Modify a sodastream to make use 20oz bottles and to carbonate milk

WARNING: DO NOT DO THIS. IT DID NOT WORK AND WAS SOMEWHAT DANGEROUS. IT ALSO VOIDS WARRANTEES, MAKES BABIES CRYS AND OTHER BAD THINGS. For actual useful posts about sodastream please check out my sodastream recipes. I know we all want to carbonate whiskey, milk, coffee, wine, fruit juice and all other sorts of crazy things with the sodastream. I am also interested in carbonating smaller volumes like 2, 12, 16 and 20oz bottles. However we are sternly warned not to do this. This post documents my(so far failed) attempt to find a work around.
1)I cut 5/16" Outer Diameter (OD) vinyl tubing to about two feet in length
2)I drilled a 1/4" hole in the top of a small soda bottle
3)I pushed the tubing through the slightly smaller hole to get a tight seal.
4)I slid the tube around the soda stream
5)after filling the bottle with water and screwing on the cap I pumped two times causing the tube to detach from the sodastream the bottle to tip over and somehow dump about 1/2 of its contents without having its cap come off.
6) photo to come

mike is stupid

I admit this text is hard to read. What makes it harder to read is I cut the linoleum block backwards.

dumb dumb dumb......
THERE IS NOTHING HUMERUS ABOUT IT

lost foam bull #3

lost foam: Beware the green foam!

This green foam is great to work with. It carves like sandstone and can be worked with your fingers. Sadly, the green foam does not burn out with molten metal.
(corrections does not burn out with molten zinc see comments)

fra angelico annunciation sculpture relief

Annunciation Relief

squint real hard and you can see the resemblance to fra angelico annunciation right? right? ok maybe not. simply not the right medium for this kind of detail. plus relief is, like, boring.

lost packing peanuts foam horse

would look better with legs.... and a tail. plus something seriously wrong with some proportion that i can't figure out. at the least the front legs are too bulky. point it out in the comment section. I gonna make a new one but not till i figure that out. was my first lost foam with packaging peanut piece.

alberto giacometti inspired lost foam failure

Recently... well in july. was in DC and saw a bunch of great giacometti pieces. Mostly find the texture compelling and think it can be done in lost foam. unfortunately the very thin portions do not lend themselves to the process.

Lost foam bull #2

Lost foam bull #2

not sure why. much less problems with lost foam bull 1. I think I have it figured out for lost foam bull 3. going to do a "burnout" or washout of the foam with acetone. the other big change is moving away from using any of the more dense pink foam. much harder to burn out. I think that joint to the tail gave me major bubbles.

I have also added a new tag Failure to all the old posts that meet my criteria.

Carving a chain from a crayon first atempt

Post for successful carving of a full crayon chain here


This I have not done yet but have made one link. Very tricky carving. I start by making a + shape and then work them apart with a needle.
I know people work with wood to carve chains but I decided it would be better to try to figure it out on my own. So I refuse to google how to carve a chain until my system works.

Check out all of my
All of my crayon sculptures

Carved Crayon Gnome Sculpture

All of my crayon sculptures.
It was only a matter of time....
Amelia was the one that finally figured out that crayons make natural gnomes because they all come with pre-made hats. here it is cast in pewter.
the crayon does not completely burn out but most can be burned

casting custom guitar knobs

Attempted casting of guitar knobs. lost foam with a 3/16" drill hole and machine screws going into the sides to hold it tight. The problem was the machine screws are either too loose or tight. casting the threading around the screw is not the way to go. updates to follow if I think of a new way to make this work. I think a tap and die set might be the way to go.

Man sculpture cast in a bottle attempt

Well this did not quite work.
I attempted to pour a lost foam man in a bottle. The trick was to use flexible foam that is used to insulate pipes. The copper pipe is used as the pour spout and the investment in normal play sand. This is an attempt because I did not pull the pipe out quick enough and the head got stuck. Gonna keep working on this technique.













Here is my next attempt still in the foam.

wine bottle hydroponic hops.

Update 7.7.9 this thing died so I would not recommend this plan. I think I did not get enough of the smaller roots. I think I might try again at the end of the season.



I cut a piece of root with some shoots that were attacking other plants off one of my cascades and put them in a wine bottle as a hydroponic set up. I cut above the rhizome so I would not damage the rest of the plant. I have no idea if this will work or not but I figure it is worth a try. I have one shoot going out the window so at least part of it should get good sunlight.

Click the follow link below on the right if you want to follow how this project works out.

I am looking for ideas for good plants I can grow hydroponically with only light from the window. any tips? comment please.

Lost Hot Glue Casting of a Tree

This happended a while ago and I have since learned that the molten zinc is not hot enough to burn out the hot glue but I just ran into these old photos that I liked. I think the hot glue make these great shapes that are fairly organic. This hot glue tree was coated in plaster before the attempt. I think that maybe if I did a pre burn out in a oven this might eventually work as the glue melts at 400 degres but just does not vaporize like the foam does.


Long before there was pen that can draw in the air