Master Bath Remodel

The Master Bath Remodel

For years, our master bath suffered from dated design and builder-grade materials.  The built-in tub was functional but uncomfortable. The vanity endured a failing finish, and the 6-ft tall shower enclosure looked strangely out of place below 9-ft ceilings.

The school bus yellow paint I had chosen a decade earlier has not aged well, and we needed to change... well, everything.

Shortly after moving in, I had painted the vanity and built a false-wall to add a pocket door to partition the bathroom from the bedroom, but that was the only upgrade for many years.

After completing the renovation of the two other indoor bathrooms, we finally decided to tackle the master bath.

First to come out was the tub, pulling out the unit itself and breaking down its cultured marble enclosure and supporting structure.

It came out without much difficulty, but the placement of the vent piping meant that we'd need to build a short false wall to house both it and the new plumbing for the tub.  It would provide an extra shelf for bath supplies too, so it would be a win-win.

The original builders had conveniently left a hole in the floor exposing the supply lines, so it only needed to be expanded a bit to give a little extra working room for rerouting the pipes and placing the drain for a new freestanding tub.

To work on the piping, I had been watching the price of knockoff Pro-Press tools steadily come down for awhile, and now was an excuse to get one.  I got one for 120 bucks, a fraction of the price for the real deal.  

Unlike some of the others, the one I got is narrow enough to crimp the sides of a T fitting, so I highly recommend it.  I could now make quick copper connections without the hassle or risk of sweating them in close quarters or resorting to insecure shark-bite slip-on fittings.

Laying the new lines to the new in-wall faucet was easy with the new crimper, routing them through a new wall built from repurposed scraps from the old tub surround.

Also repurposed was drywall cut from the old shower. the color of which was not important since the plan was to cover it later with wainscoting.

A slip-fit drain unit was added for the new freestanding tub, fastened beneath Hardipanel that matched the underlayment of the existing tile floor.

For the shower, the old shower panels were removed, revealing the bare studs, allowing the supply lines to be easily moved for a new tower shower unit.

We chose a premade TileRedi shower pan to simplify the process and guarantee a watertight install.

While the generic instructions suggest a simple mud bed mix, multiple online references suggest using Versabond modified thinset instead to provide a better bond to the floor underneath.

I hung and taped a vapor barrier on the walls, and attached aluminum z-flashing to direct any water droplets it may catch down into the pan.

We decided to put in a lot of shower niches, also from Tile Redi.  Two large ones for shampoos, conditioners and other products, two for soap, and one as a shaving foothold.

Learning from a previous shower, I tiled the interiors of each niche before installation with each niche lying flat.  This made it much easier to place the mosaic tiles just right without having to fight gravity.

Cement backer board was then mounted, taped, and sealed between each board and around each niche.

For extra waterproofing, I applied three coats of Redgard, readying the surface for tile.

We used 12x24 tiles applied in a vertical pattern, working from the center outwards of each wall to maintain a symmetric layout.

Tiling the shower pan was a bit tricky, as the pan is pre-sloped, but really best designed for small tiles.

Again also learning from experience, I supported larger titles by doing a full dry layout, stacking self-adhesive plastic spacers at the corner of every tile, building out supports from the center out so that every tile would have a predetermined slope towards the drain when it came time to adhere them down.  These "support towers" worked really well and took the guesswork out of getting just the right slope in the final product.

For the flooring, I broke out all the old tile with a hammer and chipped the pieces out, replacing them with faux-wood tile planks.

These planks have a fine wood grain texture on them that we previously found difficult to grout because the stuff would get trapped in all the grooves.  As we were using epoxy grout throughout the bathroom -- raising the stakes even higher -- we took the time to mask off every seam with tape before grouting to keep everything clean.

For finishing touches before the tub and shower walls were installed, we installed wainscoting, baseboards, chair rail, window sill and shelving -- all in PVC -- caulking and painting it all afterwards.

We ordered a semi-frameless glass shower enclosure from framelessshowerdoors.com, customized to our exact dimensions.  The glass panes were terrifyingly heavy to carry upstairs and install, but the instructions were clear and they were straightforward to attach once it was in place.

With the slip-on drain unit,  the tub easily dropped down right into place. 

The powder room wasn't left out.  In addition to the new flooring and baseboards, it got a new Toto toilet.

And new vanities, lights, mirrors, and medicine cabinets (with internal hidden outlets) completed the remodel.  Total cost: about $12k in materials and numerous long weekends.

DIY Casting in Pewter

While my 3D printer, mini CNC, and laser cutter are wonderful tools, they are largely limited to plastic and wood for the machines I have. 

Creating complex items out of metal with them has largely been out of reach, and my experience in that area has largely consisted of welding and fabricating items by hand out of sheet metal.

The world of casting items has fascinated me for a few years, but with some high barriers to entry and not a lot of practical projects coming to mind, I've mostly watched from the sidelines in various facebook groups.  

A perfect storm came together, however, when Make Magazine Issue #75 contained an article on casting custom coins in pewter.  

Pewter melts at a relatively low temperature, making it ideal introductory material, and the article described casting it into coins using molds cut and engraved with a laser cutter.

Shortly after, I came across a suitable melting pot on Temu for only $20, cheap enough that I need not justify it as anything more than a fun project to pass the time.

For my first attempt at a coin, I drew some coin faces in Photoshop and engraved them on two pieces of chipboard.

Following the instructions in the article, I sandwiched these around a laser-cut plywood body that would form the shape of the coin and a pouring funnel on top, and added holes and pegs for registration.

I melted down an ingot I got on Amazon and poured it into the mold once it melted.

The pewter solidified in the mould within seconds, and was cool enough to pull open (with gloves) in about a minute.

The initial resulting pieces were not great.  Much of the detail was lost, and there were imperfections near the top of the coin. The first pours tended to have the poorest detail, which I guess may be due to moisture in the mold being boiled off and the mold otherwise being "seasoned".  

Unlike 3D printing, laser cutting, or CNC milling, the great thing about casting, is that I could just put bad pieces back into the pot, remelt them, and try again with almost no net waste.

I cut a new set of coin molds and centers, experimenting with engraving depth, funnel shapes, and vents. I got better results on each new attempt, as was able to gradually improve my results with incremental improvements in both process and technique.

In the end, I found that it was important to make two engraving passes to have sufficiently deep engravings.  Also, it was critical to heat up the pewter to a higher temperature than I did initially (enough that my existing laser thermometer went out of range) so that it would stay liquid after pouring long enough to settle in the nooks and crannies of the mold before it solidifying.  

I added vents to try to improve surface texture, but later found they were  unnecessary and just made the coins too difficult to remove.

For detailing, I like to color in the recessed areas with a brown sharpie, then polish off the high points with steel wool.

While I have yet to come up with any projects that are more than decorative, I've been able to get fairly consistent enough to start exploring other shapes and objects.

This spinner for the hub cap of my scooter gave it the perfect one of a kind (okay, two of a kind) rustic finishing touch for a vehicle approaching 70 years old.

What's next?  I think maybe instead of 3D-printed molds, I'm going to try casting items in sand.

E22 Shoretrooper Blaster (from Star Wars: Rogue One)

I don't generally get to spend a whole lot of time making props.  I've enjoyed a few I've done, but don't have a lot of storage or wall space to store or display many new ones.

An opportunity started two years ago, however, when our youngest had an ambitious plan to build -- with help over the course of a year -- a Star Wars-themed Halloween costume beginning with an E-22 Shoretrooper Blaster from Rogue One.

We started with some soldering lessons to put together a sound effects box to play recorded "pew-pew" sounds with every trigger press.  As a bonus, the included battery box matched the size and appearance of a box on the left-hand side of the E-22.

The trigger and handgrip were fashioned from scratch respectively from aluminum and wood and mounted to a PVC pipe and wood frame that would represent the base of the blaster.  An internal spring and microswitch completed the working trigger mechanism.

With a coating in black spray paint, it was already starting to take shape.

To refine the shape of the double barrels, sheets of EVA foam were wrapped around and attached with hot melt glue to add thickness and shape.

Additional foam was added to cover the wood stock and barrel spacer pieces, and successive layers were built-up to add more thickness, ridging, and other details.

Additional details were added with sheet aluminum pieces, brass brads, and screws.

After this point, the project sat fallow for over a year and a half as its instigator found other interests and other priorities took precedence.  Momentum began once again, however, after our oldest expressed interest in helping complete the E-22.

So more pieces were added one-by-one to build the scope, light, magazine, and other pieces from more PVC pipe, wood, aluminum, foam, screws, and random scrap parts I found lying around that happened to resemble pieces in reference photos from the movie.

Some curved laser cut pieces added the critical cooling fins to the barrels.

After a base of black spray paint, it was starting to look like a "real" thing.

After adding salvaged strip magnets from a fiberglass screen door that had the right shape for barrel ridges, silver paint was added to "metal" parts to give a more realistic appearance.

To finish it off, some more black paint was added with a small brush for grime and weathering as well as hand-painted details.

The E-22 was finally finished.  Pretty good, I think for a first try at something quite like this.

Upgrading a k40 Laser Cutter Bed

At about $400, a k40 Laser Cutter is a wonderful low-cost entry into the world of laser cutting and engraving, and also a great platform for hacking and upgrading.

The biggest limitation of a k40, however, is the size of the engrave-able area, which is limited to just 8x12 inches.  This suffices for many projects, but often is a source of frustration when trying to create something larger, or even just for efficiently using materials that come in 12x12 sheets.

While enlarging the k40 bed is a common desire, the most popular upgrade along these lines is a full 12x24 rebuild of the laser gantry, gutting both the electronics and gantry parts of the case, building a custom gantry in its place, and relocating the electronics to an external case.

12 x 12 cutting / engraving area

For myself, I wanted to try something more restrained; a 12x12 cutting area retrofit to fit entirely into the existing cutting bay.  I found inspiration when I came across a budget laser engraver kit for just $99 on Amazon.

When assembled it would be tight, but seemed like it would fit in the existing k40 bay with a little encouragement.  My plan was to laser cut some adapter pieces to hold the y-axis mirror and laser head, then adapt the gantry, gut the k40, and swap in the new for the old.

Unfortunately, after gutting the k40 internals, I found out I had mis-measured.  The back of the k40 has reduced vertical clearance due to the laser tube compartment hanging down from above, and the x-axis from the diode laser could never fit underneath it to allow the full 12" of y-axis movement I wanted.

The only way I could get it to fit was to reuse the original k40 x-axis, mounting it in place of the one from the diode laser with some acrylic adapter plates.  

My laser cutter was now inoperable, so I hand fabricated various pieces from acrylic and plate metal to hold everything together well enough to make the laser cutter operational again.  This included a new mount for mirror 2, attaching it to the end of the x-axis...

and a holder for the laser head, adjusted to tuck underneath the laser tube compartment.  These would get rebuilt later once everything was up and running, but in this early version, it was finally fully functional after a fair amount of tweaking, and had a full 12x12 cutting and engraving area I wanted.

Movable cutting bed (z-axis)

After getting the laser operating again with the enlarged cutting area, my attention turned to the cutting bed.  Since I sometimes cut 1" foam sheets such as for camera case inserts, I wanted a bed that could move up and down to adjust for different material thicknesses, all without affecting levelness.

My idea was to create a frame for the bed that would be supported on all 4 corners by captured nuts and threaded machine screw legs that turned in sync by gears driven by a circular toothed belt.

A small gear-motor would drive the gears in either direction in response to a DPDT toggle switch to move the bed up or down.

A spring-loaded idle wheel maintained tension on the belt, and could be released it I needed to turn one of the screw legs manually to level the bed.

Here is the completed bed (upside-down), built from scrap aluminum fence post material and the above-mentioned gears, belt, and motor.

And here is the completed bed right-side-up during motion testing.