#subject spirals

[strawbaleramblynn]

Bale Needle Ideas

During the Kentucky workshop there were two bespoke, just for strawbale construction tools that we used. I’m pretty sure the hosts had them commissioned from a local metal fabricator, but last night I went down a rabbit-hole of “could I do this myself, without learning how to weld”. These are my thoughts on bale needles:

Older style bale needles tend to be a steel rod with one end flattened and a hole drilled through the center (as seen below, photo from The Sustainable Home)

This design definitely works, but Andrew’s preferred design is different. Instead of a drilled hole, there are steeply angled notches at the end of the needle that are used to hold the thread as you push it through the bale. (see below, image from A Modern Look at Straw Bale Construction)

And here’s another great needle based on that design, from Daniel Siepman‘s website. He’s done a really deep notch (great!) and rounded off the point of the needle to make it less dangerous (smart!). The needle seems a little long but other than that, this is exactly what I’m looking for.

The big advantage of these needles is that when you push through to the other side and retract the needle, friction pulls the twine from your needle without you having to manually unthread it! This is a huge time saver. In theory I think you could use a needle like this to punch your twine to the other side of the wall for almost all your quilting needs, then circle around to the other side of the wall and do all the tying, thus allowing wall quilting to be a single person operation. (remains to be tested)

There were a few different bale needles on site, since some participants had brought their own. I found that the steeper and deeper the notch, the better the needles worked. Shallow notches had a tendency to let the twine slip before you made it out the other side of the bale. Some needles had welded metal handles and some were threaded on the end so they could be inserted into a wooden handle - both worked fine but the second option is obviously the no-welding option.

Now, Andrew’s design has three notches, but I think 90% of the time you could do fine with a single notch. The two back-angled notches are there so you could, theoretically, tie two halves of a bale at once for resizing. In practice, Andrew said that people quite frequently end up getting the lines twisted over each other so the mini bales can’t be separated and it’s less frustrating to tie the first mini bale, pull them apart, then tie the second bale.

The forward-angled notch is for situations where you’ve pushed the needle through, and then need to thread the needle and pull it back through. This could come up during wall-quilting, if you wanted all your ties on one side of the wall but had to sometimes stab from the other side to work around obstructions like shear bracing.

Now, for how to make the needle:

I think you’d want to start with a steel rod at least a quarter inch in diameter. I’m not 100% sure a quarter inch is enough, maybe 3/8 would be better? The needles on site were definitely not thicker than 3/8.

Notch first, with a single back-angled notch. This could definitely be done with a grinder, but given the level of precision you’d want, I think I’d start with a hacksaw. Draw on the lines for the cuts, steady the rod in a vise or clamp, then saw both cuts so they end in a point, You could then use a metal file to widen the back of the notch and smooth the edges

Cut off the tip of the rod at an angle, then again use a file to smooth the tip so it’s less lethal

Because I’d want to use a wood handle, the end of the rod will need to be threaded at the end. This is totally doable at home, I am told, but it sounds like a pain. Another option would be to buy an already partially-threaded rod - I found that steel float rods for water tanks seem to come double threaded and in various lengths (the Kerick SR18 looks just right). You’d just have to cut off the other threaded end when you made the needle point. Definitely more expensive than tapping the threads yourself, but not unreasonable if you only needed one or two needles.

Then you’d need to drill a hole through your wood handle. The handle should not more than 9 inches in length, and a comfortable diameter to grip. It could either be round or square, depending on your preference. The hole for the rod should be centered so you can easily apply pressure symmetrically as you push the needle.

For fastening the handle to the rod, you could either drill all the way through & then fasten with a pair of washers and nuts, or you could drill partway through and use a threaded wood insert. There’s not going to be a lot of torsion applied to the needle, so either way would probably work, depending on the amount of thread you’re working with and the thickness of your handle.

[strawbaleramblynn]

vent covers

Contemplating a HRV system, which would mean having ducting & needing vent covers.

It looks like the going price on (generic) (ugly) floor vents is $7+ and wall vents is $25+

You can buy premade decorative vents, but that's more like $25+ for floor and $40+ for walls. I really like the look of the lasercut wood ones. (link: gallery of lasercut inspiration)

...which got me thinking, are there any makerspaces or woodshops around here which have a lasercutter you could use? The answer is: yes! that is definitely an option and would be super cool and fun. There are also laser cutting services, but you'd probably end up at the same price as getting a premade decorative vent.

Another option (all over pinterest) is making a simple wood frame and stapling on decorative aluminum screening. The most common aluminum screening manufacturer is M-D Building Products & I like their elliptical pattern. It is absolutely ripping off a Japanese traditional kumiko screen pattern, but it’s the nicest of the lot. The cost seems to be about $9-11 per square foot.

I think overall if you had access to a laser cutter that would be simpler and about even in cost to the aluminum screening method (could cut the frame and screen in one piece).If you lasercut a pattern like the one above, it would give you a fuck ton of little teardrop shapes that I think could be useful for the screen window idea I had.

what would be really cool (read: extra, unecessarily complicated and probably impractical) would be to have all the vent registers be half circle shapes. You could do half circles with the flat side facing the ceiling for upper wall vents and facing the floor for lower wall vents. Regardless, I’d probably want the vent returns to all be placed (if possible) on regularly framed interior walls.

I need to do a lot more reading on HVAC systems and HRV setups, but it seems like usually they vent air into the primary living spaces (bedrooms, living room) and draw air from the secondary spaces (bathroom, utility, maybe kitchen) to circulate air throughout the house. Since you’re probably running the HRV most in winter and heat rises, it makes sense to me that you’d want the venting lower on the walls and the intakes higher. That way you’d suck in the hot air from near the ceilings of the less used spaces and cycle it back into the habitable zone.