Category Archives: La Plata

Bicycle pulling a car.

This happened today:

That’s a 1981 Peugeot 504 (diesel) that belonged to my grandfather. After his death about 20 years ago it’s been sitting first on the original garage and lately inside this shed that we are fixing up.

The tires have an inner tube as it was usual on that era and that’s an advantage, I doubt that any contemporary tubeless would still be sealed after spending so long being flat.

I had a bit of space to speed up while pushing and the front wheels went by with relative ease. However, there’s a small step and I couldn’t make it go further with the initial momentum alone.

I lifted the car with a jack and made a small ramp out of bricks and a slab of wood. I carefully released the jack and the car slowly moved on its own. The underside looks quite good for a machine of that vintage.

Against all odds

A bit more than a week ago one of our cats, Juli, went missing.
From time to time she enters some sort of freak mode and starts to make frenetic moves. At first we thought she landed on some of the neighbors but she always managed to find a way back home and this was not the case.

We put posters around the block but as time went by her chances of being alive were really slim. She’s quite old, with poor eyesight and hearing.

By this point I had already lost hope of finding her again but late at night we got a phone call. Someone on the bus stop recognized in her picture a cat his aunt rescued a while ago. Turns out she ran away and was hit by a truck on Avenida Circunvalación. They took her home and to the vet, her hip was badly hurt.

She’s at home now, has a bit of trouble to eat (we also feed her with a syringe and a special liquid for recovery) and move but overall feels way better than what we expected given the misshapen.

Evil eye

Today I walked back from the uni at a slow pace with my termo under my arm and the path led me to the corner of 3 and 67 where there’s a kiosk.

It’s run by a friend of mine, we attended to school together. We chatted for a while and then an old woman, queer mixture of a Gypsy and La Nona made her way inside and started to empty her bag.

She tried to sell us some flowers made of what looked like papier-mâché, asking $150 for each one. We refused and I politely tried to help her anyways with what I had on my wallet (a bit less than $50).

That moment she transformed and with an elevated and angry tone accused us of having that amount of money and not wanting to buy, which was completely true, as I had no use for such an item.

We argued back and forth for a while until she said now with a darker and more calm voice, “you are evil, evil persons”, gave us a deep stare and disappeared on the street.

Heavy lift

That hoist was a godsend lately. It helped me move bedroom furniture made of carob and also this old rail that weighs a ton.

During that process both of the galvanized channels I used yielded and I was this close to have everything fall down. But I won at the end.

Lifting a wooden rail

Walk or Ride

(Take the easy way you know that you want to)

As part of my health and lifestyle changes I set up the goal to walk at least an hour a day. This is good as I normally don’t walk very much and with the bike the cold wind stabs deep inside me and I end up with my head aching even if I wear lots of protective clothing on it.

This morning wasn’t as cold as others so I left a bit earlier for uni and went there walking instead of cycling.
It took me more than double the usual time but the morning was lovely. About mid journey I found a lemon on the verge of an abandoned house. I carried it with me, smelling from time to time and capturing odd looks and a handful of smiles.

On my way back home a young lady stopped by my side to ask for the time. It was very strange that she didn’t have a cellphone but after catering to her request we started to walk together and talk, mostly about our whereabouts and her career as English teacher. We parted ways a few blocks from my home.

I don’t remember when was the last time I had that careless feeling of easiness around someone new, in general and for making conversation out of the blue. Perhaps the surprise was the difference.

Today I walked a tad more than hour and half. So far the week started very good.

Dumpster heaven

If there’s a heaven I think I visited it today.

After running a couple of errands early in the morning I headed to Lisandro Olmos on the outside of the City to buy some scrap metal for my welding classes.

A couple of members of the group said good things about Grúas Mársico so I went there, it was also a good opportunity to travel a bit on this part, as I don’t know almost anything about it.

As I entered the warehouse I became speechless. There are shelves that extend up to the roof with parts from all kind of machines neatly organized on one side. On the other pieces of metal plate and tubing. Some big planers, milling machines and spot welders among them. And on the background, the tallest pile of industrial waste I ever seen in person. All of this on sale by weight save for a couple of weird stuff.

The shop was run by a very nice lady and her brother. This morning I only bought some iron but the next time I come around I’ll bring a small truck to pick some very , very interesting stuff.

Be kind.

Today I had the pleasure of meeting Alicia Reinoso.

This afternoon I walked to the city centre for a quick check up with my doctor and to run some errands. When I finished, the day had turned colder and a very fine mist was morphing into rain.

As I approached the bus stop a woman started to look at me, finally asking if I could lend her my sube card in exchange for money for the fare.

With a very distressed tone she related me that she was a Doctor and misplaced her purse with most of her documents and money but someone found it and called so she could pick it up.

The place was in a kind of sketchy neighborhood and she was very afraid of going there alone (and also, it was already dark). It’s not very far from my home and the local police station so I offered to escort her there.

Still, she was afraid and when we arrived at the police station tried to get hold of an officer to come with us but the only patrol car was on duty. We arranged for meeting there and while she waited for whomever found her purse I went to pick up our family car (she lives in the other extreme of the city and the night wasn’t that friendly for such a trip).

We drove to her home chatting about life, her children and strangely enough given my orientation, about religion, moral compasses and other stuff.

That was a very nice quarter of hour. It’s been quite a while since I had such a meaningful conversation with a stranger.

Get up off your lazy bum.

For the most part of last week I felt like catching a cold but not quite.
My body and joints ached and was in this general state of drowsiness.

This morning was humid but not cold. I gathered all my willpower and hoped into the bike instead of taking the bus to the uni.

I arrived exhausted and sweaty.
As it happens at these stages the classes are very small. Today it was only me and the professor. We stood up side by side in front of the whiteboard discussing for about an hour.
A very productive morning.

Back at home I felt terrible but empowered.

Later I went to do some errands.
I took a rest on the sidewalk and the neighbors cat brushes me, asking for petting.

We sat there for a while, attracting odd looks from the passerby people.

Steel doors for rack closet

With the outer frame already built I continued with the doors. During the last couple of days I made the frames, aligned the hinges and had them welded. I also started to cut the expanded metal for the body and made a couple of simple handles.

  • Steel door frames
  • Steel door frames
  • Steel door frames
  • Steel door frames
  • Door handle
  • Blued steel hinge

Fixing an inverter welder

Today while working on the rack closet the welder died on me for no apparent reason. But, after power off it made a couple of noises and the fan ran for a moment.

For being a Chinese machine it actually looks quite good and neat on the inside. The boards have conformal coating and just a tad of flux residue on some pads. The only thing out of place was a blob of solder on a header instead of a jumper.

  • Fixing a SalkorPRO ITEP2170 welder
  • Fixing a SalkorPRO ITEP2170 welder
  • Blob on a header

I made a couple of measurements, the high voltage section was fine but the control supply was totally dead, except for a brief moment when turning off the main switch. Traced back from that board until finding a small block with a forward converter (kinda odd, I expected a flyback). The only component with bad readings was the recovery diode. I swapped in an UF4007 and at the next flick it was alive again.

Of all the things that could go wrong with a welder on novice hands this was not expected.

Door frame

The next step in the making of the rack closet is the front door frame. It’ll be screwed to the base and the top support. For that I’ll use some square tubing with a cap and nut welded to each end.

  • Support plates for door frame
  • Support plates for door frame
  • Support plates for door frame
  • Support plates for door frame

The lines scribed on those pieces look a lot like the iconic map of La Plata.

Each one was beveled and welded in the tubes. I ground the sides flat mostly for looks.

  • Support plates for door frame
  • Support plates for door frame

As I still had a while more with sunlight I used the support built earlier to keep them in place and tack everything together. Enough work for a Summer Friday.

Tacking door frame in place

Reduce, Reuse Recycle summary December 2017 – January 2018

(Sounds nicer than saying dumpster diving eh?)

We can learn a lot about a society just from looking what we throw away (see Garbology).

When I lived in Berisso it was really odd to see on the curb something that worked or was fixable.

Here in La Plata and without even trying I stumble upon stuff that is just a little bit broken if not working (albeit a tad old).

This last two months among other things I picked up with my bike basket:

  • A vacuum cleaner, complete with hoses. Only needed a carbon brush replacement.
  • Home audio amplifier. The cd tray is stuck but we feed it from the line in. A bit heavy but very nice sound.
  • Mantle top fan. Works fine as a fan but the pivoting mechanism is acting up. Just needed a thorough cleaning.
  • Leather briefcase. Sold in less than a day as a theater prop.
  • Wooden wine rack. Works fine for other beverages too.

This is not exactly dumpster diving but I also helped the widow of a neighbor silent key to clean up his shop.
Out of the deal I got:

  • Two 100Mbps rackable switches. They work but at that speed I only want them for the chassis and supplies
  • An antique lamp. Already restoring it.
  • A Commodore 1541 dirve and some original CompuServe disks. On their way to a museum.
  • A very old (when telegraphs were the norm) glass insulator and threaded pole made of hardwood. Has the right volume to make a shot glass.
  • A modern medium voltage insulator. It’s quite heavy but in nice condition. I’ll probably make a lamp out of it.
  • Lots of heatsinks and coolers.
  • Old cans of candy and medicines. They don’t have a high monetary value but are collectible and can be traded for something else.

Making space

We decided to tear down part of the wall that divided the old studio from the control room in order to have a bigger space.

Before it looked like this:

  • Original control room
  • Original control room

And after a bit of effort it became this:

  • Removing a wall
  • Removing a wall