22Jan

Clean AV Home Theater Wiring with Decora Style Wall Plate Connectors

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Decora Style Wall Plates

Home theater systems are great, but they come with 1 serious drawback, unsightly wires! Most of us men could care less about wires, but the spouse is a different matter. Try convincing the wife that wires everywhere is a small price to pay for AV heaven and you will be in for a rude awakening. So how can you get to AV heaven with high SAF (Spousal Approval Factor)? The  answer, decora style wall plates!

Common Decora Wall Plate Types

Speaker Binding posts

“F” connector for Cable/Satellite

Video Component for DVD/Blu Ray Players/Gaming systems

DVI for Blu Ray/TV

Decora wall plates come in various types. You may have seen these at home depot and you may have noticed that some of them are well over $20 bucks! If you’re like me, then you sure as hell are NOT going to pay $20 bucks for something so simple. Not only that, but you will need several depending on what you are installing. So a word to the wise, do not buy these at Home Depot, I say again DO NOT buy these at Home Depot or the like!

Master video component and speaker plates

Instead, check out Parts Express to get them at about 1/2 the cost.

Installation: Now that you know where to get them, the question is how easy are they to install? Well, installation is straight forward.  If you have access to your attic then you easily run all your wire up there then either run the wires through the wall. Running wires through the wall is fairly straight forward as long as you have a fish tape reel which allows you to easily fish wires out of walls. If the room has exterior walls, then fishing wire can be tricky because of the insulation, horizontal 2×4 blocking and vapor barriers. Instead, either consider ceiling mounting your plates for things like surround speakers.  The image below shows a ceiling mounted double gang box and plates for a projector component video jacks and rear speaker binding posts. In short, avoid running wires on exterior walls interior walls have no such obstacles. Here are the installation steps.

Ceiling Mounted Double Gang

1.  Determine the location preferably on interior walls.

2. Inspect the attic space to make sure you can run wires.  For running wires behind walls, you will need to drill holes on the top 2×4 wall plates.  A handy way to determine the locations where to run wires in the attic is to poke holes in the ceiling with a wire coat hanger in the general locations where you plan to install your plates.  You will be able to see the hangers sticking out once you clamber on up to the attic which will help you locate your wire feeding locations.

3. Run wiring.

4. Cut out wall holes for your gang boxes. Low voltage “old work” boxes work great and are much easier to install than regular wiring boxes. Cut outs for Single gang boxes are 2-1/8″ x 3-5/8″. Double gang boxes are 4-1/8″ x 3-5/8″.

5. Fish wire out.

6. Install your low voltage boxes.

7. Connect wiring to wall plates.

Easy wiring on Speaker Binding Post

8.  Screw on wall plates to boxes.

9. Finish by installing the decora cover.

14Jan

Wired Home WHIRK2 Installation Manual How To

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Wired Home IR Kit

What is it? The Wired Home WHIRK2 is a 4 unit IR (Infra Red) repeater kit that allows you to place your components (cable box, satellite box, DVD player, Blu Ray player, etc) in a remote or hidden location.  This lets you control your components with your remote control even with the component infra red eyes out of sight. Very cool if you want to maintain a modern and sleek entertainment area with your ugly control boxes out of site. Works great with solid AV cabinets that have solid doors.

Best Price on Wired Home WHIRK2 IR Kit

Components: The kit consists of 3 basic components, the IR Eye, control unit with power plug and IR emitters (you get 4 of these).

IR Target

IR Controller

IR Emiter

Installation: Other than running the IR target wire, installation is pretty straight forward and wiring consists of nothing more than connecting the 3 IR target wires to the supplied connector.

Step 1. Locate where you would like to install the IR target.   Just below the TV is an excellent place if you have a wall mounted flat screen. Otherwise, just above the TV is also a good place if you have it on a stand. The key here is that the target must be within site your remote. Remember that this is what you will be pointing your remotes at so it cannot be hidden.

Step 2.  Run the IR target wire. The wire will connect to the IR controller and the supplied wire is plenty long for installs where your components will be in the same general location as the IR controller such as components inside an AV cabinet.  This type of install will be the easiest.  If wall mounting, drill a hole for the IR Target tube.

The tube is designed for wall mounting and has a threaded body for the included nut that secures it in place. Of course, most people will not be able to use the nut as it requires behind the wall access so make the hole slightly smaller than the tube so that it stays in the wall without the nut.

Fish the wire out of the wall once you have the tube installed. You will get a much cleaner installation if you are using decora style wall plate like the one below. As you can see, I drilled a hole in the plate for the wire.

IR Target wire

Step 3: Secure your IR controller/hub. Inside or behind your AV cabinet is an excellent place. It must be within about 10 feet of your components as the IR emitter wires are about this length and have a headphone type connector at the ends of them that plug directly into your ir controller.  Also keep in mind that your IR controller/hub will need to be withing 6ft or so from a power outlet.

IR Emitter Plug

Step 4: Connect the IR target wires to the supplied connector. Red goes to V+, black goes to G and white goes to IR. You will need a small screwdriver to secure the wires to the connector. It will help if you plugin the connector to the controller before you connect wires so that you can see which wire goes where since the labels are on the controller and not on the connector.

IR Target Connector Plug

Step 5:  Connect your emitters to the controller. The controller is clearly labeled.

Step 6: Connect the power to your controller.

Step 7:   Test that everything is working by holding  the emitters up to your component’s infra red eye.  The emitters come preinstalled with double sided tape so that you can secure them directly over your component’s infra red eye.  Be sure to test before you stick the emitters on! You don’t want to mess up the adhesive tape by pulling the emitters off and resticking them on. Below is an emitter installed directly over the IR eye of a Sony Blu Ray player.

Installed Emitter on Blu Ray

That’s it, you’re done! Now enjoy a clean AV space with no clutter or ugly boxes sitting on top of your cabinets.  Below is the final product, No boxes! Find the Wired Home WHIRK2 IR Kit at Parts Express.

 

Look Ma', No boxes!

08Dec

How To Get Black/Ebony or Espresso Finish on Any Hard Wood Surface

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You’ve no doubt tried using one of those ebony stains you find at the big box stores only to end up with something that’s nowhere near being black and you can pretty much forget about espresso because I have yet to find a stain that’s even labeled as being espresso.  So how do you get that black or espresso finish?

The answer is  wood dye!  This stuff comes in either  liquid  or powder form with the best being the powder form.  I have had best success with water as it yields a totally black finish.  Now don’t bother trying to find these at Home Depot because they simply do not carry these dyes so you will need to buy online. Woodworker’s Supplies carries a huge selection of  JE Moser brand. Either the Ebony black or Flemish black will work great.

With dyes, not only can you just about any color but they are superior in many ways. For starters, they very economical because a small of jar goes a long way. The powder keeps for a very long time. Even when mixed, it doesn’t evaporate, it requires no stirring because the black never comes out of solution once mixed so you end up with a consistent color.

So just how black can you get?  The pic below has 2 pieces of oak, one dyed the other stained with Minwax Ebony stain. I’ll let you guess which is which.

You might be thinking, black is great but how do I get an Espresso color?  Now you could get an espresso dye but one set back with the dye is that it doesn’t give you that deep rich almost translucent color. That being said,  if you use the black as a base then apply a stain / polly you will get an amazingly rich dark Espresso color that is dark yet translucent that still lets the grain show. Below is the technique I have been using with great results on everything from baseboards to doors and furniture.  If you just want a black, then you can simply skip step #5 and go directly to clear poly.

The Espresso Technique

1. Prepare the wood as you would for any other stain application so sand to a relatively smooth surface.

2. Once sanded, apply the dye. On solid lumber, you can apply relatively liberally for thin woods or veneer you want to apply just enough to get it black but not so much that it’s wet. One of the great things about the dye is that it soaks completely into the wood so you don’t have to worry about streaks or anything like that.

3. Let it dry. Instructions say to let dry for 24hrs but I’ve had success with applying the next step within a couple of hours. You will know it’s dry when it goes from black to a very dark charcoal gray.

4.  One of the downsides to using this dye is that it causes grain raising so you will need to steel wool it to knock it back down.  You don’t want to sand the black as you will end up with wood color again. If you want a smoother surface than what the steel wool gives you then you can safely apply 2-3 coats of poly then sand. This will protect the dye from sanding through. Of course you want to sand carefully.

5. Skip this step if you just want a black color. Otherwise, this is where the magic happens for the Espresso look.  To achieve the Espresso color, you will need a can of Minwax Polyshades stain/poly in one  Bombay Mohogany color. Use satin even if you’re going for a gloss look as a final application of clear poly will achieve that.   You can find this color at Home Depot. Without the black underneath, this stain usually gives you a burgundy color but with the black you end up with the Espresso color we’re shooting for. 1 coat will suffice as it will give you that deep rich color that allows the grain to still come through. More coats will obscure the grain and will not be as rich and deep in color.

6. Once dry, steel wool the piece to accept the clear poly as the piece will be rather dull.

7.  Finish by applying either gloss or satin clear poly depending on what you’re going for.

That’s it! There’s your Espresso color. It’s rather time consuming and laborious but the results are well worth it.  Below are some pics of projects where Ive used this technique.

29Nov

Harbor Freight Central Machinery 8″ 5 speed Benchtop Drill Press Review

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Today, we are talking about the Harbor Freight 8″ Central Machinery Benchtop Drill press. This is actually the least expensive of all the drill presses offered by Harbor Freight. You can find this drill press for 50 to 70 bucks, depending on if Harbor Freight has a Coupon  (check out current Harbor Freight Coupons). This drill press is the perfect tool for drilling cabinet door hardware, European hidden hinge cups or pretty much anything where precision is important.

Check this Drill Press out at Harbor Freight

Now a cheap tool is next to useless if it doesn’t perform. Who needs a 40lb paperweight? Certainly not me.  Fortunately, this little drill press does not disappoint in the performance department as well as build quality.  Starting at the bottom, we find a heavy gauge steel/cast iron base which provides stability to the unit.  There’s no wobbling whatsoever when placed on a flat benchtop. The base has holes for bolting the unit down to your benchtop or a dedicated stand. Next we have a heavy gauge/cast iron drill table.  The drill table has 2 adjustments, up/down with about 8″ of travel and  side to side 45 degree adjustment to either side for jobs requiring an angled hole.  The up/down adjustment is accomplished with a locking lever on the back left side of the table.  The side to side angle adjustment is done with a bolt found under the table.

A tour around the main drill assembly, we find a 3 handle lowering mechanism. The handles are metal and the lowering mechanism is nice and smooth on both the down and up stroke. The front of the press has a simple up/down power switch.  My specimen does not have much by way of a safety mechanism on the switch , interestingly I’ve seen others of the same model that do. If this is important to you, the get the model just above this which is like 10 bucks more. That one also has a keyless chuck by the way. Finally, on the left we have the depth stop. This is a simple mechanism consisting of a threaded rod and a pair of nuts. You get a maximum of 2″ worth of travel so 2″ is the max thickness you can drill with this press. Overall, all the adjustments on the drill press work great.

Check this Drill Press out at Harbor Freight

One of the main features of this drill press is the speed adjustment. This one has a 5 speed adjustment.  Now I’m no drill press expert so I’m not sure if this is common or not but the speed adjustment on this model is of the mechanical sort. It consists of 2 sets of pulleys at the top of the drill press, 1 for the drill and the other for the motor. The pulleys are connected by a small belt and the whole thing is covered by a lid that’s easy to open and close.  Speed adjustment is performed by moving the belt up and down the sets of pulleys. There is a knob that enables you to increase/decrease the tension on the belt by loosening the motor. One nice feature is the diagram right on the lid that depicts the belt settings for a given speed. The drill is capable of 620, 1100, 1720, 2340 or 3100 rpms. You also get another diagram that gives you recommended speed settings for given materials.  These diagrams a nice little feature since you don’t have to go back and forth to the manual. Generally speaking, the speed adjustment mechanism is pretty easy and straight forward to use.

Out of the box, there is some assembly required. Luckily, there’s no wiring or anything like that. It’s basically just a matter of attaching the base, table and main drill assembly to the main column. One of the trickiest pieces to install is the chuck because it needs to be pressed onto the drill head. This is done by moving the table all the way up against the chuck and turning the lowering mechanism to press in the chuck. There’s a couple other little knobs to install but the whole thing goes together rather easily in about 20 minutes.

Overall, this is an excellent value. This is a quality little drill press despite the super low price. I would highly recommend it to anyone that’s in the market for a precision drilling instrument.  You may not find this a suitable press if you are a professional woodworker but it’s more than enough for the DIYer or hobbyist and it sure beats paying hundreds of dollars for a floor standing model. If you are getting this drill press, I highly recommend getting the separate table attachment. Especially if you’re getting it to do woodworking. The separate table adds 35 bucks to the cost but is well worth it.

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10Oct

How to Finish Reconstituted Ebony Veneer

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In my opinion, Ebony is probably one of the most beautiful hardwoods on earth. There’s nothing like the dark brown and black grain pattern. This makes it excellent for using in modern furniture design. That being said, it is extremely expensive so most pieces use Ebony veneer which is also quite expensive. A 4′x8′ paper backed veneer sheet can easily go for close to $400. So on my last project, I decided to use the next best thing, reconstituted Ebony veneer which is 1/4 the price.   If you aren’t familiar with reconstituted veneer, it is basically a less expensive wood that is faux finished to look like whatever type of wood it is imitating, in this case Ebony. Since it’s real wood, it can be stained and polyed just like any other wood.  Since it’s an “imitation” product, it’s not nearly as beautiful as the real thing so it needs a little bit of help to get it looking like the real thing. Here’s a good technique to getting that reconstituted Ebony veneer looking close to the real thing.

As you can see in this picture, the reconstituted stuff does not have the same coloring as the real stuff. The brown streaks are more of a tan and not nearly as dark as the real thing. It also lacks some of the depth as the real thing.   Even when polyed, it does not look any where near as good as the real stuff. To get it there, we need to darken just a tad.  Of course, this is personal preference so you can make it as dark as you want. However, the beauty of this wood lies in the contrast between the lighter brown and the black.

The Tecnique

The technique is quite easy.  To start, you will need some Ebony stain. Normally, ebony stain is quite worthless in my opinion as it doesn’t really give you that dark of a finish. We will take advantage of this on our reconstituted veneer.  You can use regular oil based stain. Even better, is the new All in one Stain/Poly Ebony color from Minwax which is actually the stuff I used.   Now you don’t want to apply it straight from the can as it will be too dark. Instead,  we will poor some out in a jar and mix it about 50% with mineral spirits and stir it. This will make it a wipe onable.   The mineral spirits will allow it to go on smooth without streaks.

Now that you have your mix, grab an old tshirt and tear off a piece to use as an applicator.  You want to fold it into a square or rectangle so that we can get a smooth finish.   Now dip it into your stain mix, squeeze out the excess as we don’t want it to go on too wet.   Apply it using long strokes going from one end of the work piece to the other in the direction of the grain.   When finished, you will see that the reconstituted veneer takes on a darker tint which more closely resembles a polyed real veneer finish. Now it’s just a matter of letting it dry and applying clear poly to obtain your desired gloss level. My personal preference is satin.

That’s it, that’s all there is too it. Below are a couple of pics with the reconstituted veneer next to real ebony. The results are excellent and they look very much alike!

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30Sep

Harbor Freight Oscilating Multitool Review

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The Harbor  Freight Oscilating multitool is quite a useful little tool. It’s highly effective for add little jobs around the house like plunging into drywall, light duty scraping, grout removal and lots of other things I can’t even think of.  Considering the Harbor Freight multitool is approximately 1/2 the price of similar tools having a more prestigious name, it’s a great little tool considering you know it’s limitations.

The tool itself is as simple as it gets.  Simply turn on the single speed power switch and have at it.  As previously mentioned, this tool works awesome on light duty jobs. Got cut a hole in drywall, no problem. Got a little scrapping to do, again, no problem. Now for what it doesn’t do.  I’ve seen videos of this tool cutting wood, well, let me be the first to tell you that this tool is about as useful as tits on a bull when it comes to cutting wood.  This isn’t necessarily a problem with the tool, rather it’s a problem with the attachments.  I have tried cutting wood myself and ended up with nothing but a puff of smoke. The attachment simply was not up to par.  I have also tried scraping thinset after removing some tile using the serrated scraper.   The tool worked great for about the first 2 minutes when the teeth basically disentegrated. So again, not really the tool but the attachment.

Conclusion, the Harbor Freight multitool has it’s uses however I find it’s rather falsely advertised. This tool will not cut wood, metal or pretty much anything you would normally use a saw. This isn’t a shortcoming with the tool but the attachments.  That being said, if you need a light duty tool for odds and ends then it works great.

 

08Sep

Inexpensive Floor Nailer for Bamboo Floors

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If you need an inexpensive floor nailer for that new Bamboo flooring project, consider the Harbor Freight Central Pneumatic 2 in 1 floor nailer. This tool performs awesome on bamboo flooring. The best thing about this tool of course, is the price. When compared to other nailers, the Harbor Freight 2 in1 nailer costs just a fraction of the price yet performs like a champ. The nailer takes both crown staples and cleat nails so it’s quite versatile. You won’t need a heavy duty compressor to power it either so this nailer is cost effective on both fronts.

Performance

The 2 in 1 Harbor Freight nailer performs like an absolute champ. After 1000 square feet of flooring, the tool did not misfire a single time. Just remember to oil it with the included oil per specifications.   The trigger fires every time neatly and cleanly.  All nails are driven properly provided you have the right pressure dialed in and give it a consistent whack every time.  Practicing on a few boards will quickly give you the hang of it.

From experience, I highly recommend using cleat nails over the crown staples on bamboo. Using cleat nails will minimize bubbling where you drive the fastener.  Avoid the Harbor Freight crown staples as these will give you a slight bubble on the boards just about every time you drive it.  This is very aggravating so again, avoid the Harbor Freight crown staples. Unfortunately, you will not find the proper gauge cleat nails at Harbor Freight so you will probably need to purchase these at Home Depot or the like.

Ease of Use

The Harbor Freight 2 in 1 floor nailer has a very minimal learning curve. You pretty much load it and start nailing away. The loading mechanism is both intuitive and down right easy. Aside from the occasional oiling, there’s not much else to know.  Once you get the hang of it, you will quickly learn how hard you need to whack it as to not damage the tongue.  Too hard and tongue cracks, to soft and nail does not drive fully. Here’s a tips, it’s better to hit it too hard than it is to hit it too soft especially on cleat nails. Same goes for the pressure, best to have it too high than too low. Half driven cleat nails can be a bear to pull and a little challenging to drive fully with a nail set/hammer. You will ruin more boards trying to correct half driven nails than anything else.

Conclusion

The Harbor Freight 2 in 1 nailer is an excellent buy. It’s way cheaper than all of the big names such as Bostitch and the like. Its probably also about the same price as renting one for a few days and much more convenient as you can take your time doing the nailing. All in all, this 2 in 1 floor nailer is highly recommended. Performs flawlessly and the price is just right for the weekend warrior that will use this tool just a handful of times.

Recommendations

  • 16 gauge Bostitch Cleat Nails
  • Carefully position tool before driving. Improperly positioned tool will mess up board edge.
  • Begin at 60 psi compressor setting, dial up until cleat nail goes in without cracking tongue.
  • Oil every 25 to 50 square feet

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