DIY – Simple, Easy Bottle Drying Rack for $2 or Less Posted on December 24th, 2009
I think most of you already know that we have a baby on the way at our house. In fact, it’s getting pretty imminent. So we’ve been doing all of the things that new parents do to prepare for a new member of the family. You know, reading books that don’t really tell you anything about child care, telling everyone we can who might possibly send us a check in honor of the joyous occasion (PayPal link on the left..), etc.
I’ve been doing a few things around the house to fix up and rearrange as well. We had to get the cat’s entirely out of the kitchen, for instance, which meant I had to build a new feeding station for them. So I built a new shelf-thing that will adequately hold food bowls out of reach of the dogs while supporting the weight of a couple of cats as well.
Well, in the process of looking at baby stuff and talking to family and friends who have recently had children, I’ve learned that there are a ton of gadgets for babies. One of the things that commonly comes up are “drying racks” and “sanitizers” for baby bottles.
Whether you breast feed or not, you’re going to need a bottle sooner or later. We now have several. They make microwave “sanitizer” contraptions, plastic drying rack things that hang bottles above your sink, and more. I have a lot of problems with those, which you can probably guess at. One of them being that they require me to buy something.
Remember: green is the new word for “frugal” which is the nice word for “cheap.”
So I decided to make a bottle drying rack on my own. It turned out pretty awesome, I think. All you need is a stable platform (I got this trophy base at a thrift store for 25 cents) and something to put in it to hold bottles. I was originally going to use coat hangers, but decided that wood doesn’t rust, so it would work better. The dowel cost me $1.30. The rest was just me and my tools.
I took the base and drew out lines on it and then marked drill starts with a punch. I measured the dowel against the tallest of the bottles (an 8oz) and rounded to the nearest easy mark (7-1/4 inches). I then marked this along the dowel and cut it with a hand saw. The dowel is 1/4″ thick, so you know.
Then I took my hand drill, placed the base on top of something I could drill into, and found a bit that was just slightly (1/16″) skinnier than the dowel. Then I braced the bit and turned it into the base. Oh, did I mention I used a hand brace rather than an electric drill? For angled holes, you tend to get more control this way.
The holes are angled out at about 15 degrees. I eyeballed it. Once all the holes were drilled, just press the dowels into place and use a rubber mallet to drive them home.
No glue, nails, screws, etc. are required. This means that if the dowel warps or breaks, you can push it back out and replace it easily. I also didn’t put any finish on the dowels as I didn’t want any toxins coming in contact with the bottles.
Viola! A bottle drying rack. It looks nice, sits stably on the counter or shelf, and does the job well. All for less than two bucks.
DIY – Fixing Your Roof Posted on December 15th, 2009
Winter is a crappy time of year to have to get up on the roof of your house and fix it, but if you gotta, you gotta. This time of year is when you’re most likely to find leaks as the early snows and ice hit and then melt before the real freeze sets in for the winter. So if you have a leak, you can get it fixed. Keep this bookmarked, it might come in handy in the spring too.
The roof on our home was reshingled with Class 4 high wind/hail shingles to withstand the elements and give the roof a 20 year warranty. So leaks aren’t likely. There was a leak, though, which wasn’t the shingle’s fault. An addition to build a carport/car cover had a piece of its metal top blow off due to not being properly secured by the amateur builder. It’s not the first thing I’ve had to fix on that addition. I’ve added 2×4s to strengthen the long wall which had no lateral supports to stop it from swaying. Anyway, the fix it part was easy – I just got a piece of metal about the right size, bent it into shape to fit, screwed it in place with weatherproofed screws, and painted it. Still, it was a pain.
More commonly, though, you will likely need to replace a broken or torn asphalt shingle on your roof. It’s much easier than you think. This short 1-1/2 minute video explains it all:
DIY – Changing Your Car’s Oil To Save Money Posted on November 22nd, 2009
I was going to make my own do-it-yourself (DIY) for this, but found this video on the subject and figured it was better than anything I would do. I might still make my own attempt at it, but this video is far better.
An oil change as most lube shops or repair garages runs you $30-$60 for most vehicles. My 6-cylinder Toyota, for instance, uses 5 quarts of oil and costs about $50 to get an oil change at the garage. The same garage charges $40 to do my wife’s small Honda 4-cylinder car.
To buy your own parts to change your oil will cost you about $3/quart of oil, $8-$12 for the replacement filter, and about twenty minutes of time. Changing the oil in my Toyota pickup, for instance, takes me about twenty minutes and costs $18 (I buy the oil by the case, saving on each quart). So I save about $32 each oil change.
Since the average American drives about 12,000 miles per year and a car requires an oil change about every 3,500 miles, that’s 3.5 oil changes per year. That means that if I drove the average amount of most Americans each year (I don’t) I’d be saving $112/year just on my own pickup.
Now consider that most households have two cars. For many people, that savings amounts to a month’s car payment at that point. Nice!
Changing the oil is not hard to do at all, and I’ll let this great video show you how:
Killer DIY Electric Motorcycle Becomes Creators Resume Posted on October 10th, 2009
In two months, a bare frame became this awesome ride. That’s all it took Tom Micelito build his electric motorcycle, which he calls the Ion. Now, it’s his resume as he looks for a career in industrial design. The Ion was his senior project at Appalachian State University. Hope he got an A+.
The bike started as a 1996 Kawasaki ZX6 Ninja. Tom stripped it down, took his measurements, and began his design and build. With several CAD model iterations, motorcycle magazine cutouts, and some real talent for aesthetics, he finally had what he wanted on paper.
To make it real, he had only two months if he wanted to get the grade. He started work on the chassis, adding 24 40Ah li-ion phosphate batteries (about 3kWh), a 95lb-ft torque motor (AC), a controller, and a quick test ride to make sure it all worked. At that point, the bike was weight equivalent to the original Ninja. Exactly as planned.
His weight distribution put the center of gravity at roughly bottom-center, just as the original had.
Miceli then began on the body work and street-legal components (lighting and so forth).
The bike’s top speed is 70mph and it has a range of up to 60 miles on a charge, which takes about six hours at 110v. Miceli continues to tweak the Ion, post-graduation, as he uses it to find himself a new job as a moto-designer.
With the help of his father, an electrical engineer, the graduate is planning some serious upgrades to the bike. He doesn’t think the acceleration is as good as it could be and he wants more speed and range. So he’s going to upgrade to 60Ah batteries and will ad a self-designed 2-speed transmission that will get up to about 50mph in first gear and double that in second. Yep. 100mph.
And yes, he got an “A” from his professor for the bike.
DIY – How To Can (Jar) Fruits and Vegetables: the Basics Posted on September 3rd, 2009
Home canning is nothing to be afraid of. It’s not hard and it requires only a few basic, low-cost tools to do. Some guides and recipe books make it appear that the process is complicated and exact. This is generally not the case.
Canning acidic produce like pickles, tomatoes, and most fruits is quite easy. The only time things get complicated is when you are doing the more advanced pressure canning of non-acidic items. In that case, a recipe and some experience (or someone with experience) is a good idea. Most of the time, though, making jams, jellies, pickles, and other basic canning is not hard at all.
The tools you’ll need are basic: jars, lids (they come in two pieces), a canning pot (or large stock pot), a rack (or something to keep jars off the bottom of the pot), and whatever ingredients you plan to use in your recipes.
No item on that list costs more than $10 to buy. In fact, the entire canning set up in our house cost only $10 in total at a yard sale and includes everything above except the produce to preserve.
Sterilizing Lids
This part is important and is one of the major reasons many canning attempts fail to seal properly, thus spoiling the preserves. The lids for jars come in two pieces: the lid and the ring. The lid is the flat part with a rubberized ring around the underside to seal with the glass top of the jar.
The ring is the part that screws on to hold the lid in place until it’s sealed. Rings are interchangeable amongst jars of the same type, so once your jars are sealed, you can remove the rings and use them on another jar. This is why lids and rings are often sold separately.
Once a lid has been used, it’s not likely that it will work well if used again. The rubber breaks down and the lid is often bent by the can opener when pried off the jar. If your lids are in good shape when removed, however, it is possible to re-use them, but that’s a more advanced skill that is best suited for another time.
To sterilize lids, all you need to do is boil water and put the lids (not the rings) in it. Let the water boil for 2-3 minutes with the lids in then take it off the heat. Don’t remove the lids from the hot water until you’re ready to put them onto the jars. This keeps any “bugs” in the air from getting onto the sealing portion of the lid and turning into mold later, breaking the seal. The hot lid will sterilize the lip of the jar as well.
Sterilizing Jars
This is not complicated and just means washing them in hot water with soap. Treat the jars as if they were drinking glasses and you’ll have them clean enough for canning. The lip of the jar is most important and when re-using jars, they should be inspected for chips, cracks, or other damage. Damaged jars shouldn’t be used for canning.
Setting Up Preserves In Jars
The rest of canning is mixing and processing your produce for canning, then putting it into the jars, boiling, and letting them cool and seal themselves.
When adding the ingredients to the jar, leave “head space” or a blank space between the contents and the top of the jar (lid). One eighth to one quarter of an inch is normal. A rule of thumb is that if the contents are primarily liquid (like with pickles), you should leave more space so the liquid can expand while being boiled. I like to leave a little more than a quarter inch in that case (about the width of a #2 pencil). For preserves (jams, jellies) and thicker things, a little less space is OK.
The way canning works is that the liquids inside the jar will expand as it’s being boiled and then contract again when it cools, creating a small vacuum and pulling the lid down, creating the seal that keeps outside air and bugs out of the preserves.
Once the liquids are in the jar, wipe the rim with a clean cloth to remove any debris and then take a lid from the hot water and place it on the top of the jar. Ad a ring, tightening it hand-tight.
Using the Canner and Boiling
When you have enough jars done, put them in the rack and put them in the canner (pot). Make sure the water level is above the tops of the jars by at least an inch and then bring the water to a boil.
If the water is already boiling before you ad the jars, you’ll want to “acclimate” them to the water so they don’t crack or shatter with the sudden temperature change. This is not usually a problem with modern glass tempering, but it’s better safe than sorry. Most canner racks can “rest” on top of the canner so the jars are only partially submerged. Leaving them there for a few minutes before dunking will heat the glass to acclimate it.
When the water reaches a boil in the canner, time the canning process according to your recipe (usually 15-20 minutes). Then remove the rack with the jars and let cool. Putting the jars on a solid surface like a cutting board, wooden shelf, etc. will help. You can repeat the process for more jars with the water boiling.
Within ten minutes to half an hour of removing the jars from the boiling water and letting them cool, you’ll probably start to hear them “pop.” This is the lids settling and sealing as the contents of the jars cool enough for the vacuum to form inside.
Checking Seals and Storing
After a couple of hours, check your lids. They should be slightly concave. Pressing your finger at center should result in nothing. If the lid gives or springs back up, it’s not sealed. If the lid doesn’t seal within 12 hours, you can either put the jar into the fridge and eat it soon or try to re-boil it and get a seal. If you’ve done everything right, you shouldn’t have more than 1 in 20 jars not sealing for you.
Some people like to turn their jars upside down and set them on their lids and rings. Sometimes, if you do this after eight or ten hours from taking them from the canner, the lids will seal when you turn the jar back over. In my experience, this doesn’t work often, so I rarely bother, but you can give it a try.
Storing your preserves is all about keeping them as “quiet” as possible. If you take the rings off to use again (I recommend this once you’ve stored them, as the rings are often vulnerable to rusting), make sure the bottles are in a location where they won’t be disturbed. Knocking the edges of the lids can pop the seal, opening the jar and leading to rot.
A cool, dry pantry, is best and it should not have a lot of natural light getting into it often if you want to maximize preservation time. Make sure to label the jars by either writing on the lids with a marker or putting masking tape or other labels on them. This label should always include the date (month/year) the preserves were made.
All jarred (canned) preserves, whether vegetable or fruit, should be used within five years.
Conclusion
Hopefully this little tutorial has given you an idea of how canning preserves works. Putting food into jars to store it is a long tradition and works extremely well when done right. Specific recipes for various types of preserves are available all over the Internet, in recipe books, and in the minds of older people all over.
Here on Aaron’s EnvironMental Corner, I’ve steadily been (and continue) posting my favorite recipes for preserves along with how-to’s for each. Whether it’s peaches, jam, pickles, or whatever, preserving your garden’s bounty or your great finds at the farmer’s market is definitely the way to go.
With jars and lids costing less than $1 per set and pectin and other ingredients being even less than that, you can have a great larder of canned goods from your garden for extremely low cost! Plus it’s healthier, tastes better, and the process of canning can involve the whole family!
