This is not one of Trump’s hands

Posted on January 10, 2026 by james

It is a normal human adult male hand. So pretty much completely the opposite 😀

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My honey jar box is evolving…

Posted on January 10, 2026 by james

I don’t feel that I’ve reached the final iteration yet, but I wanted to do something that made the box rather more visually appealing. Here’s what I came up with.

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Skoda Octavia lock failure #4

Posted on January 10, 2026 by james

It is done!

Well, not quite, if I’m honest, and it turned into even more of a pain before the lock was usable again…

I fitted my new lock and reassembled the door, which is considerably easier to do with it open. Then I discovered that the central locking didn’t work. “Never mind”, I thought. “At least it will pass the MOT”. Only it didn’t, because the indicator repeater on the passenger side wing mirror wasn’t working. Oh joy. I decided to leave it to the garage to fix. But they couldn’t. The car came home.

After much research I discovered that the central locking and indicator repeater are actually controlled from the electric window winder unit. A used unit from a scrap dealer was only £20, so I felt that I had little to lose by trying one. It arrived a couple of days later and I fitted it the following weekend. It worked! 😀 Both the central locking and the indicator repeater functioned correctly!

But…

The winder unit, whilst the same part number, is from a different Skoda model. It seems to know where it thinks the top of the window is and stops winding the window up at that point. It’s actually well below the top of the actual door frame. So I can’t wind the window down without then having to take off the door card, unscrew the winder unit and raise the window manually.

I don’t know how to fix that yet.

Joy of joys, the driver’s side window has stopped working too. From the noise it makes I’m pretty sure that is because the cable that raises and lowers the window has corroded and snapped. I’m really not sure I can be bothered to fix that right now.

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DIY laser bed

Posted on January 10, 2026 by james

After making a few items with the laser cutter I’ve come to the conclusion that a cutting bed is probably desirable, but I want to see how much difference it actually makes. I’ve therefore had a dig around in my scrap metal and found this grill from an old oven (I’m sure I used the oven shelves themselves in my smoker). I’ll rest it on some stands and see if it improves the quality of the cuts.

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A new box for honey jars

Posted on January 9, 2026 by james

Now I have the laser cutter, I thought I could make a better box for displaying and transporting jars of honey. Then I found the “laser cut interlocking” plugin for FreeCAD and I was away!

This is my first attempt.

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It’s messy desktops all the way down…

Posted on January 9, 2026 by james

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A paid bit of laser engraving

Posted on January 9, 2026 by james

For a wedding. I was asked if I could do this. First I tested it on a piece of ply, to get the placement and layout of the text correct.

And then onto the slice of tree itself.

I thought it came out rather well.

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So what’s in Frankenstein’s greenhouse at the start of January?

Posted on January 9, 2026 by james

Well, Cayenne chiles to start with. Not ripe, but still looking fairly healthy.

And, err, strawberries in flower? Really?

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Skoda Octavia lock failure #3

Posted on January 9, 2026 by james

Finally! It’s open!

I cheated a bit though. I discovered that I could by a new lock mechanism for about £20 from ebay. So I did. Then I took a hammer and cold chisel to the old one. That soon releases the mechanism 😀

Unbolt it from the door, fit the new one and we’re all good. Well, sort of. Now I have to reassemble everything. (Note the remains of the old lock on the dash.)

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My first home-made foundation

Posted on January 9, 2026 by james

I reckon it looks pretty good. A fair bit thicker than the stuff you buy, but perhaps I can improve on that over time. And in fact this will probably get cut into starter strips anyhow.

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