Pool Time!

After doing some yard work we decided to pick up a small inexpensive pool to put up for a month or so until we go back to Michigan. The kids love it.

Jason

Bow Drill Fire!

Here is me cranking out a bow drill fire out of poplar.

Jason

This Years's School Pictures

Here are the boys school pictures from this year. The phot people took pictures of the boys dressed up. These were the best smiles - not that they play golf a lot - but cute nontheless.

Jason

All Three Match Cases are done!

I finished the third. I set all three with compasses and cleaned up the prototype. I need to send these off to anno - but the Moulenbelt Men will all have matching match cases.

Merry Christmas!

Jason

Maxwell counts his loot.

Grandpa Bruce always sends the boys 25 ones for their birthday. The kids LOVE this much money. Maxwell had to spread it all out in front of him and count it. The first thing he wanted to do with his booty is to give one dollar to Lambert and one dollar to Momma. Daddy was at work.

Here are some cute photo's of the debauchery and greed that ensued from the money gifts.

Jason

I made some Bamboo Whistles for the boys...

These turned out pretty cool. I bored out the inside of some bamboo I had in the garage to 1/4 inch - then whittled down some oak to fit the hole. Then made the cut for the whistle portion. I hope the boys like them.

Jason

I made a project - a aluminum match case!

This took me about 6 hours. Sheesh...

It will be a lot faster next time. This is about 3 inches long - 1.75 ounces and holds 15 matches and a ferrocerium rod (not shown) inside.

If you are interested in this sort of thing - and want the real deal - check out http://www.kmmatchcase.com/ talk to Keith and tell him I sent you! ;)

Jason

A finished project..

I decided to put my newly acquired lathe skills to work and build some manly Christmas presents. I ordered 5 Ferro sticks from this site that measure 4 inches by 1/4 inch in diameter - but they needed some caps to hold on to them with.

First - I grabbed an old left over bar of aluminum from the scrap bin. It originally measured 1" in diameter. So I turned it down to 0.750 inches (+/- .005)

See picture one below:

Then I knurled the outside diameter and cut parted off 0.500 peices. Due to a bent rod during parting I had to settle to ban saw off a bunch.

See picture two:

Then I quickly put them in the mill and faced them at .500 (+/- .010).

I sanded them with some emory cloth to give it the 'brushed' look.

See picture three:

I had planned to drill out the center while on the lathe - and did so with 3 or 4 - but that did not work out for all. So over to the mill and a .500 2 flute end mill for the ferro stick to rest in and then a 4 fluted center cut end mill for the fob hole and VIOLA!

See the rest of the pics:

The knurling is .050 deep and works very well for strikes anywhere matches. I just need to epoxy (as threading did not work well) them in place. I did not get a chance to drill all the fob holes.

But - I have a working prototype.

Add an annoyingly bright fob (to find it if you drop it in the bush) with silly skulls on them to look EXTREME and you have a cool Christmas present.







Jason

I Won an Award!

This is the third award I have received at Cy-Fair College (Lone Star - Cy-Fair). This one is a biggie. The Christal Albrecht Learning Innovation Award. I was nominated and voted a winner by my peers.

Jason

Slip and Slide Action!

Max got a slip and slide for his birthday. Here is the first time out with it.

Jason

Maxwell's 3rd Birthday!

One of the best times ever was had today at the Moulenbelt house. We had Max's birthday party today at the VFW park in Katy. It was free to use so we all piled in. The weather was a perfect 70 and sunny with low humidity. A bunch of the boys friends came down today for the party and brought all sorts of presents. We had cake, a pinata, played on the ropes and the swings, drank juice, and generally had a good time.

Of course, no Moulenbelt party can be complete without the police or the fire department showing up - so the representatives from the Katy Fire Department showed up with horns and sirens going.

I am serious.

About half way through the party this HUGE firetruck rolls up and about 8 firefighters jumped out. One of the guys in the front says "I heard there was a birthday party here!" and I said "Yeah - it is Max's." They said "Well bring the birthday boy over!"

Man the kids jumped all over the chance to hang out in a real fire truck. They had fun, asked questions, set off alarms (well that was a mistake) and had a blast. Man, what a great time!

We then came home and opened all the presents, hung out, played outside (read post above) and had even more fun. Seriously, a perfect day.

Jason