Stop milking for toothpaste

This may win it for the “too obvious to mention” category, but I finally learned how to avoid those annoying battles with a toothpaste tube that come when the thing is nearly empty.

It took me several decades of tube-frustration to realize that all you have to do is snip along one edge for easy access. It didn’t take too long after that to realize that you need to press the tube shut after each use (or seal it in a plastic bag) to keep the paste from drying out.

It also took 75 years to find a pair of decent kitchen-utility scissors. These are Kitchen Aid from the Kitchen Collection store.

Chimney from well casing

Oil-well casing makes a good chimney for a coal- or wood-burning heater in a garage, barn, or workshop. This one is 15 1/2 ft tall and sits on a concrete block. The length of the piece of casing welded to the side is determined by how far the stove is from the inside wall, and how close to the building you can erect the pipe. It is stabilized by a bracket bolted to the chimney and to a piece of strap iron attached to the building. Total cost, installed, was about $250. This compares to $450 for parts alone if I had purchased the pipe and fittings to run a new chimney through the roof.

Sponsorship for this essay is provided by wood-burning stove suppliers.

Take-down fence

Here’s an idea for folks who may need, as I do, a privacy fence that can be removed to drive a tractor through, for instance. The details of its construction show better before being painted, so here it is. Next spring I’ll paint it and maybe put some ornamental grass in front of the posts.

Since this fence is probably going to be removed some day, I did not set the 4X4 posts in concrete, as I would have done for a permanent fence; instead, just dug holes about two feet deep and gave a good tamping to the dirt as I shoveled it around them.

To those posts I air-nailed 1X3-1/2 X4” pieces of oak at 12” intervals, beginning 18” above ground level. Over those I nailed 3 1/2”-wide pieces of 2X4. Over these were nailed 1X3X44” vertical oak strips. Horizontal rails are 1X3X76” oak. They are laid over the spacers and not nailed, allowing them to be removed for entrance of a tractor or vehicle. All the 3" oak strips are salvaged from another fence and have been in use for at least 20 years, so far without paint or preservative. Also, they were free, making them a very good deal.

I had to use 16-gauge finish air nails because framing nails blew the short wood spacers apart. My plan is to set a 6” construction screw through each of the upright oak strips where they cross the spacers if and when the 16 gauge nails fail. If I only use one screw the post assemblies will be easily removed if I want to take the fence down some day.

Truck bed hook

No pickup truck should ever be sold without a hook to snag gas cans, chainsaws, groceries - whatever you haul that always ends up in the front of the bed and out of reach. It took me many years to decide that a hook of some kind saves endless climbing in and out of a truck bed. This is a 3/8” X 5’ piece of iron rod I put into a vice and bent. Another foot in length would be better.

Bathroom towel post

This bathroom towel post has been around my home for at least 30 years, and I think it’s one of the slickest ideas ever, though I can’t remember whose idea it was nor where the parts came from.

It is simply a post that extends from ceiling to floor and is held in place by unscrewing (extending) a bolt from the bottom, thus creating plenty of tension.

It is made from a 4X4 post, a bolt, two nuts, an electrical box cover (or some other light scrap metal), a scrap steel base from an old bumper jack or something similar, four screws and some coat hooks.

One nut is tack-welded to the box cover, the other nut is tack-welded to the bolt about 3/4-inch from the end. A hole big enough to accommodate the bolt is drilled into the center of the post at the bottom.

The end of the bolt with the nut welded thereon is inserted into the hole in the jack base and wrenched to extend the bolt and put as much pressure on the ceiling as is needed to keep the post in position.

This idea could be adapted for a variety of applications in the home or shop.

How to eat weeds and collect "green" info

Other than dandelions, I never thought much about weeds as food, though I had a neighbor who moved in from Kentucky and often talked about the joys of eating pokeweed. I’d want confirmation of that before I gave it a try.

I may never eat a weed, but in a book entitled “Weeds - Guardians of the Soil” by Joseph A. Cocannouer is a chapter about “Weeds as Food” for anyone inclined toward this sort of experimentation. The link is here.

I found the weed book on a web site devoted to environment and rural development work: journeytoforever.org

The site covers a wide scope of information, including reproductions of books on small farms and gardening in what they call “Journey to Forever Online Library.” - Here’s a direct link to the farm library.

Rx for attic heat and pests

The two most inexpensive and effective cures for attic problems are a big fan and an annual application of mothballs.

It wasn’t long after we moved into this big old two-story that I recognized our need for an attic fan. The heat in the upstairs bedrooms was atrocious. Installation of vents in the overhang had to be done by a pro, but I jockeyed a used - homemade - fan into the ceiling of the hallway as close to the stairway as I could get it.

The unit is a powerful bugger, though I have no idea how much air it moves. All I know is that it sucks air from throughout the house and blows it out the attic vents. For a long time it was a good substitute for whole-house air conditioning.

It has another important effect on our well-being. It gives a jolt to pests like bats and squirrels who might consider taking up residence in the attic. I don’t think they nest where the wind comes fast and furious.

The fan requires that each year I ascend by ladder to oil its bearings and motor (neither of which have required replacement in the past 40 or so years). It is during these trips that I scatter over the top of the insulation two or three pounds of mothballs, tossed to the far reaches in every direction.

Bear in mind that mothballs, last I looked, were not recommended for this use and were, in Ohio at least, outlawed by the EPA or some other bureaucracy for use by commercial pest controllers. Whatever, mothballs do the job on pests and they don’t cost much.

Sharpening saw chains is worth the effort

During my many years of burning firewood, I’ve bought a variety of sharpening instruments - files, gauges, and even an attachment for my old Dremel grinder. They were all pretty slow and - for me - too time-consuming and tedious. Finally I chucked all of it and began taking my chains to a shop, keeping on hand enough extra chains to keep me going.

With slim hope that it would help, I ordered a little sharpener (shown above) from Harbor Freight tools. It cost less than $40 and paid for itself quickly, compared to shop sharpening prices - now about $4 per chain in my part of the world.

It isn’t difficult to set up once you know your chain’s size and angles, and the sharpening process goes fairly quickly.

Don’t mistake this thing for a quality tool. It’s mostly plastic and probably the angles aren’t exact, and I don’t expect it to last a lifetime. Still, this is an affordable way to avoid commercial sharpening prices.

Sponsorship for this essay is provided by wood-burning stove suppliers.

Win battles with “The Barrel”

Getting kids to pick up after themselves is a major challenge, especially if your kids are like mine were. I used a barrel to help make a point.

I took a big trash barrel with a water-tight lid out in the yard behind the garage. When the boys failed to pick up their stuff after being asked/told/threatened, I’d take it to “The Barrel” where they’d have to go to get it.

This was particularly bothersome to them when the items were shoes or boots and it was cold and they were in a hurry. Now, the youngest son almost 30 years old, they are still crabbing about it.

Loader hook makes tractor more versatile

The hook that’s welded to the back of the bucket on my front-end loader increases my tractor’s versatility and my ability to lift all sorts of unhandy items with it. Why the loader didn’t come from the factory that way is a mystery. Fact is, I never knew there was any need for such a hook, not until my son needed me to move something for him and he knew exactly how to make it happen. He welded the hook to the bucket and showed me how to use it.

I doubt he invented this, but I also doubt that its use is very widespread; correct me if you know differently. I think most folks use the boom pole, which is okay if you don’t have a loader. But I have both and I know that a driver can maneuver the front end of a tractor a lot better than the boom.

To illustrate how precise you can be with a chain from the bucket, I present photos of the way I put the wood rack on my flatbed trailer - the rack I built to haul firewood. Getting that heavy rack into a position from which the side stakes will drop straight down into the holes on the trailer is no easy skate, not unless you lift it with a chain from a ring at the rack’s center of balance.

Among the most frequent uses I make of this front-loader hook is the snaking of logs to be cut for firewood with grabber tongs. Often you can hitch onto a log without dismounting from the tractor, and once you get the end of the log off the ground just a little bit you can pull a surprising piece of tree with a little tractor like mine.

Sponsorship for this essay is provided by wood-burning stove suppliers.

Fence wire

Before I started putting an electric fence around my garden I was always scrounging wire for various uses in the home and shop. A quarter-mile roll like this cost under $14 in the spring of 2009. I doubt there’s a better bargain for something so flexible, versatile and strong - utility that almost matches duct tape.

This kind of wire can be used to pull stuff through pipes and various holes. You can make hooks with it and clean out small orifices. The list goes on, and if you don’t build fences, a quarter-mile of wire might last a lifetime.

Rope ladder

A rope ladder will take you to new heights cheaply and efficiently. I made my first one as a fire escape for one of our kids’ bedrooms. Tied to two large screw-eyes which were fastened to studs under the window, it stored out of sight behind a chest.

The one in the photo leads to the top of a partition over which I have to climb to reach the back of the washer and dryer. I have taped a piece of pipe insulator to the side of the step to prevent (more) gouges in the plaster wall. This also holds the step away from the wall, making it easier to get a good footing.

I expect to make another of these ladders to help me access the attic. I have for decades been dragging a high step ladder into the house and up the stairs when I need to get to the attic each year for maintenance on the attic fan. How sweet it will be to have a rope ladder attached to the rafters that will drop down when I open the access panel. Whoot.

Then maybe another one for access to lofts in my little barn and another for the workshop. When I make new rope ladders, likely they will have wider steps than the two-incher shown here. Stay tuned for updates.

Brush fork for front-end loader

A front-end loader can be man’s best friend, but when it comes to moving and stacking brush there’s something lacking - namely the big long teeth to dig into the brush and then hold it in place.


They sell pallet forks that can be clamped to front-end loaders (http://www.wikco.com/palletbktforks.html) and should do well with brush, but the cost is nearly $400 for the cheapest set.

A lot cheaper ($130) and just as good for my purposes turned out to be something called a “carry all” for three-point hook up. If you turn it teeth-forward and chain it to the loader, it will do a pretty good job even though the “teeth” are angled steel, rather than flat.

You have to secure the top of the carry all so it can’t tip forward, and you have to secure bottom so it can’t slip away from the bucket.


There’s probably a better way to do this with one chain, but I used two of them, tightening them with load-binders.

One of the conveniences that helped considerably was the chain hook that my son had welded to the back of the bucket several years ago. It shows at the bottom of the lower photo. This allows me to grab a log chain from the front of the tractor and expands the convenience and ability of the tractor many times over. Why front-end loaders don’t come so equipped is a mystery.

Workbench on wheels

Putting wheels under a shop bench is a good way to keep your shop flexible. By using wheels that can be retracted, you can lower the legs to the floor to ensure stability for heavy work.

There’s always more demand for space than there is space in my shop. By rolling benches and tools this way and that I can maximize the floor area where work space is needed.

This bench is a take-off from a design I saw in a magazine and also some others I saw on the Internet. This is not exactly like any of them, but I don’t call it my own design either.

The top photo shows the simple but very sturdy construction, and the 2X4 to which the wheels are attached. This piece is held in place by the short, hinged 2X4 braces on either side. The lower photo shows a detail of that with the table turned upside down.

Since I put the table to work carrying heavy tools I learned that putting the wheels down and retracting them is not an easy skate. In fact, with no helper, I had to use a scissor-jack. Likely I’ll add drawers before I call it finished.