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I am sure many of you encounter situations where your nuts or bolts stay on the rim, causing you to accidently break it off.  Now, if you ever get those hard-to-remove nuts whether from rust or whatnot, you can use this method of heating wax with propane gas near the nuts and bolts to get them totally loosened.

I’ve personally broken a rim stud before, and needless to say, I wish I had known how to do this back then.

I have a trick that has been around for a long time. This is a trick we used to use for exhaust manifolds when the bolts were so rusted in that breaking a bolt was very likely to happen. To avoid having to remove the stud in a separate process we used this trick to get them loose. This works better with a fair amount of heat to start and then let the wax slowly cool for about 3-4 minutes before attempting to remove the bolt of nut.

via metacafe

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Check out this really cool DIY on how to make a vertical wind turbine.  This thing can produce some good amount of electricity for under $300.

With this one I am hoping to get the 100 watts.

Here is how I did it.

First we need:
–5 pvc tube. size 3″X10′ (hardware store)$48

–3 bike wheels. size 12″ (junk yard or ask your kid to use their bikes for a minute) maybe $5

–Ametek38 volt (ebay or surplus store) $60 (a problem with ametek, it needs 700 rpm to reach 14.1volt.

–Or buy windblue alternator (ebay) $250 it will only need 200prm to reach 14.1 volt

–1 square foot 1″ plywood or anything 12″ diameter (laying around)

– 3 X 2×4 X 12′ studs (from lumber store)$11

I am not going to name the tools, but I used the usual tools.

faroun

via hackaday, instructables

Here’s a really cool lookin’ car made from junk parts while it does 4.5 seconds 0 to 60MPH and gets 35+MPG!

This is the final result of 15 months and at least 800 hours of work in the garage. This is not counting time spent designing, ordering parts, negotiating prices, etc.

The car was built from scratch. The engine is an Acura k20a3 from an RSX. It sounds awesome.

Special thanks for the Make community for inspiring the maker spirit in me. Building stuff yourself is a much better way to be a citizen than senseless consumption.

The car has a good amount of junk (recycled stuff) in it. The stainless panels all came from old appliances. The black body panels came from an ancient kayak and an old doghouse. The throttle pedal was made entirely from salvaged parts from a dumpster at an engineering firm around town. Of course, the engine was also recycled from a crashed car.

It’s a blast to drive.

0-60: 4.5 seconds
MPG: 35+ miles per gallon
The best part: the bizarre looks I get from random strangers.

via make, flickr

If you live in a certain area with high temperatures and humidity, your house might be prone to attract a lot of fruit flies.  They are harmless but sometimes you will need to control them using DIY methods such as this involving a water bottle, apple cider, and more simple household materials.

It seems our house has been overrun with fruit flies this fall with all the garden vegetables fruit in the house. So we built a DIY fruit fly trap to try and reduce the “herd”. My wife read about making a fruit fly trap from a water bottle so we gave it a try.

via homeconstructionimprovement

Drink a lot of beer in the bottles and have too much recycling every week?

Don’t worry, you can turn your empty beer bottles into powerful solar-powered LED beer lanterns that will light up your house at night for free.

Al Gore and company have helped us to see that our planet is in peril. Lend a hand, make a toast, and help illuminate ways for saving Earth — all at the same time! It’s easy to do your part: recycle, refill, and recharge. Just take your fave beverage bottle (keep the cap), drop in a flexible solar panel, a step-up switching regulator circuit, a rechargeable battery pack, and a powerful LED, cap it, and you’ll have a self-sufficient garden lantern that is ideal for shedding some light on solving environmental issues. You will have to choose your bottle carefully, though. Clear glass rules. Also, wide-mouth bottles are easier to convert than narrow opening long-neckers. Like your grandfather who built ships in discarded bottles, put a modern spin on bottle building while being conscientious of your world. Cheers!

via popsci

You know that cat’s litterbox can become potentially dangerous to your health with its deadly fumes, especially for pregnant women.  Now, here’s a cool way to make a self-ventilating cat litterbox so you don’t have to worry about all that invisible bad-for-your-health fumes.

I recently saw a post on Apartment Therapy showing a homemade “Cat Jet” ventilation solution (http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/ny/at-email/tools-for-pet-living-the-cat-jet-and-the-roomba-email-from-9108-062199) using a bathroom fan to vent the noxious fumes of a litter box from the inside of the house to the outside. As a home automation geek I immediately was inspired to take it up a notch by combining similar hardware to a series of timers.

Behold: Alan’s Automated Cat Jet! Total Cost? $80.

Consisting of one bathroom fan, one bathroom vent kit, one Smarthome Appliance module, and my home automation system, Alan’s Automated Cat Jet shows once again that with technology, anything is possible.

via bb gadgets

As if buying Cingular Wireless last year just to get the iPhone on AT&T’s side and providing users with crappy 3G service wasn’t enough, AT&T is now going to try screwing us again with Satellite TV from DirecTV.

As a long customer of AT&T (couple years ago), I am glad I made the choice to never buy or use any of their products until they die a horrible death.  Well, literally, AT&T is full of crap and the only reason they are surviving is the fact that their deceptive marketing is so good.

Now, I don’t even like any cable or satellite companies, but AT&T, I do hate with passion. (Yes, only if their customer support team was able to refund all my monies that might change but heck, they are a big giant poop to me now.)

Help my cause and please boycott AT&T at all possible costs.  You can buy the iPod Touch, just don’t buy an iPhone with AT&T.  (crap, it’s crap, get the G-phone)

AT&T will market and sell a co-branded version of DirecTV’s satellite TV service after Jan. 31, 2009 — a deal that will leave Dish Network without a major reseller partner.

Financial details of the non-equity agreement, announced late Friday, were not disclosed.

DirecTV has similar agreements with Verizon Communications, which markets the direct-broadcast satellite service in areas where it doesn’t offer FiOS TV, as well as Qwest Communications International.

via gizmodo, multichannel

Check out these cool Skatebrakes that will add brakes to your skateboard.  Of course, this isn’t really practical for freestyling on the streets but it will definitely help if you live in area like San Francisco where steep hills will make it impossible for you to ride continuously.

With this brake kits, fear no more 45 degree hills in San Francisco, just apply the brakes if you happen to slide down too fast.  I think even if you are an advanced skateboarder, this will help in really steep hills as it’s annoying to put your right foot down everytime you are going too fast.

And yes, this would be really great for picking up chicks on your skateboard.

via cg, skatebrake

When did Ctrl+Alt+Del phenomenon start?  Well, it probably goes back to the days of DOS operating system but Windows made it practical and famous with its blue screens of death.

These Control Alt Delete Cups will let you free yourself from stress by drinking the keys, not punching or hitting them with your fists.  (I have to admit that on many occasions using Windows 95 and 2000, I did punch out couple of Control, Alt, and Delete keys.)

via technabob