Studio711.com – Ben Martens

Tree Removal

We had two small cherry trees along our very short driveway. The blossoms looked beautiful in the spring but the trees were ugly the rest of the year. They were pruned very oddly and were starting to die off. The one closer to the house had a crazy root structure with a number of very large roots partially above the surface. It was time for them to go before they died more and started dropping branches.

Logan was kind enough to help me out with the whole process. We made quick work of them with a chainsaw and manual branch cutters. As we cut them up, I was amazed at how many of the branches were totally dead. Taking it down was a good decision. We each took a load of the branches to Pacific Topsoil and we were done with that part.

Then there were the stumps. Oh yeah. When I was planning this project, I figured we would just dig them out and maybe use the truck to help pull them out. A little digging revealed that would be a huge project and i was also nervous about the water, gas, communication and irrigation lines that run up that strip of property. Brute force didn’t seem like a good approach so we rented a stump grinder instead.

The first stump was very quick but the second one took us about two and a half hours because of the big network of large roots near the surface. We made a mountain of wood chips but we got it all done. Now I just have to feed those chips into my yard waste bin over the next week or two if I can’t find a use for them.

This fall we will be planting at least one new tree in that spot and then next spring I think we’ll make some planter boxes to start a small garden. It will be tiny compared to our neighbors beautiful garden, but it will still be delicious.

Logan, thanks for helping so much with this project!

stumpgrinding

benmartens August 25, 2016 Home Improvement

Truxedo Bed Cover

You may have heard that we get a little bit of wet weather around here in the fall, spring and summer. That means that there will be a lot of tarps in my future to cover up loads in the bed when we are taking trips or even just transporting stuff around town. I wouldn’t mind having a cap for the back of the truck, but I have no good place to store it, so I started looking at rollable covers. Jay has a Truxedo model and they had good reviews so I went for it. The specific model I got was the Truxedo Lo Pro QT.

Installation took about 30-45 minutes as I figured it out and adjusted it, but now I could probably do it in 20 minutes by myself or even less if I had another pair of hands. Two rails are clamped onto the top of the bed sides and then the roll clamps to one end of the rails. You can store it rolled up or quickly unroll it and get it locked in place. There’s a tension adjustment so it stays tight and they say it will hold 300 pounds on top of the cover (so you don’t have to worry about snow load, etc.)

I would have preferred one of fancier models that rolls down into the bed, but those were about four times the cost. This was a good deal and I think it will work really well.

truxedo2 truxedo1

benmartens August 24, 2016 Commentary

Tiny Truck Tweaks

I liked the way the Plasti Dip looked on the back of my truck so I decided to do it on the F150 logos on the sides too. It was a quick job and I actually was able to do it in the garage. My truck barely fits in with the mirrors folded and there’s a small chance that if I was creative I could even close the garage door.

plastidipfront

The other small tweak I made was to my antenna. It stuck up probably 8-10 inches above the top of the truck. I like the idea of it hitting a garage roof to give me warning, but that’s way too much warning. Since I regularly park in garages at work, it was pretty annoying. The solution? Cut it shorter. There’s really nothing too fancy about it. Antennas just unscrew and then you can cut them with a hacksaw. I tried to use some JB Weld to put the ball back on top of the antenna, but I couldn’t get it to stick on solidly so I just left it off. Who cares? I suppose I damaged my radio reception a little, but I almost never use the radio and it worked fine even with the antenna completely unscrewed.

antennashortening

benmartens August 23, 2016 Maker

Garage Fridge Shelves

Chris and Nikki replaced the fridge in their house when they moved in so they were looking to get rid of the one that was in the house. (They already had another fridge in their garage.) This was right after I had gotten the truck so picking up their fridge seemed like a good excuse to take a drive.

It has been sitting in our garage unplugged since then, but now that I’ve got the garage more arranged, it was time to find a home for the fridge. I tore down the shelves and coat rack that I had built near the door. That was one of the first projects I built after moving into this house. It was done with a miter saw, circular saw and a drill. You don’t need much to get started building stuff!

The fridge went up against that wall and I decided to build two vertical shelves to go on each side. They’re pretty simple construction. I used 3/4″ plywood and used my router with a straight edge and a 3/4″ bit to cut dadoes to hold the shelves. I cut the dadoes before cutting the board into two pieces for each side of hte shelves. That guaranteed that the shelves would be perfectly flat. After that I glued everything together and nailed it in place. They aren’t fancy but they should work well. The next step will be building cabinets to go along the wall above the fridge.

fridgeshelves

benmartens August 22, 2016 Maker, Woodworking

Kayaking

During our caboose vacation, we went kayaking each day using the kayaks provided by the owners. Elijah fit pretty well in front of me, and aside from having to do a bit of an awkward paddling stroke, it worked well. Our longest trip was only about a half hour but he never got bored or complained.

We played around with the GoPro a bit. The comments from him were unprompted. As we were paddling along on this trip, Tyla noticed a big tugboat and barge coming up the sound. I didn’t know how big the waves were going to be, and with a three year old on my lap, I wasn’t keen to find out while sitting on the water. We hustled back to the bay and then watched it go by.

benmartens August 19, 2016 Family, Travel

Scientific Study Validity

We see headlines all the time about two seemingly unrelated things. “Eat bugs and you’ll score 10% higher on SATs.” John Oliver had a great video talking about how the media completely misses the point of scientific studies, but it’s even worse than that. Even if you do your homework and read the scientific study, you still might not have the truth. This video does a good job of explaining why, but it comes down to statistics and false positives. For “real” science, studies need to be repeated by other researchers to replicate the results, but in this current social landscape, nobody cares about those replicated results because they take a long time, cost a lot of money, and they aren’t as interesting as the original attention-grabbing headline. Stick around to the end. He does a good job of wrapping it up and explaining that we’re not as doomed as the previous 10 minutes of the video might imply.

benmartens August 18, 2016 Links

AQHA Ford Discount

AQHA2You can learn a lot online about your upcoming vehicle purchase. I’ve already written about finding the official order guide and invoice price list in a forum. That was a big help when negotiating the price for my truck. I also learned that members of the American Quarter Horse Association get $500 off their new vehicle. Membership is only $40 and you have to be a member for 60 days before you can use the rebate. Have I ever told you how much I LOVE quarter horses? Obviously I became a member of this wonderful organization.

I was all set to use my $500 discount when Ford corporate swooped in and extended the immediate family discount (A-plan) to nephews. My uncle was able to give me one of his awesome discount codes. The AQHA rebate doesn’t apply to A-Plan vehicles so I didn’t get to use it. Oh well, $40 down the drain and we get some horse magazines fore Elijah to look at.

If you’re in the market, check out the AQHA page and be sure to read the fine print to make sure it applies to you: https://aqha.com/partners/ford/

benmartens August 17, 2016 Links

Puget Sound Basins

When we booked the stay in the caboose, I looked at a map, noticed it was on water in the south end of Puget Sound and I assumed it was on Hood Canal. Wrong. It turns out that the sound is divided up into a bunch of different “basins” and Hood Canal is just one of them. We were actually staying on the “South Basin”. The Wikipedia article about Puget Sound has a very nice map showing the different basins and I’ve included that map below.

It felt like the difference between high tide and low tide was huge while we were down there in the South Basin, but surely the tide is the same everywhere, right? Nope. Here’s a quote from Wikipedia: “The difference in height between the Higher High Water and the Lower Low Water averages about 8.3 feet (2.5 m) at Port Townsend on Admiralty Inlet, but increases to about 14.4 feet (4.4 m) at Olympia, the southern end of Puget Sound.” It has something to do with all the interconnections and interplay between the basins, but I couldn’t find any good info explaining the physics of it.

The shoreline is over 1300 miles long! That’s roughly the driving distance from New York City to Miami. We’ve explored only a tiny portion of it, but there are lots of great spots for further investigation in the future.

Map-pugetsound

benmartens August 16, 2016 Commentary

Great Northern Railway

Gn10The caboose that we stayed in was once part of the Great Northern Railway. I had never hear about it before but I learned some interesting stuff while I was there:

  1. The railway line stretch from the St. Paul to Seattle.
  2. It’s the only transcontinental railroad that was privately funded. It was built out in sections so that each part became profitable before expanding.
  3. The Stevens Pass tunnel was constructed as part of the creation of this railroad.
  4. The book The White Cascade tells the story of a Great Northern Railway train caught in a major avalanche. It’s a great book if you’re interested in history.
  5. It started in the late 1800s and ran through 1970 before being merged into the Burlington Northern railroad.

If you want to read more info, the Great Northern Railroad Historical Society has a pretty deep website.

benmartens August 15, 2016 Commentary

Best Of YouTube

It’s time for another round of the best stuff that I’ve seen on YouTube recently. First up is a cheap way to add some weights to your shop. I inevitably finish a glue-up and then scrounge around looking for heavy stuff to put on top to hold the boards in place. I think I’ll need to make some of these:

When we travel with Elijah, the flight attendants always make a special point of telling us to put on our own masks before helping Elijah. Every time I think, “Yeah right. I’d help my kid first!” This video was the first time I understood why it’s important to put your own mask on first.

And finally, Minute Physics explains why it takes more acceleration to get to the sun than to other stars.

benmartens August 12, 2016 Links