- Poverty is the beginning state.
- You can not make the poor prosperous by robbing others of their prosperity.
- The entire knowledge of the world is available to everyone for nearly free and yet people are more ignorant than ever.
Saturday, July 30, 2022
Illegal thoughts
Thursday, July 28, 2022
Microsoft racism pushed to the world
Front page of the lock screen was this article pushed to my screen in Asia.
Looks like America? As in hood rats and high murder rates? A man is not just a man in America now. It has to be all this Black tribe, Trans tribe, gay tribe, bullshit. Oky, they want to paint this tribe thing? Let us talk about inventions that made the modern world and what tribe was that?
Wednesday, July 27, 2022
Earthquake update
Looks like 4 dead so far. Roads to Baguio are closed due to rock slides.
Only felt a bit of vertigo here, but then my location is on a different plate than Manila. I only feel quakes if they are to the east for the most part.
Apparently Manila was shaken pretty good. Everyone all spooked bout it.
Come 2 weeks everyone will have forgotten bout it.
Only felt a bit of vertigo here, but then my location is on a different plate than Manila. I only feel quakes if they are to the east for the most part.
Apparently Manila was shaken pretty good. Everyone all spooked bout it.
Come 2 weeks everyone will have forgotten bout it.
Tuesday, July 26, 2022
Well crap... I lost my solar data and EARTHQUAKE
Last week, I had a order that involved building sea-crates to ship something. that order gave just enough cash to buy one extra sheet of used 1 inch plywood that I get from a local shop. They sell pallets, used plywood, used packaging stuff. 20 bucks for a 1 inch sheet of plywood is a steal as long as you do not mind removing some nails.
So I had a bright idea of making a new door from it. I have a door to a bedroom that has fallen apart a couple years ago, held together with screws and patches. Usual local shit quality.
I built the new door, and while installing, rubbed against the whiteboard and lost a couple months of numbers.
The meter reader comes today, and the bill comes in a couple more days after that, so I will not be able to reconcile my solar power numbers for the month. Likely though still around 25 bucks because power rates are going up.
As much as I hammer down consumption, I still am getting the higher prices.
As always the solution is more panel and more battery.
Meanwhile in the shop, yesterday I assembled the first of three injection molder frames in the pneumatic design. Based on this unit
I am using steel tubing that cost 18 bucks vs the 150-200 bucks of aluminum extrusion he is using.
The Pneumatic cylinders however are taking forever to clear Chinese customs now. Anything industrial takes forever to clear, while cheap consumer items fly thru customs.
As such I am having doubts about making these machines to sell.
If you watch the video you will see that he is using a 3d printed box for the controller housing. I am using a proper metal enclosure, steel tubing that will be epoxy coated, and a different type of clamp.
Ideally I would like to have both a pneumatic clamp and pneumatic piston to inject, but that is a bit beyond the budget and timeframe I have right now.
Yesterday my worker made only 128 successful parts at 36 cents each. 46 bucks gross of parts. minus 12 bucks for labor, plastic and overhead came out to 30 bucks net for that machine for the day. 30 bucks is nothing to sneeze at when you start adding it up. That comes out to 600 bucks net per month. Multiply that by 4 and you can see where it can lead to.
The Pneumatic cylinders however are taking forever to clear Chinese customs now. Anything industrial takes forever to clear, while cheap consumer items fly thru customs.
As such I am having doubts about making these machines to sell.
If you watch the video you will see that he is using a 3d printed box for the controller housing. I am using a proper metal enclosure, steel tubing that will be epoxy coated, and a different type of clamp.
Ideally I would like to have both a pneumatic clamp and pneumatic piston to inject, but that is a bit beyond the budget and timeframe I have right now.
Yesterday my worker made only 128 successful parts at 36 cents each. 46 bucks gross of parts. minus 12 bucks for labor, plastic and overhead came out to 30 bucks net for that machine for the day. 30 bucks is nothing to sneeze at when you start adding it up. That comes out to 600 bucks net per month. Multiply that by 4 and you can see where it can lead to.
With the current situation, I need to do both the big pay jobs that come more and more sporadically, and get some more of the small daily earning projects going. Even if it is making cheap putty knives, electrical insulators, drawer knobs things like that.
My current hydraulic molder is slow, but it can do big shots of parts at high pressure. Pneumatic is faster, but lower pressure, so the solution is to use a thinner molten plastic like PP instead. I also need to work on the de-molding solution as it is a pain in the ass to remove parts from the current mold. All the hard education things one needs to do to become self sufficient.
I managed to solve some of the plastic supply for now by buying pre-shredded plastic from a recycling company. It is washed and shredded food containers, but the flake size is large so I have to re-grind it to make it work for my purposes. But the price is very right. Almost the same as I was paying for dirty un-shredded plastic a few weeks ago. I got 400 kilos of it, and have run thru about 250 kilos so far. I placed an order for another ton, but it will be a week or so before the supplier will get me some stock.
Yesterday I finished up a batch of 100 pieces of 1x2 plastic boards 8 feet long. Now the buyer wants another 300 pieces. That production is more profitable than injection molding. I make 4 boards per hour, using roughly 8 kilos of plastic, which comes out to $213 gross and comes out to $163 per day net.
Of course this is not counting all the hard work, experiments, learning, etc that went in to this in the first place. Also this is only the second production run of this item, so there is the question as to how much people will buy. So far the people buying this plastic lumber are golf courses and people using it for store fixtures. No idea how long this can continue, but I will ride it while it is there.
update
Had a minor earthquake here 20 min ago or so. At first I was thinking I was having some sort of dizzy spell. Everything was moving side to side about one jerk per second. None of my employees noticed it, was not too severe. But I got a panicked call from the wife at her downtown condo, all emotional about it. Not sure exactly what I can do about that.
Earthquakes are not uncommon here, but so far mostly mild and the house only has a few small cracks in the 16 years since construction from it. On top of the mountain where I am at seems to be a different zone than down the hill where I felt them more frequently and severely.
Apparently it hit way up north of me.. 200+miles
My current hydraulic molder is slow, but it can do big shots of parts at high pressure. Pneumatic is faster, but lower pressure, so the solution is to use a thinner molten plastic like PP instead. I also need to work on the de-molding solution as it is a pain in the ass to remove parts from the current mold. All the hard education things one needs to do to become self sufficient.
I managed to solve some of the plastic supply for now by buying pre-shredded plastic from a recycling company. It is washed and shredded food containers, but the flake size is large so I have to re-grind it to make it work for my purposes. But the price is very right. Almost the same as I was paying for dirty un-shredded plastic a few weeks ago. I got 400 kilos of it, and have run thru about 250 kilos so far. I placed an order for another ton, but it will be a week or so before the supplier will get me some stock.
Yesterday I finished up a batch of 100 pieces of 1x2 plastic boards 8 feet long. Now the buyer wants another 300 pieces. That production is more profitable than injection molding. I make 4 boards per hour, using roughly 8 kilos of plastic, which comes out to $213 gross and comes out to $163 per day net.
Of course this is not counting all the hard work, experiments, learning, etc that went in to this in the first place. Also this is only the second production run of this item, so there is the question as to how much people will buy. So far the people buying this plastic lumber are golf courses and people using it for store fixtures. No idea how long this can continue, but I will ride it while it is there.
update
Had a minor earthquake here 20 min ago or so. At first I was thinking I was having some sort of dizzy spell. Everything was moving side to side about one jerk per second. None of my employees noticed it, was not too severe. But I got a panicked call from the wife at her downtown condo, all emotional about it. Not sure exactly what I can do about that.
Earthquakes are not uncommon here, but so far mostly mild and the house only has a few small cracks in the 16 years since construction from it. On top of the mountain where I am at seems to be a different zone than down the hill where I felt them more frequently and severely.
Apparently it hit way up north of me.. 200+miles
Monday, July 25, 2022
Quiet, too quiet out there
Re; Ukraine etc it is quiet in the news so now is when stuff is really boiling under the surface.
Others are calling out the same thing I have been for a month or so. Southern Prepper is calculating inflation at 25% based on the boots on the ground reports.
Like I said before, we are not in a recession, we are in a depression. I think this realization will start to gain traction in the coming weeks and months.
Either way, continue getting your house in order, escape debt if you have not already. The usual things.
I am declaring a tentative victory on the bug war. No new bugs, but I will continue the warfare for a few more days.
Yesterday I got in the shop bright and early. 3 employees no show. Started running the plastic lumber production line. Discovered that my guy blew up two flow molds. Started comparing production numbers and finding one guy doing 4 boards per hour and the other guy only 3. When I ran it the first day I got 4.75 boards per hour. this has to do with feeding the material in the hopper, and care taken to ensure the flake does not bridge. I need a mechanical stirrer, which I got the motor for, but not completed. So it requires a manual stir for now.
I ran thru pretty much all the colored polypropylene plastic shred flake I bought last week already. I got just enough to fill this current order, plus enough for the injection mold orders.
Hired another employee starting today to run the injection molder.
I am not seeing any available shop space near me so I will probably build a portable shed 8x8 foot using a lot of the plastic lumber I make plus the plastic sheet that another local company makes. I will move the desk to the shed where it will function as a demo sample and workspace. The current office space is roughly 15x8 feet and that will be used for storage and the injection production area. I can fit 2 people in there.
Yesterday suffered some injuries. Sheet of 1 inch plywood fell over and hit me in the face. Left a laceration down my cheek. Then later that day I started feeling a sharp pain in my ear. It felt like something I needed to see a doctor about ASAP. So I hit up the local urgent care clinic at the mall here. 30 min to get in to see a ENT specialist. Diagnosis was ear infection. He sucked out the ear wax and fixed me up, but it left the pain even worse than before. Some aspirin took care of that along with ear drops etc. The more interesting thing was the cost. 30 bucks for the doctor, and 10 bucks for the meds. cash, no insurance. Doctor made 30 bucks for 15 min of his time.
Still working on the Buster Beagle injection molder clones. The SC100 pneumatic cylinders are somewhere in customs between here and China. Frame will be assembled hopefully today. I am using 1x1 inch square tube 2mm wall thickness in place of the suggested aluminum extrusion. I do not trust alum extrusion in that design not to blow apart with all that pulling on the frame.
Also Bison Prepper seems to be MIA. Nothing since April 23 online.
Sunday, July 24, 2022
Bugs bugs everywhere
The past week, been dealing with a bedbug infestation in the house. I have no idea how they got in the house, but it certainly is not a lack of mopping and cleaning with pinesol the last few months or bleach for that matter.
The OTC stuff in the spray can is useless. Stinks awful, but the ingredients show a 0.015 concentration.
For the price of two cans of that I got a bottle of 35% cypermethrin. It too stinks like hell. But it is the same stuff used by the US Military to treat clothes for mosquitoes and lice. Even still after several sprayings there were still some alive until the last super dousing. They apparently were hiding in the baseboard wood trim. I have literally doused the baseboard trim and so far no new bugs have crawled out.
Thankfully I have no carpet, in the entire house and the infestation seems to be confined to the one room, although the entire house is getting sprayed.
I read that bedbugs are getting resistant to cypermethrin and related killers. So I also doused the area with sevin which is normally used in dog flea powder and garden spray. It leaves a residue so that will need a mopping up after the bugs are dead. So far 3 days and not a live bug to be seen. However I had to buy a new mattress, and thoroughly wash all my clothes, using color safe bleach as I have no hot water for the laundry.
So that being said if you are prepping for end of the world, I might suggest you have a good stock of bug killers, and mouse poison. Your odds of dying from vermin, injury, and infection in a SHTF scenario are higher than getting shot.
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