It's alive!!!

Swapped the batteries in my ancient iPod, replacement battery ordered from DealExtreme for hardly any money at all. Totally worth it! :)

Still sounds great and the user interface is exemplary!

-Created on Desire

Blacksmith practice!

Today we had some activities as one of out colleges is about to leave for another employer and we wanted to do something extra.

We all got a try at making our own fire pitchfork! To do that we went to Smedjebacken, just a few kilometers south from Ludvika.

Outside the forge. On Ovako's factory area, Ovako is lending the premises to the club.
The furnaces, apparently this is one of northern Europe's largest permanent forges!
Some of the tools.
Demonstration of the forge and how to regulate the airflow.
Some instructions before some hand's on.
"Do not grab objects that doesn't look hot with your bare hands, the look might be deceiving!"
Heating.
Forging!
More demonstrations of the different steps.
We have never been this effective at work! ;)
One of the final steps, separate the material to two pieces at the ens to make the fork part.
Takes some effort to pound through the metal.
Sorry, forgot to shoot the most important piece, the result, but I'll try add that later! :)
All I can say, if you ever get the chance to try forging, take it! Already thinking about taking a course later on or perhaps join the blacksmith club. http://www.vagasmida.blogspot.com/

Update!

The result:
It ended up a bit short since I wanted to make a proper handle, only for small fire places. :)
The fork part shape became a bit too roundish, next time...

Custom in custom...

Bailed out my "custom" stuff from velo-orange.com today, kind of suspected the stuff had got stuck in customs since it has been a long wait, had to pay the Swedish postal services 100sek for the trouble and 101sek (why that last one krona!?) to the Swedish custom authorities.

OK that I have to pay the toll but why the heck do I have to pay the postal services 100sek for something that has already been paid for postage?! And that for something I paid as much for the postage as for the parts...

No time to be bitter about that, now I could finally end the bike build for this time!

First unpacking, Grand Cru bottom bracket, almost a pity to hide something this nice. Notice the word French, it's for french threaded bottom brackets. Read the fantastic story about bottom bracket thread "standards" at Velo orange: http://support.velo-orange.com/#bbarticle.html
The opposite cup(?) looks well sealed.
Side view.
Mounted:
Over to the threadless stem adaptor (another great invention!), now I can fit modern stems (and hadlebars) on the old Crescent!
close up details.

Ordered a rather long and cheap 25.8mm stem from Chainreaction Cycles to use with the handlebars, read the comments and someone wrote (damn you Jimmy from Australia!) that the bars were 25.8mm and not 31.8mm as it looks on the photos but it turned out that it was a "over sized" 31,8mm bar.

Had to cannibalize my commuter bike for a OS stem, it's not beautiful but adequate for the time being.
Only had time for a short test ride before I went to the cinema, but, WOW! What a difference, felt like I could ride for ever without getting numb hands and fingers!

Doesn't look entirely "kosher" on a older bike, but it's for a good cause! =)
I hope the wind calms tomorrow so I can take the bike for a longer spin, after that I can make a final judgment if it was worth the while. :)

With a bang!

This weekend I switched to summer tires on the commuter, bought a pair of cheap Maxxis Detonator tires for a project last year, they are almost unused, decided to put them on the Univega this summer.

Going from studded +2" heavy tires to thin 1" light tires made a huge impact on acceleration! How sweet to yet again roll around almost silently compared to the noise from the studs! :)

Ludicrous speed!

Still waiting for some more parts but decided to go ahead and assemble a new Shimano Sora derailleur, 9-speed cassette and a new (hardly used) chain. So now I have a whopping 18 gears to choose from compared to previously 12! =)

Wow! How quiet it got, the usual noise when the chain passes the derailleur is gone and the gears shift smoothly!
Now if the rest of the stuff could show up so I can finish the build, I hope the new handlebars will work well. Now my hands get numb after a short while...
Very pleased so far! =)

From HK, with strings...

Had a small shopping spree on eBay some weeks ago, getting all sorts of small packets in the mail lately, ordered a replacement eyepiece to my Nikon D7000, pirate this time, cost me sek 26:- with postage from Hong Kong.

This time it was a different packing, seem envelopes like that before but just for internal post at companies, had both string for closing the "lid" and some more strings for securing it? Impressing! :)

Lost the rubber eye cup on my Nikon D90 too, seems to be something I have to get used too, that time I ordered a original from Cyberphoto for sek 80:-

Got one more incoming from DealExtreme, just in case...

ReEndomorph...

Been having some trouble with my Surly Endomorphs, the side walls falling apart, not a uncommon symptom apparently.

Few days ago I decided to try stop the deterioration by applying some of Casco's LiquiSole on the worst parts, which turned out to be almost all the way around on both sides.
Spread the glue with a disposable plastic knife.
Wasted almost a full tube on the side walls.
The glue takes for ever to dry, the nest morning I scraped the surface with my nail and managed to scrape off some glue, got a bit worried but after more than 24h it seemed to bond perfectly with the rubber and cord!

This evening I dared to take the Pugsley for a short spin, still kept the pressure quite high but the fix seems to work fine! I'll use it for some time before I decide if I'll treat the rear wheel the same way, the rear tire is in better shape than the front tire.

The snow had a funny way of getting stuck on the new surface. :) The small tube costs 80:- a pop but compared to a new tire for sek 1000:- it's a cheap fix if it works!

I salute you!

I don't have Guitar Hero but that doesn't stop me from being intrigued but this contraption, electronically controlled fire combined with some music can't go wrong? =)

Hands on hand adjusting.

Noticed that my Seiko Orange/Black Monster started to lag behind with the hour hand, quite annoying since it got hard to properly read the time some times.

Not really sure when this happened but I suspect it was the watch repairman that replaced the black hands with white ones and after which the minute hand got loose and I had to return the watch to get it fixed (for free but anyway...)

So one evening when I had let the watch stay still for a few days til it stopped moving I opened it to try adjust the hour hand.

I had found a service manual on the net for the movement that is in the Seiko Monster, 7S26B: http://forums.watchuseek.com/f365/seiko-calibers-technical-repair-manuals-299038.html

Here's a video of the process:


I have no clue if this is the correct way to do it but it worked for me! =)

Took the opportunity to blow away some dust that the watch repairer had left in my watch, I later saw a video how to replace the crystal and there he covered the movement with a small glass that prevented dust from getting in.

The video did not turn out as I wanted, I used the new Windows Live Movie Maker that comes with Windows 7 and it was pure crap! 4GB memory was apparently not enough to be able to save a 5 minute long video in HD-quality and of course I find that out after I did all the edits. Do I need to get a Mac to be able edit movies without major effort?!

2:nd try...

Another Saturday, another day for a ride! Now that I had daylight I decided to go and try find the wind shelter I tried to find earlier in the dark and failed.

I was a bit behind schedule so I skipped most of the trails there and went the fast way over town and the road out to Räfsnäs.

Passed ABB:s latest building, ABB has plans to build another huge building right here at the parking lot, might not be able to pass here next year this time?
Scared a poor pedestrian!
The power plant seemed to fire on all cylinders! Thankfully it was only -5C today, been lucky with "warmer" weather on weekends.
The ice is definitely covering the whole lake Väsman now.
Passing some suburban areas on my way out.
Finally out of town.
Still some red houses with white corners in sight.
The Kennel club keeps the trails open around here, perfect!
Met one man walking his dog, he looked surprised I was out biking and I got the usual "that's some fat tires". =)
Lot of snow in the trees but not so much on the ground. I like.
Managed to get a blurry shot of the Sasquatch!
Found a trail that I suspected I had skipped last time since it went upwards quite a while, if it turned out to be the wrong way I would at least have a great ride down again! There were foot prints from one walker up the trail...
Rocky! And way in there is the wind shelter! Found it, knew it was around here some where and just not in my mind. :)
Time to make camp!
Nothing like the crackling from an open fire!
A amazing 8 minute video coming up on making the fire! ;)



My gloves got wet so I put them on a stick near the fire to dry, a lot of steam!
Had some hot coffee and a snickers bar, when the fire settled down some hot dogs!
Time to get back home again, had to be at Smedjebacken before 4pm. The snow on the roof melted from the heat and the water dripped down in the fire. View when I left. I took a shorter route back home...
The place on the map: http://mobil.eniro.se/query?xcoord=15.2209621668&ycoord=60.11267066&what=mobaddr

Cordinates! ;)
(WGS84):
N 60.0° 6.0' 45.614376068115234'' (decimal 60.11267066)
E 15.0° 13.0' 15.463800430297852'' (decimal 15.2209621668)

I should have been home cleaning up the apartment for Christmas but this was more fun! :)

GPS-Plot: