I loved the ceramics video; I could watch it again and again. It's something I could never, despite the utmost exertion of my abilities, do. I'm in awe.

I'm also in awe of people who can paint and make things come to life.

Carry on with the art threads, please (I'm talking to Ali, Limey, Choco, and other Cellar artists, along with those - like Bruce and CaliMama - who find beautiful things online. I appreciate all of it.)!

I've got myself a project:
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The troop leadership discussed buying a couple new Coleman stoves at the last meeting because the old ones have problems. And they said that we would need to come up with a fundraising idea to help pay for them. I fucking hate fundraising. And I like tinkering with stuff, so I asked if I could try to fix the one broken stove before we go out buying more. There's no real rush. Just in the next couple months.

So I took a look in the troop supply closet. I thought we had 3-4 stoves, and one or two were broken. Well, I fixed two of them last night at the meeting. Someone had mixed up the tanks from two different stoves and neither one fit the other. I figured it out and reunited the tanks with the proper stoves. Two stoves fixed for free in 5 minutes of inventory taking.

And then I found these on a lower shelf. They are now currently sitting in my basement at home.

They all have tags saying they leak at valves or don't hold pressure or some similar problem. I'll inspect each one and confirm if they really have a problem. The tags were written by boys with varying degrees of knowledge, so I wouldn't rule out user error. But if I have to spend $50 on gaskets and valve packing from the online Coleman repair store in order to save $600 worth of camp stoves, that's my kind of fundraising. It's fun too.

Plus, these things are freaking filthy. Boys on camping trips rushing through breakfast cooking and cleanup before packing up to head back home don't take great pains to clean things properly.

Check this one out, it's got lots of mold growing on splattered bacon grease or something. Also has a bent manifold bracket that needs to be straightened.
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Bah, that's not mold, it's delicate flavor crystals carefully nurtured on bacon essence. :haha:

Here's one that could be fun but didn't think it was a fun with kids thing, at least not young ones.
These look like those ant-hill/termite-mound castings but much easier.
They'd look cool mounted on gnarly wood or in a fish tank.

Here's a hobby I should get into. If I ever develop creativity...and start drinking from cans.

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That last one was built on a budjet.

What? Ok, one more:

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Bruce, if the whole retirement thing doesn't work out you've got a future in copywriting or naming bills presented by republicans...

;)

Saturday was really productive. I fixed 4 of those 5 broken stoves. The troop has 8 working stoves now and only needed 6. We have 2 functioning extras now.

I had forgotten to bring home fuel to test them, so I had to drive over to the meeting hall to get a gallon of Coleman fuel out of the shed.
All fueled up, many of them did leak when under pressure or in operation. At the valve stem or at the tip of the generator tube where the atomizer nozzle is attached to the tube. And a couple of the pumps didn't work.

The fix was easy for all of them.

For that one with the bent manifold bracket, I took it apart, clamped the bracket in the vise, and used channel lock pliers to straighten it out.

Took apart the non-working pumps and soaked the dried out leather plungers in a dixie cup of oil. And then reassembled.

And for the fuel leaks, just tighten the damn pack nuts at the valve a quarter turn or so. Same thing for the atomizer nut thing at the end of the generator tube.

It took a few hours to do all this, because I had to methodically figure out what was wrong with each stove, as I fired them up and observed them for a while.

Total cost for all parts: $0.00.
Amount saved by not purchasing new stoves: $385.24

I still need to fix the remaining broken stove, but it's got several problems and probably needs the valve to be completed torn down and rebuilt. Not sure we need a 9th working stove so badly.

But do you want the scouts doing this on their own? Best they report it and let you fix'em-up.

in my experience, the scouts are the ones that find out it's broken, probably because they broke it or it was broken when they used it. specific diagnoses like what glatt found is beyond their ability in the field when using the stove to cook, at least for the younger less experienced scouts. I strongly agree that it shouldn't be put back into service but should have a tag/note that indicates it needs service.

eta: passing on the info about what was needed to fix what kind of symptom to the other adults *would* be helpful, since most of what glatt describes sounds like it could be done in the field with a leatherman.

I thought I responded to Bruce, but it apparently got lost in the tubes.

Yeah. You and BigV are right. The boys should report that it's broken. But the adults should do more than just move the stoves into the back of the closet and leave them there for years. And they should definitely inspect the "broken" stoves before deciding in a committee meeting that they should be replaced with new ones. I was glad I was there to stop the madness.

I live in a wealthy area where the parents think nothing of spending money to fix problems and where they know how to write a brief, but tightening a packing nut is beyond them. It's weird sometimes. I benefit from living here amongst them, but it also means there are certain expectations to keep up.

Why? Somebody else will fix them...

So. This guy, he builds models, see. He builds pretty awesome models. His model of the supercarrier USS Forrestal is pretty fucking awesome. It's twelve feet long, and, it and the display case weigh 4000 pounds.

The US Navy heard about this pretty cool model he was building, and wanted to help. So, they sent him the original blueprints to the actual USS Forrestal.

Congress has approved his model to be permanently displayed at the Naval Academy in Annapolis.

Oh, one other thing. Almost everything on the model Forrestal actually works.

You should see the other models, too.

Complete, and total, awesomeness.

I want a shop.

I could do this.

At the end of the video, he even describes his process and hints that plans exist for making a copy of his slack belt sander.

*sigh*

There are damn few hobbyists/craftsmen as interesting as knife makers.