One year ago today: May 23, 2024, plotting practice.
Five years ago today: May 23, 2020, I stayed home instead.
Nine years ago today: May 23, 2016, WIP
Random years ago today: May 23, 2014, must have treats . . .
Having learned to have my coffee before taking my new Rx, I took time to read up the latest from the JWST, the Webb space telescope. It reports finding the most distant galaxies yet. I thought you might like a plain English description of how this is done. Light wavelengths. As objects speed away, their spectrographs show a familiar “red shift”, and the further and faster, the more shift you get. This also works at the other end of the spectrum, where you get purple light. Beyond that is ultra-violet light which you can’t see it because it is invisible.
What? Another picture of lumber? Yes, we have sales, which is a major breakthrough around here because I don’t like selling. This is the lumber for nine new boxes. The first three were snapped up by the store for samples and souvenirs. Am I to take it there is a pent-up demand for such boxes. I’ll tell you precisely how it went. I had to finish stapling the sample boxes after the “holding” staples kept the corners 90° while the glue dried. Expect a lot of logistics as we work through this next little adventure.
Every operation has constraints, so this time around I paid close attention to the overhead. How much space do I really have? How much time before I tire. I have not even begun to calculate my output, but I have a couple small sheds, not an assembly line in a factory. I have only enough space to create six boxes in a batch. You may note me calling the larger model the Z-box and the smaller the E-box. It requires 77% as much effort to build the small box as the big.
After watching others handle the units, I’ve decided to make the thumb holes 1/4” larger and up the number of staples per box from 32 to 40. Return this afternoon for info on how it went. I’m switching to 1-1/4” staples for the Z-box but gluing only the side joints. I’ll also switch to the best quality glue that’s commonly available. The box bottoms have a piece that must be custom cut for each box, I ran into this problem before, and it has become a given.
My MSRP of the e-box is $11 and $14 on the z-box. These are guesses, as I have not done a cost breakdown per unit, or determined the optimum cutting pattern (to minimize waster) or calculated the economic order quantity. And I’ve not costed the yakasugi, rather used up my plumbing bottles so far. Should there be enough demand, I put and $800 float away and cut and paste a set of books to track every cent. By now, that is a habit, and a damn good one.
Another ship has crashed into shore, this time in Norway. The Right says it is due to DEI hiring, the Left says it is because the Right is firing DEIs. Science Advisor (no link) reports a new type of contact lens sensitive to shapes and colors beyond normal. I’ll wait for confirmation on that one. News also arrives that there were no buyers for the US Bond auction. While Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” will help most every legitimate worker, those stagnant bonds spell inflation. I’m okay compared to some as only a quarter of my assets are cash, but that cash is necessary and will now be replaced with ever weakening dollars. Inflation has been 100% since 2005.
Blog rules I must describe all medical and the new “arthritis pill” not only deadens taste, it imparts a hint of odd flavor. In this case, dusty cardboard with a hint of lemon. Very faint, but enough to interfere with coffee, so I’m changing my schedule to put a full half-hour between. How odd the med is plastered with warnings to take with food, then makes it taste funny.
Oh, and I sold one vacuum tube for $8.
Texas grain elevator.
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It’s early afternoon and I’m pretty happy. If things continue as they went, Fridays could become a real day off. I put together three boxes y’day afternoon, needing all night for the glue to dry. I finished two of the boxes, one plain and the other yakasugi. I took careful time and motion measurements and made closer estimates as to cost, both materials and labor. I took the boxes to the market at 10:00AM on the dot. You have already seen plenty photos of the Z-box, so here is a clip of the mouse, an overnight visitor who is already transported to the bone orchard.
There were just a few features I felt obligated to mention, such as the glue would not be dry on new boxes, and that they were sold as decoration only, that is, their suitability for any other purpose was not stated—but the quality of the box is very apparent. They are more that sturdy, this was always one of my parameters, especially for anything that might be used for tools. The lady grabbed the boxes for herself, which I kind of expected. She stated right off that this is exactly the box she pictured when I described it y’day. I also supplied an e-box of the same dimensions so she was aware I had them. Both boxes are just perceptibly heavier than meets the eye, which seemed to further delight the store.
She is going to list the Z-boxes for $14. I believe she’ll get it, as her section of the store is prime display space. I can’t help wondering, if this demand is there, why nobody else is selling these boxes. Let’s see if I still say that after I’ve sold some. I averaged my work time over the past new months and I am pretty useless. I won’t do a thing that even potentially strains my heart, the rest of my system took a shock and ever since, I get what you’d call tired in the same order now as then.
So today, after a nap, I will determine once and for all how many minutes I can put in and translate that into boxes. For example, I know that I cannot carry even two pieces of lumber all the way to the shed. I have to prop it half-way, the finish moving it sometimes next day. Yes, I’ve already priced out what I could do with a helper. But don’t get your hopes up. Unless they let the hillbilly out on a day pass, there isn’t even anyone nearby I’d trust with my tools.
Another thing. The supply of what I produce has to match what the store’s operation, which led to a talk about logistics. There’s your confirmation that I’m not exaggerating when I talk about the lack of motivation and even mild skill levels around here. She pretty much described the same situation I’ve said and unlike me, she has to have that store constantly staffed. So when I say “her department”, I’m not being cute, I’m delineating responsibility, ha-ha. The babe was not present when I was there today. Not to worry, this is central Florida, if she’s still here and over 20, she’s not going anywhere.
At 3:30PM today it is 29 years since I had a steady job. At 7:00PM I found myself in my own workshed behind my own house, putting two boxes together. The son whose father gives him these things has no idea what an inestimable head start he has in life. I now know that I can cut and assemble six boxes per hour at a measured pace. This includes moving, cutting, drilling, gluing, stapling, and fitting the bottom. This does not include any finishing, which is likely to be yagasuki. The direct materials cost is just under $2.50 per box. So, selling these wholesale should be $8.50 but I don’t think I can get that.
That would mean a gross margin of $6.00 per box, or $36.00 per hour. Since it is all tips, I probably could get away with somewhat less. The best plan is to increase production. I still encounter snags but they are getting fewer and more predictable. The box bottoms still have to be hand fitted using a clamp. If I solve that bottleneck 8 boxes per hour is not out of sight. This projects to 16 boxes per day, assuming a 2-hour day (optimistic), and I doubt that many will sell in a month. But none of that is really the point, is it?
ADDENDUM
When I was at SkyCraft back a while, I saw magnetic core toroids for sale. This is 1950s technology, expensive and bulky. Then I read somewhere that this type of memory was aboard the space Shuttle when it crashed. The recovered cores were still readable. This prompted me to look closer at how device used magnetism to store data. To be more exact, I knew how it was stored, I did not know how it was read back. Magnetic core memory isn’t actually magnetic until you pass current through it. You put it on grid with a coil at each intersection. Then same as memory, you can select individual locations where the signals intersect.
The current direction determines if the magnetism is one polarity or the other. I learned each wire has half the necessary current and where they meet you get full current. And aha, I knew this had been explained wrong to me years ago, and when I asked for clarification, the nodders got the class to move on. I was right that reading the data would destroy it, but did not get how it could be restored without another set of memory to know what to restore. It makes sense now, half a century later.
Any newcomers not sure what a nodder is? That’s the classroom jerks who you know, by their marks, are not as smart as you are. But they don’t like to look dumb, so when the professor says something they don’t understand, they all nod. And the prof moves on. Sound familiar? That, folks, is why other students had to put in dozens of times more study hours—they had to make up for time lost in the classroom. This works fine for students with an infinite supply of time and money. Not so much for me, who normally got one chance to grasp anything, I won’t explain how that works.
