Monday, June 29, 2015

Glass frame screw caps for exterior house doors

The rear entry area of our home is very dark, so we decided that an easy way to add light was to replace our old, drafty, malfunctioning rear entry door with a modern door with a glass panel to allow more light.

Our first problem was that our rear door happens to be pretty small - 30 inches wide.
Most exterior doors are now 36 inches wide, so to get what we want, we'd have to special order at about three times the cost of the doors in stock at our local stores.  My partner in crime had the brilliant idea of searching craigslist for 60 inch wide double entry doors, since that would give us a door with exactly the width we want (and an extra door to do something with?).  With a little patience, we located a set of used wooden entry doors, so we took our new door home to strip off paint, fill in holes, and generally clean everything up.
Missing screw caps in the glass frame

Second problem: the screw caps were missing from the frame around the glass in the door.
I first went to Lowe's to ask if they had those caps and was told that no, no ones sells them, they come with new doors, and nowhere else. I searched the internet and found that the guys at Lowes were right, those caps can't be purchased!
So, I took some careful measurements, 3D printed some screw caps in white ABS, popped them in place with a mallet, and they look great!


gently tapping in with a mallet





















18 new screw caps
Caps in place

Monday, June 15, 2015

Archery Bow Square

I've recently begun learning archery.

When you receive your first bow, one of the first things you need to do is set it up by adjusting the brace height, and add a nock point to your string.  I'm not going to explain here how to do those things as I'm just a rank beginner.  To accomplish those tasks yourself, you'll need a tool called a Bow Square, it lets you both measure the brace height and find the proper placement for your nock point.

These aren't expensive tools, you can find aluminum bow squares for as little as $15 online, but designing and cutting my own was a fun project, and was a good excuse to further acquaint myself with 10BitWorks' new 80Watt Rabbit Laser engraver.

I designed in Inkscape, exported to DXF and used LaserCut 5.2 to communicate the actual cuts to the machine.