Recently my left headlight broke. I thought I'd change it quickly, but after half an hour of fiddling I decided to ask my dealer to do it for me, while I was looking. That was not a bad idea. It turned out to be not so straightforward after all, and you actually need tools (which you don't get when buying the car) to …

... maybe the title should be "Two Stupidities A Week", but since both stupid actions had to do with measurement, or rather the lack thereof, let's stick with the proverb. Stupidity #1 Last Saturday my brother and I went to a motorbike scrapyard for some advice, and maybe a new rotorpuller we could borrow. …

Last week I tried to pull the rotor by using a rotor puller, and a socket (from a socket wrench set) to block it. The socket burried it's way into the first thread of the crankshaft. After realising this, I tried to fit the rotor bolt, and it wouldn't go in. Since only the first thread was damaged, I carefully drilled …

For some strange reason, my brother's Kawasaki KLR Tengai dead-stopped. After starting it again, it made some strange noises. It also had lost a lot of oil somewhere along the way, so we decided to not run it again before we found the cause of the trouble. A few weeks ago we encountered a funny problem, we couldn't …

Patience has paid off! In stead of stripping the front fender from the terrible italeri decals, I left it as is, and started searching the web for solutions. I read some brilliant tips on the forms at www.modelbrouwes.nl, and went to the local model shop and bought some Microscale SET and SOL decal solutions. Actually, …

After a lot of masking, lot of paint-mixing, and very little airbrushing, this is the result of my airbrush adventure to make the exhaust pipes look more realistic. I smuggled a bit, because normally exhausts are welded out of several bended pipes, to get the desired curve. The welds are allways on a spot where two …

Today I found the first good use for the milling machine. I had this cast aluminum housing for an electronics project, with ridges on the inside. I made a hole for a connector in it, but I never got the nut on the inside flat to the surface because of the ridges on the inside of the housing. I decided to use the mill …

Yes, that's right. That's a mill you're looking at. And yes, that photo was taken at my workshop. Last week I took a couple of days off from work, and decided to do another workshop upgrade session. After buying some decent wrenching tools, I spent some hours on the web looking for a nice bench drill. I was thinking of …

Today I picked up my old moped at my parents house. Yes, that's right, I'm 33 and I still have my very first moped. It's a real special one. I belonged to my grandfather, who passed it on to my nephew, who passed it on to me when I turned 15. When I got it it needed a lot of work. I spent some months taking it …