........a blower-vac (1)

Found this hovercraft on a cool beer website. Not only does it provide detailed plans, but it also recommends how much beer to consume over the weekend as you construct it! With a plywood disc, a tarp and some duct tape, you can make a hovercraft with a 100 kg payload. I have the plans, and this will definitely be constructed at some point. If anyone wants to donate their blower-vac to science, I am thinking a larger model, 2 blower-vacs for inflation, a bigger payload (me, Paul and a crate of homebrew), and a third blower-vac mounted horizontally for propulsion. Flying uncontrollably (there are no brakes, but when you run out of extension cord it will stop in a hurry) down a street near you sometime soon.

........a 200 A MIG welder

This impressive entry comes from Tony in Melbourne. He figured the best use for a 200 amp MIG welder, and some 10 mm thick, marine grade aluminium was to make a gingerbread cutter, which can be bought in a kitchen store for about $10.

Mind you, to be fair, with the offcuts from the gingerbread cutter, he did build a boat.

Photo of bleeding split toe removed by the Chief Censor

so we can retain our child-friendly web rating

........a foot

One late night, after a few home-brews, Simon ordered a "rodent repeller" from an infomercial on TV. It is a small box which plugs into an electrical socket, and sends pulses through your house wiring causing rodents to immediately vacate. It didn't work. So Simon decided to see what was inside the box. The box was permanently sealed with steel pins, but Simon has a hacksaw. Now, he could have put the box in a vice. But he decided instead to hold it down with a bare foot. As he launched into a mighty downswing with the hacksaw, the saw jumped out of the cut, landed on the end of his big toe, and continued cutting. It sliced about 1cm into his toe nail, went through the flesh on the end of his toe, and bounced off his toe when it hit the end of the bone.

"Bugger" said Simon, "that hurt a bit".

(When he came to, and the paramedics had finished, Simon had a look inside the box, to discover a circuit board which was designed to ensure that when the box was plugged in, the green "on" led was lit up, and bugger all else.)

........a blower-vac (2)

Another great use for a bower-vac is to encourage your bonfire on a cold night. As Shane demonstrates, hunkering down and blowing on embers is not nearly as effective as sitting around with a beer in one hand and a power tool in the other. Note the base of the drum glowing red hot.

........firewood

A while ago, Simon needed to get on the roof, and being too tight to buy a ladder he knocked one up out of jarrah firewood. A bit later he needed to trim a tree so he stuck another couple of bits of firewood on it to make a step ladder. Eventually, he stopped thinking of it as "firewood", and started thinking of it as "a ladder".

Then last time Simon was away overseas he asked Paul to go round and clean out the gutters for Fleur. As Paul swung from the guttering, pieces of split jarrah covered in blood and skin scrapings below him, it suddenly became obvious to everyone that it wasn't a ladder after all.

Simon was quite good about it and didn't even charge Paul for the replacement guttering and re-grouting the fingernail scrapes down the wall.

........a chainsaw

OK, so cutting down trees should be an appropriate use for Simon's chainsaw......but not in this case.

Paul and Wendy bought a house block and planned to build a house. The block had several large gum trees in the way of the house. Paul, Shane, Lynda and Simon's chainsaw went out one Saturday to remedy the situation.

One of the trees was about 20 m high and on the boundary near the neighbours house. "I dunno about this" said Shane. "No worries" said Paul. So he cut a big scarf on the side he wanted it to fall, Shane put a rope on it and started pulling, and Paul went round the back and started cutting. When there was only a bit left, the breeze came up, pushed the tree towards the neighbour, and locked the chainsaw. "Bugger" said Paul, and ran to help Shane pull on the rope. They moved the tree enough for the chainsaw to slip deeper into the cut, then the breeze pushed the tree back, locking the chainsaw for ever.

Quickly, Shane and Paul tied the rope to another tree. Lynda ran next door and explained that several tons worth of free firewood was about to land on their lounge room floor, after first crashing through their roof. The breeze blew, and the rope starting making high tension pinging noises. "Double bugger" said Paul and Shane.

On the phone to the State Emergency Services. The call was answered in Melbourne, and after explaining where Perth was, they said they would see what they could do. Finally, a bloke living across the road wandered over and asked if his 4WD might be of use. "My goodness, that would be jolly handy" said Paul. So the bloke was able to get his 4WD behind the tree and push it over in the right direction. Shortly afterwards an emergency services crew arrived, had a bit of a giggle, handed out a card for a professional tree lopper, and took off again.

Did we learn a lesson? No not really. A few weeks later Simon and Paul went out and cut down the rest of the trees, generating a few more heart-stopping moments for the neighbours.