My New Workbench

I've been working on a new workbench design for awhile.  

My old workbench is aging.  It is an island workbench made out of 2x4s, and it has a simple 4x8 OSB sheet on top.  I made some crude caster wheels that pop out, but that design never worked very well so I hardly ever moved my island workbench.

The past many weeks, I made a new design and built it up.  I improved the retracting/extending casters, and am very pleased with the results.  I can pull the handle about 12 inches, and that moves the workbench up about half an inch - - that's alot of mechanical advantage.

And once the casters are down, my linkage is locked in place with a 3 point over-center linkage.  It all works just beautifully.

See my video below for how my linkage works:

Coffee Grinder Static Electricity: 2 Tests

 My Mom gave me some birthday money.  She always gives me the number of years old I am.  So this year, I had a whopping $46.  I like to treat that money as a gift and not use it for bills or other practical things.  This year, I've had my eye on a very impractical manual coffee grinder (manufacturer is Heihox).

I was excited to buy this little dude.  It's manual, so it's super quiet.  It is small, and just perfect for a single serving.  It takes about 30 seconds to grind a dose.  It had pretty decent ratings on Amazon, so I bought it.

First use was an absolute mess.  Coffee grounds everywhere.  Static electricity was the culprit.  In fact, when I turned the little cup upside down, nothing fell out!  It's winter, and our house is pretty dry, but the static was off the charts!  The picture below is just a small portion of my mess.  I had grounds covering multiple square feet of my countertop.

There are 2 suggested fixes to help static:

1.  Wait a few minutes after grinding to allow the static to dissipate.  This sounds like a good solution.

2.  Wet a chopstick, and stir your unground beans to inject a little moisture to the beans.  This sounds a bit kookie.  

I wanted to test both methodologies, so I did.  First picture here is a freshly cleaned grinder with freshly cleaned catch-cup.  This is as clean as it gets:

First up is my control batch:  grinding beans without any of these static-control suggestions.  Let's see just how bad the static can be!  And yes, it's pretty bad as you see below.  Ground coffee is stuck on the bottom of the grinder, and it's coating the interior of the cup.

I cleaned all this up, and ground another batch of beans.  This time, I waited a full 3 minutes before I inspected the results.  I was surprised to see that the static did not dissipate at all.  In fact, I think it looks just as bad as not waiting.  See below:

Last test, and I'm skeptical about this one:  stir the unground beans with a wet chopstick.  I don't quite understand how this will fix things, but I was quite impressed with the results.  Not just impressed, but I was a bit shocked.  See below:

So there you have it.  Stir your beans with a wet chopstick prior to grinding to fix all your static electricity problems.  Who woulda' thought?

A Hat for a Buddy

Kiddo #1 whipped up a hat to give to my ol' buddy, Jerry.  We've been thinking about him quite a bit in the last many days, and wish him a speedy recovery!

Catching Up With Pictures

It's been awhile since I last posted, and we've had many good memories and events happen since then.  I thought I should attempt to catch things up with a few pictures.

Christmas Eve (part 1):  Family picture in front of the Christmas Tree.  We didn't dress up for the event - we just came as we were.

Christmas Eve (part 2):  With a maniacal face of terror, Kiddo #3 demonstrates how he uses a sword.  

Christmas Eve (part 3):  Kids wanted to include the 6 guinea pigs in the picture.  

It's a bit difficult to see all 6 of those guinea pigs in the previous picture, so here is a slightly better picture.  The stuffed tiger at the end of the line is just a stuffed tiger, and not a guinea pig.  Ha!

Christmas Morning (part 1):  Before the wrapping paper was flung.

Christmas Morning (part 2):  Once everything was done and over.

On Sunday morning, January 3 2021, we had a real beautiful snow overnight.  The temperatures were just above freezing, and there was no wind, so all the snow stuck to all the branches.  It was magical, but it melted very quickly.