Projects

Projects that I’m doing

Fixing a Scion key the Schumaker way

Projects, Stuff and Things

My Scion key exploded one day.

If this is like my other experiences with my Scion tC there’s probably a bunch of other people out there that this has happened to. The problem is that the Scion TC key fob from 2005 has a one piece rubber gasket/buttons that covers the insides of the fob. After a few years of pressing on it with your long fingernails (that you really should cut you dirty animal). The rubber breaks down and comes off in chunks. Which leaves you digging into the plastic housing to press the buttons.  Eventually one day you’ll notice a small crack in the side of the key fob, but you’ll ignore it because you have better things to do and can’t be bothered to do any kind of fixing. Then you’ll turn the key for the 10000th time and the fob will turn but the key will not and the metal part will break off in the ignition. FYL.

So the first thing you should try is JB Weld, big ole gob in there and press the whole thing back together like a double stuffed oreo. This will work for a while, probably about 2 years. So you’re good… for a while.

Then it will break again in some slightly different way that you can glue back together. Then you will forget about it because you’re not going to shell out $65 for a new key when you have another, perfectly good key… You’re not made of money!

What I am made of is the ability to fix things. So if you find yourself in a similar situation, grab the key parts and lets go.

 

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The first thing to do is grab the Dremel and the smallest grinder bit you can find. There’s a little rectangular thing that’s epoxied into the body of the key. That’s the rfid tag that identifies the key. Just blast that thing with the grinder, but try do to chew away too much of the plastic. Also watch out for little flying bits of metal, they can make for a very bad day. You have to get pretty much all of it out of there because you have to cut the other one from your dismantled key and glue it in there.  Getting the key part our of the ‘good’ key is actually a little tricky, they must have molded the key around the metal part of the key, because there is no seam to break. So my solution was to cut along the top of the metal key with an xacto knife so that you leave the outside wall of the plastic intact, but still removing the key. It’s tricky, and at some point you’ll think… this will never work, I should just get a key. But push through, this just might work. Then just take the key part and fit it into the hole that you’ve made.

It’s really not that hard, you’re just basically replacing the plastic part. So get to work, crafty disgruntled Scion owners.

I guess this is why you work on your own car.

Gone Bad, Projects

I’m a pretty good driveway mechanic. Which means that if it has bolts I can pretty much remove and replace it on the car. It’s never as easy as you think it’s going to be, but in the end you save the labor costs and you end up fixing the car. Unless…

Something goes wrong. Which if you were at the shop they wouldn’t tell you and they would just say. Urrrm, there was another broken part, more money please.  Not, “my bad I slipped and fucked this other thing up” this one’s on me.

So I’m changing out the timing belt in the Subaru because we didn’t know if the last guy had it done.  So I finally got the balls to remove the belt and start to replace all the pulleys and gears that came with the kit.  I replaced the water pump and was bolting everything back on.  When I committed the cardinal sin of driveway mechanics… I started feeling good about myself.  Then the bolt slipped on the tensioner pulley and stripped out the block.  I must have cross threaded it because I wasn’t anywhere near the 35lbs of torque it’s suppose to get.

But on the bright side if I had to break something… this part is a separate bracket that comes off the block. So I just have to go to the dealership tomorrow and get a new one.

Fingers crossed on the price…

Update: $55 bucks for the bracket. Probably could have gotten it cheaper online… but wtf.

Why my postman hates me

Art, Projects

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The local clay store couldn’t get any more hydrocal from their distributor so I found this great deal on Ebay.

If it fits it ships!

Even if its 40 lbs of hydrocal that you bought off of eBay. The box looked like it was shot-putted onto my doorstep. Also every inch of it was covered in clear packing tape. I guess the seller didn’t want to have his package mistaken for anthrax.

 

Rehabbing the greatest beerpong table of all time.

Projects, Stuff and Things

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It’s been a while since Ive worked on this thing. It never really was finished in the first place. We needed it to be ready for Halloween 2006 so we just tucked in all the wires and put it out on the deck.

It stayed out there for 4 years.

Not withstanding the occasional indoor game in the front room. Then the guys moved out of the house and I became guardian of the table. We set it up a few times at the Oakton house, my birthday was celebrated by a game in the yard. It’s see some good times. If you’re thinking now is the time where I say that IM getting rid of it… Dream on buster. I’m finally giving it the shrine it deserves. I’ll eventually finish designing the “fold down mount”. But for now I just want to get it up on the wall. But while I’m doing that I thought it would be a good time to secure some wires and clean it up a little.

I’ll post some pictures later.

Artomatic 2012 Installed

Art, Projects

I finished installing my show for the 2012 Artomatic in Crystal City. I am happy with most of the work, I got really stressed the final weekend because I had to finish making about 12 of the door knockers in the last weekend. I wasn’t able to be as creative with the painting because I wanted to have one rusty one, one silver one, and one copper one for each design.  So that one left one each for the creative designs.

But I really learned a lot in the process, I learned that if I’m going to get complicated with the painting I should probably paint them first and then glue them on. I learned that I should probably test the hanging mechanism before I get to the show.  I also learned that paint drys out if you don’t use it for 2 years.

As much as I can relax a little from creating these guys every free minute I have I can’t really take too much time off. I need to have some ready because I think people are going to want custom colors and I’m going to be selling ‘blanks’ so that other artists can design their own.  Which is fine with me because I really like the construction part better anyway.  That would free me up to create more sculptures and worry less about finishing them.

I need to re-evaluate the construction process. I have it pretty much down to a science now, I can order all the parts from McMaster-Carr. But there are two steps that I need to improve, its really annoying to cut the u-bolts shorter with a dremel and I know there has to be a better way to make the knocker hinge then bending a screw eye.  Also I haven’t perfected the attaching it to the door part… which would seem like a major part right?