You may not be interested in the virus but the virus is interested in you

"You may not be interested in the virus but the virus is interested in you" - Steve Bannon.  It has been over six years, since I posted anything on my blog. I have done a few things towards self-sufficiency meanwhile but did not post anything. 

I have been following the events unfolding in Wuhan, China closely for slightly over a month. The building of 1000 bed hospital in less than a week got my Spidey senses tingling.  

Many thoughts crossed my mind like:

• How infectious is this disease?
• How fatal is this diseases?
• Is it man-made or zoonotic?

Then again I never believed in Chinese Communist Party numbers. Now we are seeing some real numbers coming out of Italy, South Korea and Cruise Ships.

Italy maybe 5000 miles from here but all it takes is one infected person to start a cluster anywhere in the world. The temperature checks are meaningless as a person can be asymptomatic from anywhere between 14 days to 42 days.  The word "quarantine" originates from the Venetian dialect form of the Italian quaranta giorni, meaning "forty days". This is due to the 40-day isolation of ships and people before entering the city-state of Ragusa (modern Dubrovnik in Croatia). So lets do a full quarantine.

Many are saying this as a black swan event just like the collapse of many institutions back in 2009 but this is more like the Chickens have come home to roost. There is built-in risk on the way uber globalized economy is built.  We really have to rethink, the way run our economy and make it more local end to end. Can't have components made all over the world at the cheapest price point and ignore the risk. This is risk I saw more than a decade ago and started this blog.

Home Improvement - Installing Shelving in a closet

Lets explore ways to make a closet more efficient by adding shelving. This kind of shelving is perfect for families with growing kids. You can add more shelves as you need or change the gap between the shelves.

Hardware Used:

1. 48" Double Track  - 2 
2. Double Track Hardware Kit - 2
3. 9" wide double track bracket - 6
4. 1/2" Thick, 1' Wide, 6' foot wooden boards

Step 1: Find the studs with a stud finder

Step 2: Use blue masking tape to mark on the stud

Step 3: Install strips

Step 4: Cut board to size

Step 5: Cut notches on the board

Step 6: Mark the board for the hardware

               (Use L bracket and mark with pencil)

Step 7: Screw L bracket on the board 

Step 8: Hang the board with L bracket installed

Here is the YouTube video I posted couple of years ago:

Build your own mobile drill press stand using Rockler hardware

The last stand for my drill press costed me $45 (back in 2008) but it was flimsy. You can see the old stand from one of the youtube videos I made back in 2009. My drill press has been sitting on the floor without a stand for last several years.

This year, I'm on a mission to improve my garage and increase garage productivity. My previous post on the shop light installation was a step in the direction of garage improvement. The drill press needed a stand badly.

I started this project back in early November 2013 when I ordered hardware from Rockler.com. Several of the items I ordered were backordered. These must be on high demand. This is the Rocker hardware cost:

32" Shop Stand Legs, Set of 4 Item # 60749	1	$74.99
18" Stand Stretchers, Set of 4 Item # 60757	1	$29.99
24" Stand Stretchers, Set of 4 Item # 60764	1	$32.99
Subtotal:		$137.97
Shipping:		$14.99
Discount (4C999):		-$5.00
Grand Total:		$147.96

I also bought the following items 

• 8 feet of   2X10  board - $7
• Mounting hardware    - $10
• Mobile Base               - $45
• Paint                           - $3

The total cost of the stand was nearly $215. It maybe on the expensive side but its worth it as:

1. It is sturdy. This will last me for years to come unlike the last stand.
2. There are options to attach drawer hardware later. This option will increase garage efficiency further in future.
3. The stand sits on a mobile base. The mobile base will allow me to move the drill press and the storage underneath it (that will be a future project) to the desired work location in the garage. My garage is small and having power tools on mobile bases is a huge blessing.

Here are the steps of this build:

(1) Assemble stand hardware from Rockler.com

(2) Built the stand (table) top using 2X10 lumber.

(3) Assemble the mobile base

Out of the above, #1 and #3 are simple and you have to follow the instructions that come with the package.

Steps to Built the stand (table) top using 2X10 lumber:

1. We want the stand (table) top to be nearly flush with the stand. Cut the 2X10 into 24 1/2" long boards. 
2. Joint the cut boards using a router table with jointing option or a hand-held jointer or jointer.  Jointing creates a straight edge which is perpendicular to the flat board face. I use 1/32" adjustment on my Kreg router table. Two straight edge is necessary to have a good glue up.  
3. Glue the edge of the boards.
4. Attach wooden support for extra stability of the top.
5. Round the board edge using 5/16" round over router bit.
6. Sand the top and sides using 80, 150 and 220 grit sand paper successively
7. Clean the dust 
8. Apply a coat of finish and let it dry
9. Attach the top using #10 screw and 6mm washers to the stand.

Here is video which explains the above steps:

Rustic Coasters

Purchased a bandsaw late last year and was looking for the first project to test the bandsaw.

Its not just about adding skills but also very important to build a community around us. A community who can appreciate hand crafts in the age of mechanization and automation (a.k.a the age of oil) . The coasters from a wooden log are simple to make and servers the above purpose.

Leveraged the local community of woodworkers at www.ncwoodworkers.net to find a well dried log of wood. The steps of make a coaster are relatively simple:

1. Scrape the excess bark from the wooden log
2. Cut the wood pieces in the equal thickness. I used 3/4" thickness and the ones I made of 1/2" thickness would break after they fell from my hand onto the floor.
3. Sand the coasters with sand paper of 80, 120 and 150 grits progressively
4. Apply 3 coats of finish.  Once a coat is dry, use 0000 steel wool to smooth the excess finish.

I have two videos describing the whole process.

Lesson Learnt:

• Use a miter saw to cut the wood instead of a bandsaw and miter saw provides more stable platform than a bandsaw.

Hope you will enjoy the video and perhaps try making a few of your own. Would love see the pictures of your work and hear your comments.

Shop Lighting Installation

We bought a home near my work place couple of years ago. Its a new home built by one of the branded home builders. This is step in the direction of home-steading. This model had the biggest garage out of all the available models of town homes. I bought a 4-lamp shop light almost 12 months ago and it was sitting on my work bench. My desire and commitment to run full-marathons took up most of my weekends. I ran two full marathons in 2012. In 2013, I have toned down my running to only half-marathons. This has freed up some of my time to focus on the tons of projects waiting to be executed. All these projects are aligned towards the long term goal of self-sufficiency.

This garage-light was sitting on the work-bench for over a year and hogging up the space. I needed the work  bench for the project. Working light will help a lot during the evening hours. Last weekend was long weekend due to MLK's birthday celebrations. Installing the garage light was one of the priority items on my list.

Most of my power tools are on wheels. I typically drag them close to the garage door so that there is plenty of supply of fresh air. Fresh air is needed as the tools are producing copious amounts of saw-dust. Even though I have an attached dust collector but fresh air helps.  The decision was made to keep the garage light exact on top of the area where most of the work will be done. This created the challenge of being able to open the garage door and still have a working hanging light.

In this youtube video, I have attempted to describe the way I overcame the challenge of installing the shop light between the garage door in open position and ceiling.

What happened to author of this blog?

I have not written anything on my blog for last couple of years.  I have made some good progress with my woodworking and running skills in last couple of years and I have real good material to share with you all readers. I have run two marathons, almost a dozen half marathons and numerous 5K races. I also started juicing last year and it has very successful. Health is one of the primary focus in last few years and I have tons of research in this area. Its high time for me to start writing again. I have posted a few videos on my youtube channel during this winter season.

Garlic Harvest 2011

Garlic Harvest 2011, a photo by sumantamandal on Flickr.

This was the first time I have grown garlic. Has a fairly successful harvest. The widest one is ~ 2inch in diameter. Learnt a lesson: The garlic was growing in backyard during April- May and there was not enough sun in the backyard so I moved them to front yard in late May. The lack of sun light during the earlier phase of its growth cycle stunted its growth a little bit.

Spring Daze festival @ Bond Park, Cary NC

GEDC0362, a photo by sumantamandal on Flickr.

It was a beautiful cool day in Cary today. Bond park was the perfect place for the festival. Besides the usual craft, arts, popcorn and live music, here is a couple of remarkable highlights from the event:

The Town of Cary's earth day celebration. It is structured around ten focus areas

• Pre-treatement
• Stormwater
• Recycling
• Horticulture
• Greenways
• Sustainability
• Aquastar
• Hemlock Bluffs
• C-Tran (Public Transportation)
• Water Conservation

I was excited to see town officials getting involved in some of the topics very close to my heart.
I had a very good conversation with the folks at sustainability booth. The conversation
was about the clothes drying rack. I'm thinking of following up with the town officials about my work.

Hemlock Bluffs sounds like another fun place for me to check-out. This could be a fun trail for running.

Natural Soap
I have been very focussed on food, shelter and energy aspects of self-sufficiency for last three years. Soap has been in the periphery. The ladies at Natural Soap Cauldron detailed out the ingredients of commercially available soaps and their products. Many medicines are applied as a patch, so prolonged exposure of chemicals on skin can lead to their infusion in blood stream. I do not want to highlight any specific company in this blog but few concepts which will drive our soap purchase decisions in future
* Natural component
* Home made/locally artisan made

Book Scanner Improvements

Book Scanner Improvements, a photo by sumantamandal on Flickr.

The book scanner continues to evolve with passage of time.
Last week's work has been a great success.
The three improvement areas are:

• Camera
• Switched from regular camera to five year old Nikon D50 SLR.
• This camera allows remote controlled operation. The remote allows a single operator to scan books. The operator does not have to physically touch any buttons on the camera to take a picture, the relative location of the camera to the page remains constant even after multiple shots.
• The picture taken by the SLR camera is exactly the same as seen from the view finder. There is no offset and there is no need for guessing.
• This camera allows fine control over shutter speed, aperture and ISO in the manual mode. It is possible to fine tune these parameters to get an awesome picture in normal room lighting conditions. Thus eliminating the need for any additional lighting.
• Aperture - Lower aperture (high F stops) as the image does not have depth. This leads to a sharper image (F11)
• Shutter speed - Lower shutter speed to compensate for poor room lighting conditions (1/2.5 seconds)
• The lowest ISO number for the camera is 200.
• Book Stop
• The book stop prevents the book from sliding. This allows a fixed location of the camera to the book as the successive pages are flipped.
• Software
• Wrote an auto-numbering script last year in python. This script auto-numbers successive even/odd pages to the actual number of the page.
• Photoshop allows batch operation. Once a picture is cropped, then the same cropping settings can be used for multiple images in an automated manner.
• OCR software was able to convert image to text with a 6 Mega Pixel image resolution images.

It is now possible to get good quality images with minimal room lighting conditions.

Apple Mac multi-user environment

Getting the most out of a machine is one of objectives.

When I purchased the Mac laptop last year, I was not aware of its multi-user capabilities.

Mac allows the creation multiple user account and provides a very helpful Parental control

capabilities. These two features are available user System Preferences.

It is possible to be logged in from multiple user account simultanesly. Example:

One can record TV shows from account while doing some other account at the same time.

Parental Control provides a very granular controlling mechanism:

• Apps
• Web
• People
• Time Limits
  • Weekday time limits
  • Weekend time limits
  • Bedtime
• Other

Book Scanner Stabilizer

Book Scanner Stabilizer, a photo by sumantamandal on Flickr.

The book scanner platform has a tendency to move during the page flipping process.
The movement of the platform changes the orientation of the page relative to the camera. In order to prevent the movement of the platform, I took pieces of 2/4 wood and cut notches in them. The scanner platform legs are inserted in the notches. The 2/4 is anchored to the workbench using hold fast.

Unlock Sony e-book reader PRS-500

When I reached home this evening, I found out that my younger son has turned on the lock feature of the Sony e-book reader. No one in my household knew the four digit code to unlock the device. This device is exclusively used in our household to store cooking recipes.

In a world loaded with processed food, cooking recipes play a vital role in our self-sufficiency goals.

Steps to unlock the device:

(1)Hold the reset button at the back of the device for more than 3 seconds.

(2)Slide the power switch to on position. The device will display 'Starting up'

(3) As the device is showing 'Starting up', press the + Volume button and the Mark button simultaneously. The Mark button is located at the bottom of the device near the big fat page circular button. The volume button is on the side.

(4) The device will ask you, if you are ok with deleting all the files. Press the '5' button to say Yes.

(5) All files get deleted from the device. Restart the device by sliding the power switch to on position.

(6) Plugin the USB cable to your computer to copy all files back to the device.

This task took about 5 minutes and all recipes are back on the e-book reader and ready for use!

Garlic Plant

GEDC0358
Originally uploaded by sumantamandal

I planted garlic cloves 2" to 3" under the surface in 10" pots back in September-October. The warmth of last couple of weeks has done wonders. I can see green shoots in four out of the six garlic cloves that I planted. The sub-freezing temperatures of winter did not kill the garlic. I have read on the web that the cold of winter is needed to start the side buds. The side buds grow and swell become cloves.

Kindle DX Cover

GEDC0358
Originally uploaded by sumantamandal

Kindle DX is the largest (9.7" Display) e-book reader in the market today with a good ecosystem of publishers. We received this device about a month back and since then it has become the most popular device in our household. Unlike other electronic reading devices like monitor, laptop, this device is meant to be held in hand for hours.

Human hand is not used to holding plastic devices for hours. We are more used to holding paper books sometimes with paper hard cover or sometimes with fabric. Fabric/paper has more natural feel to it than a shiny piece of plastic. A cover for the device also helps to protect it from daily wear and tear.

The covers available for this model of kindle are either too expensive (over $50) or not in stock.

I had some denim fabric lying around (about a yard of fabric). I went to the local fabric store and picked up 1" wide elastic to secure the kindle device to the back cover. The black elastic was stitched to the four corners of the back cover. Card board from the packaging material was inserted between fabric layers to provide the necessary stiffness.

It took me an hour to complete this project. This is relatively simple project for someone with average sewing skills on a sewing machine.

This cover has been in constant use for last 2 weeks and its still holding strong.

This kind of cover can be made for any e-book reader. Borders filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy last week. It seems that book publishing business is moving away from paper as e-book readers and tablets get more adoption in the market.

You can get really creative with the type and color of fabric for this project. Please try and share your project images.

Weight Loss and Staying Healthy

Maybe this topic is a little detour from the goal of this blog. A closer look at the topic may change your opinion.

Please allow me to make my case.

• In a world of diminishing resources, it would become very difficult to manufacture anti-biotics.
• Obesity leads to large number of health issues. This is very well documented in the medical world.
• Staying healthy is one of the very important self sufficiency missions.

Earlier this year, I started with the goal of losing 20% weight to bring my weight to the normal level. I started running on weekdays at the gym for 30 minutes. As time progressed, I increased my running speed gradually. After loss of 10% weight, I started controlling my portion size.

I'm very happy to say that I met my target by end of the year. Now I have to maintain my weight at the current level. I plan to continue to run daily.

Someday, if we are hunting and are not fast enough then we may not have our next meal :)

Building Block

Building Block
Originally uploaded by sumantamandal

Cut a couple of cubic sections using a hand saw from a 2X2 lumber. Drilled a 3/4" hole on one of them for a circular mortise using a Frostner bit. The tenon is made using a tenoning bit on the drill press. These are the basic wooden building blocks out of which bigger structures can be assembled by kids. Simple, inexpensive and lot of fun to make and use.

Composting Tub

Composting Tub
Originally uploaded by sumantamandal

Built a composting box out of a tub. Drilled 11/4" holes on all sides. Six holes underneath the tub. Six on longer side and four on the shorter side of the tub. Will add brown matter (leaves) and green matter (kitchen green waste) to it and se how it goes. Please stay tuned in...

Pecan Pie

Made pecan pie from scratch for Thanksgiving this year.

Re-inventing the Wheel

Side View of the toy
Originally uploaded by sumantamandal

This weekend I spent some time with my kids to design and fabricate a basic two wheel toy. First we designed the toy using google sketchup.


This toy is made out of wood available at local hardware store. The toy consists of:
* two 4" diameter wheels
*9" long axle
*2 wheel caps
*connecting rod to axle
* string for pulling

I used a 4" hole saw to cut the wheels out of wooden board. The holes in the wheels for the axle was cut using a Forstner bit. The two end of the axle was rounded on the lathe. The diameter of the axle is 3/4"

We might not have re-invented the wheel but we had a lot of fun building this project. The kids got an opportunity to learn the fun of design and got to appreciate the basic building blocks of transportation.

Click here for more pictures.

Please leave your questions, comments and suggestions about this project.

First Tomato Harvest from 2010

First Tomato Harvest from 2010
Originally uploaded by sumantamandal

This year I planted Roma tomatoes in the same pot that I used for beefstake tomatoes last year. Did not add any fresh potting soil this year. Added a bit of organic manure and powedered egg shells plus regular dose (once in 2-3 weeks) of fish fertilizer.

Found cracks on several tomatoes. Tells me that the plant needs more watering.

Used the tomatoes for Roasted Ricotta Roma Tomatoes (RRRT) immediately after they were harvested.