Fauxrizo

A while back I decided that the quality of frozen pizzas had gone downhill enough that they were no longer suitable for my weekend meals. As such I switched to pasta instead, which is nutritionally about the same profile and just as easy to prepare, but with more elements under my control.

One of those elements was the meat I chose to add to the sauce, and I opted for a spicy chorizo sausage. Things were going well until one day I noticed that the chorizo I was buying was on clearance sale and, wouldn't you know it, a few weeks later and it was out of stock for good. Brilliant.

I tried another brand, but I found it so overwhelmingly fatty that it didn't exactly brown when I heated it up in the pan, but rather melted into an oily soup. I know chorizo is supposed to be a rich, high fat sausage but that was just taking things a bit too far.

With few other options, I decided to look up what sorts of spices go into chorizo so I could just make a suitable substitute myself.

The mix I settled on is, for one pound of ground pork:

• 4tsp ancho chile powder
• 2tsp smoked paprika
• 2tsp cayenne
• 1tsp white pepper
• 1tsp oregano
• 4 splashes of cider vinegar
• Salt to taste

There's more spices than this which go into regular chorizo, but since this is getting mixed into pasta sauce I only really care about the strong notes being present. In theory even the oregano was perhaps redundant, as the pasta sauce itself is already naturally oreganic. (And in theory I should be using mexican oregano rather than italian, but I'm not going to keep two kinds of oregano around)

Browning up the mix, the paprika surprisingly didn't make it nearly as neon red as the commercial stuff gets, though it definitely lent some colour. The taste was pretty good, even though it was predictably lacking a little complexity (which would be lost later anyway).

The above quantity is about 4 servings for me, so 3/4 got portioned away in the fridge for future meals.

Adding in the pasta and sauce resulted in a pretty appealing looking dish. There was still enough paprika present to give the noodles a nice rosy colour, which I enjoy. There's nothing worse than pale blonde pasta mixed into an anemic beige sauce.

And then the final presentation with a side of corn looks like a meal fit for a king and/or queen.

The Uppening Part 4

So it's high time I wrapped up this project, and I'll start with painting the wall that I missed last time, because it definitely needs it.

The paint is noticeably dingy here compared with the fresh stuff along the corners that overflowed from the adjacent walls/ceiling. Thankfully picking up a new quart of paint and slapping it up went quite smoothly.

So let's have a quick stream-break to prepare us for vaulting over the last hurdle.

And that hurdle will be putting up the trim. Now there are a number of techniques people will tell you to follow where you measure the trim in place and cut it slightly long and then adjust and tweak it and whatever but honestly that's a giant pain in the ass to do, especially on a ceiling, so I just YOLO'd it. I measured the opening, added the width of the trim (times two) and cut the long sides of the trim to that number.

And I'll be danged, it worked. Not without a little bit of stress though, as I had rounded the width of the trim down to 2-1/2 inches, possibly neglecting that they were actually more like 2-9/16. So that meant that technically I was cutting the trim 1/8th of an inch short, and I didn't really have any wiggle room to spare since I was lining up the trim to exactly cover the aluminum frame of the attic ladder.

Luckily I decided to cut the end pieces to err on the slightly long side, and while the side pieces got cut 1/8th of an inch shorter than expected, it ended up working out perfectly because the gap between the stair panel and the frame was actually 1/8th of an inch larger at the end, so as a result the reveal is actually flawless all the way around.

You know what they say, it's better to be lucky than good.

Speaking of good, though, this trim looks far from it with the spackle in the brad holes, and the caulking I used to seal up the miter joints is going to yellow over time if I don't do something with it, not to mention that the trim is pre-primed and most certainly not pre-painted.

So let's get some paint up. Semi-gloss for trim, of course, to contrast with the satin on the walls.

Now that is some good looking trim, and a job well done.

Speaking of done, I think the dust mask I was using is ready for retirement.

It's a good thing that grime isn't inside my lungs.

And on the subject of MVPs, I want to give a shout out to my aluminum work platform.

This thing is without a doubt one of the best tool purchases I've ever made, and has been serving me well for over a decade at this point. It was absolutely the tool for the job on this project, and made accessing the ceiling way more convenient than it would have been on a ladder. If you have the means I highly recommend picking one up, it's so choice.

Before I wrap up this post I should mention that technically there's one last task to do, which is to crack open a can of spray foam and fill the gap around the attic ladder frame now that the trim is in. However I have an upcoming project that will also need a bit of spray foam, so I'd rather just open one can and do both at once, so that can wait.

In the meantime, I think it's time for a little well earned R&R.

For a little while at least, until the next project.

Paper or Plastic

So a while back the local Safeway transitioned the bags in the produce section to a thinner, supposedly compostable bag. I'm all for not killing turtles and whatever, but these bags have been pure cancer to use. The hot knife that makes the perforations between the bags always seems to seal the top of the bag closed, so it takes a good 30 seconds to try to find the seam and somehow tear it back open, and then the bags are so flimsy that literally just unfolding them will often cause them to tear right up the side, sending you back to the roll to grab another, and another, until you finally get one that holds together.

Excuse my skepticism, but I don't see how that's at all environmentally friendly.

So what's my solution? I'm making my own damn produce bags.

The material for today is a 30x60 inch piece of utility mesh fabric, and a roll of 1 inch webbing.

The mesh is quite stiff and shows no signs of unravelling, which is good. I was worried it might be a bit flimsy and fray-prone, but that's definitely not the case. In fact, it's stiff enough that you can fold it like paper.

As an aside, the way this type of fabric is knit is kind of crazy. (At least, I think this is made using a Raschel machine, I could be wrong).

Anyway, I'll need a 12x30 inch slice of this for one bag, so out comes the rotary cutter.

And the first piece of mesh is ready.

I'll also need 2 12" lengths of webbing, and we'll not forget to seal the ends as it is highly prone to fraying.

The webbing goes on the short ends of the mesh, and I'm using an overlocker for this task.

The mesh then gets folded back over the overlocked edge and I run a regular lockstitch seam down the length to keep it in place.

So that gives us a reasonably nice look and a very solid connection between the mesh and the webbing.

Next up, one edge gets folded down by 3 inches, then the other edge gets folded up to sit just above it, leaving 1 inch of mesh at the top.

The naked side of the mesh is showing here so that it will end up on the inside later.

Since the webbing is pretty bulky and everything is slippery, I'm tacking things together around the webbing using a lockstitch.

And then both sides get shoved through the overlocker to stitch them up.

Then the bag gets turned right-side out.

And the webbing in the seam allowance gets folded over and stitched down.

This keeps the webbing from trying to roll the seam to one side.

And then that's it, the bag is complete.

The stiff webbing gives it a convenient fold-top closure so I can just toss my produce inside without fussing with closures like zippers, magnets, velcro, or whatever.

Repeat this 4 more times and I've got a set of 5 identical bags.

Well, mostly identical. The especially keen-eyed among you might have noticed that one bag is an inch narrower than the rest. Why is that, you may ask?

It's because this cutting mat is stupid, and they print the inch markings on the INSIDE of the grid.

This has messed me up a number of times. Oh well, at least this time it wasn't anything critical.

In case you're curious, a finished bag is about 25g or 0.9oz, so not really substantial and probably well within the margin of error of the scales they use at the checkout.

The Uppening Part 3

When we last left off, the old hatch had been patched, but the patch was, of course, lacking the knock-down texture of the surrounding ceiling.

So with the new ladder masked off, let's shake up this can of drywall flavoured spray-cheese and see if we can't fix that.

This is another long post, so click through to see how things go.

A Riveting Experience

Quite literally riveting, in this case. For an upcoming project, I have finally stepped into the realm of Rosie the Riveter and got myself an air-powered rivet gun.

Or I guess a "Pneumatic Nail Pulling Gun" according to whoever manufactures this. And yes, it's perfectly reasonable to use a manual rivet setter, but what do I look like, some kind of peasant? I think not.

So, how well does this rivet?

Hmm, yup.

That is one pulled nail alright.

Of course, anyone with at least some exposure to riveting and sheet metal work will be familiar with the amazing utility that clecos offer, and fear not, I will not abstain from basking in their wonder.

And no, I don't intend to rivet this electrical box closed. It just happened to be close at hand and have the right size screw holes to demonstrate the clecos in action.

Too Many Teeth

This isn't an AI hallucination, nor the trickery of the fae folk. It is, in fact, a saw blade with many more than the usual number of teeth.

The 32t blade in front is what originally came on my chop saw and it's been serving me well. For the most part I'm cutting construction lumber (and occasionally some aluminum extrusions) so the low tooth count makes for pretty quick and efficient cuts.

However, lately I've been noticing that the cut quality isn't quite flawless, and it might have degraded somewhat from how it was originally performing. Or I might be imagining things, I dunno. Either way, since I have some trim work coming up, I decided to add a fine cut 80t blade to my tool chest.

Swapping the blade isn't too difficult, luckily. You just loosen one screw which both props up the blade guard and lets you slide it back out of the way slightly, then unscrew (with a reverse thread) the bolt holding the blade in place.

So how does it cut trim?

Well, judging from this test cut on a piece of scrap MDF trim that I removed from around the old attic hatch, I'd say it does quite well indeed.

For the sake of comparison, here's a piece of universal wood cut with the 32t blade.

And the other side of the same piece, cut with the 80t blade.

Don't mind the fact that one side is soaking wet. It's raining outside right now. What's clear to see is that the splintering and tear-out is greatly reduced with this blade, which is exactly what one would expect.

The downside is, of course, that the cut speed is much slower, so I'll still be swapping back to the 32t blade for utility cuts. This 80t blade will just be for trim work when the need arises.

The Uppening Part 2

So when we last left off on this attic ladder project, we were facing the spectre of having to deal with an electrical run that went right through the middle of the opening I planned to cut to fit the ladder into. So, let's add a quick junction box.

And another.

To reroute that line around the outside (around the outside, around the outside). I also took the opportunity to disconnect the recessed light at the near end of the hall, since it will shortly be removed for relocation later on in the project.

Since it, too, is right in the middle of where the ladder is going. This is gonna be another long one, so click through to keep reading.

Bender Bending Rodriguez

Straight out of the deepest bowels of China emerges a crate of mysteries and wonder; what could be inside?

Well, let's break the seal of this wooden tomb to find out.

Ok the quality of the hardware they used to put this crate together isn't inspiring much confidence, but it's at least commensurate with the price I paid.

Secrets revealed! It's a 24 inch box-and-pan brake.

First things first, let's strip off the... I dunno, whatever chemical it is that's 3c/gal cheaper than cosmoline and causes 6 times as much cancer.

Ok that's cleaner at least, and we also get to see the party trick of the box-and-pan brake: the removable fingers, which allow you to fit partially bent parts into the brake to perform further bends. Though obviously you wouldn't normally remove all of them at the same time.

It does give us a good look at the casting though, and I have to say I'm impressed.

I'm not sure I'd be able to make cast iron that uniformly porous if I tried. Well, let's hope they overbuilt this casting.

Anyway, the fingers go back into place so we can see how it looks.

Unsurprisingly, it looks cheap and Chinese. But how does it work?

Some leftover 24-gauge galvanized steel seems like a reasonable first test. This brake is supposed to be rated to bend up to 20-gauge.

The brake hungers to sink its teeth into metal.

A simple 90-ish degree bend should do.

And bend #1 appears to be a success. Let's go ahead and add another just to be sure.

Yup, that seems reasonable. Got a 5/8 flange, an inch wide trough, and whatever was left over as the other flange.

Now let's play around with the real party trick, doing a perpendicular bend.

Some decidedly sloppy notching should give us enough clearance (spoiler: it won't).

And using the 1 inch finger, the bend looks not half bad.

Let's just ignore the other side where I accidentally smashed the two flanges together instead of getting them to bypass cleanly.

Ah well, practice makes perfect. I should note that I have the machine set up here for a pretty gentle bend radius, which is adjustable using some cams at the back of the frame. I'll try tighter bends later, but for now this is a successful first test.