, a black rubber bungee strap with one hook missing, two metal brackets, a metal bed frame, a can of primer, a can of red paint, two cotter pins, an used 1×12” pine board, two scraps of 2×2” fir and a rusty piece of 1x3x24” iron.

Our camping spot up in the woods is kind of river front property. River front if you don’t count the 200 yards of green way and the small creek you have to cross on the way to the river. The distance becomes somewhat of a journey if you want to spend the afternoon at the river and you have to carry all your stuff that distance. My oldest daughter, her husband and their friends like to camp at the place and have resorted to strapping as much as they can to their ATV and making a trip or two to the river with said stuff. When I saw what they were up to I thought it would be nice to have a cart to load up and haul their stuff to the river. Being a loving and caring father and probaby even more true, I do like to make things and if you have read any of my blogs, you will know I like to make things out of stuff I already have. Except the two tires, which I bought on Amazon for $11. each, I rounded up all the other items from around the farm and in my shop.

I think it’s called making things from scratch. The fun of making something from scratch is that you only know what your end product will be, but how you get there is a journey.

This journey, the Journey of the Cart, started with a frame made from two bottom supports for the legs of a 12’ trampoline. I love trampoline frames because the pipes are so versatile. There are pre-bent pipes, tapered ends of the pipe will slide into the other ends of pipe and some are both bent and have tapered ends. I started the frame with two bottom leg supports. Both ends of the supports are tapered, so I had to cut two 6” pieces of pipe to slide the two ends into to make a rectangular frame that was about 20” wide and 5’ long.

I had decided that I was going to us a 55 gallon plastic barrel for the bed of the cart and the 20” wide frame would allow the barrel to lay in the frame and not fall through.

I wanted to give the cart a little more ground clearance so I needed to support the axel below the frame. I scrounged around and scratched my head and scrounged around some more. I finally found two heavy brackets that I had salvaged off some farm equipment and sometime in the past. They could be bolted onto the frame with the two holes already in each of the brackets and to better accommodate the axle I notched them, giving me a place to weld the axle solidly in place.

The barrel, when laid in the frame, sagged through a few inches and sat on and conflicted with the axle. I solved the conflict by bowing the axle down to conform with the barrel before I welded the axle in place.

The wheel barrel wheels had heavy-duty bearings and the hole for the axel was 5/8”. I didn’t have any 5/8” steel rod, but I did have two short pieces of thick wall pipe that were 5/8” and 12” long. The two pipes welded together was right length. To straighten the pipe I slid a ½” piece of rebar in the middle of the pipes before I welded them together.

The wheels were easy to install with a hole through both ends of the axles, a couple of washers and a pair of cotter pins

My first attempt at a tongue for the cart was made from pipe with a cross support make from the angle iron cut from a metal bed frame, but after I got it bolted together I wasn’t convinced that the pipe would be strong enough when the cart was carrying a heavy load. I remembered that I had come across a piece of a rusty of 1x3x24” channel iron when I was scrounging around the metal pile. It was very strong and the right length so I pulled it out of the pile and swapped out the pipe with the iron piece.

The tongue needed a post on the underside of the front end to slip down into the receiver hitch hole on the ATV, so I welded a large bolt on the tongue that would fit. To keep the post from popping out of the receiver hole, I drilled a hole through the bolt that a pin could be inserted through, act as a stop and to the keep the bolt from popping up and out of the hole every time the ATV hit a bump in the trail. To keep the pin from getting lost I attached it to a short chain and tack welded the chain to the tongue.

A plastic 55 gallon barrel is about 3’ tall and the frame was 5’ long, so that left 2’ of frame unused. I decided that a wood platform for a cooler would be a perfect utilization of the space. I found a piece of 1x12x48” pine board that had been used for a shelf at sometime in the past. It even had a lacquer finish on one side. I cut the board in half and ripped the boards length ways into four 4-3/4” wide boards. I attached the four smaller boards to two 2x2x18” boards. The 2x2s were spaced 18” apart so they would slide down between the cart frame in front of the barrel.

To make it possible to put stuff in the barrel I cut about a third of the side of the barrel away, leaving the two ends full round.

I wanted to make it easy to remove and install the barrel on the cart. To secure the barrel to the frame I put two large pan head bolts through the bottom of the barrel just below the angle iron that secured the back of the tongue to the frame. The two bolts will keep the front from popping out of the frame. To secure the back, I attached a 12” long black heavy duty rubber bungee to the frame with a bolt. One of the hooks on the ends of the bungee was missing so I pushed a bolt through the hook hole and bolted the bungee to the frame. With a hole drilled in the end of the barrel, the bungee can be stretched up and hooked through the hole securing the back of the barrel down..

After I was sure everything was going to work, I wire brushed the frame, cleaned it, primed it and painted it. I was going paint the frame black, but black metal is boring and red is a lot more fun. With the red frame, the white wheels and the blue barrel the cart is quite patriotic.

I will admit that it takes longer to build a cart, or anything for that matter, without a well thought out plan, but for me, as I get older and have a several hundred projects under my belt, it’s much more fun, challenging and rewarding to just start with an idea and a shop full of stuff.

So back to my statement at the beginning; This blog isn’t about a ATV cart. It’s about a trampoline legs, a piece of ½” rebar, two 5/8” pieces of pipe… It’s about taking what you have and making what you want.

Anyway…for what it’s worth.

Make Me Laugh!!!

COMIC STRIPS?

One of the advantages of writing a blog is that it give me a place to express my opinion. This blog will go into my “sounding off” section. Today I am sounding off about the lack of comedy in the newspaper comics.

I love Sunday mornings. I relax in my Lazy Boy and read the paper and just enjoy the morning. Even when I have a motorcycle ride planned on Sundays I try to delay the start time until 9 or 10 a.m. so I can enjoy the morning with my wife. I read what interests me in the news and look at the ads, searching for something for which I have a need or look through the sporting goods and hardware ads looking for things that might make my life easier more enjoyable. Lastly, I pick up the comics section and search for something funny, something that will make me laugh or at the very least, make me smile. Rarely do I find anything humorous and almost never find anything remotely even clever or original. It seems to me that most of the time the creators of comic strips just rehash the same old story lines. Case in point; how many times do we need to know that Garfield is fat and lazy and that Sarge is a mean SOB and likes taking out his temper on Beetle?

I would never claim that I have the talent of making people laugh. My wife says that living with me is like living in a poorly written sitcom, but I do know what is funny when I hear it or see it.

When I was in college I was listening to a talk show commentator that was discussing what is funny and what makes people laugh. He claimed that it was to say or do something that is totally unexpected. He cited Steve Martin as a comedian that had mastered this technique. He gave an example, and I want to apologize to Mr. Martin if I don’t get this completely right. Steve Martin, “When you take hostages you have to make demands. For example, I want one hundred thousand dollars in small-unmarked bills, a get-away car and a full size elephant made of chocolate. You always need to ask for one completely crazy thing so if you get caught you can claim you were insane at the time….LOL… get-away car.” See what he did there? You thought he was going say the chocolate elephant, but unexpectedly he said get-away car. It’s funny or even more funny when you see Mr. Martin deliver the line.

Rita Rudner was the Queen of comedy that incorporated the unexpected line. Here are some examples: “

I love to shop after a bad relationship. I don’t know. I buy a new outfit and it makes me feel better. It just does. Sometimes I see a really great outfit, I’ll break up with someone on purpose.
My husband and I are either going to buy a dog or have a child. We can’t decide whether to ruin our carpet or ruin our lives.
I had the worst birthday party ever when I was a child because my parents hired a pony to give rides. And these ponies are never in good health. But this one dropped dead. It just wasn’t much fun after that. One kid would sit on him and the rest of us would drag him around.”

To write a comic strip you should be qualified and those qualification should include being funny. Have any comic strip writers ever been a stand-up comedian or at the very least, a class clown? Or were they just good drawers of cartoon characters and thought, “hey, I should be a comic-strip writer.” In and of its self, no cartoon character is funny enough to make people laugh if the character is saying something boring or if they have said it a million times before.

In all fairness, there may be some really funny comic strip writers out there and maybe our newspaper is just not willing to pay for funny comics. In the past I have enjoyed reading Calvin and Hobbes or Gary Larsen’s The Far Side, but even they did not always make me laugh or even smile.

Maybe I expect too much. Maybe the Comic Strips are not intended to make me laugh, but the definition of comic is, “causing or meant to cause laughter.” I think that if they would just change the name from Comics to, “Redundent Strip”, or “Boring Strip” or “Funny Drawings (just ignore the words) Strip, maybe I wouldn’t be so frustrated when I try to find something that will make me laugh in the Comic Strips.

Anyway….for what it’s worth.

The Things I Do On Rainy Days

When it gets cold and the rain comes there are only four things to do; look at my motorcycles, work on my motorcycles, buy more motorcycles, and eat Cheetos. The other day I was looking at my Honda XR650L and thought to myself that it looked like it needed a renovation. I love my XRL and have enjoyed many fun and adventurous miles on it. I would never want it to think that I didn’t love it the way it was, but after riding this last fall with KLRs, BMWs, KTMs, Suzuki dual spots, I realized I was riding the plainest bike of all of them.

When I first got the XRL it was too tall for me. Every time I would put my foot down and the ground sloped down and away, I fell over. It was embarrassing and kind of tough on the bike and ego. So to remedy the situation I bought a lowering kit. When you lower the back you are suppose to lower the front too. I didn’t do that. Lowering the back was enough to keep me from tipping over, but the bike still was a little tallish. As part of the renovation I finally lowered the front too and wow, what a difference. The bike is so much easier to get on and off and it doesn’t seem so top heavy.

The next thing i wanted was a little more power. A few years ago I changed the front sprocket from a 15 tooth to a 14 tooth to give me more low end grunt on the trails, but I wanted still more power and I wanted it for free. One of the things that a gas motor needs to run is oxygen. After a little study I found that some people opened up the air box by removing the top, or snorkel. I did that and the increase in power was noticeable.

The stock bike colors were purple, red and white. That’s right, purple. I quickly painted the purple black.

The bike comes stock with something like a 2.5 gallon tank. When you are up in the woods you like a little more range that 100 miles. I found a 5 gallon tank on Craigslist for cheap and switched tanks. The original tank comes with graphics, very cool graphics. The 5 gallon tank came with nothing. it’s just a big ol’ white plastic tank.

So I thought it was time to dress it up with some color. and when I say “color,” I mean lime green and some more black. I also added some Japanese writing. Guess what it says?

Anyway….for what it’s worth.

MANNY’S MUFFLER

The Making of a Muffler

My grandson refused to learn how to ride his bicycle. When he was two, on his second birthday, he started riding his 49cc ATV by his self, but at six he still hadn’t learned to ride a bike. He clearly had the skill and balance, but he just wouldn’t do it. One day he asked if I would buy him a motorcycle and I told him that he would have to learn to ride a bike before he could learn to ride a motorcycle. So he learned to ride his bike. I looked on craigslist and found a guy that would trade his 1997 Yamaha PW80 for my 1983 Honda XR200. My XR was a nice bike and I went over it, fixing anything I could find wrong with it before I put it up for sale or trade. The guy I bought the PW80 from,Todd, was a nice guy and so I trusted him, but I soon discovered that he wasn’t vigilant with the care and maintenance of his bike, the PW80, and I was foolish enough to believe that, just because he was a nice guy, he had been vigilant. When I got the PW up on my work bench I discovered; the air filter was deteriorated and mostly missing, the chain was caked with hardened oil that I literally had to chip off with a screw driver, the frame was bent and it didn’t have a muffler/silencer. I’m not convinced that my judgment of Todd wasn’t misplaced, I just believe that he just didn’t have a clue about motorcycle maintenance.

So I went to work and cleaned up the bike and painted it, soaked the chain in oil after I got the solidified oil chipped off and bent the frame straight. I cleaned the carburetor, adjusted the brakes, ordered a filter and did general maintenance on the bike.

Replacing the missing muffler was a little more of a challenge, but a fun challenge. I could have bought a muffler, but that isn’t really my style. Basically, mufflers or silencers attach to the exhaust pipe or fatty and that attaches to the motor. There are three parts to a basic muffler/silencer system; outer metal case and insulation wrapped around a core pipe full of holes. The core pipe that is full of small holes attaches to the exhaust pipe. As the exhaust passes through the perforated pipe, some of the sound escapes out the holes and is muffled in the specially designed insulation that is wrapped around the pipe. The outer metal case holds it all together. Simple. So why are mufflers so expensive? Yeah, they are probably engineered for optimum air-flow so the bike run better or something like that.

The muffler for a PW80 is small, about 11” long and maybe as big around as a 1-1/2” pipe. The after market mufflers are a little larger. I had plenty ¾” pipe that I could make the core pipe out of. and I had some muffler insulation, so all I needed then was a outer case. Sometimes when I need to make something and am not sure what to make it out of I walk around my shop trying to get an idea by looking at stuff I already have. What I found was a 10” tall rattle paint can that was nearly empty. The rattle can had a cool shape at the top and was very shiny when the label is removed. With the can, I had all the basic parts I needed.

I released the pressure out of it, drilled a ¾” hole through the top and bottom and cut the bottom off the can. After I drilled the core pipe full of small holes I wrapped it in the insulation and slipped it all into the rattle can, re-attached the bottom of the can with a pipe clamp by cutting some small slits in the bottom’s walls so it would slip over the body of the can.

Because the new “after market” muffler was bigger than the original muffler, I used some ¾” copper pipe fittings, soldered together, to attach it to the exhaust pipe and snake it around the frame and into a good location under the back fender.

I hung the new muffler from the frame with some metal plumbers strap and added some metal screws here and there to stabilize it. Without the muffler the two stroke motor sounded like the rapid fire of a gun, pop, pop, pop. Even with a muffler a two stroke motor is loud, but the homemade muffler cut the noise at least in half and in my humble opinion, it looks pretty cool too.

MAKING ROOM FOR THE WIFE

When my wife committed to joining me on our riding groups’ annual adventure to Baker City Oregon, I realized that our bike was not set up or rated to carry us and all the personal items that would be required to keep us in clean clothes and beautified for a week.

Our Suzuki Volusia 800cc has a Gross Vehicle Weight Rating, GVWR, of about 950 lbs. The bike alone weights 590lbs. This means that my wife and our luggage, tools and miscellaneous items would have to weight 90 lbs. My wife alone weighs close to 90lbs. (You’re welcome babe). I weigh…do the math. Well you get the idea, we would be way over the GVWR. We got out our “Motorcycle Trip Packing List” (see my blog, “Motorcycle Packing List”) and started crossing things off the list that we could live without. When all was said and done we got our stack of essentials to fit into two small pieces of luggage, airplane carry-on style, and our biggest motorcycle trunk. In the past, when I used the Volusia for a trip I would just strap a bag on the passenger seat, cram a bunch of stuff in the hard shell saddlebags and be off. The problem now was that our Volusia was not set up to carry two pieces of luggage, my wife, and I. My V-strom is setup for exactly that scenario, (see my blog, “Panniers Made From Scratch”) but the V-strom isn’t nearly as comfortable as the Volusia to ride, it has Corbin seats.

For the next couple of days I scratched my head and tried to figure out how I was going remove the hard shell saddlebags and replace them with two pieces of carry-on luggage. I finally concluded that I would have to make another set of plastic panniers for the Volusia, exactly like those I made for my V-strom. That’s right, I said “exactly” like those for the V-strom. The panniers for the V-strom attach to the bike using a metal frame work that I designed and made. The Volusia didn’t have that same frame work, but it did have the saddlebag supports and the mounting studs that attach the saddlebags to the bike. Retro-fitting the panniers to the Volusia was as easy as drilling two holes in the back of the plastic panniers so they would slip onto the studs and clip in place just like the saddlebags. To make them extra secure and for added support I added a couple of straps. Now granted, it didn’t look “Harley Cool,” but it worked great.

Showing plastic panniers on Volusia with studs showing and extra straps for support.

Showing luggage in place in plastic panniers and covered with bright rain proof bags.

I knew that once we got to Baker City we would be removing the plastic panniers and luggage, which presented two more issues. First, with them removed, the bike is left with two large and ugly, metal ell brackets sticking out on both sides of the bike where the bags mount.

Showing ugly metal support brackets for saddlebags

And second, the trunk wouldn’t be large enough to pack all the stuff we would need for the long day trips we would be taking from Baker City. My first thought was to pack the saddlebags full of clothes and pack the packed saddlebags in the luggage, but they were too big and too heavy.

When I first started riding dual sport I wanted some small saddle bags I could attach to my Honda XR650L to carry essentials, like tools, rain gear, water and power bars. I didn’t want to spend a lot of money on brand named soft saddlebags, so I would stop by Goodwill every now and then to see if I could find pairs of backpacks, duffel bags or small soft sided luggage bags that were identical or very similar in size and appearance. Lucky enough, I was able to collect a few pairs of bags that looked alike or were exactly alike. I found two identical Goodwill bags in our motorcycle stall storage cabinet that would be a good size for day ride purposes. I could have just strapped them on the bike like saddlebags, but after modifying my plastic panniers the idea of making simple plastic supports that would attach just like the saddlebags and panniers seemed like the best plan.

I took one of the plastic barrels that I had and cut off two rectangles that were the same width as the small bags, 11.5”, and that were the same length in height + depth as the bags, 17”. Using a propane torch I heated and bent the plastic rectangles into two large ell shaped brackets. I drilled holes in the brackets to match the mounting studs on the bike so they too would slip onto the studs and clip in place.

Both bags had large open pockets on the back of them. I cut the pockets open along the bottom and reinforced the cut material with Gorilla Duct Tape, love the stuff. Next I slipped the bracket up through the open bottom of the pocket. The modified pocket held the bag to the bracket, the bag was supported by the bottom of the plastic ell and the bracket clipped easily to the motorcycle saddlebag studs.

Showing plastic ell bracket and small bag.

Showing ell bracket inserted through cut open back pocket.

showing small bag mounted on the bike

The small bags were lightweight, could easily be packed with clothes and packed nicely into our luggage. They were large enough to carry what we needed for day trips and were even rain resistant. They did look a little redneck and defiantly not “Harley Cool”, but I’m not what you would call “cool.”

Anyway…for what it’s worth.

Getting All Decked Out

About seven or eight years ago I bought a Big Tex utility trailer. We needed something to haul motorcycles, livestock, hay, firewood, lumber, well to haul stuff. After looking around for a month for a used trailer that I thought would be the right size and have a loading ramp/tailgate I decided, after asking my wife, to buy a new Big Tex trailer. I remember the salesperson telling me that wood deck was white pine and stated the fact as if it were a selling point. I didn’t want to burst his bubble, so I let the comment slide, but knew that I would have to replace the wood deck in a few years because in this area pine would decay quickly. Over the years and to try and extend the life of the wood deck, I cleaned it and sealed it with deck stain. I’m confident that my efforts helped extend the life of the wood, but ultimately the wood decayed. The first failure was when I was loading a Suzuki GS 850 onto the trailer, my second winter motorcycle project this year. (See my blog The Transformer). As we pushed it onto the trailer the back tire broke through one of the planks. And so it began. I patched the broken board with a piece of plywood and over the next four months of use the trailer deck became a patch work of pieces of plywood. The last straw was last weekend when my son-in-law, Dustin, was moving the trailer, by hand, out of the way so he could get to his camp trailer. At the time my Tex didn’t have the four foot metal tailgate/loading ramp on it and I knew the tongue would be heavy so I thought I’d help Dustin by stepping up on the back of the trailer to counterbalance the weight off the tongue. As I stepped up onto the trailer the wood deck broke through and I was standing on the ground.

Thursday evening he called me and asked if he could borrow my trailer to haul my mower up to my mountain property to mow so my daughter, his wife, will have a nicely cut meadow for her and her friends to camp on. Of course I said yes, knowing that I would have to replace the deck on the trailer before it would be safe to use again. Last night, Friday, after work I removed the most rotted boards so they wouldn’t fall out on the road and drove to Home Depot, trailer in tow, to buy some pressure treated lumber to replace the rotted deck. I could have replaced the deck with untreated Doug Fir and it would have lasted several years if I kept it clean and stained, but even if it lasted ten years I’d have to replace it again and I’d be…well old and I knew I wouldn’t want to mess with replacing the deck again. When you get to be my age you start to considering things like that. If I was thirty I would have used Doug Fir and saved $60.00, but at my age you do the math and knowing you won’t live forever and your health may not always be excellent, you make different decisions.

What is left of the original trailer decking.

After I got the lumber home, unloaded and the old rotting deck completely removed I could see that the metal frame was suffering from metal oxidation, rust, where the wood had been sitting on the metal and holding moisture. There was also the matter of the very rusted self-tapping lag screws that had held the deck in place and were now were sticking up out of the metal frames cross members. I thought the lag screws were going to be bolts with nuts and washers and I’d be able to remove them, but no, they were not removable. Using a three pound sledge hammer, I broke the lag screws off at the metal cross member and using my angle grinder I ground the little broken nubs of the lags off smooth. For the next hour, using the grinder and my drill with a wire brush wheel, I remove as much rust as I could. After I felt like I had most or all of the loose rust removed I washed the trailer with soap and water and rinsed it with the hose garden hose. Using my leaf blower, I blew most of the water off the trailer and let it sit in the sun to dry, while I went in the house to put on my painting clothes and drink a bunch of water. Did I mention that it was ninety degrees outside?

Lately I have been using Rustoleum 2X paint on my motorcycle projects and so far I have been impressed. 2X is a paint and primer all in one and of course it also fights rust. I had picked up a quart of black 2X and a cheap paint bush when I bought the lumber. When I opened the can I thought, “great, they put dark blue paint in the can and put gloss black on the label”. But, I thought, “what the heck, I’ll have a dark blue trailer instead of a black trailer” and started painting. Well as it turns out the paint is magical. It went on blue, but turned black as it dried. I applied the paint liberally onto the areas that the wood deck would sit on and in and when I was done painting, I pushed the trailer into my shop to let it dry overnight.

This morning I got early, while it was still cool, to put the wood deck on. In case you didn’t know this, on most trailers, both ends of the wood decking are held in place by metal channels. It’s a good design, but makes replacing the wood deck challenging. To replace the decking you have to place one end of the plank into one of the channels, angle the plank across the trailer, slip the other end of the plank into the channel at the other end and using a hammer and block of wood, drive it in place, parallel to the side of the trailer. It sound easy, but the channels were rough from years of rust and that corrosion made the diving the planks difficult. To add difficulty to the situation, there is a 2”wide metal plate that runs along both sides of the trailer, front to back. Instead of welding the plate flush to the bottom of the channels at the front and back of the trailer, they laid the plate in the channels and welded it in place. This makes the joint stronger but it also creates a lip in the channel that makes it difficult to slide the two side planks in place because the edge of the plank and the edge of the welded plate conflict.

Showing the side plate welded inside the back channel.

To combat the roughness of the inside of the channel and the lip the plate and weld created I used axle grease to coat the inside of the channel. The grease not only allowed the planks to slide in the channel easily, it will also acts as an additional preservative to the inside of the metal channel and the ends of the planks where they sit in the channel and where moisture is most likely to be held.

Showing me greasing the inside of the back channel.

In addition, to make it easier for the edge of the plank to slide over the edge of the plate and weld, I rounded the edge of the plank by tapping on the square edge of the plank with my hammer. With the grease in place in the channels and the edge of the plank slightly rounded, the plank drove easily into place.

Showing how to round the edge of the board so it will easily slip over the weld and side plate.

Lying the planks at an angle, slipping both ends into the channels and driving them into place only works with the first six planks. After the first six are angle into place there isn’t enough space to angle any more planks and get both ends started. That is when it starts to get fun.

Showing how planks can be laid at an angle to get them started into the channels.

To get the rest of the planks to insert into the channels at the front and back of the trailer you now have to bend or bow the middle of the planks up. This shortens the length of the plank and allows you to insert both ends of the plank into the channels. There are probably several methods of doing this and you can probably do this with one person, but two people make it so much easier. This how my wife and I accomplished this next step; First you insert one end of the plank into the back channel, then using a floor jack and a 12” piece of scrap 2X4 or 4X4, one person jacks the center of the plank up while the other person pushes the front end of the plank down. When the center of the plank bows high enough the plank will become short enough that the front will be lined up with the opening of the channel. While the end of the plank is held lined up to the channel the other person lowers the jack and the end of the plank will slip into the channel. The last plank fit so tightly that I had to grease the side of the plank so it would slip down into place. The whole process of decking the trailer when fairly quickly, even with my wife helping, I meant, with wife helping. Thanks Honey!

Showing the jack in place and ready to bow the center of the plank up in the middle.

Some other things to consider:

When choosing the boards for the deck makes sure they are straight and without big knots. You don’t want to have to fight warped boards into place and when bowing the boards, large knots can cause a weak point in a board and the board may break or crack.
Buy boards without cracks. Pressure treated wood is only treated into the board .44 of an inch. Cracks that go deeper will allow water into the board and the board will rot from the center out.
Buy boards that are still high in moisture content. Moist boards will be easier to bend and there will be less chance that they will break.
If and/or when you drill holes through the boards and frame for bolts to hold the boards in place, treat the holes with a good dose of oil or wood preservative. This will help keep the wood from rotting around the bolts.
Consider not drilling bolt holes through the boards. The boards fit tightly and will not fall out of the channels even if they shrink slightly. I am going to wait and see how loose the boards get when they dry. If I need to add bolts to hold the deck boards in place I will first explore the possibility of placing the bolts between the deck boards. If a lag bolt that will slip between each the boards, a large washer at the head should hold the deck boards secure to the frame and you can avoid drilling holes in the board.

Anyway…for what it’s worth.

Keeping Your Sheet Tight

I love clean new sheets on my bed. Not so much that they are clean, but because they are so smooth and tight with no wrinkles. I hate to admit this, but I’m like the Princess and the Pea. I can feel and hate every wrinkle under me. The problem is that the smooth, wrinkle free bottom sheet usually only lasts until you fall asleep or until you participate in some other physical activity that people do in bed, like … tossing and turning. I wanted that smooth sheet feel all the time, so I put my pea brain to work. (Wait, that didn’t sound right.)

Anyway, as two of my grandsons were bouncing up and down on our bed I thought, “if I added springs all around the bottom of the fitted sheet they would probably bounce all the way up and smash their heads on the ceiling. Their heads would then end up the shape of Stewie’s on the Family Guy. “That would teach them to wrinkle my bottom sheet.” Just FYI, that is why Stewie’s head is that shape. He was bouncing on his parent’s bed and bounced too high, smashing his head into the ceiling.

Then I thought, “Hey! That’s a good idea!” (Not the part about my grandsons smashing their heads, but the part about spring loading the bottom sheet.) That way my bottom sheet would always be tight and I do love tight sheets. So that’s what I did and here’s how I did it.

A few years ago I purchased some tarp clips to use on my equipment cover. (See my blog, “Trampoline Equipment Shelter.”) Tarp clips are designed to clamp tight to a tarp so you can grab the tarp in any location, attach a cord or bungee and pull the tarp tight. They worked great and kept my equipment cover tarp tight and in place. I had a few left over from the equipment cover project, so I rounded them up, along with some small bungee and applied them to our bottom sheet. You can use as many as you want around the bed to keep your sheet tight. It works great and keeps our bottom sheet tight, “tight like a tiger.” There are many types of tarp clips and they can be found at most hardware stores or on line.

The small clips you use in your shop would work or even alligator clips, if you put tape on the jaws, would also work.

If you have some of those metal clamps used for clipping papers together, they would work too. You may want to put some tape on the jaws so they wont snag your sheets or scratch your bed or legs. I would recommend using bungee with plastic end hooks for the same reason.

Anyway…for what it’s worth … and … sleep tight.

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