MSU Cornhole

Thursday, 1 April 2010

In honor of the Spartans making it to the Final 4, two years in a row i thought i would post the cornhole game i made a few years ago. For some reason i'm super proud of how this turned out. Probably because i though it would only take a few hours and it ended up taking a few weeks.
There are a lot of versions out there but the reason that this is far superior to them all is because it is strong and light weight. Most people use 1/2" plywood and 2x4's which is way too heavy. I made a frame out of 1 x 1/2" pine then used 1/8" hardboard.

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Closet shelves - part 2

Friday, 12 February 2010

About 5 months ago i built shelves in my bedroom closet. I really liked how it turned out so i decided to do the same thing in one of the other bedrooms to store all my other stuff. As you can see it was getting pretty bad.

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Wine Rack

Saturday, 23 January 2010

After looking at hundreds of versions online of different counter-top wine racks i decided on this design. It's made out of PVC with a wood base. Pretty simple but it's balanced well enough to actually not need the base at all, it's just there for added support.

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Ice Fishing

Sunday, 17 January 2010

Also back in December i went up to Onaway to go ice fishing. After getting really excited i started working on my own tip-ups and poles. I had made a few before so i tried getting a little creative this time.

Here's the basic shape, cut out of a piece of 4" PVC

The spool i made by splitting one of the ball pit balls in half and taped to a piece of 1" PVC. Don't worry i still have a few left.

Here's the technical bits. The cantilever spring is attached to the pole (an old wire hanger) which is held in place by the magnet, which is set into foam in the spool.

Final product. The flag is old survey ribbon. And the round flaps on the side are to help prevent the hole from freezing up.

The poles are just aluminum tube connected to a PVC handle. The fishing line runs inside the tube so no need for eyelits. But there's no flex in the pole. Also i did end up painting these black as well.

The reels were made out of the bottom of beer cans and some PVC. They didn't work very well either. I spent most of my time on the tip-ups and these were sort of an after thought.

Now i'd like to tell you that i took these up north and caught some monster 36" pike or something. Unfortunately the gas powered auger we used had something wrong with the motor. There was no torque and it only cut one hole before running out of gas. The view was great though.

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Windmill

Tuesday, 20 October 2009

Several months ago i built a windmill out of a car alternator. My dream was to be able to collect so much electricity that the electric company would be sending ME a check every month.

My dreams were crushed.

A simple way of explaining it was that the wind would spin the alternator, charging up the car batteries, which would go to the DC to AC converter, which would plug into the house. Apparently plugging car batteries directly into an outlet in your house is not good... who knew?

So the windmill had been sitting in my basement in a pile labeled "crushed dreams" Other things were there like a hang-glider made out of a bed sheet and the human powered hydrofoil. I still haven't given up on the hydrofoil...it's too amazingly awesome:

human powered hydrofoil dream machine

Here's all the pieces before i put it up in the back yard.

Here it is all put together in the basement.

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