Silliest DIY Project?

[dkjones96]

That cat ramp is awesome! I'd have made a compartment for the litter box down there too. It would work like those litter houses you buy that makes the litter all fall out of the cats paws before it gets onto your floor.

I can't say I have a ridiculous DIY project that nobody would want. Like the fan I used to have by the smoke detector so it wouldn't go off when making blackened fish. I just pushed a button to turn it on and again for off. It charged using the florescent light in the kitchen.

The 'dryer' setting I added to my old apartment so the ac and heat would be on for the central ac system allowing me to dry the air without getting the place cold as hell. Here in the desert we don't need that one.

[GasSavers_maximilian]

The cat did its business outside (that's a cat door at the bottom). Some wild animal ate her (at least the neighbor heard it fighting something at night). She had this weird symbiotic relationship with my cat (an indoor one). She'd bring in live animals which would then find their way downstairs where my cat would catch them. I didn't figure out what was going on until birds started showing up inside.

That fan is a great idea. Very simple. Why those timed "sleep" buttons for cooking (or whatever they call them) aren't on all detectors is a mystery to me.

I thought of one more, but without pictures (it was the 90s and I had no camera). I took the guts out of a massage pad and put them into my rolling office chair at work. To keep the cord under control it went up to a couple pulleys in the drop ceiling and had a counterweight (just some fender washers held in place by some really tight cable ties). To keep your head from hitting the cord if you reclined there was a little arm off the back that curved a bit (it was a slightly bent plant hanger). Looked really good, but not a very wide appeal. I could wheel all over the place without any trouble. My boss used to joke that it was a system for zapping me if I was being unproductive. I still have all the parts for it but don't have a good place to set it up.

[theholycow]

I have a cordless massage chair that I found clearanced at Staples or OfficeMax. It's just vibraty, not the kind with rollers/"fingers" in it.

I've got a rollers/fingers massage overlay that is made for office chairs, but its adapter supplies 12v and it works perfectly in the car.

[GasSavers_maximilian]

How is it cordless? Batteries? Did they last long? A lot easier than my approach.

[theholycow]

Yup. Charge it when you're not there, unplug it when you sit down.

[GasSavers_BEEF]

took a pic of my "whole house" water filter on the washing machine.

more than anything because it looks so funny. I had fun with the camera last night.

[GasSavers_maximilian]

You're not messing around! Done and done!

I realized I have even more gross hack DIY projects. I really need to stop doing those.

Right now my heating system is forced hot air, provided by a home-made air handler. I used surplus truck A/C condensors and had a local place bend the housing sheet metal (my brake wasn't wide enough). Unfortunately, I used a very thin gauge, so when the fan kicks on it inflates like a balloon, causing one side to bulge out making a dimpling noise! I solved it by putting a ratchet strap around the whole thing and wedging a 2x6 under it on that side. I had planned to solve it more elegantly, but since I'm planning to sell soon the whole thing's being chucked in favor of an hydronic system, I don't need to bother.

I also made a shed designed specifically for my trailer. It's pretty narrow, so the entire front opens (there's a faux smaller door). That required a bit of structural reinforcement. For the rear and sides I used all the scrap metal roofing panels that the ones for my roof were shipped inbetween (scrap ones protected the painted ones). The ramp is a double fold design and because of the slight hill there I needed to nail on some metal lathe to give traction when my ride mower's wheels get wet (otherwise it just spins). It's about 500' from my house (near a second driveway), so there's no power and I installed a translucent roof panel to give some light.

I also cooked up a DIY fan stand last summer since I had a bunch of tripods kicking around. It's not as unstable as it looks.


Other than that, I tried to use cardboard shipping boxes as heat ducts. The big sizes in metal were quite expensive, and 12x12x48 boxes were cheap. I had too much trouble joining them and was worried about resale so I abandoned the idea, but I still think it could be made to work. Finally, I use an old webcam to check the oil level in my crawlspace tank. Just have a clear tube hooked to a tee fitting coming off the tank and the camera is trained on it. To use it I plug in cord that turns it and a light on and then plug it into my TV. I tried to use pressure changes in air trapped in the tube to gauge tank level, but it seemed to vary an awful lot so I abandoned it. Plan to cook up a float based one (ten floats, ten switches, ten segment LED) later. OK, that ought to be ALL my silly projects. For now.

[GasSavers_BEEF]

that shed looks like something from willy wonka. the whole "it looks like one thing but it's something else" kinda thing.

and your mower looks a lot like mine. a 6 or 7 year old murray from wal-mart. don't get me wrong, I love mine and when it blows up, I'll buy a new one.

[GasSavers_maximilian]

The brand is "Lawn Chief", whatever that means. It was cheap. Briggs & Stratton engine so I wasn't terribly worried. I was amazed to find out how much more power it has than the first plane (16 hp vs 12). I don't need half that power, but wanted a wide mowing path so I could get the field done fast.

[theholycow]

Yeah, looks like a Murray my parents had, the remains of which is now in my shed and I should probably just dump at the scrapyard.

I've got a Craftsman that I bought used with various annoying problems, but which all last year was smoking badly. The problem is a solenoid in the carburetor whose job is to keep gas from gravity-feeding into the engine while it's turned off. I guess once the gas overflows the carburetor, it washes down the cylinder walls, past the rings, and into the crankcase, where it mixes with the oil and overfills the oil. Once that happens and you try to run it, it spews up through the PCV and back into the engine, then gets everywhere, and coats the whole inside of the muffler with junk, so even if you change the oil and install a manual fuel shutoff you have to replace the muffler or run it for days on end to clear the smoke.

I dunno. I should have taken it to a high school shop class and left it for the winter to let some kid rebuild it. Now that spring's here, I don't know what I'm going to do.