Laughing at how silly of a thing I'm proud of...

[avramd]

So I have a new inflatable dinghy - side note, it's a Saturn "kaboat 12" (kayak/boat), it's a really cool use case for a small trimaran tender, it's like 3.5' wide, and weighs 45 lbs - super easy to haul up on the tramps, and fits between the shroud and the cabin.

Anyway, the silly thing I'm proud of is that I needed to replace one of the oar-lock caps, and I managed to get exactly the right nut at the hardware store on a single try, without bringing the boat to the hardware store or buying multiple $2 nuts knowing I'd only need one. I am OCD when it comes to waste, so for me the dilemma is "I don't want to waste $2/nut for extras that I'm not going to need, and I don't want to waste the time to drive back to return them either." It's ridiculous b/c it's not like I can't afford the extra $6 - it just drives me "nuts" (had to) that nylock nuts in any remotely beefy size cost this much.

Anyway, I have one of those handy jig-type plastic sheet things for measuring ID/OD, etc, and fortunately the oar-lock bolt turned out to match one the holes that only had a metric size on it, so I didn't have to wonder whether it was metric or standard. My sheet doesn't have a thread gauge on it, so I just measured the thread with the ruler, there were 5 teeth in 1/4 inch pretty much exactly. In stainless, my hardware store didn't appear to have more than one option for thread, all M10's were "1.5." But more importantly, the M10 1.5 bolts they had also appeared to have exactly the same teeth/inch.

Why did I measure the thread in inches? B/c there was exactly 1/4" of thread to measure.

I just felt like sharing this here b/c I figured maybe at least one of you is similarly OCD about waste. What I really should do is buy a large kit of nuts and bolts in the whole range of sizes I might ever need, b/c while it would "waste" a lot of money in that I'll never use 90% of them, it would save a staggering amount of time not needing to go to the hardware store for shit like this. Then whoever is going through my crap will hopefully recognize it as something worth giving away, and it won't go to waste either.

[kimbottles]

So I have a new inflatable dinghy - side note, it's a Saturn "kaboat 12" (kayak/boat), it's a really cool use case for a small trimaran tender, it's like 3.5' wide, and weighs 45 lbs - super easy to haul up on the tramps, and fits between the shroud and the cabin.

Anyway, the silly thing I'm proud of is that I needed to replace one of the oar-lock caps, and I managed to get exactly the right nut at the hardware store on a single try, without bringing the boat to the hardware store or buying multiple $2 nuts knowing I'd only need one. I am OCD when it comes to waste, so for me the dilemma is "I don't want to waste $2/nut for extras that I'm not going to need, and I don't want to waste the time to drive back to return them either." It's ridiculous b/c it's not like I can't afford the extra $6 - it just drives me "nuts" (had to) that nylock nuts in any remotely beefy size cost this much.

Anyway, I have one of those handy jig-type plastic sheet things for measuring ID/OD, etc, and fortunately the oar-lock bolt turned out to match one the holes that only had a metric size on it, so I didn't have to wonder whether it was metric or standard. My sheet doesn't have a thread gauge on it, so I just measured the thread with the ruler, there were 5 teeth in 1/4 inch pretty much exactly. In stainless, my hardware store didn't appear to have more than one option for thread, all M10's were "1.5." But more importantly, the M10 1.5 bolts they had also appeared to have exactly the same teeth/inch.

Why did I measure the thread in inches? B/c there was exactly 1/4" of thread to measure.

I just felt like sharing this here b/c I figured maybe at least one of you is similarly OCD about waste. What I really should do is buy a large kit of nuts and bolts in the whole range of sizes I might ever need, b/c while it would "waste" a lot of money in that I'll never use 90% of them, it would save a staggering amount of time not needing to go to the hardware store for shit like this. Then whoever is going through my crap will hopefully recognize it as something worth giving away, and it won't go to waste either.

I am glad to know there is another like me in the world.

[Charlie]

My brother-in-law works at a summer camp in New Hampshire. It’s been in operation for 70 years. In that time, they’ve ensured that every nut and bolt head anywhere on the camp grounds is 3/8”. One only ever needs one size nut, bolt, and wrench. Brilliantly simple.

[avramd]

[...] they’ve ensured that every nut and bolt head anywhere on the camp grounds is 3/8”. One only ever needs one size nut, bolt, and wrench. Brilliantly simple.

I love this!

[Steele]

I am one of those people who saves screws, nuts and bolts. That cheap grill that came with too many fasteners, or the busted garage door open that I had to replace but had the same brackets and bolts as the new one? I save that stuff. It goes in bins in the garage segregated into small, medium and large. Most projects do not require a trip to the hardware store, if I don't have the exact size I can still make it work with what I have. I also consider cheap paint brushes to be real tools, to be cleaned and stored carfully for future use. Some are 20 years old. I used the same plastic bag to bring my lunch to work for a decade, it originally held a box of chocolate purchased by my wife at Heathrow.

[Olaf Hart]

It’s a bit of a tradition down here to reach into the bits bin and fabricate a part rather than buy one in. Part of the island tradition, things are a lot better than forty years ago, but on an island with 500,000 people most parts have to be ordered in.

Moving the workshop at the moment, my hoarded bits bins are becoming a bit of a problem.

Last week I had to make a part for the upper roller on the VW multivan side door. The door is electric, and had a broken plastic bit on the top roller that held a sensor.

VW only lists the whole assembly, sensor, door bracket and all for megabucks and there are none in Oz atm. I sourced a plastic bit online from the UK and it wasn’t the same as the broken bit, but it worked with a bit of dremelling and I had to fabricate a new bolt to hold it.

Same story last month to make up a bottom support bracket for the new Diesel Particulate Filter. Also didn’t feel like paying for a new DIN66 battery when I had a good one around with contacts on the wrong ends, but made a bracket and lengthened the negative cable and it works fine.

Generally, I know I am going too far when I reach for the welder…

[BeauV]

My brother-in-law works at a summer camp in New Hampshire. It’s been in operation for 70 years. In that time, they’ve ensured that every nut and bolt head anywhere on the camp grounds is 3/8”. One only ever needs one size nut, bolt, and wrench. Brilliantly simple.

Ages ago, when the Soviet Union was collapsing, they were selling off old MIG jets. (weapons removed) A good friend of mine who was a Navy F-14 pilot for 10 years took me to the sail out in Arizona someplace. We (really he) never got to fly any of the MIGS but we did get to crawl all over them. The relevant item is that there were only two sizes of bolts/nuts on the thing, and each size bolt had its own torque rating. There were exactly four wrenches that came with the plain two for each size. One of each pair of wrenches was a torque wrench pre-set to the correct torque, the socket wasn't removable and there was a weird extender that simply advanced the socket forward 6". The result was that you could repair anything on the aircraft that it was possible to repair in the field with those four wrenches. You couldn't get the torque wrong, you didn't need to look it up, you just needed to remember how you took it apart and put it back together in the same way.

I was stunned at how brilliantly that plane was designed.

[SemiSalt]

One of my tasks for the spring was to replace the hasp for the companionway lock. Due to Covid, I thought I might have to send my wife into the hardware store to get the necessary bolts. I doubted it would turn out well. Fortunately, the old bolts were just barely long enough. Crisis averted.

My wife likes to recycle when possible. Expendable metal things are collected in a box for the next trip to the recycling center. Walking up to the max size dumpster and tossing 1/2 lb, or less, in the form of an old bracket or some such, seems an exercise in futility.

[Charlie]

Beau,

Your MIG story reminds me of an anecdote (which is not exactly true) about the Space Race between the US and the Soviet Union. As the story goes, the US spent million developing a pen that could write in zero gravity. It required a special ink cartridge that was pressured so it could work regardless of its orientation in space. The US spent all this effort to make a space pen.

The Soviets used a pencil.

[BeauV]

Beau,

Your MIG story reminds me of an anecdote (which is not exactly true) about the Space Race between the US and the Soviet Union. As the story goes, the US spent million developing a pen that could write in zero gravity. It required a special ink cartridge that was pressured so it could work regardless of its orientation in space. The US spent all this effort to make a space pen.

The Soviets used a pencil.

I’ve heard the same story, so it must be true!

[TheOffice]

The US Air Force spent tens of thousands on rear view mirrors for F18s. The Israelis took some automotive mirrors and bolted them no is 15 minutes.

[BeauV]

There is a similar story if you go way way way back to when Top Gun School got started. One group had aircraft with radar that could spot the other, the older team didn't and didn't have radar detectors. After the first day, it was clear that radar was a key advantage - DUH!!!

The group without radar or detectors went out for drinks that night and stopped by a Radio Shack where they bought good old 'Merican automotive radar detectors. They stuck them to the inside of the canopies with duct tape and worked out a flight formation in which the team would do to point one plane in each direction, looking for radar pings. When they got one, they'd all form up in an ambush. The boys with the Radio Shack radar detectors one every encounter for the next two days, until the CO demanded to know what the hell they'd done.

Once they coughed up the solutions, there were a lot of very red-faced folks. They were imagining the Russians duct-taping consumer detectors to their canopies.

I've no idea if this is a true story. Sadly, Larry Howard could have let us know what really happened. But, it's sure a great example of what the enemy is going to do when we apply our cosmically expensive technology to the battlefield.

[avramd]

Ages ago, when the Soviet Union was collapsing, they were selling off old MIG jets. (weapons removed)

I totally remember that!

[...] You couldn't get the torque wrong, you didn't need to look it up, you just needed to remember how you took it apart and put it back together in the same way.

I was stunned at how brilliantly that plane was designed.

This reminds me of a story a comp sci prof told me in grad school. Out in the real world, he had a former Russian programmer working for him. When the guy was new, he looked at one of his solutions for something - it was very fast, but nearly impossible to understand. When asked why he avoided so many standard techniques to make it easy to understand, he said "because it only takes up 120 bytes." Apparently they were always working with such old computer hardware that every byte always counted.

I wonder if their motivation to make the plane so simple not just that they're inherently that much smarter than us, but that they had to be to compete with us on so many fewer resources - they just didn't have the numbers to have squadrons of maintenance teams everywhere.

[avramd]

The US Air Force spent tens of thousands on rear view mirrors for F18s. The Israelis took some automotive mirrors and bolted them no is 15 minutes.

Ahhh, see now this story is definitely fake. The devil is in the details... The US Air Force does not use F18's...

[TheOffice]

The US Air Force spent tens of thousands on rear view mirrors for F18s. The Israelis took some automotive mirrors and bolted them no is 15 minutes.

Ahhh, see now this story is definitely fake. The devil is in the details... The US Air Force does not use F18's...

:lol: :D

My bad- wrong US service branch.

[Slick470]

I wonder if their motivation to make the plane so simple not just that they're inherently that much smarter than us, but that they had to be to compete with us on so many fewer resources - they just didn't have the numbers to have squadrons of maintenance teams everywhere.

My understanding is that it mostly comes down to differing design and operation philosophies. For part of this the Soviet Union was so large that they needed their aircraft to be able to operate from anywhere with minimal support just to cover their territories. Many of their fighter aircraft were designed with reinforced landing gear and screens/doors to prevent the engines from sucking up junk on the ground to allow them to take off and land from simple or grass runways. They also were set up to operate with the support and direction from ground stations to point them to targets, so much of the avionics were simple. They tended to not carry much gas so didn't have much range.

Oh and the pencil vs space pen thing is apocryphal. Apparently after the Apollo 1 fire, pencils, wood or mechanical, were banned from the US Space program due to the fire hazard, and the investment in the space pen was done by the inventor, not the US government. Apparently both NASA and the Russian space agency both use them. Interesting recent article :https://www.reuters.com/article/factcheck-nasa-pens/fact-check-nasa-did-not-spend-billions-on-space-pens-while-russia-used-pencils-idUSL1N2MQ1RR

[SemiSalt]

I wonder if their motivation to make the plane so simple not just that they're inherently that much smarter than us, but that they had to be to compete with us on so many fewer resources - they just didn't have the numbers to have squadrons of maintenance teams everywhere.

I'm sure that's true, and there is the opposite problem in the US where complexity increases without limit due to unlimited resources.

[avramd]

The US Air Force spent tens of thousands on rear view mirrors for F18s. The Israelis took some automotive mirrors and bolted them no is 15 minutes.

Ahhh, see now this story is definitely fake. The devil is in the details... The US Air Force does not use F18's...

My bad- wrong US service branch.

Hopefully it was clear that I was just being silly! Although bringing up the F18 in this context is actually quite apropos; One thing that really distinguished the OG F/A-18 Hornet was that one of its primary design requirements was minimizing cost and complexity of maintenance. I believe it was the first fighter to be designed this way. While the planes themselves cost about what you'd expect, more than an F-16 but less than an F-14 or F-15, the Navy needed many fewer of them b/c they spent much less time on the ground. Between that and the reduced cost of maintenance, a squadron of them cost something like 1/4 of the cost over time of a similarly capable squadron of any of their other teen-series fighter cousins.

Said another way, one F/A 18 had approximately equal capability to an F-16, and about 80% of the capability of an F-15 (range & radar being the primary gaps). However, the F/A-18 as an overall concept had about 3.5x the capability per dollar of defense budget as either of our then-modern fighters.

I, being in the Air Force at the time, had to quietly recognize that this meant we were the idiots (in this particular area)...

[Slick470]

Well to be fair, I'm pretty sure the Israeli Air Force doesn't fly F/A-18's either.

But, to really flog a dead horse and to argue for the US Air Force part a bit, keep in mind that the F/A-18 came out of the same design competition where the Air Force chose the F-16. At that time it was the YF-17. It was later that the Navy chose to develop it into the F/A-18 to meet their program requirements.

[avramd]

I'm finding it funny that I have something else I'm proud of that I wanted to share, but I wasn't going to b/c I didn't think it was worth a thread. Then I remembered I had started this thread already... so here it is.

I've accomplished my first-ever double-braid splice! This is for the new main halyard on my F24. It's not going to win any beauty contests, but it works It's 8mm Endurabraid, which has a dyneema core. One detail that amusingly made this more difficult, is that in the video, his line is blue with a white core, and my line, wouldn't-cha know it, was white line with a blue core.

Check it out!

Also, here's the video I ended up using to learn it. I tried several, and found this one the easiest to understand. His technique for finishing the final bury was critical to my success, just plain milking the line definitely wouldn't have worked. Hard to describe, and needs to be seen to really make sense.

[BeauV]

That looks pretty darned good.

[H B]

The loop on a hook to a solid point is smart. As I noted in one of the other threads here, during the milking of the first splice I had my line clamped in a vise..ruined the cover. Your splice turned out pretty good!

[TheOffice]

Well done!!
i also like the video. Might have to try it some day when I'm bored. I've just been cutting off the cover and doing a simple bury and lock stich which leaves no cover on the eye.

[avramd]

Thanks guys!

Yes, in retrospect, this resulted in some extra cover on the halyard - so until I put a tracer on it and pull it all the way out and milk that cover all the way down the other direction, I figure I'm not getting value out of the eye actually being double-braid.