Tension Update...

H:
I had sewn quite a lot recently on this particular sewing machine while Dave was on "vacation", tent, tarp, half a quilt... but after bringing the sewing machine back from my cousin's there seemed to be something wrong with the upper tension control.  Sometimes I would have a perfectly balanced stitch and sometimes it was a little off.  I thought it could be the thread and fabric combination.  From the start of these projects I had the upper tension maxed and the lower tension relaxed so that I could achieve a balanced stitch.  But even that wasn't working anymore.

To compensate when there wasn't tension I jammed a straight pin into the tension disc to create friction or sometimes I would pull gentle on the upper thread with my right hand while navigating the fabric with the left, this will account for a great many of my wonky seams.  Finally I needed both hands to guide the slippery fabric and it was time for major surgery.  Off came all the covers and eventually I found the problem.  Okay, two problems.

Problem 1... me.  Some of the intermittent tension issue was due to me having the presser foot raised.  The raised position releases the tension completely.  I would have the foot up when I was threading the needle and then spend time wiggle the straight pin into place while gentle pulling the thread through the needle and grumbling about no tension.  Following this I would lower the presser foot (not thinking that could be part of the problem) and adjust the straight pin while sewing to get some tension.

Problem 2... the presser foot raising mechanism!  There was actually something wrong with it.  And sorry if you can't visualize this but it was too crammed with gears and such to get a good picture but just know that a horizontal bar that rides up a vertical bar was cockeyed and wouldn't always rest correctly in place.  So when I would raise then lower the foot it would occasionally drop back correctly into place or close enough to give some tension.

What could have been the cause for this failure?  Easy, the sewing machine fell over in the trunk of the car sometime after I came home from my cousin's house.  All I can remember is at some point in a car ride that following day I heard a "clunk" and instantly knew what had happened.  Then I had a flash back to the day I bought the sewing machine and how I had buckled the box in the front seat of the car because it wouldn't fit on the floor board, just in case.  Well, a few miles from home, traffic came to a stand still on the freeway and while I stopped just fine with room to spare as did the guy behind me, he was hit at a slow enough speed to not trip the airbags but enough get forced into me,  No injuries to anyone including the sewing machine that was safely strapped in the passenger seat.

But I digress... I didn't think much of it at the time because the machine was in its case in the trunk.  But, obviously, there were consequences to this recent topple.

Before I put the machine back together I took the time to dust it out and oil all the moving parts.  Now it is back together and sewing has resumed with far fewer frustrations.  At one point I had an extra screw but eventually found it's proper home.  But then I found another screw laying on the floor.  That one is now back in its home... I think.

Using your sewing machine this much requires some maintenance

D:

"I need a Phillips screwdriver."

"How big?"

"One that will take out these screws."

For those that sew, you know the importance of being able to adjust tension for different material. Until this was opened and the offending obstruction removed from the tension mechanism, the seam was unbalanced.

Invention and adaptation time..

D:
“That’s not a knife…” “Oh yeah, then what is?” 

Unknown at the time, when I picked this knife kit, Ray Jardine did not use this on the A.T. However, I was interested in not only the knife but the leather sheath kit as well. I’d never made a knife or a worked with leather before and for 45.00 I got to do both.

Until I find a picture taken earlier of what the knife looked like before I shaped the wooden handle, you’ll have to imagine a rectangle of pine sandwiched between two squares of oak. The knife as a whole, was quickly assembled and epoxied into place and would resemble more of an awesome sharp thing protruding from a machination from Mine Craft for a handle. Wanting to be very careful not to remove too much wood to make it into the handle that you see now, it probably took me 4 hours to do it, but do it well, I did. Not bad for my first knife and sheath. "mod" is short for moddy, a self given title for always seeming to mod something, anything.

The sheath literally showed up as a couple pieces of leather with stencils. A large flat piece, about 3/16 of an inch thick to draw a shape on, cut out, then fold in half. But the interesting is, the side the blade slides against, is a thick piece of leather that was sandwiched between the edges. If I ever make a sheath again, I can tell you that the holes to pass a needle through, to sew it together, will be a lot bigger. I broke two of the three needles supplied with the kit in the first two holes.

Before I treated the leather, as the final step. I got the whole sheath wet, to make it pliable, place the knife, kneaded the leather to form to the handle , then let it dry. Once it dried, it held onto the handle of the knife quite well so the terrifically sharp blade doesn’t come out of the sheath too easily. Surprisingly, no lacerations of my fingers or hand were created in the making of either project.

 If you’re taking electronics of any kind on a trip like this, the challenge is to keep it charged and functioning for the whole time, almost 6 months. So, great care is going into keeping them dry, unsmashed (could be a newly invented word) and charged.
So, it began kind of a journey of its own to make this work before the trip.

The inventory of electronics is 3 rechargeable batteries, two mp3 players, 5 short usb to micro usb cables, home made extension cord and my cell phone. All of the devices and cables total one pound.

When there was a signal in the area, I could use the internet, maintain the blog and make a phone call.

The intention is to leave the phone off until needed. Everyone with a phone knows you have about 2 ½ hour of battery life if it’s only searching for a signal. So, with the phone off, I expect the battery to do quite well. If there’s no signal I will just power it off.

The recharge challenge begins. Until there are outlets in trees, I would need to make an attempt to keep these devices charged so it would work when I was ready to use it. I was delighted to not only find a relatively light and inexpensive rechargeable battery; it would double as an impressive LED flashlight. A recent test revealed all three batteries still had a nice bright light after 4 hours of being left on. Another cool feature is these charge by usb port. The portable battery charges with the same cable that I plug devices into it. The small port on the above right is how they charge from a usb port, and my mp3 players and phone charge by plugging the usb port into the large port, underneath the micro usb, pretty clever.

The small circle on the upper left is how the terrifically bright LED is turned on and off.

Another nice feature of LED's is how little power they draw to work. Well after the battery loses it's ability to charge a device, the light will continue to work for hours.

The picture of the three batteries above is an endurance test. At this point they have been on for 5 hours after their ability to charge my phone or mp3 players.

 6 months is a long time to go for those who enjoy something to listen to. So thanks to the technology in compression, battery life and weight, we found a one ounce mp3 player with 4gb of internal memory and the ability to take micro sd chips up to 16gb. It’s expected playback time is 15 hours, probably longer than that if the volume is turned down. (I’ll be able to do that as long as “Sweet Child O Mine” or “Pour Some Sugar on Me” doesn’t  come on.)

 Having around 8 micro sd chips, on a 6 month hike,  presents another challenge of not losing the little buggers.
This player was purchased for half price at 29.00 as a refurb. The price is always appealing but if not quality repaired, it will fail again. I showed a picture of it being opened and re soldered, earlier in the blog. I would like to mention the ear buds as well, since there is quality in how you listen to music that is less than satisfying. Panasonic

Panasonic RP-TCM125-K Earbud Headphones are available on ebay for 15.00. We found them on a website that reviewed over 200 brands and prices. So, to save time, we just went with the recommendation. For 15.00, you can't go far wrong.

Now for the really fun part, if you haven’t had fun already. All of these devices with batteries eventually lose their ability to work unless recharged.  Finding 12 volt and wall outlet usb charging capabilities was not hard, but not wanting to carry a multiport extension cord to plug them all in, I decided to make my own. It would be the length I wanted, work the way I wanted, and I had all of the components on hand. The only original component was the plug that goes into the wall, after that, all of the splicing, soldering, heat shrink tubing and connectors on the end of it are my design.

An AC and DC adapter will cover many options for me to recharge my phone and portable batteries. If there aren't available outlets, all of my needs are 5 volts, so I can use a computers usb port.

The original thought for this idea was, I didn’t want was plugged into the wall to hang by the 4 inch usb cables. I wanted to plug in something longer, the extension cord, and put all of the rechargeables in another container or bag, so it wouldn't stress the cables under the weight of what was getting charged. There would be a better chance of keeping everything together, I don't want to lose these things, it might be a considerable walk to what I need.

Another cable I wanted to make, and I couldn’t find it anywhere. Since the mp3 players do not have a large draw from the usb port they are charging from, I made a splitter to be able to charge two items in one port. The smaller mp3 players only use about 1/3 the power that a cell phone does, when plugged into a usb port. Being creative like this is fine as long as it’s quality made to go the distance. This cable’s connections were soldered, and the shrink tubing was used to give it some durability for the whole trip, and be light too. A pack that’s too heavy can make or break the trip. With everything in our pack it should not be over 40lbs, even with the longest distance between resupply points.

All I needed for this project was to twist together all of the same wire. There were only two, a positive and negative wire. The two bundles of wires on the right are three red and three white with shrink tubing over them

The final product is some clever placement of a few pieces of shrink tubing. With the connections being properly soldered this cable can be useful well beyond the length of this hike.

The Backpack Saga Part 1

H:
I have been sewing my backpack for the last week.  I think I have about 12 hours into the project so far, but that does include bathroom breaks, snack, meals, procrastination and a few misreading of directions, two resulting in the need to use a seam ripper and one required a creative use of webbing as a patch.  But we're not going to talk any more about that right now.

I told Dave that his pack was going to be AMAZING because I'd have figured out how to make one by the time I was done with mine.  His response was that we could always buy another kit and I could make myself a "perfect" one too.  Um... no!  I'm only sewing 2 backpacks!!!  I have other things to get to anyway.  

It turns out that I haven't taken a lot of in progress pictures because I have had my head down and have tried to plow through as best as possible.  

Here's the shots I have so far:

Oh my are there seams!  And for every seam there is a top thread and a bobbin thread and each thread has a beginning and end to snip.  This pile of thread is just a tiny bit of those seams!

Preparing to cut the foam padding for one of my shoulder straps.

This is the bag inside out and almost finished seaming up.  I still have 6 more pages of instructions and I've already made it through 8!

A view of the inside of the pack which will eventually become the outside.

And here is a lovely shot of the current sewing zone.  Previously, and still currently to some extent, it was/is the computer area.  Yes, that's a bag of yarn hanging up above the chair.  And it is hanging next to a felted bag.

Back to the sewing.

H:

This is all that remains from our post workout snack.  A friend said that every time she saw me I was saying that I needed to go to the grocery store.   Guess where we are going tonight!

A new feature...

H:

Posting here on the blog while we're out hiking poses a lot of problems.  Signal, battery power, deciding to eat instead of type on a phone, etc.  And we're not even sure how often we will post.  We're not on any social media which is such an easy way for people to get up to date info thrust right at them without having to go looking for it.  We know it's the way it is right now but it's just not our thing.

So when we had a request to start a Twitter feed which would direct people to our blog when it was updated I was very hesitant.  I don't know how often I'll update my blog, so blogging and twitting (as a friend calls it) was extra work for us and well, we're going to be lazy on this.

Instead we found that something that will be easier on us and is available right on our blog.  Sign up with your email in the little box that says "Get our posts in your email!" and it will be just like all those sources which bring the info of others to you.

This setup uses Feed Burner and in a couple clicks you're signed up.  Let us know if you have any questions, you can email us at:

bikerbeans@gmail.com (that's the email we used for our bicycle trip and we'll just keep using it).

Before the storm...

H:

Another workout at the Y complete, I grocery shopped yesterday evening and have no need to head to the store to fight for stale bread, Dave just started a week of vacation, and there are dehydrators full of dried kale waiting to be emptied.

We're supposed to get some sort of snow storm starting tonight.  This could be the perfect test for how our shoes work in snow.  I don't expect to have to hike through snow but you plan for the unexpected as best you can.  I can see it now, tomorrow I will be walking laps around the pond in all the gear I expect to have for warmth.  But somehow there is another picture and it seems a bit clearer, 

I see myself, knitting in hand, sitting by the window watching it snow.  Hmm, I think I even smell cinnamon rolls baking.

Here's a reflection of Dave and I working out at the Y.  We're in there somewhere.