One year ago today: October 4, 2014, gov’t-approved food.
Five years ago today: October 4, 2010, quick, spell Miccosukee.
Six years ago today: October 4, 2009, is tilapia food?
MORNING
A few years ago I was amazed by some boxes built “by hand” at a booth on Young Circle. I was so impressed I asked the guy if he gave lessons. (No, he only took on dedicated apprentices to work in his shop.) I’d forgot about it until last evening, I found a video of a guy who made some interesting patterns by gluing different types of wood together. I looked several times. So, that’s how it’s done. A bandsaw, some clever cutting, and an awful lot of belt sanding.
Time permitting, I may head to Harbor Freight to finally get that sander. The home-made rotaries that I built are not for fine work. I just checked and there is a $1,600 surplus in the petty cash account (because I did not travel this summer on the sidecar, only the truck), so I think the $45 is a timely investment.
I’ve been wanting the sander a while as it will improve the mesh of wooden gear teeth, a complicated theory where a good finish would improve performance. Suffice to know that there is actually two small axes turning around each gear at the point where each tooth makes contact. The gear surfaces themselves never stop sliding past each other. And that means friction is ever-present.
At any rate, this article has made a change in my perception of building these boxes. The emphasis shift to the gluing and sanding, that is, away from the sawing and fitting. The pieces fit because they are cut from a solid block, not because of super-careful measuring. I’m learning.
[Author’s note: again, avoid trying to copy exactly anything you see here. This photo is staged, in the sense that I would not normally use C-clamps where some ordinary weights would suffice. Clamps are generally difficult to use, unwieldy, and tend to leave marks on the work surface unless you chase around for sacrificial blocks. And flat thin pieces (good for plates) around here rarely last long enough to become handy for other things.
Hence, this representation is only for show. The dark wood is particle board, something not normally used for laminates. But I did find an interesting effect, the “indented strip” when the sandwich piece does not quite extent to the edge of the bigger plates. Looks neat and I see nobody else does it. Hmmm.
A reminder to the reader that this blog, while based on reality, contains intentional errors that would make anyone who tried to use it for their own purposes look like a fool, a total fool.]
NOON
The movie, Hindenburg, was as corny as an Agatha Christie plot. Every one of the passengers has a motive, and connections. Diamond smuggling, rocket research, cheating spouses, political intrigue, and all of it geared to portray the world as anti-Hitler all along (patently untrue). But keeping me intrigued was the rather detailed operation and interior of the zeppelin. It’s easy to miss the lengths gone through to portray those features. Otherwise, the movie is and anti-German joke.
There is also the innovation of a skin of graphene or other nanotechnology. (Graphene is known as “fast, easy, and impossible to use”.) Like commercial airliners, until the zeppelins are able to fly above the weather—and also above any of the famous scenery that sells tickets—there is not much to the idea. May I add, I have seen the icefields and ocean scenery out the porthole of a DC-3 and the portrayals in the movie are reasonably well done.
Lots of amenities and spectacular views would be tempting. But without a decent cruising altitude and vastly improved power source, I would not even joyride on one. Too bad there would no longer be a passenger list to make sure one does have to rub elbows with the lower orders.
I have no diagram, but here is a description of how my sound speed device would work. There is a two small floating platforms with a small antenna, one transmit and one receive, are moored a mil apart. There are appropriate sensors to measure the water temperature, density, salinity, and any others that might affect sound speed. One float has a beam, either LED or a laser or radio beep. When it flashes, it emits a sonar pulse or two.
The other float has a receiver that begins timing when it sees the beam. When the sonar pulse arrives, it stores the calculated speed or transmits the information to a fixed station. Who is to say if this will ever be built? At this time, I have other priorities.
Mimms points out that most sensors work on a varying voltage, usually between 0 and 5 volts. This voltage can easily be turned into a sound, or more properly stated, a voltage to frequency conversion. The advantage is that frequency can be recorded on all kinds of devices. And I have the excellent cassette tape deck I picked up almost free a week ago. I must look into the conversion technology. Most of these use either a 555 timer or a comparator.
I own several comparators, but have no adequate instructions on how to use them. Maybe it’s time I do it seat-of-the-pants style. Ain’t no help available from the common core people these days.
AFTERNOON
Millennial marketing, and I got suckered. You see, a Millennial hasn’t got the brains or the balls to pull off a real con. The best those bastards can do is catch you off guard for a dollar. (The worst those bastards can do is shoot unarmed school children.) Yeah, they get you for 50 cents here and there, real bunch of heroes, but there are millions of them dismal pricks.
One reflector with TWO drill holes. Yahoo, count ‘em. Two mounting holes. “2”, big “2”. Sadly, no picture, I threw the package away. But this so typifies the degeneration of American society that the people who will be running the place after Trump is gone are the sort that have sunk to this level of scam. Anything, just anything except working hard for a few years while young and building up a nest egg.
Speaking of the scooter, at 16,200 miles, I believe if it lasts until Spring it is due for replacement. I will never forget how the government cost me that beautiful Honda rebel earlier this year. Didn’t I tell you about that? Oh, well, I had a friend who lent me the $1800. Sent it to me by check from overseas. But once it got here, the “homeland security” people, who have absolutely no reason to suspect me or any other ordinary American, held the check for 21 days. Until the motorcycle was sold to somebody else.
I will not soon forget they did that to me instead of going after known crooks and bad guys. They don’t want that, they want to make rules to keep tabs on innocent people instead. In case anything goes wrong, I suppose. And I mean, what could go wrong? This is America, the home of the free.
Other routine maintenance took the remainder of the afternoon, so I kind of broke my rule about confining myself to one simple project per day. But it was easy going, replacing the license plate bolts with nylon nuts, moving the mini-cutoff saw to the assembly table, sweeping up the Florida room, changing the scooter oil, and if I have time, I’ll see why the electric nailer is getting anemic.
Cancel the foreign cinema again, I’ve still got a hacking cough and a few chapters to read. Maybe I’ll do Starbucks, but only because of the noisy crowd at the Panera. Old coots with whom I proudly have nothing in common. Really, I mean that. When my club meets, we don’t bring out the racing forms and pictures of the grandkids. To me, that is a pitiful situation to wind up in. At the club meeting this morning, I listened to several theories of what type of sounds to use if we were to test an underwater device. And giving a demonstration to non-believers that yes, you can dissolve a cough candy in hot tea.
What? You want to know the difference in underwater sounds? Can’t, I don’t know if there is a difference. But I’ve read enough to know the type of problems that sonar people have. There must be a reason they use an electronic ping rather than hanging and old drum over the side and giving it a thump with a rubber mallet. Although that is a good use for most bass drums, I say it is because a certain type of ping makes it easier to detect the echo, and calculate for any Doppler.
EVENING
Here she is, my new belt sander. On sale for $36, it is not intended to be heavy duty. I’m building robots, not going contracting. (I have a high speed disk sander made from an old air conditioner fan for heavier jobs. This is mounted on a desk top, and it is a dust generator, that’s for sure. I have a shop vacuum, but no dust collection system. I just kind of relegate all such work to one known dusty area of the workspace.
It seems some users must get sudden urges to sand things at “up to 45 degrees”. That’s nice, but the bolt, once assembled, goes in 9/10ths of the way, then will neither tighten nor back out. Two hours later, I go it working right. All because somebody could not be bothered to write down that there was a set screw in the locking handle that has to be completely removed with an allen wrench, a process which strips the hexagon in the soft metal.
I also picked up some wood glue. No, not just any glue works fine, though it may work. There are plenty of considerations, such as spreadability, will it “grab” right, positioning time, set time, whether it has to be clamped, color when dry, does it get brittle, will it wreck saw blades, odor, how easy to take off the cap for subsequent uses, and will it dry out in the tube by itself. If it was not for about half those things going wrong, I would always use Liquid Nails. It is not permitted to cut liquid nails with club saw blades or drill bits.
As for glue, setup, and sanding time versus actual cutting, I have a ratio. To build boxes, anyway, only 24% of the time is actual “carpentry”. Concerning the famous “Gorilla Glue” (the wood glue brand), it is far from perfect. While it is hard to beat for sanding and painting, it is slippery. You have to clamp it twice, once to keep the pieces from sliding off kilter before you clamp for effect. And the smallest amount of glue useable is a thick enough layer to ooze a bit when clamped, meaning it sticks to guide plates, paper mats, and can get into crevasses where you really don’t want the stuff.
By 8:00PM I canceled the idea of Starbucks and built half a guitar stand out of scraps. It goes fast since I have a drill for nothing but pilot holes. Then to try it out, I ran through my favorite song list. You want my song list, do ya? Okay, these are the tunes that I both play and sing. Most of these are the genuine hits with a completely revamped bassline which does NOT change the character of the original.
Tennessee Flat Top Box
Oh Lonesome Me
Jambalaya
Sea Of Heartbreak
Blame It On Your Heart
Folsom Prison Blues
Don’t Rock The Jukebox
Long-Hair Country Boy
Party Till The Money Run Out
Here’s a Quarter
Love Me Tonight
These Boots
Spiders & Snakes
Cocaine Blues
Pirate Looks At 40
A Long Time Leavin’
And on the secondary list, because some a duets, others I can’t do in the original key, etc.
That’s What I Like About You
Jackson
Act Naturally
Streets of Bakersfield
Guitar & Cadillacs
Back In Baby’s Arms
Chattahootchie
Margaritaville
This is why I’d appreciate a guitar player who could do twelve songs. We’d be out making money in a week. I can also play most of the standards and the ones I can’t, I’ll have a real bass line ready in a week. That’s the real thing, I don’t fake nothing on stage. I have not given up on the Fishman Solo, but now that the money is set aside, there has not been a unit on the market in over a year. Yes, I must have my own PA because you would not believe the hassles of trying to adjust a house PA to fit my sound.
And the establishment press has reported that in South Carolina, three deaths have been blamed on flooding. I wish they’d quit doing that. Floods are not at “fault” for anything. Plus, NPR said it is the worst flooding in 1,000 years. I’d like to hear how they know that.
ADDENDUM
Good move, Oregon. Do not use the shooters name. These deadbeats are nobody’s and should stay that way. Let them know it is not just their imagination that says they are useless and unwanted shitheads. Cowards, too. They never attack anyone who can fight back. They never do any good by shooting up some equally unbalanced retards. Like maybe the MicroSoft office.
MSN, the MicroSoft web page, published an article of the nine things intelligent people never say. First of all, how would MicroSoft have any clue about that? Their “android” smart phones take 27 hand motions to read an e-mail and they sell that to hipsters as “progress”. Have you seen the list? Don’t say, “You look tired”, or “Good luck”. Let me add a tenth item. Never go around presuming you have what it takes to tell intelligent people how to speak. Trust me, by the time I say you look tired, you are a wreck. Get some sleep, take a week off. Get out of the city.
Last Laugh
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