For the first time in my life, I find myself writting in my head a list of goals I want to achieve next year. Some are mundane, some are harder to achieve. I thought about sharing that list here.

Please consider sharing yours as well. Consider it like sharing ideas, something to push others in to thinking about small things they can do as well just because they can.

Now, without further ado:

The List

  • survive

A reminder from j4k3. Should always be a priority.

  • renew my entire fleet of hand tools and, if money allows it, some power tools

I have lot of maintenance chores, renovations and improvements to do around the house and my current tool stock is essentially shot, so…

  • start making furniture for my house

Have you seen the price furniture goes for these days? I have a carpentry shop nearby willing to look at my doodles and work out the details with me and make the rough cutting of the big pieces that require precision tools for it. I’ll have to take care of the rest.

  • put together a cook book with my partner

This just came to me/us the other day.

Throughout this year, we shared with a good number of people food from our table. We are not foodies nor trained chefs, we just enjoy having good, tasty, healthy food. Many people told us they could never make what we cook daily and a few even told us we should open a place of our own. Because we’re not that insane yet, the book will do.

No publishing intention: it will be about putting together a collection of recipes anyone can follow and share it. All inclusive.

  • paint the freaking walls

  • finish that computer tech course

I’ve been playing with computers for twenty+ years. Now I want my know-how recognized. And on this I have money tied and a deadline!

  • write my own first book (romance, with raunchy bits)

Or should I say just put it together? I write my fantasies basically since I was taught to put letters together to form words. My biggest flaw is that I’m my worst critic and I drop draft after draft. Well… it needs to end.

  • work with my dogs

I have two, very over reactive dogs. Of the big kind, that are constantly fighting each other for no reason. I need to do something to counter this.

  • get back on working on my plot of land

That place is a fire hazard and I want to start growing my own food again.

  • read more books

As an added incentive to culture and reading habits: support an online ebook repository, download and keep offline copies of as many books you can manage. Culture is the worst enemy of bigotry and ignorance.

  • j4k3@lemmy.worldEnglish
    2·
    2 days ago

    I have some stuff already, I just need to be willing to hurt enough to hopefully finish such a physical project. I use brass rivets a lot too.

    I’m curious about trying to use some cheap enamel silver paint with a little bit of carbon black added. Most people only use soot black in a paint, but all silver paints are aluminum with chrome type paints having the smallest particle size. I may try to get some silver automotive paint out of storage if that doesn’t do the trick. The color coat of automotive paint is much thinner than other types and contains a higher density of aluminum particles that are designed to form a more unified consistency. In practice the passes are sprayed with a similar wetness so that the solvent evaporates and leaves the particles in a consistent orientation. Getting this wrong leaves stripes or streaks where light reflects off of the particle facets inconsistently. The UV protection, durability, and thickness of the finish is from the 2k clear coat only. I’ve never tested if an automotive color coat is conductive, but if it is not, I bet adding a bit of amorphous carbon will be.

    The sandwich is just a fiberglass layup. It would probably be better to use a prepreg inner with an autoclave. I already have very thin double sided copper clad and thin blanks of FR4. I’ll just be roughing up the FR4 for mechanical tooth and using a common fiberglass epoxy like a glue.

    I already have a small modular 3d printed tool that uses heavy bolts and nuts around the periphery to bend sheet metal prototypes like a deep drawl die press. I’ll likely just use that with a printed jig for alignment and the required pressures.

    The bigger challenge is what I might want to make and the programming to justify the task.