Effective Wildlife Control

Moving into a new neighbourhood in the Southern Highlands has found the yard a veritable highway for the neighbourhood ‘Toms’, some of these brutes wont take mothers kindly “shoo cat! shoo!” for an answer.

Taking things into my own hands I decided to pull the top off an empty dry powder fire extinguisher and fill it with water. All you need to do then is recompress it with air from a common compressor with one of those blow-down guns on the end of the hose. You just force the air back through the nozzel end of the extinguisher, it pushes past the trigger and stays in the bottle.

Then you have one of these!

Worm Worlds Premium Cat Repellant

 

This sits at the front doorstep ready hose down any strays who need some guidance home

F.O.G Photo’s

 

The F . O . G

I tried my hand at wood carving on my uni break as I had some spare time.

Being cold where I live we often light a fire in the drum heater in my shed so I can work out there. Sadly I lack a decent axe or block splitter and have to rely on only a wedge to break up wood, I use this in combination with a large heavy log dubbed the ‘fist of god’ to slam the wedge through. (primitive but surprisingly effective)

As a laugh, I carved the offending end into a giant fist and added a couple of handles to boot.

The log, we initially  believed to be Oak, but have since debunked it from such a lofty title. This unknown wood has been termed by us as ‘Faux Oak’ or ‘ Foak’ and does make an excellent carving wood for beginners.

It is a dense, heavy wood, but what makes it so suitable for carving is the slightly spongy texture of the material. It means that it is really hard to stuff up your carving by accidently splitting off a huge chunk on some of the more delicate details when you hit it too hard with the chisel. The wood tends to be very forgiving.

I will upload a few photo’s of the Fist of god and maybe some action snaps too shortly.

And if I find out what a ‘Foak’ tree really is I’ll let you know that too. ( I actually found it in the uni car park on the way home and nabbed some really big logs to use for my vice and anvil stumps, I threw the fist in for good measure.

 

A Sneak Peek at my latest Neckpiece

 

 

This is a neck piece I have been working on for the last few months and it is nearing completion.

It is made of found aluminium connectors and silicon tubing which is actually fuel line for model engines from the hobby store.

The 3-way and 4-way connectors are made of turned and soldered stainless steel, while the hair spikes are of turned aluminium rod.

The final arrangement will have the two longer spikes attaching to the hair at the back of the head, while the shorter one attaches on the side (either) and the strands hang down around the neck and shoulders.

My Idea of a Hybrid Model Rocket

I have been thinking on how to power a rocket from (legal) available materials.

Since model rocketry is legal in Australia I thought it would be interesting to make a rocket myself instead of purchasing the ones from the shop.

This rocket is a hybrid of a solid fuel and a try-hard liquid rocket. Since the gas in the bottle is only highly compressed and not liquified it’s not a true ‘hybrid rocket’

This is how it works – with the following setup 

 

1- You set the hexamine tablets on fire with a blowtorch up the middle of the rocket.

2- Then the gas is turned on. I am sure I will nedd to make some sort of quick release valve instead of a tap, one that can be activated remotely.

If anyone has any ideas on how to make one feel free to let me know.

This is all hypothetical, I don’t know if there is enough gas in one bottle to power a rocket, but since they can shoot themselves in the air from just puncturing the cap I’d imagine that if you converted the gas into combustion and forced it out of a nozzle then you would get more thrust than without the flame.

Yet Another Wild Idea

 

On their website the creators of the FanWing talk of developing it into a kind of Sky Truck capable of doing short hops around cities carrying large loads.

I was wondering then, if due to its ability to create such lift, as well as the self propulsion of  if the  wings themselves, they could be treated in a radically different way, such as…

 

I was wondering if you could use a double set of wings, make them shorter due to the extra lift, then scrap the traditional tail. The plane could be like a sky car instead, a compact little vehicle for zipping around the sky.

Would this even fly? I think it would be hard to get it to balance but if both front and back wings create equal lift then it just might work.

I;ll have to test this also, I think it would make a really interesting flying model at any rate.

 

 

FanWing Hypotheticals

Here is a quick (dodgy) sketch of an idea i’ve had for the way this technology could be used.

 

FanWing Chopper

 

Could this technology be used to create a quiet, stable helicopter that would be compact and capable of lifting a good payload?

This is how my idea works, the central shaft turns through the main beveled cog which is stationary. this shaft has a T intersection just after the top of the cog, and on each of the handles of the T are another beveled cog.

In theory the spinning shaft will roll the smaller hrizontal cogs around the main cog, spinning as they go.

This rotation is then used to spin the FanWing blades and creates lift while the vehicle is stationary. The fans need much less speed to create lift than a normal chopper blade.

So could this work? would the whole thing fly apart? or worse do nothing at all?

I shall have to find out at some stage by making a mode myself.

 

FanWing Diagram

 

 

This is a cross section of the FanWing showing how it works.

Air is accelerated over the wing by the blades of the spinning fan faster than it would go, if it were merely pushed through the air like a conventional plane wing. 

This extra speed creates extra vacuum and therefor extra lift, enabling it to maintain flight at incredibly slow speeds in comparison to conventional aircraft.

The FanWing

Relatively recent research into the flight technology termed the ‘FanWing’ has opened up a new area for model enthusiasts to create low powered slow flying model aircraft.

The FanWing idea has supposedly been around since the late 19th century, but it was only until 1998 that Pat Peebles, the  inventor of its modern form started serious research into the technology.

The FanWing has several exciting properties in its ability to create lift such as slow take off and landing speed, it is self propelled, creating lift and movement simultaneously, among other things, and I am keen to see how it will change air transportation in the future.

I have been sketching a few concept models for planes which could exploit the FanWings potential. 

I will upload these shortly. More can be found out at the  http://www.fanwing.com website

Weekend fun – the valveless pulsejet

This weekend I tried my hand at making a small valveless pulse jet.

It isn’t as small as I hope to eventually make but I did discover a very useful tip for anyone looking at making one.

The hardest part I have found in constructing a pulsejet is to get the larger tube ( combustion chamber ) to neck down to the smaller exhaust tube.

Pulsejets are ideally constructed from stainless steel tube with the join being TIG welded together. alas I have no access to said welder at present, so joining the two tubes had posed quite a problem until I realised a CO2 soda bulb does the necking down for me.

the exhaust tube can be simply pushed on to the outside of the soda bulb neck, ta dah!

I have posted a picture of the jet on my bench (not running) because we had some trouble getting it to run properly although it did run momentarily, ( probably had the wrong dimensions).

I’ll need to revisit it later on when my asessments not due!