One year ago today: July 23, 2024, $6, if you’re lucky.
Five years ago today: July 23, 2020, TX disappearing pie.
Nine years ago today: July 23, 2016, selling the trailer.
Random years ago today: July 23, 2012, aggravating ads.
To show I’m not sitting around like a sofa spud, here is last evening’s progress on finding something small to manufacture. What the? I just discovered my Canon scanner won’t function unless there is paper in the feed hopper. Yep, folks, welcome to progress. Anyway here are the results of an hour’s effort. These are two not-seen-here-before laser drawings. There are two separate images, actually. On the left is a dollhouse door and window. Today I will find out how this looks cut into a solid 4x4” wood block, and maybe I’ll test a lighter “brick pattern” to check out the laser layering feature. In a different type of layer, I made up a grilled cheese and banana sandwich, that’s vegetarian food.
That did not stop me from looking at several hundred examples of these rather excellent vector files. We are way ahead of you on the shingles, brick siding, and paving stone ideas. You quickly learn that Glowforge files are expensive and CorelDraw is needed for many patterns. Also learned is that if they give a sample you can screen capture it for free and mesh together duplicates. The laser will print jpeg files. Here’s news item. A “high-wage” worker these days makes $66 per hour. Now you know what to shoot for.
Who recalls the wooded gears I painstakingly cut with a band saw and scroll saw ten years ago? That was May, 2015. I’ve reported the success and satisfaction with this laser to all those on my Xmas list. Here are the same gears today, they are so “valuable” I kept them as a display.
Reading further consumer reports reveals that one of the common problems with the machine is getting it centered on the material. This is particularly important when making more that one pass, which I am prone to do if the material or pattern isn’t solid wood. I have used the machine to cut light cardboard at 100% power. Other than that full power is only used for cutting a little deeper where I think the wood may be sanded. I also see it would be useful for inlays or a colored material. Indeed, I am having lots of fun with this unit.
The multiple problems with the machine require a background in various aspects of the process to get around. Except for the simplest operations, this machine could be a daunting challenge for newcomers. You should be familiar with terms from photography, Cartesian coordinates, computer settings, file formats, and materials properties at the least. Line up your work, as other than thin simple lines, the 5 watt laser can take its time. A proper photo etching that requires several sweeps can last minutes per pass. I rapidly learned a light first pass to darken the target areas can speed things by giving subsequent laser shots a better burn. Here’s an etched pencil like the one we saw at the Maker Faire four months ago, this one says “This is Will’s pencil.” I wonder what took me so long?
Forget work this morning other than what I’ve just reported. I repeated the exercises given at the clinic and this time all the “relieved” muscles became sore. Probably just disuse. Don’t chance anything is the word. Never forget how out of commission I was with just the shoulder. Then again, check with me later because I normally like to get something done daily.
Is there anything to the rumor that 25,000 IRS employees got the ax? America hopes so. It will be a spectacle all these jokers hitting the job market at once—and finding out they shouldn’t have let in all those illegals. This blog has always known the Deep State was the civil service and Trump is wisely attacking it where it feeds.
Kignfisher depth charge laucher.
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Another couple hours uses up the afternoon, I fixed some electric cords and started hacking down the SE backyard jungle. Shown here, I built a toy house to make sure the pices aren’t too small to handle with my saw and pieces too small split when nailed, etc. Here is what the test piece looks like, a little birdhouse kind of. I’ll make it smaller until I can’t no more. But I can already tell these are too complicated to churn out. I’m testing a burn of the brick patters but that takes too long and I don’t know the service life of the laser.
Next, I relocated the scooter shed shelf down to workbemch height and moved two of the chop saws into place. The 45° and the bevel. Or what I hope will be the bevel. It is seized or rusted and I have it soaking in creeping oil. There was a 10mm set screw, but it took 80 quarter-turns to get it to move 5°. That’s the maximum a wrench can get at it. I need it at 30°. Try again tomorrow, it is really seized. I wonder it that is intentional, that is, somebody locked it in place.
How to set the bevel on a miter saw—one again I ask a simple question that has no answer on the Internet. Tons of the easy part, making the cut, but no clear explanation of how to get there. The Internet has institutionalized laziness. I will go over the say again tomorrow, but there are not liking pins or twirly-knobs. The a small gauge with a pointer—but the adjustment screw falls out if you go past 5°. It’s stupidity making it difficult because nobody pays extra for a bevel setting unless they intend to use it.
I made a second counterattack on the backyard weeds, getting most except the stems that grew too woody. I can’t find those two pieces of 4-foot 4x4 posts that I need for the bench, but they are back there with the weeds. Skipping siesta, I tried to figure out the coordinate settings on the laser. It’s obviously an elaborate system but it is not intuitive. There must be a way to override the defaults, for example the factory makes the center of the object the origin, where I would like it to be the lower left corner so I can deal with quadrants.
The good news is I have a note from the tube guy that there is a payout waiting for me. Maybe tomorrow, and lordy know it is welcome. You see, the emergency funding two weeks ago came mostly from my funeral account. There is nothing else left. If I croak now, it is the $800 homeless special. Given time, I will recover but did you know only 1.89% of Americans live to be 80? With one exception. If you are a Holocaust survivor, that jumps to 85.65%.
ADDENDUM
I just went through the nightmare of copying a MicroSoft Excel spreadsheet. All I want is a copy with the formulas intact, but without a link to where it is copied from. But there is no single command to do that. It’s three paste specials. But there is a problem. After Vista, you must paste the full sheet first with any linked fields. Then paste values. Then paste column widths. Then paste formulas. But I was trying to fix a glitch and it would not copy the formulas without the link—and that linked file was the problem. I got it, but it took over an hour because I had to go through each linked cell and type in the new link. Up yours, MicroSoft.
