inventions

A New Forge

June 13, 2016 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

Mr. Inventor built himself another forge this week. He cut apart a propane cylinder and used the top for the place for a fire. He welded it to a pipe and used the bottom of the cylinder for a stand. The pipe coming out the side is to attach a blower to (he uses an old vacuum cleaner) for air for the fire. He welded a metal grate inside to hold the coal fire up off the air hole.

Here is the forge in action. It worked great—it was so hot they could hardly get close enough to work with the fire! However, it melted the grate. I’m not sure what he’s doing next!

Homemade Generator

September 12, 2015 by NZ Filbruns 1 Comment

Mr. Inventor has all kinds of ideas. One of the recent ones he tried was making his own generator. He wanted one he could crank and generate some power. He tried a few different things, and then the man who runs the local dump gave him a tip. He suggested that Mr. Inventor take the motor off an old top-loader washer. There was one at the dump that day, so the motor came here. Mr. Inventor hooked some wires up to it and gave it a spin by hand—and Mr. Diligence got shocked! The next step was to hook an electric drill to the shaft, and they were able to generate enough power to light a bulb. That isn’t a very economical way to run a generator, however, using electric to turn it! Now, they have hooked it up to a bicycle. The first time they ran it, they blew a lightbulb. They soon figured out how to make electricity arc, and then used that to start a fire so they could burn some brush! This picture and video are of the demonstration we were given of how he could light a bulb with the drill-operated generator. I loved Mr. Imagination’s delight, so got a video of that, too.

Pottery Wheels

July 27, 2015 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

We recently read the book A Single Shard aloud recently. It is a fascinating story of a village of potters in 12th century Korea. As soon as we finished it, Mr. Inventor wanted to know how to make a pottery wheel. I let him go on YouTube to find some ideas, and then he went out to the junk pile and found this wheel. He found bearings and bolted them together and added them to the wheel. He’s still experimenting; when he saw these pictures, he said, “First attempt, worst attempt!” Apparently, he has something better now. The second and third pictures are closer to what he has now; they’ve hooked a washing machine motor to the wooden disk, but are using a smaller wooden disk. I told him I need more pictures!

Here’s a brief video of the wheel in action:

Creativity

May 2, 2015 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

Mr. Inventor has been very busy living up to his name lately. He designed and built two bike trailers, after finding a picture online; the welder was used a lot over the past two weeks! He also figured out how to carve a wooden spoon. That was after the wooden knife carving contest between three boys; I didn’t get a picture of those creations, but they were very good.

Tandem Bicycle

January 16, 2014 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

A few Sundays ago, we were filling the van up with diesel in Kaikoura before heading home, and there was a couple there with a tandem bicycle. Apparently, Mr. Inventor studied it closely while we were there, because the next day he started building one of his own! He cut apart two or three junk bicycles and started putting the pieces together. He’s stalled right now, waiting for his daddy to do some welding for him. We’ll see if it goes any further, but I was enjoying the initiative and inventiveness–and he’s learned a lot about fixing bikes from this!