What Did You Buy Today?

[Dyspnea]

Winter is coming, didn't want to spend $250. But my battery wouldn't hold a charge overnight above 11.6 volts.

Should be better than the made in Brazil flooded battery.

 

[coolidge]

Yuasa makes good stuff.

True, but these Yuasa 'labeled' rotary tables are now made in Taiwan. Across the board Taiwan and China are cheaping out on these rotary tables. Cutting features and going cheap. This is the third I purchased recently...

8" Vertex (Taiwan) - 6 T slots reduced to 3, cheaped out on the dial a new overlapping style that's more difficult to read. Top ball oiler gone. It didn't look like it had a hardened center taper. Doesn't come close to the previous model, returned.

8" Sound Bend (China) - Wow horrible, shaft so bent or machined poorly that it wobbled like a cartoon wheel and jammed. Non-standard T slots e.g. nobody on earth makes a T nut that fits it, returned.

10" Yuasa (Tawian) - Top ball oiler gone. Flip cap oilers gone, replaced with ball oilers, even though they still show the flip cap oilers on websites and in Yuasa's catalog. Cheaped out on the dial, it has the new overlapping style which is harder to read vs the previous dial which butted together flush. That said fit and finish much better than the above two and the crank shaft turns quite straight and true. Very little backlash, about 1.5 clicks on the dial. Both the catalog and websights (MSC) have the T slot dimensions wrong, they are big honker .55 inch wide T slots (14mm).

 

[Janderso]

True, but these Yuasa 'labeled' rotary tables are now made in Taiwan. Across the board Taiwan and China are cheaping out on these rotary tables. Cutting features and going cheap. This is the third I purchased recently...

8" Vertex (Taiwan) - 6 T slots reduced to 3, cheaped out on the dial a new overlapping style that's more difficult to read. Top ball oiler gone. It didn't look like it had a hardened center taper. Doesn't come close to the previous model, returned.

8" Sound Bend (China) - Wow horrible, shaft so bent or machined poorly that it wobbled like a cartoon wheel and jammed. Non-standard T slots e.g. nobody on earth makes a T nut that fits it, returned.

10" Yuasa (Tawian) - Top ball oiler gone. Flip cap oilers gone, replaced with ball oilers, even though they still show the flip cap oilers on websites and in Yuasa's catalog. Cheaped out on the dial, it has the new overlapping style which is harder to read vs the previous dial which butted together flush. That said fit and finish much better than the above two and the crank shaft turns quite straight and true. Very little backlash, about 1.5 clicks on the dial. Both the catalog and websights (MSC) have the T slot dimensions wrong, they are big honker .55 inch wide T slots (14mm).

Too bad, I was under the impression Taiwan manufacturers were striving to be top quality producers.
Precision Mathews for example. They make sure to say, Taiwan made over the cheaper China variant.

 

[woodchucker]

I’m afraid I have bad news: mice don’t eat paper products, they shred them up and carry the shreds off to use as bedding for their babies.

More bad news: my pest guy tells me that rodents can squeeze themselves to gaps as small as 1/4” (apparently their skulls are flexible or something). Best thing to do is “caulk” (like they caulked ship planking with oakum) gaps around pipes, siding, etc. with steel wool.

Oh, and they’ll run through those open garage doors faster than you can see.

yep, knew it was for the bedding.
There's no stopping them.
Little bastards. Found tons more mouse droppings... I put out 8 traps, no success yet.
I cleaned it all up in the spring, so this is new stuff. I might have to hang one dead on a stake to scare off the other buggers.

 

[ChazzC]

Just about the size of the trap in the garage . They squeeze in but not out .

Eagles remix: Hotel Maryland

 

[woodchucker]

Don't trust those traps. Old fashioned snap trap, with a metal trigger for me. Stuff chunky peanut butter in the curl of the trigger, so they have to work at it, not delicately lick it clean. Gets them every time. And they are dead. Reuse the trap! The other mice don't care, renew the bait if necessary. Put several of them next to each other, so if they trigger one trap and are lucky, they land on the other trap, which will do the job. Do that for a week or so, and the problem is gone. Well gone for the season maybe. Seal up those gaps, that's how they get in.

have you seen the new snap traps, plastic pad. I use dog food, I wire it in, so they can't get it out. My old traps were really scummy, only two metal ones left. I like them so far, but we'll see. I haven't caught any yet since I put them out. Last year I had a bunch with in the first two days.

edit: oh geez, just looked them up on amazon, they don't require bait, the plastic is scented. yea, that can't work... dog food it is.

Amazon.com

 

[WobblyHand]

have you seen the new snap traps, plastic pad. I use dog food, I wire it in, so they can't get it out. My old traps were really scummy, only two metal ones left. I like them so far, but we'll see. I haven't caught any yet since I put them out. Last year I had a bunch with in the first two days.

edit: oh geez, just looked them up on amazon, they don't require bait, the plastic is scented. yea, that can't work... dog food it is.

Amazon.com

The plastic pads jobs I tried were garbage. They wear out at the trigger point and become useless. Designed for a couple uses, in my opinion. The metal ones will last as long as you can stand them... I do replace mine when they get nasty enough. I now handle them with rubber gloves, no need to pick up some disease from splatted mice. Wearing those thin rubber gloves does make them interesting to set though . My wife would just as soon chuck them with the mouse still in them. I just release the trap over the trash can and it falls in. Then bait it again. If there's no evidence of mice for a week, and no trap action, I put them away until next time.

All I can say is if the bait is just smeared on, they will just lick it off and you won't catch a thing. It has to be so the food/bait/PB is stuck inside the curl of the trigger metal. PB to attract, but a small piece of peanut stuck in the curl. Usually buy the cheapest chunky PB I can find, label it mouse food using a marker on the label and the lid, and use a tongue depressor stick to push the PB and peanut bit into the curl. The depressor gets disposed. It may take two weeks, but I get them all.

 

[tq60]

How are you placing traps?

Mice and rats have terrible vision, so they move along walls and rarely go in an open space, instinct to avoid being lunch.

Get the traps with the large plastic wing.

Place them 90 degrees to walls with the flag towards the wall.

Space at least a foot apart, bait not needed, you get them as they pass.

Make "walls".

Lay a long 2x4 on its side in general area where you think they enter.

Shove one end under bench or cabinet and other end towards center of room, set traps in the center.

Early bird gets worm...second mouse gets the cheese...not always...

This trap was set along a fake wall, some scrap plywood near where animal feed was stored.

There was a time our outside cat colony left, large dog...rats took over the shop.

Sometimes we got 6 in a day.

Colony has returned with a couple living in shop, no more rats.

We also bring home long mouse catchers too...

Sent from my SM-G781V using Tapatalk

 

[woodchucker]

Yep against the wall. I would love to have snakes to eat them, but most are in the winter and snakes take too long to digest each one.

 

[WobblyHand]

Yep against the wall. I would love to have snakes to eat them, but most are in the winter and snakes take too long to digest each one.

I'd agree it's a seasonal thing. They move in for the winter, it's generally warmer and it's sheltered. Around here there's no snakes active during the winter.

Definitely put them along the wall, they run along them, as well as cabinet base plates or kick panels. I do multiple traps together as well as singles, with the multiples near places where they emerge, on both sides of that zone.

My biggest beef with the plastic trigger plates is I can't lodge the peanut fragments in the assembly tight enough and these light tongued critters simply lick them clean. The metal triggers are easy to tightly jam chunky PB into the curl. And that seals their doom. Good luck, I hate them. I'm cleaning out my mom's house and I'm running into old messes and mouse nests in the garage, including a stinking mess of bedding in a trashcan. I got rid of that week. Ages ago Deacon (warfarin) was put in the garage. That meant I had to clean up random dead mouse bodies on the floor and who knows where else. I'd rather deal with traps, because I know where they are.