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Showing posts from March, 2020

"Dumb Stick" Bike Seat Post Kayak Hitch

This is a "dumb stick" used to attach a kayak to a bike. Easy construction from PVC; the tricky thing is making sure the hole for the seat stem is cut at an angle so that it's somewhat perpendicular to the seat. The bolt is to prevent the pull cord from coming off the end. And I cut a piece of wire hanger and bent to act as an additional catch so that all of the tension of the pull cord is not on one spot (which would lead to early failure of the tow system).

Prototyping Sliding Partition Panels

So, I'm thinking about space saving ideas as my family is moving into a 1 BR Crosstown Concourse apartment and will need to consider partitioning space for keeping sanity, quiet, etc. Whenever I get on these "consider all the possibility" kicks, I come up with an extraordinarily cheap solution. Cue: the cardboard box sliding door panel. Basically, spend $1.80 for a large box, open it up to be a panel; for the top track you can use cable, string, or a tension bar along with shower curtain hooks going through the top portion of the cardboard, for the bottom track get a few toy cars and some car track and voila! Track panel!! To pretty it up, you'll want to use some kind of contact paper for the cardboard, and to firm things up you can glue two boxes together. But it fits the "dollar store elegance" criteria in that it's super accessible, super easy to do, and, of course, functional. I could see this as being a legit prototyping solution so that folks...