New Blogger Interface and the New Google Look (Sucks!) / Android a Google product

Hello!
   
Yes I know that I said in my last post that I wasn't going to post again in Blogger... I decided to post one last time because of several emails that I have received about why I am done with the New Google Interface and Google in general.  Here is why I hate Google and the Blogger interface that they have destroyed.

I'm not going to elaborate much so here is the simple explanation in no particular order:

1) The New Interface Is Hard To Read: The new Google interface is all white space with black text making it hard on the eyes especially in low light, which is how I like to use the computer in the evening. I can't easily see what I am typing. The eye strain is obvious (unless you work for Google). Why do this, let's make it hard for everyone to read!!!!!

2) The menus are down the left side instead of across the top, a very unnatural place to look for stuff. Don't we all gravitate to the top of the window to look for "File" or "Edit" or any other common task? It's become natural to scan the top of the page or window to look for the options that are available...  let's "Save" what we are doing (look to the top of the window); "Edit" the text or font (look to the top of the window)... Or... "I want to do something... it should be in the Tool's menu.... at the top.... where the hell is it????... not at the top!!! It's down the side!!!".... Why???

3) All the menu selections are now different. OK I get it, lets take what used to be at the top and put it down the left side of the window... But wait, you didn't do that did you? What used to be a simple click at the top is now buried in some complicated maze of stupidity in your "improved" left hand side bar menu system. Why?? Please tell me why you would do this?

4) Login page. The "blogs I follow" info is bigger and takes up more screen space than my own blog information when I log in. Why is that? Did I log in to see what my buddies are writing or did I login in to create a new post. This is after all about what I want to write about.
Google think tank: "Let's put all the stuff our user's friends are writing about on our users home page because we think our user wants to see that"... When I log in I want to see what is going on with my blog first, everyone else can wait until I'm ready to click on something (CLICK AT THE TOP) and see what other Bloggers are writing about.
Why can't I see on my own login page my own Blog info? Why???

 - Side note: Blogging is a Web Log about me (or you) want to write about. Blogs that I follow are secondary, in other words when I log in TO MY BLOG I expect to see info about MY BLOG and not other people, I can and will get to them later (Unless I use a Google product, because then I have to see everything BUT then things I want to see).... WHY?????

5) Scroll bar and Omnibar. Do you use Google chrome? Good luck if you do. Chrome has a very stupid and annoying scroll bar that is inverted in relation to every sane person in the world (unless you are a idiot). The scroll bar is "dark" where you have to click to scroll, exactly backwards from every other software product I have ever used.
Here is what this amounts to:
Google engineer says " Lets be different and mix it up a bit, lets invert the colors on the scroll bar, everyone will love it"...
A real world example: "Let's reverse the gas and brake pedals in the car we are building, everyone will love it"

Insert frustration, car crashes, cuss words and...

6) The Google Omnibar.... lets not even talk about it.... one word: WHY????? Fill in for me what I typed yesterday??????? REALLY????????

7) Another thing about Google and in this case Andriod...  Here is an example from my phone right now:
Today is Thursday July 5th at 5:11pm
My phone's call Log says I had a call: "incoming call - 2 days ago" When I click on that call the call details say the call was actually made on Sunday July 1st at 8:42pm.
So in other words the call wasn't received "2 days ago" it was received 5 days ago. The call log is wrong! Thanks Google!
This makes the call log useless for me. I have to open the call log and click on Details for every call to see when it was actually made if I want to know when a call was placed or received.

So am I upset at Google, am I upset at Andriod??? AM I upset at both?? Is the new Google Blogger interface all that bad?

Maybe... or maybe it is just me. If the user interfaces for Google products actually made sense to someone like me, an average user, then I could accept the change and improvements with all their bugs and problems...

Unfortunately this isn't the case. Google has across the board created an online environment isn't user friendly, is overly complex to use for what it does and all around "broken what didn't need to be fixed".

Blogger wasn't perfect my any means but now it is trash thanks to the Google team 'Improvements'. Honestly if Goggle had come in a simply fixed what was wrong with Blogger (a few minor tweaks) I would be right there with them cheering them on, even if there were a few bugs.

But because Google decided to change everything and in the process mess up things that used to work, change around menus that were easy to use, move simple "one click" tasks down to places I don't want to click... and gave me a phone that has a useless and messed OS... instead of making things easier, rather they have made things harder...

Because of everything they have done, I am done with Google.
   

A new Lathe Video

This has been a very busy week for me and I have not had a lot of time to be working in the garage. One thing that I did manage to do was make a video about how my Homemade Wood Lath is put together. One unfortunate thing that I noticed was the day after that I put up the video on Youtube someone copied it to another site and claimed as their own work. I did put my blog address in the video but they cut that part out! Dirty thieves!
 

  
Click below to see more with some links to other lathe stuff!

More Details About My DIY Homemade Wood Lathe

Awhile back I wrote a post about a Homemade Wood Lathe that I designed and built and HERE is the original post if you want to see what I am talking about. I decided to write a new post because I have been getting a few emails about some of the construction details. Specifically folks have been asking about the DIY Lathe Headstock and how the Motor Speed Control works.

  

Homemade Wood  Lathe

 

I'm going to assume that if you are reading this post you have probably read (or might want to read) the original post to get an idea of what I am talking about. I'm not going to go into the details of the lathe itself as I covered those in the first post. Without going on with more and more introduction I'll jump right in to the details!

DIY - Homemade (free) Shop Dust Collector (Disperser)

It's getting a little dusty and dirty in here... well it was until I made my very own shop dust collector! With all the work that I do dust is a big problem especially when wood turning on my Homemade Lathe. Of course and sanding, cutting and drilling also generates a lot of dust. Aside from being unhealthy it is also a pain as dust gets everywhere. No matter what I do it ends up in the house, upstairs, in my nose and pretty much every other place that  you can imagine. UPDATE: I wrote a new post with more details HERE with a video have a look!

  

To deal with this I decided to build a dust collector system that uses a radial blower. I chose a radial blower for this because they tend to be better at building up (static) pressure compared to a fan type but also I happened to have a blower that I wasn't using for anything (free). The static pressure part is good because to really work as a dust collector I have to not only suck up the dust but blow it through a filter of some kind. Filters especially when they get dirty and clogged don't pass air too well and the back pressure builds up. A radial blower can keep the pressure up and keep the air flowing.

  

So step one was to get a suitable container to collect the dust. I decided a paint bucket was just about right because of it's convenient size but also I happened to have one laying around that I wasn't using (free). Here is a picture of the finished system.

 

Finished Homemade Dust Collector

The Low Down On Homemade Tops....

Here is another fun lathe project that I did and unlike the Multicenter Lathe Statue this one has some actual practical use! I decided after some suggestions by Otto Jr. and Matt Mylar that I should try my hand at making some tops on my Homemade Wood Lathe. The top was a pretty straightforward project with the only really tricky part being the metal point at the tip that the top spins on.

 

 

 

The above picture is how the top turned out on the lathe (pun intended). The wood that I used is one of my favorite types to use for turning practical stuff  - bamboo. These days you can go to the local discount store and get laminated bamboo cutting boards for cheap. There are also some expensive ones out there that you can get that have some advantages that I'll mention. These boards are made up of small pieces of bamboo that have been machined smooth into strips and then the strips glued into a board. I have found bamboo to be a relatively easy wood to work with that has basically no grain and is easy to sand. Although when sanding bamboo (or anything for that matter) make sure you have some dust management system and wear a face mask. The difference between the cheap boards at the discount store and the more expensive ones is the cheap ones tend to have voids and empty spaces inside them in random places. You can't see the voids until you cut into it but be aware that they might be there if you decide to chop up your bamboo chopping block.

So after getting the bamboo boards I got a hole saw and cut small discs out of the them . Then I glued all the discs together into stacks. I drew black lines on each disc to show where the grain direction was and made sure that when gluing the stacks together the black lines didn't line up. In this way the grain is at right angles in each layer. It's actually a bit more complicated because the cutting board alternates layers of bamboo and those are also at right angles... but simply put they are not lined up.

  

In order to mount the stacks on the lathe I had to glue each stack onto a piece of base wood that I could use to mount to the lathe spindle. In the above picture there are two stacks glued and dried with one on the lathe.

 

 

 

Turning the top down to the classic top shape was easy and a lot of the fine shaping I did with a wood rasp. The lathe gouge is handy for big cuts but finer detail is easier if you use a file or rasp and essentially power sand/file it into shape. A measured drawing of this project is available upon request if you want to know the shape!

 

 

 

Once the shape is right sanding and waxing the top is next. To get the top off the base plate I just law a saw blade against the place I want to cut and turn the lathe on. I don't recommend anyone using a saw blade like that or a wood file to shape stuff on a lathe. Be safe and don't do what I do!

The point of the top I made with a screw that I glued into a small hole that I drilled in the end of the top. Onto the screw I threaded a small aluminum shoulder nut and glued that too. Again I grabbed the file and filed the screw to a point.

Tops are fun if you can figure out how to wind the string onto them and throw them. Some people are good at it and others not so good. I am better at making tops than throwing them I think.

 

 

 

Tops when left alone like to conversate amongst themselves as shown in the above picture. Leave them alone while they are conversating or until the urge to throw one becomes too great and you must do it. If this is the case use caution when approaching the tops and it's wise to make a low whistling or humming sound as you approach so as not to surprise them. Stampeding tops can be dangerous as they have a sharp point on one end (the bottom).

 

 

 

The picture above shows a bit of the point that is made from a filed down screw and the aluminum shoulder nut. The shoulder is important to keep the string from falling off the top as you wind it. I did consider making that shoulder on the lathe from wood and just put a metal point in it but I didn't think that it would be strong enough. Repeated throws and impacts with cement or roadway and it would be chipped and broken off.

There you have it:

- The Low Down on the Homemade Top -

Home Made Wood Lathe or a DIY Wood Turning Machine

Awhile ago I decided to build myself a Home Made Wood Lathe. This is another one of those projects that I wasn't sure was going to work and would require quite a bit of effort up front before I could see if it was going to work. Fortunately it did.
  
UPDATE 8/22/10: I've added a NEW POST HERE detailing the Lathe Headstock design and the Lathe Motor Speed Controller! Click the link if you are interested in the design details. I have a video clip HERE on my YouTube channel explaining this lathe in greater detail.

 

Finished Homemade Wood Lathe

 

Everything on the lathe was acquired in the 'home made fashion' or in other words it's all stuff that I scrounged up from junk piles or had laying around the garage at the time. There are a couple of things that I did have to buy but my out of pocket expenses for this project was less than $50.00. I can turn projects up to 20" in diameter and 36" long although spinning material that big is scary even on a "real" lathe so I don't often make stuff that big.

  

The wood that makes up the frame is from old shipping pallets that I took apart then planed down smooth and straight. They started out a 4 X 4 but are now a bit smaller! The edges of the legs I left square but the bed rails have rounded edges to help the tool rest saddle and the tailstock saddle slide a bit better.

Detail of DIY Lathe Headstock

The drive system is made from a DC servo motor that was thrown away by my employer at the time. I used a hose clamp to hold it down to a cross member in the leg section. The cross member is slotted  vertically to allow for tensioning of the drive belt. I had my doubts about how well this was going to work but I've been running this now for almost 8 years and I have never had to tension the belt or mess with the motor. There is a Vee Belt connected to the servo motor that drives a second bigger pulley connected to the spindle in the head stock. This gives a decent gear ratio so I can keep the servo motor spinning faster than the spindle. This is important because although the motor is a DC servo there is no closed loop control system of speed control - no feedback from the encoder in the motor. Because of this it's tough to get the motor to turn slow under load at a constant speed, geared this way the motor goes fast with the spindle at a slower speed.

The slower turning speeds are handy when sanding, waxing and polishing work that has already been turned.

 

The spindle is actually a hollow piece of chrome-moly steel pipe that is set in two bearings that I seated into the vertical post that makes up the head stock. The inner diameter of the pipe is slightly bigger than 5/8" - I filed and sanded it to get it to that diameter (more about why later).  There is a snap ring groove that I cut with a hack saw on the work side of the pipe. The snap ring prevents the pipe from slipping all the way through the bearings. Between the pulley and the outer bearing there is a spring that sits on the outside of the pipe pushing against the pulley and the inner race of the outer bearing.

Tool Rest and Work Area of Homemade Wood Lathe

 

The spring is there to keep tension on the bearings holding them together in the head stock post. Essentially the spring is trying to pull the pipe through the headstock away from the work but the snap ring prevents that so the whole mess in in compression clamped to the headstock post. Maybe I'll draw a cross section of it someday if anyone asks, because my description of what is going on is confusing I'm sure! UPDATE: I did details the headstock design because of emails from people and you can read about it HERE in this post. If you would like even more details email me at ottobelden@yahoo.com or leave a comment below.
  
The tailstock is the same concept and you can see the tailstock spring in the picture above on the right. The difference between the two is the tailstock is a solid rod filed down to a point and there is a nut on the outside end instead of a pulley. The tailstock and the tool rest shown above are clamped to the bed rails with a bolt between the rails for positioning adjustment.
  

Various Home Made Mandrels for the Lathe

      

The main mandrel that I use in the lathe is the lower right one. It was made by taking a 5/8-11 bolt and putting it through a pipe floor flange that has a short length of pipe screwed into it. I glued the pipe into the pipe flange and drilled a hole through the pipe and the bolt and pinned it so the bolt can't turn inside the flange without unscrewing the pipe. After doing that I glued two hardwood discs together and glued and screwed them to the floor flange. There are screw holes in the wood so that I can screw pieces to be turned onto the end so essentially the wood discs are the mandrel face plate. The 5/8 inch bolt slides nicely into the inside of the  spindle pipe in the headstock that I mentioned above. I filed the spindle pipe so that a 5/8 inch bolt would go in easily. I choose 5/8-11 as the bolt size because that is the standard thread on sanding discs and grinding wheels as shown in the picture above. I also wanted this lathe to be able to work as a sanding and grinding tool.

  

Sanding and Grinding Table

  

This is a fuzzy picture of a sanding and grinding table that I don't recommend anyone trying to build. It works fine but it is dangerous and tends to sand your knuckles at about the same rate is sands the work piece. In the picture the grinding disc is mounted in the spindle and the table is in front. The table is hinged so I can adjust it to various sanding and grinding angles with the window hand crank gizmo mounted underneath.  The window crank is one that I bought at the hardware store and is used on older homes that have windows that open out. You turn the crank and the bar connected to it moves the window open. I have it mounted sideways so turning the crank adjusts the table up and down setting the angle of the table relative to the sanding or grinding disc.

     

 

Click on the link Multicenter Turning Lathe Statue Project to see details on this project!

   

Lathe Motor Speed Controller

  

The motor speed control for the lathe is built into a box that is also made of wood but has a metal front and rear cover. The rear cover is louvered and came off an old clothes dryer and the front was too. I mounted a variac transformer inside on the front cover and some capacitors in there too. The variac allows me to control the voltage and therefore the speed of the lathe by turning the big black knob in the picture above. There is a reversing switch that allows the motor to spin in the opposite direction for sanding and a handy read light to tell me when it's on. UPDATE: I wrote a post with more details including a schematic of the Motor Speed Controller above. Click HERE to check it out!

 

Over the past several years this has been a useful tool to have and I have made a bunch of things with it. Honestly I'm surprised at how long it has lasted and how well it has worked all this time - definitely worth the time and $50.00 it took to build it.

  

Various Lathe Projects

 

Above are some of the things that I have made with my homemade wood lathe. Another handy thing to have if you are going to do any kind of woodworking is a dust collector. I built a dust collector out of "stuff" I had laying around that you can see HERE. If you would like to know more about the lathe or anything else let me know!

   

Click HERE to see some more Wood Lath related things...

Have a look HERE at some of the other (but not all) of the projects that I have written about!

   

HERE is a post by Leo Basic on his blog about a lathe that he made. He credits my design for some of his ideas in the construction but he did an even better job! - Nice Work Leo!

       

If you have any questions or comments please let me know below or send me an email at ottobelden@yahoo.com

   

Multicenter Lathe Statue: A Experimental Test Project

Some time ago I decided to try Multicenter Wood Turning or as some write Multi-Center Turning. I'm not good with hyphens... I think If I ever get around to blogging about English Grammar it would definitely be filed in complaints. Anyway I wanted to try multicenter turning because it looked like a fun thing to do and figuring out how to turn something on a lathe using multiple set ups so the axis of rotation changes with each set up seemed fun. Especially considering that the work is off balance the entire time. Another thing I like to do is not spend money so rather than buying a nice big piece of wood that didn't have any knots I cut op various pieces of scrap and glued them together to make a bigger piece. I use this lamination technique often because it tends to create interesting patterns in the wood. So I glued it all up into a relatively flat piece then cut that piece at odd angles, drilled holes into the lamination and inserted wood dowel pins with more glue.
  
  

Cut and Glued Wood on Mandrel

A recent lathe project

Here is a bowl that I made awhile ago as a gift for a friend. It is made of laminated bamboo and other misc. hardwood. Pieces were cut on a bandsaw, glued than turned.

I cut some of the interior hollow out before gluing it to make it a bit easier to form the interior. 

You can see the hole between the clamps.

Finished I polished it with wax and sealed it with varnish, light sanding etc...

This is the Home Made Wood Lathe that I designed and turned this bowl on. Check out my post that describes building the Home Made Wood Lathe!!