Well, I ordered some more stuff from Harbor Freight… I took another shot at getting the air compressor, I bought the powder coating system, and picked up some little bins. The air compressor was on sale for only $99, less than last time, even! But guess what? They didn’t ship it this time either! Well, this warranted a phonecall. It turns out that despite being on the frontpage of every flier, and being part of every damned sale every week, it has in fact been DISCONTINUED for several months! So now I’ve even got a powder coating system I can’t use without an air compressor I don’t have… (And then my family made the remaining money disappear…they’re really good at that.) It’s always some god damn thing, isn’t it?
Anyway, some of my projects are on hold, but other than that, the lack of visible progress is mostly me being lazy. Not that I’m completely idle, I’m just not documenting anything I’m doing, which is part of the reason I came up with these status reports. Though at the moment most of what I’m doing involves putting my ducks in a row…which isn’t terribly interesting anyway.
Let’s see here… My current expenditure priorities for the next couple months are…
- Paying for my webhosting… Which I’m not even sure I can do entirely come the first, and it’s already past due. Gotta email them.
- Getting lithographic film, chemicals, and darkroom supplies.
- Getting an air compressor.
- Getting the extended bed for the lathe. (It sure would be nice.)
My father and I are also both rather interested in joining the ARRL, in case there were any doubt that we are both enormous nerds. Maybe do that for Christmas, or early in the new year. I’d really like to get the 100th anniversary version of the 2014 ARRL Handbook. We’ve got to get out to Burlington to take our license exams though. I took a practice exam and got everything except questions about specific frequencies. (So, with no prep at all, I almost got a passing grade. I shouldn’t have a problem after I actually learn what I need to.)
Some nifty links!
The YouTube channel of John Grimsmo, knifemaker and just fairly awesome guy. Him and his brother make some totally amazing knives using some crazy materials like Titanium for the handles and hardware, and do it all using CNC.
A photo-heavy Home Model Engine Machinist forum thread about a project 1/4 scale V8… Usually when you see something like that they don’t mean EXACT SCALE REPLICA… But this thing’s a real internal-combustion engine with electronic fuel injection, using an ECU and everything. He even made his own scale spark plugs.
A very cool robot thing, with an especially impressive neck joint. Lots of gears. The video details a bit of the machining process.
A series of videos detailing the design, fabrication, assembly, and test flight, of a very nice carbon fiber quadcopter frame. The second video (coincidentally enough posted on my birthday) proves an idea I’ve long held; the only truly smart and safe way for the hobbyist to mill or route carbon fiber sheets is if they’re submerged in a shallow water bath to catch the particles.
And last but not least, I learned a new word.