Friday, January 27, 2017

Wood gas stove 柴火爐

These stoves are getting cheaper, and other than burning wood, there is an optional alchohol stove at a cheap price, so why not?

This is the first time I tried.

To start the whole thing, simply collect some small branches on the floor.  Break them into short pieces, pack them and place them in the bottom.  Then, put some dried leaves on top... this kind of stove were burned from above.
 

It is easy to get it started, a small fan would help the job, otherwise, you got a lot of smoke at the beginning.  Once most of the smoke gone, it's ready for cooking.


As you could see, wood gas come out from the holes and they got burn very rigiously.  Fire like this will not make your pots too difficult to wash. However, wood stove would get them black anyway, just not as worse as simple wood burning.


When the flame went off, the branches would keep on burning slowly with a dim glow.  Thus, the stove would be very hot... I burned my finger slightly... so be warned.  I suggest to put a metal plate below the stove so that burned branched will not hurt the grass below.


Make sure the stove got cooled down before tearing them down for storage.

Friday, January 20, 2017

Installing a pickup for my 17" ukulele

Ukulele is so small than you could take it anywhere with you. With my 17" ukulele, this is even more true but then the voice is relatively low for this little guy, and a separate tuner will lower the portability, too. So, I want to install a pickup with built-in tuner. After some searching, this one seems to fit the bill nicely.


As you could see above, this tuner has a 1:1 paper template for you to ease the cutting process.  Anyway, let's start with the simplest step first.

Reduce the tension of the strings, and then take the saddle out.


Drill a hole to put the pickup under the saddle.  One should file down the saddle to compensate for the added thickness... I didn't do it at first, and we could always do that later if the string is too high.


Since I don't have the proper tool for cutting wood, I just used the same hand drill to drill some holes along the cutting line... and then use a simple cutter to cut carefully.


Not too bad?  Notice that we you decide where to put the pickup module, check the inside of the Ukulele to see if there's reinforcement structures inside.  Avoid them if possible.


Finally, drill where you should put the plug it, and this is relatively simple.  I used a thread to help me pull the socket out from inside.



Install the pickup panel, and this is the hardest part.


A complete success...

Tuesday, January 17, 2017

20170117 大圍至沙田一帶

笑咗... 三隻鷺, 一隻唔係鷺, 而係勞... 呵呵...

夜鷺 (Night Heron, pp. 38-39)... 原本佢瞓咗, 但可能我從得埋, 醒咗... 另一隻繼續瞓...





Great Egret (Great White Heron), 大白鷺 (pp. 40-41)....


棕背伯勞 Rufous-backed Shrike (pp. 194-195)



A short and relaxing trip... didn't take photograph for long and thus tired...

Saturday, January 14, 2017

Toaks Titanium pot and frying pan

I bought then due to a discount and also a hiking trip, they were very well made and light weight.

However, titanium stuff requires special attention when in use.  Since they're very thin and light weight, heat from the stove could be transferred extremely fast.

So example, when you wanted to dry the pan before adding oil, you need to act very quickly.  Otherwise, the pan will be over-heated.  Similar thing happens when you cook, you need some more oil than usual.  I was not warned before so this is the result:






Titanium when over heated, will form a thin layer of oxide.  Titanium oxide is colorless, but then the reflected ray together with the refracted and reflect ray will interfere to form a whole spectrum of color, this is like the color you will see on bubble membrane.  Titanium oxide is chemically stable, and does not affect the usage.  Another effect on over heating is that, the pan will be blended. 

To use it properly, you need a smaller flame,and you should move the pan around so as the heat is more evenly (and slowly).  This is not perfect, however.  Therefore, I believe that titanium cookware should be used only for harsh hiking trip.  If one wants to cook more different food, we better need another thicker (and heavier) pan.

牧高笛 TOP 拓扑普及款

一個大前廳, 是非常方便的事, 特別在下雨天... 牧高笛這東西, 就是擴大前廳的最簡單方法


這東西頗大, 可以放好多東西, 一張椅, 一張小桌子, 還有許多空間多出來! 開一張天幕也可以, 也這東西就輕得多了... 搭建也不算難, 我第一次在晚黑開, 也不算太難... 基本上, 是建好營幕內帳, 然後就用三個小鈎子固定, 再拉兩條風繩, 就完成了... 這前廳算不錯, 但因為是搭建在 2-3 人營的基礎上, 所以自然比較矮小, 要從旁邊進去, 再進入營幕, 也有會點辛苦... 整體來說, 一個人露營, 這東西是個好選擇...