DIY Shingled Wood Storage Rack

Here are my plans for a DIY shingled wood storage rack. Most wood storage racks use tarp or canvas covers or corrugated metal roofs. That wasn't the look or functionality I wanted. I wanted to put the storage rack against the garage and have it not be an eyesore. The wall is also on the garage gable roof slope so it gets a ton of water and needs to be well protected. The first iteration of the rack had unnecessarily large end overhangs, no drip edge and only 2x4 joists. You could probably get away with this in a dryer area and without the snow load we have. The overhangs ended up curling and the center of the roof sagging under the snow load. The plywood was also delaminating with the moisture and lack of edge protection. Unfortunately with the shingled roof design/system, it takes about a day to build. I'm pleased with the results and hope the new version (I also upgraded the original) lasts multiple decades!

Supplies:

• Qty 7 - 2"x"4x6's
• Qty 1 - 2"x6"x8'
• 4'x8' sheet of 1/2" to 3/4" plywood
• Exterior Screws
• Pavers or bricks (optional)
• Firewood Storage Rack Bracket
• Roof:

• Roofing Nails
• Aluminum Drip Edge
• Roofing felt or ice & water
• Shingles

Please drop a comment if you found this useful or if there are any suggestions/updates/corrections. It makes my day when someone out there reads and finds one of my posts particularly helpful.

Game Gear Cartridge Battery Replacement

I bit the bullet and had my childhood game gear refurbished by navyvet2015 (on eBay). One of the games that I picked up again was Shining Force - The Sword of Hajya, which I was pleasantly surprised to find had a game save mechanic/technology. I had forgotten how brutal the 90's games were from my childhood.

I unfortunately discovered that the save games were lost whenever I removed the cartridge and played a different game, which lead me to research and find that there were internal batteries on some of the game gear cartridges.

Other than a random Reddit post I wasn't able to find any more information on how to replace the battery, so I hope someone finds this useful.

Tools Needed:

• 3.8mm Gamebit screwdriver/bit - I purchased a set of gamebit screw drivers
• Soldering iron and thin solder
• CR2032 battery with pre-welded solder tabs (Note: Look for tabs that match your board layout) I purchased this exact one (pictured below) because I couldn't find one with pins that were 90 degrees apart (only 180). If I were to do it again, I probably would purchase the other versions with the more robust solder tab ends with holes. 

Step 1: Remove the backing screw from the game cartridge. Being careful, pry the top and bottom apart. to expose the original battery to use as a reference.

Step 2: Slowly and carefully fold the negative (flat) side tab making a crease at a 45 degree angle (which will make a 90 degree bend once fully folded). Bend the positive (rounded) side tab pointy tip where it will lay flat when the battery is on the negative (flat) side.

Step 3: De-solder the original battery from the game board. Be careful to use minimal heat to avoid lifting the copper traces from the fragile 30-year-old PCB.

Step 4: Solder the tabs of the new battery to the board being careful to keep the solder on the original trace and not to use too much heat to damage adjacent circuitry. Warning: Never solder directly onto a raw coin cell battery, as it can be a fire hazard. Only use cells with factory-welded tabs, and ensure you have a fire extinguisher nearby as a precaution. See below before and after pictures:

Step 5: Reassemble the game cartridge and plug it in and pray it works!

Please drop a comment if you found this useful or if there are any suggestions/updates/corrections. It makes my day when someone out there reads and finds one of my posts particularly helpful.

DIY Ooni 16 Pizza Oven Stand Plans

I couldn't find any plans for an Ooni 16 pizza oven stand with dimensions so I created some to use myself and to share. I took the original design from a reddit post and changed the size and number of boards to save a little cost and added a recess cut-out for the propane tank. In the end it's a significant improvement over the saw horse and plywood version, but I prefer the stain color on the original design. 

Material cost: 

~ 68 board feet of 2x4's at $0.65/bf = $45

Screws = $15

Stain = $20

Total: $80

Hope someone finds this useful, please leave a comment if you did!

Before and after:

Plans:

DIY Gaga Ball Pit Design

There are quite a few variants of DIY Gaga Ball Pits out there. I wanted to share my version which looks great, has rock solid wall bounces and will last for years.

It's created using three 2x10's that are 8 feet long on each of the octagon. I found that the 2x10 was the ideal board size for creating just the right sized gaps between the boards that you can get your feet in to use as steps to climb over, but not a gap so big that it causes the ball to have weird bounces.

The 8' sides are probably overkill, but we have a pretty large group of kids in the neighborhood, and it gets plenty of use as you can see. Our biggest game has probably been 4 adults and 8 kids, and it never felt crowded. We had the space to make it this large, but I could definitely see making a 6' version if cost or space were an issue.

I chose to mount the hinges externally and miter the corners for a more finished look and a little more stability/locking. Some people choose to mount the hinges internally and leave square ends on the lumber which I think looks a little unfinished.

There are no ground anchors with this design, which simplifies installation, and our gaga ball pit walls have never shifted in the two summers of use. With this design, we could move or disassemble it if needed. The weight of the lumber and the locking miters hold it firmly in place.

Here is a breakdown of the lumber costs when the gaga ball pit was originally constructed in the spring of 2023. This doesn't include about $30 in 4" black hinge hardware from a big box store.

Quantity	Lumber	Curtis Lumber		Home Depot
		Per Board	Per Foot	Per Board	Per Foot
24	2x10x8 Treated	$15.69	$1.96	$13.88	$1.74
6	2x4x12 Treated	$11.19	$0.93	$8.88	$0.74
	Total	$443.70		$386.40

Here is a CAD drawing of my version:

Originally, I only had the end vertical members to save a little on lumber, but the 2x10's would shake and absorb a lot of the ball's energy with a hit in the middle of the span. 

So, we decided to add the center vertical supports for the sides, which made a huge difference.

Here is a typical summer afternoon with a kid filled gaga ball pit. Build it and they will come!

The gaga ball bit is enjoyed by canines as well!

Hopefully someone on the internet finds this helpful. Please comment if it did!

Chevrolet Tahoe Suburban 3rd/Third-Row Seat Stuck Open, Won't Fold 2007-2014

Background: While trying to close/stow the 3rd row seats in my Chevrolet Tahoe recently, the 1st release lever, that folds the upper half of the seat down on itself, was stuck. I tried both pushing and pulling the upper half of the seat at the same time while trying to lift the lever (which normally works). It wouldn't budge, so I became frustrated and forced the lever. I heard and felt a pop and the lever moved and went through its complete travel, but the seat didn't fold. After close inspection, I realized that the part of the seat near the lever would move very slightly forward when I lifted up the lever but the other side of the seat didn't move at all. I figured, correctly as it turns out, that the hinge directly connected to the lever was releasing but the other one connected by a cable was not. I assumed the cable had slipped or broken in some way.

Problem: The main issue was that the seat was stuck open, basically eliminating 50% my cargo space. Without being able to close the seat, both the seat lift and release levers didn't work at all, which meant the seat couldn't even be removed in its current condition to troubleshoot/repair.

Solution:
Phase 1: Removing the 3rd row seat
Thankfully, I found the exact video I needed on YouTube for how to remove the 3rd row seat when it wasn't releasing. It involves opening up the leather/cloth seat cover, the plastic cover and exposing the hinge mechanism and manually releasing it.

Phase 2: Fixing the seat
Now that the seat is out of the vehicle, you can troubleshoot what's wrong with the release. In my case (yours may be different) the problem and fix were surprisingly simple. Unfortunately, getting to the point where the cables are exposed is difficult because of how the plastic pieces on the base of the seat are joined together. I found putting pressure on the joint while pulling the pieces apart was the most effective method, and resulted in only one set of plastic clips breaking. Once the plastic is off the cables are exposed.

Along the cable that connects the lever to the hinge release pin, there is a plastic cylinder. From what I can tell, this plastic cylinder acts as an expansion joint to allow the cable jacket to be shortened for installation/removal of the cable. The clip in the middle of the cylinder acts as a lock to keep the cable in the long condition. In my case, the clip had released and the cable jacket was in the short condition, which meant it wasn't taught enough to release the hinge when I pulled on the lever.

I simply pulled outward on the free floating end cable jacket next to the plastic cylinder (lengthening the jacket) and inserted the plastic clip to lock it and voila a working seat folding lever! The video below shows a before and after of this step and how it affects the function of the seat lever.

Seems like a silly fix for how much time I spent removing/troubleshooting/installing the seat, but it works again at no cost so I can't complain too much. I'm guessing that the expansion joint also doubles as a weak point in the system to prevent the cable from being broken in the event too much force is put on the lever.

I couldn't find any forum/blog posts with my exact problem/solution, so hopefully this helps someone with this issue in the future!

Nesting Cornhole 3D Model and Drawing with Dimensions

A friend asked me to help him build a nesting cornhole set. Being the engineer that he is, he wanted to make the boards the exact same angle (fair play and all), and because one board has the sides inset in order to nest, the legs for the two boards need to be different lengths. He asked me to help calculate the lengths/angles and I got a bit carried away and modeled the entire set in SolidWorks and created a drawing. In looking around online, there are similar nesting sets, but there doesn't seem to be all of the dimensions I show. So I figured I would publish this in case anyone else finds it useful... and so my time spent was a little more productive. In reality, the ground will probably vary more than the difference in leg height... but oh well.

Here is a link to the 3D model and below are images and PDFs of the drawings. Disclaimer: I know there are tons of overlapping dimensions and the views are poorly laid out. I wanted to get everything on one sheet with as few views as possible. Enjoy!

Inner Board (PDF)

Outer Board (PDF)

How to Smoke Brisket in a Hasty-Bake

This isn't a food blog in any sense, but when smoking a brisket recently on our Hasty-Bake there didn't seem to be a good set detailed instructions online on the operation of the Hasty-Bake itself. Hopefully someone will find this useful. Most of the instruction is based on Hasty-Bakes official channel YouTube video on the subject (Part 1 and Part 2). This brisket was cooked on a Legacy Hasty-Bake:

0. Start charcoal in Hasty-Bake using a tower or starter match (no lighter fluid!)

1. Trim the hard and excess (very thick) fat from the brisket (soft fat is good for flavor and moisture)

2. Rub 1-2 tbsp of Italian dressing on each side

3. Coat with seasoning/rub generously

4. About 20 minutes after starting the charcoal, pour out tower onto right half of tray and cover with smoking shield. Make sure charcoal tray is at the "Smoke" level and leave it.

5. Close lid, open all vents, and wait 5-10 minutes for temperature to stabilize and verify that the lid thermometer is ~225-250F. If it's below 200, add small amounts of charcoal and if it's above 250F close vents some (not completely).6. Place seasoned brisket on grate in the center over the shield

7. Starting every 30 minutes check the temperature of the lid thermometer and try and maintain 225-250F (hard to reach higher than 225F in the Hasty-Bake due to air leaks). Again, open vents to increase temperature (add oxygen) or if necessary (or all vents are open) add charcoal. Incrementally close vents to decrease temperature.

8. After a couple hours begin to check the internal temperature of the meat. (153-158F @ 2hrs for a 4lb brisket)

9. At 160F meat internal temperature remove from grill, wrap in foil, place back on grill flipped from how it was previously on.

10. Check meat internal temperature every hour until 190F (for slicing) or 205-210F (for pulling) is reached, and pull off. (186-195F @ 4hrs for a 4lb brisket)

11. Slice or pull and serve!