My new slightly quieter Corsi-Rosenthal box

Here is the TL:DR - I made a new Corsi-Rosenthal box with a disassembled pedestal fan that is 5 decibels quieter than my old Corsi-Rosenthal box made with a box fan.

This summer, I noticed that our pedestal fan was a lot quieter than the box fan mounted onto our Corsi-Rosenthal box. Louder enough to make a difference to a guy like me with a certain amount of hearing loss who wants to hear his visitors when they speak.

It occurred to me to see if I can get a quieter fan for my next box. I knew I'd be making a new box before long because the filters have to be replaced every few months.

So I went on line to find a quiet box fan. I actually found a couple of sites that said certain box fans were quieter than others and ordered one that was supposed to be quiet. But it was not. In fact, it was louder than the box fan I already had.

Next, I thought about disassembling our pedestal fan and using it.

But then I thought a little more and it occurred to me that the other resident here might not be pleased if I disassembled her pedestal fan even for such a good cause.

I did some looking. There were people selling pedestal fans for $10 on Facebook Marketplace, but I did not fancy the idea of driving to somebody's house, asking them to plug in the fan and then maybe driving away empty-handed if the fan didn't work or was louder than I liked.

So then I looked at the Belfast Road ReStore and the Cyrville Road Value Village. The ReStore had a pedestal fan that worked but seemed a bit noisy. Value Village had a $20 pedestal fan that didn't seem too noisy. And guess what. It was Tuesday, Senior Discount Day so 30% off!

I used five 20" x 20" filters for my first two Corsi-Rosenthal boxes. This meant I had to build a frame to raise the bottom filter off the floor. A worthwhile thing to do, but it was finicky.

It occurred to me that having the Corsi-Rosenthal box made from four 20" x 25" filters would give the same surface area of filters as five 20" x 20" filters but no frame would be required. (The old math classes came in handy. Check it out: 4 * 20 * 25 = 5 * 20 * 20!)

So I searched the local hardware stores' websites and Amazon, determined that Canadian Tire surprisingly had the best deal and ordered four 20" x 25" x 1" Merv 13 filters. I don't know why, but Canadian Tire gave me free same-day delivery.

These are the steps I took in making the new Corsi-Rosenthal box:

1. Disassembled the pedestal fan and reassembled it with the rotating mechanism removed and the power cord lengthened between the fan and the control box by about 12" with wire I've had hanging around and Wagu clips to connect the wires. (This is my first time using Wagu clips and I love them. They make joining wires incredibly easy. It might seem like $0.50 per join is a lot compared to a bit of solder and shrink wrap, but the time and effort saved is worth every penny. Plus, I'm not very good at soldering, so there's a high chance that my splices would fail.)
   
2. Cut a sheet of fibreboard I had in the basement into two 21"x 21" squares.
3. Cut a circle that was the size of the round fan grill into the square for the top to make a cowling.
4. Drilled eight little holes around the circle to attach the fan grill, and a bigger hole on the side of the circle for the fan's power cord to come out.
5. Drilled two holes 4" apart in two opposite corners for rope handles.
6. Took two pieces of 12" cord, threaded them through the holes in the corners and tied knots so they'd stay in place to make the rope handles.
   
7. Mounted the fan head in the cowling, attaching it with twisted binder wire and taping it down with duct tape. Making sure that the power cord came out through its hole.
   
8. Duct taped the filters together to form a box, being sure to orient the filters so that the arrows indicating the air flow direction pointed into the box.
9. Duct taped the fibreboard for the base onto the bottom of the box.
10. Placed four fuzzy floor protectors in the corners of the base and one in its middle.
11. Found a little box to put the Wagu connectors and wire that led into the control bar for the fan.
12. Painted the box black, cut holes for power wires and for a piece of cord to hang the control bar from. Put the stuff inside the box, duct taped the box to the cowling, hung the control bar from the box and put the lid on the little box.
    
13. Plugged in the fan and turned it on.
    

After trying the new Corsi-Rosenthal box, I realized that it still made some noise. That's when it occurred to me to download an app to measure how loud it is. I went with one called SPL Sound Meter. It was free and had a good rating.

According to the app, the new Corsi-Rosenthal box is 50 decibels loud at top speed and the old Corsi-Rosenthal box is 55 decibels at top speed.

I'm okay with that. And next time I'm in a Value Village, I'm going to see if they have an even quieter pedestal fan.

Home repair with squid tentacle

Many years ago, way back when I was a solo act, I found it necessary to cut a hole in the wall in the bedroom/office area to access some coaxial cable. I cut a rectangle out of the drywall, accessed the cable and then put the rectangle of drywall back in place with green masking tape.

This wasn't particularly obvious to the other resident who came to live here because I had a dresser, a bunch of empty boxes, a clothes tree, and a sort of nightstand thing in front of this wall. But I've been downsizing a bit and moving things into my new studio space and the taped rectangle became entirely obvious.

It was gently suggested that I replace the taped-up rectangle with an access panel. I had to agree that this was a very good idea, so I got an access panel, removed the taped-up rectangle, and enlarged the hole so the access panel would properly fit.

Alas, in doing so, removal of the tape that had been on the wall for at least 20 years caused a section of paint to also come off, and I put a longer mark on the wall than I had needed.

Some people would probably have addressed these unsightly blemishes with some sort of paint solution. But I do not know much about house paint and am not good at using it.

However, I can draw a squid tentacle with a Rotring Tikky Graphic C.7 and a set of coloured pencils on a piece of fine tooth surface sketch paper and then use an exacto knife to cut out that tentacle so it perfectly covers unsightly blemishes on a wall.

And that is what I did.

If the other resident of your home has an affection for cephalopods, this is a home repair solution that I can recommend.

 

Improving air quality with our new Corsi-Rosenthal Box

This morning, Ottawa has a "Special Air Quality Statement" that says "High levels of air pollution have developed due to smoke from forest fires" and "Wildfire smoke can be harmful to everyone’s health even at low concentrations."

So I am glad that I made a Corsi-Rosenthal Box with five MERV-13 air filters this week!

In case you're thinking of making one, here are some assorted notes:

• There are a ton of videos out there on how to make a box. I started with How to Build a Corsi-Rosenthal Box featuring Dean Richard Corsi from UC Davis (I mean, his name is on the box).
• Dean Corsi uses 2" filters. They are probably better than the 1" filters I used. But I couldn't find any 2" filters locally.
• I got my filters from Home Depot: Filtrete Healthy Living Maximum Allergen Filter MA02DC-3PK-2, 20 in x 20 in x 1 in, 3/Pack 
• The fan came from Home Hardware: HOME ESSENTIALS 20" Box Fan - with 3 Speeds, White. (An inexpensive fan seems to be fine.) [Edit: 2024-08-03 - I've been thinking that it would be nice to have a quieter box fan, so I went online looking for reviews that identified quieter fans. A couple sites recommended the Lasko fan. So I ordered one. It just arrived. And it is at least as loud as the Home Essentials fan, and has a high-pitched squeal that would probably be more annoying]
  
• The inexpensive basic blue tape I had on hand was easiest to work with, but  I ran out and had to switch to heavy-duty black Gorilla tape. Next time, I'm going to have lots of the cheap blue stuff around.
• Corsi demonstrates a 4-filter version that sits on the floor without extra leg supports. That's what I would have done, but I had a fifth filter and a bunch of scrap wood in the basement to make legs so I went with a 5-filter design.
• On TikTok, I saw a guy from California advocating a version that has a single filter taped to a fan. Apparently, this doesn't help much according to a UC Davis case study: Testing different configurations of do-it-yourself portable air cleaners. 
• There are different views on how long the filters are good for. I figure that if the forest fires die out and I only use the box sporadically when people are over, the filters should be good for about a year before I have to get a whole new set.
• Some people say you don't need cowling to block off the corners of the box fan. But Corsi recommends it, so I went with cowling.
• The little piece of wool that shows the fan is on and shows the direction of air flow is not strictly necessary, but I figure it will do until I can get a miniature version of one of those tube man air dancers they put outside car dealerships.

Valentine Dinosaurs

 We had another cold spell and went with a Valentine's Day theme for the dinosaurs. The red in the hearts came from a red-coloured herbal tea. 

Ice dinosaurs

 

Manon and I are experimenting with an artform that is new to us.

Apparently many people make hanging ice ornaments with heart or circle shaped cake pans. 

Oddly, the easiest cake pans for us to find were of a brontosaurus and t-rex.

If we get a sunny day this week, they will probably look really neat.

Dinosaur Drawer Pulls

As you know, I'm always eager to make life better for others.  When a lovely women of my intimate acquaintance mentioned that she was thinking about a new look for the handles on her dresser, I became eager to help her find something more aesthetically pleasing.

You can imagine my excitement when I found a do-it-yourself idea on Apartment Therapy. If you go there, you will find instructions on how to make drawer pulls from just about anything and they feature toy dinosaurs.

Toy dinosaurs in a variety of sizes are available at all the best dollar stores at affordable prices. But the Apartment Therapy instructions require work. I found that dinosaurs can go in the handles with no drilling, spray painting or added bolts.

It's been a week and they're still there. Although I've heard "they're not exactly ergonomic".

IE8 and why I am going back to being a late adopter

When I was growing up, I planned on being an early adopter before the term had been invented. But the reality hasn't panned out that way. Maybe it's because they never came out with the watch phones and jet packs I wanted. Or maybe it's because I'm frugal. In any case, I carry no cell phone, my Windows XP machine is running Microsoft Office 2000 and nothing I own has a GPS in it.

So it was a little odd that last month that I decided to upgrade from Internet Explorer 7 to Internet Explorer 8 without waiting for experts to tell me that the bugs had been worked out.

IE8 has a bunch of new features I like. But...

Until today, for me, and based on my internet searches over the past month, for quite a number of other people, IE8 did not have a "find on this page" feature. You know, the basic crtl-f "find". Like if you're on a complicated page and want to find the link for "contact us", you couldn't do a search for "contact".

I found the answer at The Winhelponline Blog, not at a Microsoft site. Microsoft had me doing a bunch of things that accomplished nothing but waste hours of my time.

So now IE8 is working, but there is still something that bugs me.

I use the security setting that causes IE to tell you when you are on a page that has a mixture of secure and insecure content.

Probably I should find a way to have it not tell me this, because it never tells me that either "nothing on this page is secure" or "everything on this page is secure", only when it's a mixture. If I don't need to know in the all or nothing cases, why do I need to know in the mixed case?

But this is not what's bugging me about IE8. In IE7 and earlier versions, when this situation occurred they said "This page contains both secure and nonsecure items" and and asked "Do you want to display the nonsecure items".

To see everything, you clicked "yes".

In IE8, they ask "Do you want to view only the webpage content that was delivered securely?" And then give an explanation about some content not being delivered by a secure HTTPS connection.

To see everything you click "No".

Now every time the message comes up, I read the question, then the explanation, and then go back to read the question because the explanation made me forget that "No" is the answer I want to give. Maybe this is good exercise for my neural pathways and it's preventing Alzheimers but it makes me cranky.

Eber Irigoyen blogged about this on What do you want to program today? and one of his commenters provided the method for eliminating the message. I'm going to implement it. Then I'm going to submit his post and mine to Seth Godin, the This is Broken guru. And I'm going to go back to waiting until Lifehacker or Windows Secrets tell me it's time to download the new upgrades.

(By the way, I don't care if someone out there likes another browser like Firefox or Chrome more. This is not what this post is about and I may just delete any comments endorsing other browsers.)

Uses for Speaker Magnets: Screwdriver Storage

Another common problem we all have these days is knowing what to do with all those blown woofers lying around the house. (The ones from the speaker cabinets we've used for cat castles.)

I haven't quite figured out what to do with the metal rings. But there are lots of fun things to do with the magnets after you pry them off.

For example, they make a convenient device for storing a screwdriver with multiple bits on your fridge.

Added bonus: Sculpt the bits into different shapes while you wait for your spaghetti water to boil.

the Broken Glass Chandelier

This is the light shade I made for the light outside the bedroom door.

On a cylinder of metal screening, I've hung pieces of broken glass that have been melted together. The glass chunks are attached to earring hooks, so they can be removed and worn as earrings. Or they can be re-arranged if you want the light to look different.

I've discovered that it is easy to melt glass with a blow torch and make clumps of different colours. However, glass that has been melted together is awfully fragile. I expect that within a few months, half of these chunks will have to be remelted.

Another thing I've discovered is that a 1-inch thick piece of rock is not thick enough to insulate your table-top from burning through if you are heating glass with a blow torch on top of the rock.

A 3-inch thick brick is thick enough.

My Mojo Scarf

Yesterday I mentioned that Manon is excellent at choosing gifts. Actually, "excellent" is an inadequate word in this case. "Inspired" is a better word. Last winter, she decided she would knit me a scarf for my birthday. In the set of all gifts, there isn't much that is better than a piece of clothing that someone has knit for you. (Of course there are wonderful things of a similar rank, like a crocheted afghan for instance.)

But, here's where the inspired part came in and Manon took it beyond excellent: She rounded up items from a whole bunch of my friends and knitted them into the scarf.

Now, anywhere I go with the scarf, I have something from about 20 of my favourite people (including cats). That is why I call it my Mojo Scarf.

I do not knit, but if you do, and you want to bowl someone over, or as the French say, make them all ému, a mojo scarf is just the ticket.

Uses for Binder Clips - Gift Cases

Manon is excellent at choosing gifts and excellent at packaging them. Here is the clever packaging she came up with for a mixed cd. Two 12cm x 12cm cards advertising art shows at Gallerie La Petite Mort and 4 binder clips.

Clever, I say

Uses for Fabric - Decorate Binder Clips

Jess at How About Orange found herself unhappy with her letter opener and her binder clips. What to do? Cover them with printed fabric.

[Thanks to Kerri for the referral]

Foiling the Snoops

Those little terrors, Liam, Jane and Heather were here on the weekend. "Can we go up to your room?" they asked upon arrival. I knew they didn't want to play the sousaphone, watch TV, use the internet, build things with Lego, borrow some books or do any of the other diverting things one can do in my monster bedroom. They wanted to snoop around.

To the untrained adult eye, they seem like sweet, innocent children. Fortunately I know them to be the nefarious busybodies they are. They will find anything in your house that you want to hide. They found almost all the chocolate that had been carefully hidden throughout my house. So far I have only managed to find two chocolates following their rampage.

They will also find things you didn't know you should hide. You can try to distract them by leaving puppets out for them to play with, but long-time readers will recall that on their visit last summer, they were all abuzz that I used the "wrong" gender of deodorant.

I was ready for them this time.

Lightbulbs and Aloe Gel

Remember my lightbulb TV screen?I've learned some important lessons about liquid filled lightbulbs since I made it.
First, if you use binder wire and the wire goes into the liquid it will start to rust and make the whole thing turn a disturbing brown colour.

I am still using binder wire to hang regular-sized bulbs, but now I am wrapping the wire around the outside of the threads and applying some solder.
I am also trying a new liquid, aloe vera gel. I think it might look cool because air bubbles in the gel don't seem to move.

Holiday Lighting: Spiral Tower (and Trash Art)

Ingredients:

• Broken patio umbrella pole
• Swivel chair base
• Rope light (blue)
• Spot light (red)

Found Object Art or Trash Art?

I've been referring to myself lately as a found object artist, but then I went to Wikipedia and found out that what I do is not found object art.

Found object art is when you take some object and display it as art. If I took a typewriter and stuck it on the wall, that would be found object art.

Since I take apart broken things, and put them back together in a different way and sometimes mix in other found stuff, the more accurate label for my work is Trash Art.

The Holiday Lighting shown here doesn't actually qualify because the red spot light and the blue rope light were given to me by people who know I like lights. Plus it's not art. At least it's not finished. Don't ask me to explain why this is the case; I can only tell you that it is.

I have not studied Trash Art, but I have learned some things from doing it.

Pros and Cons of Trash Art

Pro: Life is a constant treasure hunt

Con: Clutter

Pro: If you ever sold something, you'd recoup the cost of your materials

Con: There's an awful lot of scrubbing

Pro: "Re-use" is higher on the environmental ladder than "recycle"

Con: Found objects often have sharp edges

Pro: Nobody will tell you that you have broken rules with your art

Con: As you do a piece you will realize that there rules, many rules, rules that you would not have expected and drive you crazy

Pro: You can always blame your materials

Con: Some found objects have bugs inside

A Graph for Dave Taylor

Although some of you may follow this post to the end and even click on the links, I'm telling you now that the only person it is really going to appeal to is David Taylor. Instead, what you should do is skip this post and read this page from the Mayo Clinic about being healthy.

Anyway, Dave, two interesting things came together today. First did you see the link on BoingBoing to rap represented in mathematical charts? You could quibble with some, but many are brilliant and there are so many of them!

That got me thinking that rap isn't the only music that you could make graphs for. In fact, some of our favourite music could also be graphed.

Then did you see that Google has a new API that lets you create graphs with text in a URL?

I had to try it out.

Giant Pumpkin Race

Lake Pesaquid pumpkin paddlers

Although I've never tried to grow a giant pumpkin, I'm always interested in the news about them. This year, a new world record was set by a 1689 pound (766kg) pumpkin in Massachusetts.

I've learned a number of things about giant pumpkins and the people who grow them this year:

1. Growing a champion pumpkin is not an accident. People who grow giant pumpkins for competition are as obsessed as anyone you can imagine. They spend hours a day on their plants. It is nothing like growing peace lillies.
2. I don't know what they call their pumpkins while they grow them, but afterwards they refer to them by their weight in pounds (e.g. "I didn't do anything different for the 1446").
3. In an effort to get more entertainment value out of the pumpkins after the weigh-off, many communities now have pumpkin regattas in which the pumpkins are hollowed out and turned into boats. Most are propelled with kayak paddles, but some regattas also have a motorized class.
4. The nearest giant pumpkin regatta appears to be in Pembroke and occurred two weeks ago.
5. Although at least one grower has attempted to cross an Atlantic Giant Pumpkin with a Pink Banana Squash to grow a "sleeker" pumpkin. I have found no indication that anyone is working on a Zucchini Kayak.

Links

• Want to start growing your own? Maybe you should join the Giant Vegetable Growers of Ontario
• Don't believe me that the growers are as obsessed as anyone? Read this: Alan Eaton and his 1446 lb World Record Pumpkin
• Want to buy seeds? Seeds: World Record - Special Selections 2007
• Information on the the Pembroke Race at Hugli's Farm
• A Channel Video: WeighOff the day before the Pembroke race
• Excellent Story and Video about the race in Windsor, Nova Scotia where the pumpkin regattas started: Wall Street Journal: Out of Their Gourds? Paddling Pumpkins On Lake Pesaquid
• Local coverage with video from the Windsor NS Regatta: Regatta 2007 a wild ride in Windsor!

Mojo (Zen) Gardens

On my last day in Little Lepreau, I got into a difference of opinion with one of my band mates. Like me, she had collected many rocks from the beach. Unlike me, she had also collected other objects like pieces of wood and shells. She began arranging them and re-arranging them, occasionally having artistic flares of temper: "that's just not right!"

I suggested that she could make presents for people by bundling her found objects with sand and letting them make Zen gardens with them.

"I don't see it with sand," she said.

I gently tried to convince her that sand is the way to go, but she had closed her mind to sand.

Okay, I thought, I was gracious enough to let her have one of my brilliant ideas, but if she doesn't want to run with it, I will. The next morning, just before driving away, I filled a large coffee can with sand from the beach.

Back at home, I did some research on zen gardens. I learned that they should probably be called "Japanese rock gardens" because they have existed in Japan for a long time and it was an American who gave them the "Zen" title in 1935. Oh, oh, I thought, if the Japanese are behind these things, there are probably complex rules about the elements and their arrangements. That's no good for me.

So instead of making Zen gardens or Japanese rock gardens, I make mojo gardens.

What does a mojo garden need?

• A container with some mojo (illustrated here: a box made from Lego and a gutted answering machine)
• Sand collected from a special beach (optional step: to get a nice consistency with the sand, you can filter it through a collander)
• Objects like rocks and shells from that beach
• Other objects with mojo

What can you do with a mojo garden?

• I plan to keep mine on my desk at work. I will rearrange the objects or rake the sand during long phone calls.

More Products for Men Only

Remember my re-branded deodorant, toothpaste and dental floss? Because I am always thinking, it occurred to me that there are some products with gender neutral marketing that can be challenging for men who are not secure in their sexuality.

The first that come to my mind are skin cream and hair conditioner. Some people think that real men should just endure dry, leathery, itchy skin and hair like straw.

I'm all for stoicism, but bad skin and hair can interfere with cherchering les femmes.

Here is my solution. Rename the compounds and sell them in manly motor oil containers.

Let me know if you can think of other products I should add to the Big Dog line.

Round-up

Deodorant and Gender

Yesterday morning, I noticed that the label on my Lady Speed Stick was a sticker. It peeled off easily. I could put on my own label, I thought. Then this morning, Zoom came up with that same exact idea and I realized that I'd better do it fast before the idea loses momentum.

I'm happy with my re-branding, but it is at times like this that I wish I blogged under an alias. I'm sure that if I had a less inhibited alter-ego, I could have come up with something far more masculine for my sweat-control.

Uses for Binder Clips

Our genius friend Megan has identified another fine and appropriate use for a binder clip - adornment. You'll see that she went with a single basic black clip fastened to a collar. Of course, an array of clips in bold colours could make an even more striking fashion statement.

(Do you see why I say she's a genius? It's that juxtaposition thing - the binder clip is the paradigm of a functional object that people don't notice and she has used it so that it's only function is to be noticed. Sheer brilliance.)

Read the TV Guide First

Here is a screenshot that partially demonstrates how reading the listings can keep you from even turning on the TV.

Blogs that Matter

Going back to Zoom, you should read her post from today, The real reason I support the crack kit program.