April 25, 2023

Yesteryear
One year ago today: April 25, 2022, “no political experience”.
Five years ago today: April 25, 2018, California musician coincidence.
Nine years ago today: April 25, 2014, into a diamond.
Random years ago today: April 25, 2015, you cannot compete.

           I saved the pieces from the manual door lock, as the specs for drilling the wood seem to be identical by design. The work on the roofing has produced excellent results and I’m considering sealing up the joints with some waterproofing material, since it looks like my supply of shingles has not worked out. It’s a balmy overcast 82°F out there and feels like rain, so I’m up to spending the interval in the yard. Grab a rake and join me.

           Another project is to modernize my soldering iron. A couple pictures are included nearby that show the apparatus, mounted on a 2x6” with a carrying handle that shows the paint scheme of those days. This has given sterling service but needs to be somewhat bigger both for convenience and stability. Hey, new roofs, new lock, new gizmos. I’m earning any time off that I get this week.

           The good news is I found and excellent and reasonable electronics supply house. The bad news is it is on-line only. It’s in Tarpon Springs, I would drive there if they had a showroom. Their website has excellent pictures if you are just curious what is available, or need help identifying a part. Except for the one I wanted, the “organic” capacitor. Up to now I thought they meant the casing, but recent hints say I should confirm that. These are those big capacitors you’ll find inside an old air conditioner. Also, what’s with organic?
           A fortune awaits the person who invents an inexpensive switch. The cheapest workable models out there are $3 each. That’s fine if you need only one per project. This morning gave me time to work on some hobby stuff. I fell asleep last night and forgot the shed lights and fan on, so with today, that means they were left on a total of 23 hours. How did I forget? Weariness, and I’d better get used to it. This blog will prove I prepared as best I could, so let’s see what I get done this afternoon in the rain.

           Take ten and look over these pictures, they represent the dismantling of that variable flasher. It was a jog down memory lane. I tend to label the parts with dates and this was 2013. There are two separate events shown. One is the salvage or the potentiometer and the 555 timing chip. If you only ever learn one integrated circuit, there’s a good chance it will be this classic, the grandaddy of timing chips, the 555. It takes an analog signal between 4 and 16 volts and converts it to an off-on digital signal at half whatever the input is. When the signal is a wave, this useful device coverts it to a digital timing pulse.
           This shows the desoldering process, most of the parts are not reusable. In one shot, I’m pointing to the chip holder. With a metal prong, the chip is already removed This is soldered in place. On the back you can see my SONY-like blobs of solder. This assembly no longer functions and the potentiometer may be rusted out. These parts are not hard to find, but they are getting expensive and all too often sold in packages of five or ten.

           Disney prepares to lay off another 7,000 but pretends their woketard loss of business has nothing to do with it. Tucker’s removal took a billion off the value of Fox News, though I doubt one person in 10,000 knows what that means in real impact. An 18-year-old Japanese gal has developed a litmus test for date rape drugs, which tells you a lot about the crowd she runs with. (Studies hint that 1 female in 13 at some colleges report being drugged, but they are “not sure”.)Enjoy. That’s all I have for you this morning.

Picture of the day.
The $29 London breakfast.
Remember to use BACK ARROW to return to blog.

           We got a soaking, the gauge shows 7/10ths of an inch. Today two milestones for me. I built a lid for an existing box and my very first floating panel assembly. I’m not sure what it’s called. Proud I am, so I’ll supply the story. In the early days, I knew so little about boxes, I build them without lids. I thought that was too challenging. Now I know, build the whole box as one and cut the lid off. I had several handy boxes around that became difficult to stack without lids.

           But that would mean building a lid to the exact specs of an existing box and I don’t know how to do that. Now I know, it is done very carefully. I left the radio off as it is all about Tucker being fired at Fox for “extreme far-right misinformation”. Just means he found something on Biden. The left has been systematically squelching their critics for years, but this time maybe they’ve gone too far. Radio off.

           Here is the lid being glued. This time, I have all the correct tools and know-how to use them. These are simple mitered rails with brad nails. The clamps work fine one you know their limitations. If you look, the actual lid is a piece of hardboard fitted into recesses cut around the frame. That’s the panel, it is supposed to float around in the grooves. I cut it a bit too large, so it fit snug and I just glued it up.
           If it turns out well, I’ll get you the photos. For now, I’ve planned to multitask. That glue says to clamp for at least twenty minutes. I began a race to see what could be done. First, I glued up another box panel with my biscuit joiner. I have that on video though you’ll have to wait. I’m going to the neighbor’s tonight to watch a Gunsmoke movie. He has not been out of the house much and everything he does reminds him of his wife. She’s been gone a year now, I think.

           It’s just a video of cutting and gluing, but once clamped, that gave me a second stretch of empty space. That’s the surprise for today. Simply as a demo of the possibility, I made up a pair of saw ponies in moments less than a half hour. This was documented and will be carefully studied. The lumber was cleaned and at the ready and the finished product still has to be displayed and sold. What was being measured is the actual assembly time which involves cutting the pieces, drilling the pilot holes, then screwing the pieces together. Ultimately, I would have a jig for each stage. This was to see what time frame I was up against. Can I build a pair of saw ponies in a half hour?
           Later, yes I did. Wait for the movie. All you get now is the process of fitting the lid. Shown here, it is a perfect fit, but I’ll never make lids like this again. Too finicky, and as you see the wood does not match. Nonetheless, this shows a major advancement in capability and this lid was built in less than two hours. That’s two easy hours, as I was determined to get that floating panel technology right. I almost succeeded and even that resulted in this box, which holds my hole drills. I used the bench grinder to make the pieces fit and now they work just fine.

ADDENDUM
           The technology for the saw ponies has changed a little. The wood I got from Agt. R is exactly four feet long, meaning every five pieces can make a pair of ponies with one piece left over. In millennial talk, that’s buy 1 get 1 free. I’ve also changed the hardware, since I’ve learned to use longer screws on the legs. They go through the beam into the opposite side, making the units stronger than they need to be. Here us the video, I stayed up late to get it to you.

           This would be called by some a time & motion study, we are checking what to expect from unskilled labor supplied with cleaned lumber. The transport and selling costs are not a factor at this point. The ponies shown here are hand assembled, production (if any) would use jigs and batch methods. The answer is 26 minutes for each pair. The process involves 5 pieces of lumber and 15 cuts, all identical, plus 16 screws for each pony, double that for a matching set. This proves it would be feasible to sell these for $15 a pair, but that’s just barely enough.
           What’s the term for conducting a study like this? I call it a working model, but this isn’t a model, it is the real thing. There’s more to it than shown here. The complete production facility is an accumulation of things that in some instances took years to get moving over here. I don’t know that I would ever make and sell these, but I do know that I could set up and control an assembly line—and that’s more important than simply able to do the work. That, folks, is why management pay is better. It’s simple supervision, but I would hate to have to go looking for somebody reliable. For the record, I’ve never been a fan of management that does not know how to do the work but I know how that could start an argument. In all, quite the exercise to remind me how much I’d forgotten.

Last Laugh