June 30th - July 4th, 2023 - Dollhouse Repair; Trip to Panama; Truck Bed Hooks; Easel; Backup Camera Screen Mount.

DOLLHOUSE DOOR:

I have been making repairs to the old dollhouse for the California granddaughters, who arrive in Perryville on July 16th. The final project was fixing the front door frame and door. For my birthday my daughter Erin bought me a woodburning set to use with my wood carving projects. I used it to carve a new pattern in the dollhouse front door. I found it quite difficult to make straight lines in the door due to the grain of the wood burning the wood at different rates. Here is a picture.

The door frame was repaired with wood filler and then painted white while the threshold was painted black before the door was re-hung.

To keep the door closed I put two tacks in the bottom of the door and glued a magnet in a hole drilled in the threshold.  It works. I thought the white door with white trim looked rather bland, so I painted it yellow. Here is a picture. Pretty snazzy.

Daughter Annie purchased two sets of appropriate-sized doll families for the girls to use with the dollhouse. They arrived a few days ago and I think the girls will be entertained for hours. (I hope so anyway.) At some time in the future, I will have to get this dollhouse to California along with the chest I fixed up for grandson Free.

PANAMA HERE WE COME:

I have always wanted to see the Panama Canal since reading about it in grade school. Friday June 30th we booked a week-long trip to Panama in February of 2024 and purchased our airline tickets flying out of Miami. This is not a cruise but rather a Panama excursion with two days in the rain forest, Panama City tours, and a boat ride through the canal. It was booked through Caravan Tours. This will be our first tour with them. It will be interesting to see how their tour compares to our prior tours with Grand European and Insight Vacations. Friends, Bob and Ronnie, are going as well and they have used Caravan Tours in the past and were quite pleased with everything. 😃

TRUCK BED HOOKS:

We may be driving the truck to Florida in the fall rather than the car due to needing room for all the "stuff "we want to take down. The truck does not have a bed cover, so I started looking for a bed cargo net to purchase. I went out to measure the truck bed and found that the front two tie down hooks in the bed were missing. 

These are essential for tying down a cargo net. I got online and found some OEM (original equipment manufacturer) Toyota hooks. They were $13.50 each and with shipping and handling totaled just over $38.00. I decided I didn't want to pay that much. I have lots of small pieces of scrap metal of various shapes in a bin in the garage. I decided to make my own hooks. In looking through my stash I found part of an old bike rack that would work. Here is a picture of the metal bike rack piece next to the hook I needed to fashion beside it.

With the help of my vise, a large pipe wrench, and a large hammer, I was able to bend two pieces of the metal rod into two "U" shapes. I then had to weld flat metal pieces on the bottom of each "U" for a way to mount the hooks to the bed. I am not a good welder by any means and welding small pieces like this is difficult using a stick welder. It is challenging to attach the 8-inch welder ground clamp to a small hoop like this. Then I had to hold the hoop against the flat mounting piece while striking a spark to start welding. After several attempts I did get the job done, although it wasn't pretty. Once the welds were ground smooth and holes drilled where needed, I painted the hooks.

They aren't perfect but they will work. I then went to the hardware store and purchased four metric bolts and washers to mount them to the bed of the truck. 

The bolts and washers cost $6.00. If I had purchased the OEM hooks, I still would have had to spend the $6.00 for bolts and washers. I then would have had over $44.00 invested rather than $6.00. I think it was worth my effort on a very hot Saturday afternoon. Now I need to get back to measuring for a cargo net. 

EASEL:

John asked me to make a sizeable easel for displaying a picture in the Perry County Military Museum. Last year I had made three smaller easels to use to display the branch of service plaques at the funeral home. This one is ready to be put to use.

BACKUP CAMERA SCREEN MOUNT:

For my birthday Kelly bought me a backup camera for the truck.  It is really handy for hooking up the utility trailer and the truck is too old to have one built in. A couple of weeks ago I installed it with the screen mounted to the dash with a suction cup. All worked well until on Sunday when I took the truck to church and it sat out on in the hot sun in the parking lot. When I came back to the truck the screen had fallen down onto the counsel. 

I reattached the suction cup but between the textured dash material and the heat, the suction cup would not hold. I needed a Plan "B". 

There is nowhere else on the dash to attach a suction cup so in looking over the situation I noted that a sunken area on the counsel below the dash may work. Plan B was then to make something for the suction cup to stick to down there. It turned out to be more of a challenge than I expected. 

I cut a piece of wood to fit in the opening. The block was still recessed and the suction cup would not stick to it. I added a second block. The second block raised the block high enough for the suction cup, but the screen couldn't to turn to the angle I wanted for viewing. I cut the block on a 45-degree angle to correct this problem. This worked, except then the Velcro I was using to hold the double block in the recess of the counsel, could not hold the weight of everything attached. I wedged a piece of foam rope in the bottom to hold the block in place. Now the block stayed in place, but once again the suction cup just would not stick to it. I decided that the suction cup was not sticking because the wooden block was not as wide as the suction cup base itself. On to Plan "C". 

I needed to make the surface area larger for the suction cup to stick to. To do that I needed to attach a larger piece of wood. To mount this piece I had to glue a spacer to the original block and then cut another piece of wood to cover the entire area. This piece was large enough for the entire suction cup to adhere to. Here is a picture of the final wood mount painted black and installed. 

Unfortunately, after numerous attempts, the suction cup still would not stick to the wood. I needed a Plan "D". 

I decided to eliminate the suction cup portion of the mounting bracket and replace it with a wooden bracket which could be screwed into the mounting board pictured above. The wooden bracket would be attached to the remaining port of the screen bracket by the angle adjusting bolt. Here is a picture of the wooden bracket I made to eliminate the suction cup mount. The holes on top are where the bolt will go through to attach the swivel portion of the screen bracket. (Sounds complicated but it really is not.)

This bracket was painted black and screwed to the larger mounting board previously made. The pivoting portion of the screen mount was then attached. Here is a picture of my work awaiting the attachment of the swivel ball on the screen mount. Actually, after a fitting, I had to lower the bracket so that it attached to the board at the bottom, not in the middle.

The rotating ball portion of the screen mount was attached and the installation complete. 

Everything is staying in place while the truck is sitting in the garage. Time will tell if it will all hold together bouncing down the road. I'm also hopeful it won't rattle. Road update to follow.