Tag: DIY

DIY: Replacing 2012 Subaru Outback Brake Light Bulb

03/22/2018

One of my brake lights went out, so I need­ed to replace it.

Dif­fi­cul­ty: Very Easy!

Time: 5–10 min­utes

Tools: Philips head screwdriver(s), replace­ment bulb, gloves (impor­tant!!) and option­al ratch­et­ing sock­et wrench

Here we go!

  1. Open the trunk and you see this:
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2. Use the screw­driv­er to unscrew, and you’ll feel it click twice-ish

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3. It’ll pop out like this, so care­ful­ly twist/pull it and the ring out. Repeat with the 2nd one

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4. Care­ful­ly insert a thin screw­driv­er or pry tool around the side clos­est to the out­side and gen­tly loosen the part until it pops out

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5. Now you see this

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6. Take your big­ger screw dri­ver and locate these screws. Mine hap­pened to be stripped from last time and replaced WAY too tight­ly, so I need­ed the sock­et wrench to help

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8. And with a lit­tle pull towards you, the whole hous­ing comes off!

9. The one we need today is the mid­dle grey one where the lines con­nect. Just a lit­tle twist and off it comes

10. There’s the old bulb. Just give it a tug and replace it with the new bulb

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11. New bulb! *Impor­tant* Wear gloves before putting the new bulb in!! So, every­thing now goes back­wards. Put the bulb in and twist until it locks in place

12. Replace the brake hous­ing. There are two tabs on the side where the hous­ing will slide into.

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13. Slide it in…and…

14. …push! It’ll click into place.

15. Do every­thing back­wards and VOILA!!!

All done. Make sure the light works, but that’s all there is to it!!!

This is what hap­pens, by the way, when you touch the bulbs with your bare hands. The upper bulb has a burned spot where the oil from my fin­ger got, heat­ed up, and *poof* burned out the bulb.

DIY: Lunar New Year Garden Flag

01/29/2018

The Prob­lem: I want a spe­cif­ic gar­den flag that can­not be found after an exhaus­tive search online.

The Solu­tion: Make it myself.

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Chi­nese Zodi­ac Gar­den Flag

Mate­ri­als: Fab­ric paint, fab­ric mark­ers, scis­sors, nylon fab­ric, sewing machine, thread, pen­cil, tooth­picks, tow­els, iron, fuse web (option­al: all-pur­pose knives, heal­ing mat)

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Pre­lim­i­nary plac­ing, Taped gar­den flag

Sewing

First attempt at sewing down one of the sides

Should’ve done it this way instead

Fresh­ly sewn gar­den flag!

Fus­ing the test pig

Fused!

Test­ing the fab­ric paint and sev­er­al markers…because of the nature of the fab­ric, water-based any­thing will bleed

Ready for fus­ing! Make sure to iron it first!

Peel­ing off the fuse back­ing after iron­ing

Trim­ming excess fuse. The nylon shrunk when placed under heat.

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Dry placed, with fuse back­ing still attached

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Fus­ing!

Final fused with test pig set for deci­sion mak­ing

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First paint

Paint­ing!

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All done!!!!

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Flow­ers!

Puffy mark­er col­ored, before heat

Over­heat­ed puffy mark­er. It’s sup­posed to puff when intro­duced to heat

Peel­ing off the over­heat­ed mark­er. I col­ored it back in after­wards

Tips:

  • I tried to use an X‑Acto knife, but it was not use­ful for me and frayed the fab­ric. Scis­sors were much eas­i­er. A rotary cutter/X‑Acto knife is per­fect for mak­ing straight cuts (ie the flag itself).
  • Don’t for­get that fuse web needs to be traced on back­wards!
  • Take it easy with the sewing ped­al, lol.
  • If I were to do it again, I’d have used red thread, instead of yel­low because I’m only a begin­ner sew­er. That way my lack of abil­i­ty and impa­tience would­n’t be so obvi­ous.
  • Be care­ful when you’re paint­ing, not to smear it every­where
  • Do not over­heat the puffy vel­vet mark­er if that’s what you’re using
  • Maybe try a real paint­brush for detail instead of my tooth­pick.
  • The nylon will shrink when ironed, so take that into con­sid­er­a­tion and I would def­i­nite­ly rec­om­mend iron­ing the blank flag before try­ing to fuse.
  • Patience! Steady hand! Reduce inter­rup­tions from peo­ple or dogs!