June 2020 – Frozenchaos

The second woodworking project of the month; a trolley to house 2 hydroponics buckets. The first bucket I’ve had running as a Kratky method bucket with only an air stone inside of the nutrient mix, with near explosive results when it came to the Oregano and Basil (they suddenly went insane covering half of the left door you see in the photo below!)

It might not look like much yet, no plants, or even plumbing yet. But the plan is for the right bucket to have 8 “medium” size net-pots for herbs, and the left bucket is still undecided, but will likely end up with anywhere between 4 and 6 “large” net pots growing larger plants. Maybe peppers? We’ll have to see once the plumbing is in place. Parts have been ordered for that.

Why a trolley? Good question! As you can see, it is sitting right in front of our back door, and we would like to have access to the garden at certain times. It also currently blocks our dryer, so its nice if we can move it out of the way if we have to. The plan is to include automation using a Raspberry Pi to alert me when the nutrient mix needs refreshing or otherwise needs attention (such as pH getting too high or too low).

Not quite a model railway thing, but recently I was asked if I could build a Drop Trap by my partner. Now this is mostly a simple piece of woodworking.. problem is, I didn’t have any wood.

And I suppose that is where the tie in with the model railway comes in; I didn’t have any wood for a model railway table either!… or.. for the hydroponics, which I have wanted to build a mobile trolley for for a while now. And I imagine you can see where this is going; it was the perfect excuse to borrow a van to purchase some wood from the local builders supply for my building endeavors!

So a little bit poorer but richer in building materials, I banged together this trap. It’s stone age technology really, but apparently the most successful design for catching kitchens. Neatly fits in my partners boot with the seats down, nice and light so it isn’t a hassle to carry even for a single person but heavy enough to not have to worry about kitties escaping. What you’d call, simple but effective.

Just attach a string to the little ringlet on the brace and pull if you want the trap to come down. And no sooner than when I finished it, it was whisked away for duty.