How to Break your Readership

Just letting you all know that How To Break Stuff is about to make a comeback.
After graduation, I traveled a bit, relaxed, broke a *ton* of things, and got a job. Now that I'm on my feet enough to buy tools but not on my feet enough to not need them, I feel primed and ready to continue HtBS. As usual, feel free to send in questions, either to howtobreakstuff(at)gmail.com, or directly to my personal address... which is somewhere around here.

And just so you know I haven't been slacking off, in the past few months I have:

*Overheated a car
*Perforated rubber vacuum tubing
*Re-soldered an Anti-lock Brake computer (it saved my ass on the highway tonight... it worked!)
*Operated an oxy-propane torch
*Trued a bicycle wheel
*Learned to counter-steer on an old british racing bike
*Drunkenly tripped on a pile of garbage while running down 14th Street in Manhattan at 2 on a Thursday morning.

So don't you worry. Someone dumber and more lucky than you is about to start posting on again. And that someone is me...

Happy Love and Tinkering, friends.
-esb

What I've Learned About Ballbearings

Ball bearings are important. Maybe, you've spent an evening drinking wine and thinking, "Gee, I really need to repack my hubs." So you do, but then while you're tapping the bearings out of the old, disgustingly filthy grease, they drop into your cup filled with degreaser but then bounce out and roll around and get lost. So then, you say, "Man, fuck this. Bearings don't really need balls."

Incorrect. Without balls, you've just got metal rubbing against metal. With balls, you've got metal rolling against metal.

If you're like me, you've wondered if there's a golden rule or two for how to get yourself from a crappy bearing interface to an awesome one. If you're occasionally like Evan, you've forsaken research in favor of finding out some functional guidelines:

1. Phil Wood's Waterproof Grease. Jesus, this stuff is:
a: greasey!
b: slippery!
c: tenacious!
2. Slick Honey, another grease, does not taste:
a: like honey.
b: delicious in any way.
3. You should not stick too many or too few balls in a bearing assembly. Too few means that the weight of, say, your bike, is being born on a weak, unstable setup. Too many will overload the interface and provide you with a terrible, terrible bearing assembly. What is too many? Put bearings in your cups until you can not fit one more in. Then, take one out. This is the right number.

What am I getting at, in my wordy manner? That I got a wheel for free because it sucked, and I made it awesome.

If We Had a Katana

A segment wherein we list what would happen:

+ We could cut pizza from several more feet away.
+ We could get stopped at international customs checkpoints.
+ We could make "your mom" jokes with impunity.
+ Except to ninjas.

Safety Workshop, March 7th

On Wednesday, March 7th, at 9pm on the top floor of the Campus Center (whichever conference room is open), I will be giving a small, informal presentation on respirator safety (care, selection, etc) and basic first aid/health-and-safety tips for volunteers going down to New Orleans. If you are interested and want to be notified of the details, email me at howtobreakstuff_at_gmail.com.

-Evan

The Sketchy Equipment Bake Sale

So, Gavin and I have been taking inventory over at our beloved workspace, the Labs of Albert and Albert... Everything is in order: disassembled lawnmower engines, old car parts, hacksaws, respirators, maps of the Antarctic--the list goes on and on. But there are some new toys that would just make our day and assist in a whole bunch of projects. I, for one, have my eye on a nice entry-level Oxy-MAPP cutting/welding torch. Gavin just wants oodles of fountain pens. Also a saws-all.

And so, to that end, we announce the How to Break Stuff Sketchy Equipment Fund Bake Sale. Next week, weather permitting, we will be selling baked goods, probably outside of the Campus Center, to supplement our tool box. So pitch in. It's a good cause. And will probably lead to more breakage of stuff.

How To Break Stuff: Bicycle Edition part 3

The staff of How To Break Stuff has been hard at work on figuring out new and unique ways to break things like bodies and machines that don't run on blood and oxygen.

After years of research, I've determined that racing an alleycat for track bikes with no breaks in the middle of winter, just a few days after a snowfall, would be a terrific way to break my body, my bike, or both.

It's called Monster Track and it holds a special place in alleycat lore as the biggest, most infamous, most prestigious race there is.

The first section had 160+ riders hauling ass up 1st Avenue in Manhattan. I was lucky enough to be included in a little bit of sweet helmetcam footage, which can be found in better, non-Youtube style here and, of course, here:



However, the research did not pay off, and I managed to break neither body or bike during the race. Data from the afterparty remains to be analyzed.

How to hint that you would like to be kissed

For our readers, from personal experience:
-----------------
Step 1. Put the crowbar down.

Step 2. Put a bandanna in your hair to hide the motor oil

Step 3. Stop talking about "what a great idea" you just had.

Step 4. Seriously, put the crowbar down.

Power Tool Review: Episode I - MAPP GAS and YOU

a FOR SCIENCE production.

How To Not Break Certain Bodily Stuff

What with the recent and not-so-recent (and highly admirable) work that friends of mine have been doing in New Orleans, I figured it would be fitting to spread this zine across the internet. It is An Activist's Guide to Health and Safety in New Orleans, and can be found on the website of STORM-NYC, an activist medical health collective.

Hopefully this can be useful to any other readers of How To Break Stuff who plan to go to NOLA again, or who know people planning to go to NOLA again. Knowledge is power, safety is strength, and bodies are tools to keep in good working order.

Ha! Snow!

Wesleyan has received it's first snow of the year, and with that I foresee a Saturday night rife with trying to slide interesting combinations of things down Foss Hill at high speeds.

Updates to follow.