Stormcrow

The Tool Bench, part 2.

2012-01-15T17:01:00.004-05:00

Part 1 is here.

I intend to mount several stationary tools to the bench. Since some are heavy and other will involve me applying some force, I decided to put a thick top on the bench. After going through my scrap plywood pile, I found I had four pieces of 1/2" plywood that were all the right size. The truth is, I had been using one of these for a temporary work surface. When I sized the bench, I used the plywood's dimensions as a starting point and designed outwards.

The plan was to glue together these 4 sheets of plywood to make a heavy top.

The first step in gluing 4 sheets of plywood together is to get a friend to help. My friend Marco came over to lend an assist. We first taped plastic grocery bags over the sides and the lip on which the top would sit, so any squeeze-out would not glue the top to the sides. We then numbered each piece of plywood so we could assemble the top in the correct order. We discussed how the glue-up would happen. Carpenter's glue is made to set up pretty fast - this is usually a good thing. For complex glue-ups, not so much! We positioned all my clamps and cauls so when it was time, we'd be ready and wouldn't be fumbling for them.

Finally we placed the first sheet of plywood. I got the first bottle of yellow carpenter's glue ready by removing the top. I poured the glue right out of the bottle while Marco spread it over the plywood. I poured about 8 ounces of glue - enough so the entire surface was wet and stayed wet. Then we dropped the 2nd sheet of plywood in place and repeated the gluing procedure. When all was said and done, I used a total of 32 ounces of glue. I probably could have safely used more.

We verified that all the plywood was positioned correctly; it would be hard to fix after the glue set. Then we clamped the plywood sheets down and together using bar clamps and cauls to spread the pressure evenly. We used pairs of clamps and 2x4's on-edge to force the plywood sheets tight against the lip. For better or for worse, the top now conforms to the bench. It probably doesn't matter that much, the bench was pretty square.

The next day I took the clamps off. Much to my relief, the plastic bags did indeed prevent us from gluing the top to the sides. Had it not worked, there would have been little chance of ever getting the bench apart in case I had to get it out of the basement or perform some modification to it.

Here what the bench looks like with it's new 2" thick top. Pardon my sawdust, I had to true up the edges of the top a little bit.

Here's a close up, though I don't know how helpful it is.

I had originally intended run some stringers around the bottom of the legs. I don't know if I will or not.

Next steps will include screwing the top down and bolting down the tools.

The Tool Bench, part 1.

2011-12-31T13:51:00.009-05:00

My basement metal shop has been coming to life. The lathe is working well. I've properly mounted the 4-jaw and 3-jaw chucks onto back plates. I replaced my dead bench grinder, bought an arbor press, and a friend gave me a spare drill press (thanks Marco!)

I found that smaller accessories consumed all my flat space, and more. One WorkMate has a sheet of plywood on top - it's my "bench." Of course it is wholly unstable and it's only a matter of time before I dump all the accumulated crap onto the floor. My other WorkMate has become a permanent stand for the arbor press and vise. In addition, I have to use my bar clamps to secure these things!

The solution, other than to get rid of my trash (not happening), is to build a real bench. I've decided to replace the plywood-and-workmate-disaster-waiting-to-happen with an island bench. Then I'll bolt the drill press, arbor press, grinder, and vise to it. This will free up both WorkMates, reduce the chance of dumping fragile things into the floor, and make it much easier to work efficiently in my limited shop time.

So what are the attributes I need for this bench? I need...

a bench that won't flex when I use a hammer.
sturdiness to support the relatively heavy bench grinder.
stability - no shaking, racking, or rocking.
longevity because I don't want to have to rebuild the bench.
enough room to mount the previously mentioned tools.
to be able to repurpose the bench in case my needs change.

Item 6 is actually an interesting requirement. If I skimp anywhere, I could end up with a bench that's is insufficient for the next task. The additional expense is minimal.

The beginning of a sturdy bench is probably the top. If it flexes because it's too thin or disintegrates because it's chipboard, then it will be useless and worse, annoy me. So I started off my adventure by poking around in my plywood pile; I like to use what I already have. Many years ago I was gifted several pieces of 1/2" plywood. In fact, one of those pieces (3' x 4') is currently my 'bench' in the shop. I found I have enough pieces already cut to this size to make a 2" thick top. I did some ciphering and satisfied myself that a 3' x 4' bench would be large enough for the tools I want to mount to it.

Now, I hate an exposed plywood edge. Once dinged, a plywood edge will give terrible splinters. There are two options - 'band' the edge with a piece of solid wood or bury the top into the sides of the bench. I opted for the latter approach. (I edged some plywood when I made the lathe bench...)

How would I mount the 2" thick, 3'x4' top into the bench? Since I wanted the bench to be sturdy I opted to set the top onto a lip. I came up with using 2x6 for the apron and a 2x4 for the lip. Here's a image showing how these parts are put together and how they relate to the legs, which are 4x4s.

The top will sit very nicely on the 2x4s (and 4x4s), I have plenty of room to get some screws in, and the edges will be wholly covered by the 2x6 apron.

These decisions pretty much set the entire design. The only remaining unknown is the height. I opted for 34"; this height worked well for the lathe bench.

From this I worked out that the long side of the apron is 48". The short side is 39" (the 3" beyond the 3' width of the top allows an overlap, see the image above.) The 2x4 lips are 41" on the long side and 29" on the short side.

I cut all these pieces on the radial arm saw. I used a long fence and a stop to ensure that pieces that were supposed to be the same length were as close as I could get them. This worked well - all 27 pieces are the right length.

This shot is a little too head-on, but there are 4 posts (legs), the four 2x6 apron parts, and various longer 2x4 parts. The stack of corbels is on the left.

Here are all the parts of the top, put down in their relative positions.

The first part of the assembly process is to create the apron pieces. Each 2x4 should be centered on its 2x6, and their bottoms should align. See the background of the leg-with-corbels image below. The part in the background tells you what you need to know.

I glued and screwed the 2x4s to the 2x6s. I didn't skimp on the glue; to me, screws are just clamps and the glue does the work. A happy accident here was that with the choice of 2x4s and 2x6's, no additional work was needed to position the lip to allow a 2" thick top. Refer back to the first image. Note the positioning of the top of the 4x4; it is in effect an extension of the lip. The top will fit in here without any extra work.

What you can barely see in the first image is that the 2x6s are actually resting on what could charitably be called corbels. These are supports that are glued and screwed to the outside of the legs. Here's a leg and its corbels.

Here's what you get when you put it all together.

So you can see the bench's legs and aprons literally stand on their own. Gravity is great, but how do we position the corbels to begin with? Referring back to the first image, clamp a piece of scrap wood from the the aprons' lips, near the corner. Then simply sit all this right on top of the leg post. The post will butt against the scrap wood at exactly the right height. Grab a corbel, position it and clamp, drill 2 pilot holes all the way into the post. The you can remove the corbel, spread plenty of glue on the backside, and screw it to the post. Repeat for the other edge. Then repeat for the other 3 legs. Easy peasy.

Now it should be pretty clear that the mechanical nature of the construction is going to provide strength. When we bolt the things together, we're just making sure everything stays aligned. In the spirit of overbuilding, however, I use two 3/8" lag screws per leg per side, as you see here.

You can see those bolt heads are countersunk. I drilled a 1" hole using a spade bit deep enough to completely countersink the bolt head and washer underneath it. You do this because if you don't you will eventually smack your most accurate caliper, that perfectly honed chisel edge, or your favorite knuckle against them. I finished up by drilling a 3/8" hole through the center of the countersunk hole. None of this was done in place; that is, I didn't drill into the leg. The reason will become apparent when I discuss how the legs were bolted on to the apron.

TIP - How do you accurately drill the countersunk hole to depth? Make a quick and dirty depth gage by putting a piece of masking tape on your spade bit such that when the tape brushes the top of the 2x6 you know you're done.

TIP - Get thee to Harbor Freight (or where ever) and get yourself a set of transfer punches. They are a set of rods of graduated diameters. One end of the punch is pointed. The other end is for (lightly) tapping with a hammer. You pre-drill a part, position it against a mating part, put a transfer punch in the drill hole, and give it a little tap. The punch leaves a mark on the work that tells you where to drill the matching hole.

Now we have only to reassemble the leg and apron, mark the holes on the posts using a transfer punch, and drill two pilot holes. That would work but I'd like to share a construction tip. In my design, the 2x4s and the posts are supposed to be touching. If they don't touch, it is possible the bench could rack slightly. And once something like this starts moving, it usually keeps moving. That's bad. But the chance of me actually drilling 16 holes in exactly the right place is zero; maybe you can do it, I cannot. But I accomplished this by using an old woodworking technique called draw-boring. To do this, assemble the apron onto the corbels and get everything as snugged up as you can. Then mark the position on the post by tapping a transfer punch through the 3/8" holes in the apron. Remove the apron and use the hammer and punch to reposition the mark. Because wood is pliable and we're not driving nails here, we can do it without issue. Just re-punch towards the corner that's between the corbels, and down by about 1/16" or a shade more. Drill the pilot hole on this new mark. When those 3/8" lag bolts are put in, they will draw the 2x4s hard against the posts. Perfection achieved, without having to be perfect.

TIP - Now this has never happened to me *cough* but if a person got confused and drilled a pilot hole in the wrong place, not only would the draw-bore not work, it would push the apron in the wrong direction. This would be horrible. If this did happen to me, I would know to salvage the situation by finding a dowel larger than the pilot hole, re-drilling the misplaced hole to the same diameter, tapping in said dowel with plenty of glue, and trimming off the excess dowel once the glue dried.

TIP - We have to drill holes in an apron so the bolt passes through. We have to drill pilot holes in the posts so the bolts will bite without splitting the posts or being unnecessarily hard to screw in. I purchased a set of drills similar to these. I like being able to choose exactly the right drill. (I didn't get mine from Amazon, that's just an example.)

Once the aprons and legs were bolted together, I added three joists. These will help prevent the top from sagging over time. I attached the joists to the apron using deck hangers. I positioned the tops of the 2x4 joists in the same way I positioned the posts - I clamped a scrap down to the lip and made sure the joists were in contact with it. Extra points if you use 2x4s that are slightly crowned, and you put the crowned sides up.

In addition to showing how everything fits together, this image it also shows what happens the instant you think you have everything control. Note the extra holes in the apron. I did not realize that the bolts in adjacent faces could collide with one another. The bolts farthest from the posts won't - but the closer ones will. While making this mistake annoyed me, the fact is that it doesn't matter, except for my pride. Once the bench is completed, I'll plug these holes.

Stay tuned for part 2, wherein I put on the top, and finish the base.

It's New Rifle Day!

2011-02-27T17:45:00.004-05:00

Some time ago I bought a flintlock rifle kit in .45 caliber. I intended to build the rifle in the 'early Virginia' style. Before I could start, however, I got a job. After that I was so busy I couldn't find time to work on it. I hired the gun club's resident gun maker to finish the kit.

Today, he delivered the rifle. Here are some pictures showing the elegant 'set trigger' and the stock's figure.

And here I am taking a shot at a bowling pin about 30 yards away. The rifle isn't sighted-in yet so I was delighted to hit the target at all.

Shooting Justin's Flintlock

2010-09-01T20:46:00.006-05:00

Justin and the club gunsmith finished Justin's rifle. We went to the range this weekend so I could try it out. The gun is a 'golden age' Pennsylvania rifle typical of what would be made in Lancaster county.

In any event, here's Justin taking a shot. The other shots you hear are from the shotgun range. This range is only for black powder.

And now it's my turn.

These rifles are pretty long (42" barrel on this one) and they're heavy. So you hold them in the crook of your left arm and prime the pan with your right hand.

The rifle shoots well. Sometimes when you shoot you have no idea why the ball hits where it does. With this rifle the ball hits pretty much where you point the rifle. Unfortunately I didn't always point it well ;-)

The Shooting Bag, Part 2

2010-08-24T17:36:00.010-05:00

(continued from part 1)

The bag hangs on a strap that's 2" wide, from left shoulder to right hip. The strap is made of a long piece with holes in it (like a belt) and a shorter piece with a buckle. The differences in lengths keeps the buckle off the wearer's shoulder. Here's the buckle:

The powder horn attaches to the strap using it's own buckles. These are situated so they're about 8" above the bag.

Here's a close-up of one of the powder horn's buckles - it accepts a 1/2" wide strap.

Once the straps have been stitched on, the front flap is stitched on. It's stitched through the back of the bag as well as the straps, strengthening them. That's why the flap goes on last.

Here's the completed, unstained pouch. The straps still need to be cut to length.

And here it is, stained, with my reluctant model.

And Dottie and the left, Spice on the right.

Spice Girl!

After it was done we found out it's nearly too small. If I make another I'll make it wider. And the alcohol in the dye stiffened the leather considerably. It was horrible. I pretty much soaked the bag in neatsfoot oil and worked it like a baseball glove until is softened. It's usable now and will get better over time.

I wasn't too happy with the dye. It left lots of streaks. By the time I got the streaks evened out the bag was darker than I wanted. Still looks ok. But I think I'll try a different dye next time. The book I linked in Part 1 gives a recipe made of iron and vinegar. I think I'll experiment with it.

In any event, we're ready for the range!

The Shooting Bag, Part 1

2010-08-23T21:58:00.009-05:00

A shooting bag is a small bag that includes everything a black powder shooter might need for an afternoon of shooting. I made one based upon the North Hampton pouch from Recreating the 18th Century Hunting Pouch by T.C. Albert. This pattern includes a gusset to increase the bag's capacity, a leather strap, and hangers for a powder horn. I'll be attaching the powder horn I made some time ago.

I bought all my supplies from a Tandy Leather store that's basically across the street from me. The owner was very helpful when I had questions. I bought about 10 square feet of 4 or 5 ounce leather. This is probably enough for 3 bags. It was hard to stitch sometimes; I think 3 ounce might have been better.

Here we see all the major pieces. The front and back are to the left, the flap is to the right, some reinforcements are below, and the gusset is at the very bottom.

I'm working entirely by hand. Before I can stitch, I first have to punch holes using an awl. Then I use a length of 'artificial sinew' (waxed nylon) with a leather needle at each end to stitch through the awl holes using the durable saddle stitch. It's a slow process and hard on my hands.

Here I've stitched the gusset onto the front. If you look sharp you can see that there's a 'welt' piece between the front and gusset. This will produce a nicer result. The stitches aren't perfectly linear. This is because I made the holes from the other side.

Here's the back side. I laid out the awl holes using an over-stitch wheel. This is a spiky wheel that leaves regular marks. Where there's a mark, you punch a hole. Easy peasy.

Now I've stitched the back onto the front and gusset.

You can see the welt here. Notice there are three layers of leather.

You might have noticed the bag seems to have the rough side of the leather on the outside. That's because the bag is made inside-out, then inverted. I soaked the bag in water to soften it, then turned it inside out. And here it is.

And now two views of the gusset. I suffered to stitch that thing, you're gonna have to look at it!

Now the straps need to be made. I'll continue in part 2.

Mr. Beer!

2010-07-28T21:29:00.003-05:00

For father's day my son got me a "Mr Beer" home brewing kit. I mixed up a batch a few weeks back. After it fermented for 2 weeks I bottled it and then let it condition for another week. I tested beer #1 tonight. I'm delighted with it - it's better than any 'production' beer I've ever had. I'll let the other 7 bottles condition for another week.

The Rifle, part 1

2010-07-22T21:42:00.010-05:00

I've recently become interested in shooting black powder rifles. I ordered a flintlock rifle kit recently. The parts and stock are inspired by rifles common in Virginia around 1750. I ordered a 42" .45 caliber barrel and an extra curly maple stock. Think of it as "pimp my flintlock..."

Today the kit showed up, well packaged in a wood-reinforced cardboard box.

So, let's tear into the box and see what we have.

Here's the butt plate and trigger guard - they're cast brass and require filing and buffing. The trigger guard is 10" long.

Here's the lock and the trigger. The lock is a large Siler model, well known for reliability. For righties, the lock is mounted on the right side of the rifle. So you're seeing the bits here that will be inside the stock.
This style of trigger is called a "set trigger." Flintlock springs are designed to be very stiff so they act quickly to fire the rifle. This means it takes quite a pull to overcome them and release the lock mechanism. Here's the beauty of a set trigger: the rear trigger is pulled first. It does most of the work of firing the rifle. You pull the this trigger once you're pretty sure you're going to be shooting. The front trigger, having been relieved of most of the work, is now a hair trigger. It's easy to underestimate how delicate the front trigger can be. Most people fire their first shot pretty much accidentally. I know I did.

And now some bits, and another view of the lock.

The brass bits on top decorate the end of the barrel or retain the ram rod. To their right are the front and rear sights. The decoratively sawn brass bit is bolted to the left side of the rifle, opposite the lock. It's a glorified washer. The square piece of brass will be shaped a bit and screwed to the sharp end of the butt to prevent the stock from getting dinged up. The L-shaped doodad next to it is the breech plug. It screws into the barrel to close the end you don't normally see.

Here's a closer view of the right side of the lock.

Now here are some views of the stock. It's a block of wood. I have to remove and sculpt a lot of wood. I bet half the wood you see here will be gone when the rifle is completed. It's going to be... an adventure. Of course, that's why I bought a kit. Note the figure in the wood. When I get this done it should shimmer.

Here's the stock with the octagonal barrel in place. The barrel is .45 caliber and rifled for a lead ball. It's just under an inch thick and 42" long. I'll likely be wishing for a 36" barrel after a day of shooting...

Here's an end-on of the stock. The barrel will protrude from the end of the stock by about an inch. The stock is something like 56" long.

And from the side. The rifle is as long as my dining room table. Doesn't have to be, but that's the style.

I'm a member of a club for blackpowder enthusiasts. One of the members is an excellent gun maker. He'll be more than happy to give me a hand when I get stuck. It helps too that he has an early Virginia rifle - I can take measurements from it.

Stay tuned, this will be a long project.

The Dinner Party

2010-07-18T10:52:00.008-05:00

I threw my first dinner party last weekend in honor of my sister's birthday. I made chicken vindaloo, chutney with a flatbread, curried potatoes, and a mild stir fry for those who didn't care for spicy food. I cooked for 8 people which was plenty for my kitchen skills, or lack thereof.

After dinner we all retired to the backyard where some archery commenced. Sometimes, you just have to go with the flow.

Here's my aunt Ebbie. She broke her arm while showing Chuck Norris how to protect a burning orphanage from communist ninjas. She's tough.

Here's my lovely bride taking a shot.

Sarah and Grace.

Birthday Girl Allison!

Sarah.

Old Friends.

Allison again. Note the green blur to the left of the top bale. That's the arrow.

The bow string bit Sarah.

My mother Grey, Sarah and Grace, Kim, and old girls Spice and Dottie.

Tony shoots.

Grey, my fabulous mother, and Grace.

The gang watches Allison.

Suzie, Ebbie, and Mom.

A splendid time was had by all!

The Lathe Bench

2010-06-15T19:39:00.009-05:00

I didn't care for the stand my lathe was on. It was a skeleton made of angle iron. There was nowhere to place tools, no room for a chip tray, and it wobbled. I decided to build a proper bench.

This bench is about 19" x 72".

The surface is made of three sheets of 1/2" plywood, glued and screwed together, topped with a thin melamine-covered fiberboard sheet. The plywood wasn't the best choice but I already owned it - this material was stuff I had been tripping over in my shop.

The surface is resting on ten 2x4 'joists' spaced 8 inches on center. The joists are supported by 2x8 aprons. The 2x8s are bolted to 4x4 legs.

The ends are 3/4" plywood screwed and glued to the legs.

Here's an apron with it's joist hangers.

Because I could!

The other apron side is completed and the joists test-fitted.

Counter-bored holes for the lag screws. Note the flaw in the wood. I recommend you pay attention to these things.

Here a leg is attached to the apron. I clamped the leg against the apron, squared them, and bored two 1/4" holes through the apron into the leg. After that I opened the hole in the apron to 3/8" so the screw wouldn't split the wood. You can't really see it in these pictures but there's a washer below the lag screw heads.

The aprons and legs all together. The joists have also been attached to the hangers with a screw at each end. There's a good argument for putting a sheet of plywood under the apron to make sure it doesn't bow outward.

A great deal of the bench's strength comes from the plywood ends. I hate raw plywood edges. Invariably I ding them and raise a bunch of splinters. Then I impale myself. I covered up the top and front edges with a piece of 1/2" thick pine, glued and nailed.

I attached each plywood end piece to the legs using Liquid Nails and 44 screws. That's a lot of screws but they are functioning as clamps. Besides, I've had them for 15 years. Might as well use them. They are 'Robertson' screws from McFeely's. Highly recommended.

And here we are, both ends attached. The base of the bench is complete. If it shows any signs of lateral racking I'll add a piece of plywood or a diagonal support to the back.

My son and I dropped in the three 1/2" plywood top pieces, spreading Liquid Nails between them. I 'clamped' the plywood sheets together while the glue dried by driving 50 screws through them into the joists. I used some pretty old Philips-head deck screws for this. They cammed out terribly. I'm cured of Philips-head screws now.

Screws. Yah. I could have used fewer. I'm glad I didn't.

I found a piece of fiberboard with melamine on one side. I used double-side tape to secure it to the bench. The fiberboard was leftover from another project. I was delighted to have enough, even if I did have to use two pieces.

And here's the lathe on its new bench. I haven't decided for sure where the lathe is going to sit.

And that's the bench. It's sturdy and economical. I spend about $70 on it, excluding the plywood top and fiberboard.

The Powder Horn

2010-06-13T19:39:00.016-05:00

Since I'm shooting black powder lately I thought I'd make a powder horn. Making a basic horn is pretty easy. Here's the cow horn I started with. It was was about 12" long:

The first step is to remove any 'scale', a loose covering, from the horn. I did this with a file. Then I cut the big end square so it could receive an end cap, cut the tip off, and bored the spout hole.

Already it isn't so gross :-) I assure you, it smelled like a cow.

I bored the spout to 1/4" using a standard twist drill bit. But the stopper will hold more securely if the hole is tapered, not straight sided. Being totally cheap, I wasn't about to buy a tapered reamer. Instead, I made one using from a piece of bar stock using a hacksaw and a few files. The taper is 1/16" over 1 1/4". I sawed a 5/16" wide finger in the bar stock then filed one edge so it tapered to 1/4" at the end. I selected one corner to be the cutting edge. I rounded the two opposite corners. Then I relieved the remaining corner so it wouldn't rub.

In this picture you can see the taper clearly. The shoulders at the wide end of the taper serve as a depth stop - when the shoulders touch the spout, the tapered hole is finished.

In the next picture, the geometry of the reamer is a little more evident. The 'rounded' corners on the right ride against the far side of the hole. The corner on the left top is the relieved edge. The remaining edge (left bottom) is the cutting edge.

I turned a cherry stopper on the lathe taking care to produce the same taper. Here's the stopper in the spout.

The next step was to fashion the end cap, a wooden plug glued into the end of the horn. Normally the large end is rounded using heat and a form. Then a round end cap fits very well. I opted to leave the horn in its natural shape pare the end cap to fit. Sometimes the end caps are inserted all the way into the horn. I wanted this end cap to protrude from the horn and overlap it's edges. I traced the large end of the horn onto a piece of 3/4" cherry then bandsawed the cap, adding some 'diameter' for the overlap I wanted.
I decided that 1/4" of the disk should remain outside the horn. To assure I had a clean shoulder to butt against the horn, I scribed a line around the circumference of the cap 1/4" from the 'outside' end. I sawed with a dovetail saw on the line all the way around to about 1/4" deep.

I pared the corners off the 'inside'-side of the blank so it would fit, if barely, into the horn. I rubbed a pencil lead on the inside of the horn to form a 'marking medium.' When I tried to insert the unshaped blank, it didn't go in far. The parts that rubbed on the inside of the horn picked up some graphite. This showed where the end cap was too large and prevented the end cap from seating properly. I pared off the graphite and a little wood underneath it then reinserted it. Now a different place rubbed and picked up some graphite. I pared that too. I repeated this fit/pare procedure until the lip I left on the end cap sat against flush against the end of the horn. This process, which is simple if tedious, eventually produces an end cap that fits beautifully.

After doing the fit/pare cycle about 100 times,... success.

Now horns are very thick at the pointy end. So thick, in fact, you can shape them easily using files, rasps, sandpaper, scrapers, etc. Powder horns frequently have a ring carved in them so they can be securely hung from a strap. I filed such a ring, then added flats to the spout to make a hexagon.

Once I was satisfied with the spout, I glued the end cap in. I used the entirely non-traditional Gorilla glue as it is waterproof and very strong. In addition, it expands when it cures hopefully plugging any gaps between the horn and the end cap. Common wood glue works too.

Once the glue cured I inserted 8 pegs around the circumference of the horn into the end cap. If the glue fails hopefully the pegs will prevent the end cap from popping off and dumping the powder onto the ground. Once the end cap was properly secured, I shaped it to my satisfaction using files, sandpaper, and steel wool. Then I carefully inserted a staple I made from a nail. I said previously that I carved a ring for one end of the carry strap. The staple holds the other end.

I think the perspective of the image is a little off - the staple isn't that large, lol.

A good going over with sand paper and steel wool finished the horn.

This was a very entertaining project. This horn is very spartan and is likely a fair representation of most 18th century horns. Most of these 'everyman' horns have been lost to time - there was no reason for people to save these relics. The next time I make a horn I'll try my hand at some more advanced carving and scrimshaw.

The Dowel Jig

2010-06-10T22:14:00.006-05:00

I am working on a project that requires a few cherry dowels around 3/4" long and 3/16" in diameter. I don't think I can get cherry dowels from the home center and I don't want to wait for an order to be shipped. I decided to build a dowel jig. It's nothing more than a steel plate with a series of holes (or dies) of decreasing diameter. The idea is that when the stock is driven through a die, any wood that doesn't fit will be trimmed away. Then the next smaller die is used, trimming down the stock a little more. This process is repeated until a dowel of the desired diameter is produced.

I started with this rough stock. These are cherry scraps about 1/4" x 1/4" at the largest.

I whittled the stock into a rough octagon then whittled a point on one end so it would fit in a die. Then I drove the stock through the dies in succession, starting with the largest which is 1/4". Here are the 3/16th dowels produced by driving the stock through the first 5 holes.

About half of my stock broke as I drove it through. This is because the grain wasn't straight or the wood had a flaw. The stock will break if there is any weakness so choose your stock carefully. Next time I'll use better wood and get a better result.

The largest hole in the jig above is 1/4" in diameter. The holes decease by 64ths to the smallest hole which is 1/8". I'd have to support the dowel stock somehow if I try to make a dowel smaller than 3/16".

The Jefferson County Sportsmen's Club

2010-05-28T21:12:00.004-05:00

My son Justin took these pictures while we were shooting black powder at the Jefferson County Sportsmen's Club. It's a picturesque place...

Remington and Flinter

2010-05-28T20:24:00.008-05:00

My son Justin, his friend Trey, and I went to the range today to try out Trey's new Remington revolver. It's a black powder pistol of 44 caliber. While he was loading it, Justin and I were trading off on his flintlock pistol.

We decided it was high time to get the pistol properly sighted in so we benched the flinter and started filing the front site. The pistol is shooting about 12" low at 25 yards. Justin took the following frame captures from a movie he shot.

Here's a sequence showing Trey firing the Remington. Note the primer 's blast.

The Remington was pretty accurate out of the box. I hit 3 'bottles' in 3 shots at 25 yards. Apparently, I'm delighted ;-)

Going to the club was a spur-of-the-moment decision. What a nice way to finish up the afternoon!

-=-=-

Edit - We have been duly chastised for our lack of safety glasses.

2010-05-26T20:35:00.003-05:00

My son took this picture of a bee last year. I ran across it and thought I'd post it.

The Compound

2010-05-23T09:19:00.004-05:00

While installing the toolpost on the lathe, I took the compound apart for the first time.

The compound is a part of the lathe that the tool holder sits on. It can swivel to allow a tool to present a more suitable cutting edge to the work. A screw mechanism allows the compound to be advanced and short tapers turned.

The compound is pretty simple. When the compound is swiveled, it is locked in place by 2 bolts. When tightened, they drive 2 angled steel pins into the hub on which the compound rotates. The pins lock the position by friction and draw the compound down against the carriage by their geometry.

Much to my horror, a previous owner had made an exciting enhancement. He had apparently lost the angled pins. Instead of making more, he turned points on two steel bolts. The points dug into the hub, gouging divots. The divots will prevent the compound from locking up at the right position, or may cause the compound to move unexpectedly. Horrible. I find it extra frustrating since it took only a few minutes to make replacement pins.

Here are the bolts that damaged the hub and the proper replacement pins I made.

I replaced these bolts with common hardware store bolts and turned a 'dog point' on each as per the originals.

Now a couple of pics of the hub showing the damage.

After getting a lot of good advice from the HSM on how to fix the hub, I won a far better casting on ebay for a very good price. That's good because I'm getting pretty tired of fixing abuse.

More Coopers Hawk

2010-05-09T08:48:00.003-05:00

The son got a new camera and this Coopers hawk posed.

The Sheath

2010-05-02T22:08:00.006-05:00

A few days ago I finished a patch knife for black powder shooting. A knife without a sheath isn't a knife. So I got some leather, a needle, and some artificial sinew from Leatherhead, read this webpage, and got down to it.

I can't claim any real innovation. I used Gorilla glue to attach the welt to the side of the sheath instead of Duco or some other contact cement. It worked well.

I don't have one of those cool tools that mark the stitch holes and my leather was too thin to gouge a stitch channel. I filed a rounded conic on the end of a steel rod. I used this to emboss a channel in the leather 1/8" from the edge of the welt. I decided quite arbitrarily that the stitch holes should be 3/16" apart and fashioned a suitable spacer. I worked my way down the embossed channel using my spacer, a very pointy awl, and some authority to leave a hole every 3/16". Don't do this on your dining room table without a backing board.

As per the instructions, I used a two-needle system to lace the sheath together then shaped the sheath using acetone.

I decided to waterproof the sheath by dipping it in paraffin wax. You can find Gulf brand wax in the canning section of the grocery. I melted 8 ounces of the wax using a low-rent double boiler made by floating a sufficiently sized microwave-save disposable food container in a pot of boiling water. It took about 15 minutes to melt 8 ounces of wax. Easy pease. When the wax was melted I just dropped the sheath in the container and rolled it around to get even coverage. Then I fished it out with a wire, let the wax drain, and set it aside to cool. I did this twice. When I was done I snapped the lid on the container and let it cool. The wax is ready for storage until next time.

The wax bath turned the sheath nearly black. It looks nice but was surprising to see it happen. Unfortunately the wax scratches very easily showing the natural leather underneath. Next time perhaps I'll stain the sheath first. In any event I can dip it again when the opportunity presents itself.

Here's a barrage of pictures.

Power and a new toolpost for the Lathe

2010-04-29T22:37:00.011-05:00

I have been slowly restoring an abused Atlas/Craftsman 12" lathe to service. I've posted about the trials and tribulations over the last few years.

Recently I had an electrician install a new sub-panel for my basement shop. The electrician wired in a VFD, an amazing device that converts single phase power to 3-phase power. It lets me control almost anything related to the motor. For example, I configured the VFD so it starts the motor smoothly and will spin up to full speed in about 5 seconds. However, I configured it to stop the motor in 2 seconds. The VFD allows variable speed control without a loss of torque. It also lets me reverse the motor. Good stuff. Further, the VFD supports a remote control panel so I can control the motor from the front of the lathe and not have to reach my hands in the sub-panel.

Here's the electrical work. The subpanel has breakers for outlets and the VFD. The white device is the VFD. It's about 4" x 4" x 6" and weights nothing. The control pendant is sitting on the VFD's box. It has a potentiometer for the motor RPMs, an on/off toggle, and a forward/reverse toggle. Underneath the VFD's box, partially seen, is the 3-phase out for the motor.

Another advantage of 3-phase motors is that normal people don't want them. The nice Rockwell 1/2hp motor on my lathe was a Craigslist freebie. Gotta love that!

Here's the motor in all it's link-belt glory.

Moving on, the lathe's olde-school (circa 1936) lantern tool post has been "modified" and doesn't function properly. While it's fixable, I only have 2 of the special holders this tool post needs and they're expensive. So I replaced it entirely with a modern quick change tool post. It's a lovely thing. A quick change tool post set includes one toolpost and numerous holders. Cutting bits are secured in holders by Allen screws. The holders slide onto dovetails milled into the tool post and are locked in place when a lever is turned. It takes about 3 seconds to put a new tool in the tool post. Here's a picture of the new toolpost and an inaugural 5-foot long shaving.

The Patch Knife

2010-04-29T22:17:00.005-05:00

I repurposed a battered Old Hickory paring knife into a patch knife for black powder shooting. The lead ball is wrapped in a piece of fabric (the patch) which serves as a gasket. The fabric is cut to size using the patch knife.

Here's the original knife.

Why salvage it? Because Old Hickory knives have very good steel in them. They're worth saving.

The handle was splintery and helpfully said, "Vegetable" on the side. I removed it. Then I scribed onto the blade a 'roach belly' profile and took the blade to the grinder. Here are before and after pics. The deep blue layout dye allows me to see the scribed line.

I made a new handle out of some cherry I found in the shop. The handle is held to the blade by two brass rivets. I made the rivet burrs out of some brass strip stock and the rivets themselves from 1/8" brass round. I cut the diamond-shaped inlays into the handle using an X-Acto knife and a 1/8" chisel I made out of some bar stock.

Finally, I peened the rivets down, filed them smooth, and sanded one last time. The cherry was finished with oil and wax. Here's the result.

This is my first knife. I'm proud of it. Hopefully it will provide decades of service.

Just for fun, two more weaves...

2009-12-16T21:07:00.007-05:00

I spent more time at the loom. I did the same pattern as before and got a far better result. There aren't as many mistakes and the band has a very consistent width.

Here's a closeup.

Then I made another band using a different technique. Quite disastrous, heh. Here's a decent section. It's about 5/8" wide.

Further Adventures in Tablet Weaving

2009-12-11T00:18:00.013-05:00

My first tablet weaving experiment was entertaining and successful. However, the setup I was using - 2 c-clamps and some stretchy acrylic yarn - left much to be desired. I wouldn't be able to do a more serious piece that way.

I scurried to the shop and made a little Inkle loom. At least, I think this qualifies as one. It's 16" long, has 4 pegs, and can accept about 52" of thread. I made it out of the finest quality salvage plywood. You know the smell of olde world craftsmanship? This tastes almost exactly like that.

Anyway, here it is:

In all seriousness, it is made of salvage plywood, but it's good stuff - no voids and a melamine face. I bored the holes for the pegs with a Forstner bit - highly recommended. The pegs are 5/8". Perhaps not large enough but it's what I had. I got lucky in that the pegs fit snugly in the holes. I completed the loom by screwing on a base made from 1/2 plywood. The nail is a hanger for my tensioning mechanism.

Here are the tablets I used. They're just normal thin cardboard, perhaps as thick as a cereal box. I cut them into 2.5" squares and punched a hole in each corner. Hmmm maybe these aren't good enough to be tablets. Maybe they're just cardboard squares :-D

Now here's the loom strung up and ready to go.

The tablets are rotated in a specific pattern which lifts different threads up and lowers others, forming a shed, just like a normal loom. The weaver rotates the cards and runs a shuttle of thread through the shed. This is done many times ;-)

After a while, you get something like this.

and

Note the completed banding between the lower pegs. When the weaving gets too long the tablets get crowded. The band of thread, which has been tied into a loop, is rotated around the loom creating more working space.

Finally, you end up with something like this. Actually, I end up with something like this. Hopefully you'll end up with something nicer!

This is my 2nd time weaving. Note the lack of consistency in the width of the band - I was experimenting with weft tension. That's the thread that gets shuttled through the shed.

Here's a closeup of the nicer section:

I learned the following while making this band:

1. Make sure your threads are long enough. Mine were just barely workable. The loom was under too much tension - the tablets were hard to turn. Thread is cheap - cut a little extra if you're not sure. Go look at the images of the threaded loom above, and you'll see there's no tensioner - I had to stretch the bajezus out of the threads to get them to fit over the pegs! I didn't take into account that knots use up thread!

2. I should have read up on how to tie the threads to the loom. I made something up. As an added bonus I got to have Adventures in Uneven Tension which plagued me the whole time I was weaving.

3. Don't stop weaving unless you are at a well defined point in the pattern. Write down where you are. Trust me on this.

4. Yer wife will steal the band when you're done so don't give up. Keep weaving!

That's all, it's bedtime!

Tablet weaving experiment

2009-12-06T16:43:00.005-05:00

I learned about tablet weaving a few days ago. This is an old style of weaving decorative and strong bands. The bad news is that it's rather labor intensive. The good news is that you can make intricate designs and it requires few materials.

For my experiment I cut twelve 2.5" cardboard squares then punched a hole in each corner. Each of these cardboard beauties is called a tablet. And that's pretty much all you need in the way of equipment. You have to anchor each end of the band. I used c-clamps which is fairly standard. If I do this again, I'll find a better way :-)

We have yarn galore, but I wasn't about to play with Kim's good yarn. I found some acrylic in the basement at the bottom of the sump well. Under some shoes. I decided to use that.

Other sites, like this one, explain the mechanics better than I can, so go there to learn more.

Here's a picture of my first attempt.

It looks ok, maybe. But I knew I didn't manage the tension well so I undid it (took forever) and did it again.

Much better. I tried to keep the tension the same all the time. You can see the pattern getting smaller as I ran out of room - the tension was increasing. This would be less an issue on a band that's a little longer - this fiber is HUGE compared to what is normally used for tablet weaving.

Here's another pic, this time showing the entire setup.

You probably know roughly how a loom works - the machine pulls some threads high and the weaver passes a shuttle of thread through the shed - the space between the low threads and high threads. Then based upon the pattern, different threads are lifted and the shuttle is passed through the shed the other way. Repeat ad nauseum. Tablet weaving works off a similar principle. The holes in the tablets form the high and low threads. Then, the tablets are rotated causing some threads to be move downward and others to move upward. This is functionally identical to the loom raising threads. You can see the shed in the previous photo - the V shape just to the right of the tablets.

The design I wove is drop-dead simple and involves 4 rotations of the tablets one way, then 4 the other way, repeat. So the mauve pattern widens 4 times, then narrows 4 times forming the diamond. I have 4 complete diamonds so I turned the tablets 32 times. The symmetry is common - and fairly necessary - because as you rotate the tablets the thread acquires a twist. Going the other way removes the twist.

A day at the range

2009-11-29T20:18:00.007-05:00

Justin and I went to a gun range today to shoot his new flintlock pistol. Our hosts, the Wilderness Rangers of Kentucky, are blackpower enthusiasts, a dozen of the most generous and friendly people you could hope to meet. Most were dressed in period garb. A few looked like they stepped out of the 1700s.

Even though they didn't know us, they took the time to show us how to properly load and fire Justin's pistol. They also let us shoot their rifles quite a lot.

I always thought shooting a flintlock rifle would involve a heavy trigger pull, a delay while the powder in the pan burned, and then a wooosh! as the ball left the barrel, visibly traveling downrange.

Wrong. The trigger pull tended to be feather light and instantly followed by a crisp crack. Recoil was light, in part because of the rifles are heavy.

We happened to attend their Thanksgiving meet. So after a turkey shoot, which is a multi-round shooting contest, they had a spread of food. There was homemade chili, hot dogs, corned beef, turkey, soft drinks... and no vegetables :-D Of course they tried to feed us until we popped.

ooo someone made coffee over a fire, it was great coffee. I used my period-accurate Starbucks insulated coffee mug.

A good time was had by all!

Justin takes a shot.

Tony misfires, then takes his shot.

My son started happydancequilting.com, a t-shirt quilt company

2009-11-03T19:47:00.005-05:00

My son is a business major at the University of Louisville. He's started a t-shirt quilt business as a way to learn how to start and run a small business. His mother is a 'subject matter expert' with regards to making quilts and using the type of machine he'll be using for his business. He is a very good machine quilter and runs the machine for more traditional types of quilts a few times a week.

Now he's learning about the ugly realities of starting a business. These include everything from big-picture topics such as marketing to detail-oriented tasks such as buying boxes to talking to customers.

Stop by Happy Dance Quilting and have a look!

The Quilt Rack

2009-10-15T23:20:00.004-05:00

I recently made a quilt rack for the wife.

The top is a plank, and it's screwed to the brackets. The bar the quilt is hanging from is a loose fit in the brackets so it can be slid out easily. The rack was stained with a golden oak stain and finished with water-based poly.

The quilt is typical of my wife's style and craftsmanship. It's hanging in the kitchen.

I finished another chessboard.

2009-10-13T19:17:00.008-05:00

I made this board for my son, just because. The board itself is made of maple and walnut - traditional and hard to beat. The frame is cherry and there's a mahogany inlay around the playing area. I didn't stain the wood at all. I applied three coats of oil then two coats of paste wax. The oil did tint the wood a little.

I made it following the same general theme as my first chessboard. That link points to a 9-part series wherein I make my first board.

The next pictures are of the same board but with another chess set, this one in ebony and boxwood.

The Health Care Fiasco

2009-09-10T16:08:00.004-05:00

Our Betters in DC have demonstrated total cluelessness with regards to pretty much everything except self-enrichment.

I am against a nationalized health care system. Why? Because every example on the planet is a failure, yielding services that Americans will not accept, with quality beneath that which we are accustomed, and saddling the citizens with an ever-increasing oppressive cost. At the same time, the healthcare industry that has produced so many innovations will likely wilt due to regulation. There can not be a poorer decision than to nationalize health care.

President Obama and his cronies in DC are willing to sacrifice the health care enjoyed by 85% of the population in order to provide inferior heath care to the 15%* of the population that is uninsured. He is willing to throw the baby out with the bath water. Why he and his cronies are willing to do this is inexplicable.

(*Bear in mind the 15% is President Obama's number and is the maximum. Other sources claim a lower number.)

Now, indeed there are some problems with the way things are:

1. healthcare is very expensive
2. premiums are increasing a shocking amount every year.

While these statements are indisputable, the president hasn't told us why either of these things are true. And neither has the Opposition. Why is this? This is the most basic analysis imaginable. Again, the behavior of our representatives is inexplicable.

But instead of analyzing the problem and proposing solutions, President Obama's solution is to create a nationalized system that's a regulatory mess. He proposes adding 50 new agencies to help manage healthcare. None of these agency workers are doctors seeing patients, nurses making the rounds, or ER personnel saving lives. They are bureaucrats charged with regulating the health care process. Do you really think that somehow they are going to free doctors and nurses from the chains of oppression and allow health care to happen with some amazing efficiency? Is the health care community so stupid that a group of regulators can somehow make them more efficient? Hardly.

President Obama's health care plan really makes no sense at all.

Instead of a nationalized health care plan, how about some tweaks to the current system.

I came up with version 1.0 (alpha) while mowing:

1. Somebody designs a minimal reasonable health policy.

2. Insurance companies must offer this plan to all citizens.

3. Insurance companies may not deny coverage for this plan.

4. Insurance companies may not charge more than X% of a family's annual income for this plan.

5. Insurance companies may charge less than X% however.

6. Insurance companies may offer other plans at their discretion including those with lesser or greater coverage for whatever prices they deem appropriate.

7. Insurance companies that try to drive low-paying families onto competing insurers get fined heavily.

8. Individuals without 'continuous coverage' have a three month waiting period before they become eligible for any benefits. This is to prevent people from not paying premiums until they want services.

9. Participation is voluntary.

10. People who opt out and get hurt bear the brunt of hospital bills. So sorry for your poor planning and decision making.

11. Hospitals must charge individuals the same prices they charge insurance companies.

Where X is selected to yield a reasonable long term profit for the insurers. X becomes a political football, but there's always a political football. The wealthy end up subsidizing the poor, but they always do.

This addresses the issues I raised previously. Everyone has health care within their reach, though they may have to make choices. And the price of the standard health care can't increased exponentially because it is fixed at X% by law.

Barring an actual analysis of the issue, a proposal such as this seems like it will do the most while harming the least. It allows insurers to do what they need to do, and doesn't incur the bloat of an army of government regulators.

Cooper's Hawk

2009-06-20T21:49:00.002-05:00

My son got this picture this afternoon of a Cooper's Hawk that's nested in one of our trees. He (?) and his mate have eaten all the robins and doves.

The Birds

2009-06-18T21:45:00.006-05:00

So Ms. Stormcrow and Stormcrow Jr were out in the yard this afternoon fiddlin' with the tomatoes. The Ms. hears a bird sound she has never heard. What she sees are two large raptors flying over the field. She says she has never seen a larger bird. They were brown, and one was markedly larger than the other. She doesn't think they were vultures.

Stormcrow Jr grabbed the camera, a little pocket digital, and gets some decent shots considering he was so far away. I'll ask Eileen at Raptor Rehab of KY. She'll know...

For now, the pictures, cropped down.

My Electronics Adventure, part 1

2009-06-15T18:52:00.010-05:00

Ok, so I decided I need to suck at another hobby. I chose electronics this time. The first thing I did was to think of some unattainable goal. That will help me fail.

I have a vintage lathe that has few features. I've decided to add a quick change gear box (QCGB.) A QCGB is a gear-filled gizmo that connects a lathe's spindle to its leadscrew using any of dozens of ratios. It is is very much like a car transmission. The result is that the carriage moves a fixed amount for each revolution of the spindle. This is how threads on bolts are made.

I checked out buying a vintage QCGB but they are hundreds of dollars. My lathe may not even accept one unmodified. So I considered building one. The cost of the gears was prohibitive. So I considered making the gears and decided it wasn't happening - making gears is a lot of work and I don't have the tooling. In short, I ran into a dead end.

The other option to was to computerize the lathe. I don't want a computer in the shop as I program for a living - I don't want to do it at home, too. But perhaps I could sneak in some electronics.

And thus begins the story of my virtual QCGB. The basic idea is instead of having the spindle drive the leadscrew through a train of gears and a 'trasmission', I'll collect signals from the leadscrew and use these to drive a stepper motor which turns the leadscrew appropriately. Such conversions are actually pretty common. Most solutions, however, involve the use of a computer in the shop and are basically low-end CNC. My goal is a very spartan implementation so the computer isn't needed.

The only thing that is holding me back is that I know zip about electronics. Other than that, and my lack of knowledge of mechanics, I'm good. But my pal Marco is basically a mad scientist. When I mentioned my idea, he gave me a box of electronics parts and supplies. Then I bought a bunch of stuff he told me I needed including some common IC chips, proto boards, and selections of resistors and capacitors.

With some guidance from Marco and the web I made my first circuit. It just lit an LED. My next circuit used the ubiquitous 555 timer chip to make the LED pulse about once a second. No great shakes - examples are all over the web. I did the math just the same.

I liked that circuit, so I set it aside and pulled out another small protoboard. I added a 4040 counter chip. I salvaged some LEDs from a death ray or something Marco built back in the late '40s when he lived in Roswell. The end result is that I could use the 555 to drive the 4040 which in turn made some LEDs flash. Oooo pretty. Here's an early version:

Later on I pulled to 4040 (the larger IC to the left) off and moved it to the same board as the LEDs. Now I have a self-contained counter module to use for my next experiments.

The reason I started with the 555 and 4040 is that, when creating an electronic QCGB, you have to add an encoder wheel to the spindle. As the spindle turns, it generates a series of pulses. While I'll eventually have to work up the full pulse generation circuit, for now the 555 can simulate this. The 4040 is interesting to me not because it counts or makes LEDs light up, but because half of the real QCGB deals with dividing spindle speeds by 2, 4, 8, etc. The pins on the counter do exactly the same thing. Thus I have already done a proof-of-concept on an important part of my electronic QCGB. Referring to the picture above, the rightmost LED is on. This LED is connected to the 'divide by 2' pin on the 4040. Visually, that LED lights on every 2nd pulse from the 555. So if I wanted to slow the leadscrew down by half, I would tap the output from this pin. Similarly, by tapping the pin associated with the leftmost LED, I'd slow the leadscrew down by a factor of 128! I might use that to make a nice finishing pass, after all the heavy material removal has happened.

Lessons learned so far -
1. If you don't protect LEDs with a resistor, they die.
2. If you leave a 4040's reset pin floating (not connected to a ground) you'll get funky results.
3. Wire kits for prototype boards just rock.

My next series of experiments will likely be a proof-of-concept of an encoder wheel for the spindle. This is an opaque disk with equally spaced holes in it near the rim. As the wheel turns on the spindle, a stationary LED shines through the holes producing sort of a strobe effect. The light flashes fall on a phototransistor which generates a pulse we can use to drive the counter previously built. Will a good pulse be generated? How small can the hole be? How quickly can the holes pass in front of the LED and still let enough light through to produce a usable pulse?

I haven't a clue. Yet.

Replacing Atlas/Craftsman Part 9-11

2009-06-14T20:26:00.025-05:00

The Atlas/Craftsman 12" metal lathe is a decent lathe for what it is - an entry level machine for the home shop hobbyist. This lathe was manufactured to meet a price point, not to be a professional quality lathe. One of the innovations employed in manufacture of this lathe was the use of a material called Zamak for many of the secondary parts such as change gears and handles. The idea was that die casting these parts from Zamak would save money and machining time. And it did.

Zamak, being an amalgam of zinc, aluminum, manganese, and copper is a reasonably durable alloy. It's stable, easy to cast, and plates well. Many common parts do very well when made of Zamac. But machines get bumped and banged. The Zamak parts broke much easier than their iron counterparts. When Atlas stopped making these lathes, inexpensive Zamak replacement parts largely disappeared too. Now the main assumption of Zamak - that replacement parts would be readily available and inexpensive - has become invalid. It's common to see Craftsman lathes will all manner of innovative replacements for broken Zamak parts. For example, when I bought my lathe the cross slide handwheel had been replaced with a water spigot knob.

But really, for the most part, the Zamak is ok. If a handle breaks after 70 years of use, well, you have a lathe, make another. There is one part, however, where the use of Zamak was downright egregious. And that is part 9-11, a housing that holds secure the pinion that connects the handwheel on the apron to rack. When you turn the handwheel, the carriage should move up and down the lathe bed. When part 9-11 breaks, and it will, parts fall out the bottom of the apron and your carriage gets all sad.

Here's a link to a document for my lathe. Refer to the "page 2" link - you can find part 9-11 at the bottom.

Here's a few images of part 9-11. This one doesn't fit my lathe, unfortunately. The lathe's original owner bought it without knowing that it fit a later model of the lathe.

The problem is this is a spindly part that gets a lot of lateral pressure applied to it. It never should have been made of Zamak, or at least not with this shape. The "legs" tend to break.

When I saw the part was missing, I checked Ebay, the easiest source for many Craftsman lathe parts. Since there is such a demand for 9-11 replacements the price is pretty high. I decided I would not pay top dollar for an antique Zamak part with a history of breaking. The only solution was to make a replacement.

Here's the diagram I worked from. All measurements are in decimal inches. Almost all measurements are multiples of 1/16". It was a simpler time.

The first image shows the bracket in place. There are three important things to note. First, notice the disruption of the aluminum where the axle passes through. That's because there is only a few mils of aluminum remaining there. Second, notice how the handwheel's small gear nestles in the angled area milled out of the bracket. Third, notice the poor fit of the large gear to the handwheel gear. The reason is in the notes below. Don't do what I did - I am still trying to remedy this.

Here's a view from the above front right, if it were in the apron. You can see the angled relief where the handwheel gear will fit.

Finally, here's a view from below. You can see the channel for the leadscrew.

Here are the instructions. The operations are all straight-forward. I had access to a mill. This would be hard to make otherwise.

Acquire the large gear, small gear, and axle you see in the 9-11 pictures above. If you have a broken 9-11, you can salvage these. You will need to get one of the gears off the axle. Try an arbor press. On the 9-11 in the pictures above, the gears are peened on.
Make the aluminum block. The width is extremely important. If it's too wide the gears will pinch the bracket when pressed on.
Mark the location of the 1/2" hole. This is likely the most important measurement.
Bore the 1/2" hole.
Mill away the relief for the large gear. The depth must be at least the thickness of the large gear and the handwheel gear.
Mill the "ears" through which the 1/4" bolts will pass. The depth of these was determined by the length of the bolts I had available. YMMV. You may not even need to add the ears at all if you use long bolts.
Mill the leadscrew relief channel. When the channel intersects the axle hole you can stop. Removing more will not help.
Put the axle in the bracket and carefully press the gears onto it. Check for a good fit before doing so. This will be hard to lubricate so add some über grease to the axle now. NOTE - the axle is NOT symmetrical. Be sure you orient it correctly.
Put some layout blue on the bracket where it touches the apron, where the 1/4" bolts will pass. Put spacers between the mating gears so they will mesh correctly. Many people use paper scraps. Push the bracket firmly into position on the lathe. The gears on the bracket should engage the rack and the handwheel gear. Have a helper mark the bolt hole locations using a transfer punch.
Bore the two holes for the 1/4" bolts.

Notes, in no particular order.

I don't know how long this part will last. I am an amateur. Caveat Emptor.
The part I am showing is a replacement for part 9-11 from an Atlas/Craftsman 12" lathe made in about 1937. It has no powered crossfeed and a 5/8" leadscrew. If your lathe if newer or different, you'll certainly have to make changes. If you have an identical lathe, you'll probably have to make changes :-D
As far as I know, the design is correct. But you can probably find 100 improvements.
I made mine from aluminum scrap. If you have iron or steel, all the better.
The biggest mistake I made was drilling the 1/4" holes too soon. This should be the last thing you do. Drilling them last allows you to position the bracket on the lathe in exactly the right spot. I drilled my holes first and had the unenviable task of making sure both gears and both bolts all lined up. They didn't. So I got out a file... It was a big time-sucking mistake.
When you prepare the part for the final fit, pushing it upward will make it engage the rack. Pushing it back and forth will make it engage and disengage the handwheel's gear.
From the front view, you see the channel at the bottom. That channel is necessary for leadscrew clearance. It channel will just intersect the 1/2" hole you bored for the axle. Yes, the part is nearly cut in two. The Zamak part also has a divot out of the axle area. Anyway, if you can reduce the width of the channel, you'll strengthen the part. I didn't have the tooling.
Most of the dimensions are non-critical. You need to get the 1/2" axle hole pretty close. The width of the part is also critical or the gears will pinch it or slide back and forth. The milled area must be deep enough to accommodate the large gear that attached to the axle.
Go slow when you press the large and small gears onto the 1/2" axle. Mine fit great - I got lucky. It's possible that if your bracket isn't wide enough the gears will be pressed against the aluminum and turn very stiffly. To be avoided.

Retiring a flag

2009-04-20T18:48:00.007-05:00

There's always a flag flying at our house. Recently I noticed that it was pretty wind-whipped and faded. So what do you do with an old flag? Throwing it in the trash seems disrespectful - and it is. Instead, you should retire the flag. In this context, retire means to properly decommission and destroy the flag.

One option is to neatly fold the flag and drop it off at the local firehouse or boy scout troop. They'll know what to do.

If you want to do it yourself, here's one way. Get the flag and go to a quiet spot and get comfortable. Take your knife or scissors and cut the grommets off the flag. Keep the grommets - they are good luck. I always keep some in my truck. Then cut from the flag the rest of the grommet strip. It's annoying and isn't part of the flag. Now you're ready to begin.

Cut the field (the blue part with the stars) out of the flag. While you're doing this, remember to thank your lucky stars that you're in the US of A. Take the time to think of something that shows how fortunate you are. Maybe it's that you get your choice of news sources. Or to have more than one candidate to vote for. Or that our water is clean and our roads are smooth. I don't take much for granted. While you're thinking these thoughts, cut the field into 4 or 9 pieces. Try to make them the same size and keep the cuts straight and square - we're not shredding trash here.

Now cut the stripes into alternating red and white strips of fabric. Take your time. While you're doing this, look at those red strips and think about the men and women who have bled to make sure our lives are soft and easy. Those red strips are like a ribbons stretching through time from the Revolutionary War through the current Middle East conflicts. The common thread is that for the last 235 years soldiers have bled for this country to protect our way of life and things we hold dear. If you're one of these people, please accept my gratitude. If you're not, you owe a debt you can't repay. Please, do not waste their blood.

Think about the white strips. These could represent everyone in the country. All the people, interwoven with the blood of patriots. I mean your neighbor, the Mexican guy who you saw at the corner market this morning, the impatient Hindu guy in traffic, your co-workers, the crossing-guard lady... everyone. There is no other place where so many different people are welcomed. While it isn't always easy, I am convinced our diversity is a tremendous strength. Think about the cacophony that is America's People and drink it in.

Take the longest red strip and set it aside. Cut the rest of the strips into pieces about long as those pieces from the field. Put them inside the blue squares. Place the whole thing on the red strip you set aside earlier and tie it up into a tight bundle.

Now you no longer have a flag. You have a small bundle of fabric. You can place it in the trash now.

Be sure to get your new flag up as soon as you can.

My Life as a Programming Contractor

2009-04-18T08:26:00.003-05:00

Gig #1 was at a place called Resonant Vibes. The staff is cool bunch of people who are very much in to their music. I was certainly the old guy there. The enthusiasm of the staff was infectious and I found myself getting into it. The contract expired and that was that.

Gig #2 is interesting in that i has helped me to understand contractors I hired previously. Now I have the hankering to bring more coffee to work. I say, "I'll do it any way you want" a lot, and have no vested interests in one approach or another. If I think one approach is better, I say so and I say why. Then I do what I am asked. Also, employees don't talk to contractors. Employees don't make a lot of eye contact with contractors. They don't ask us to join them for lunch. And I think it's awesome. How absolutely freeing it is to go to work... and just work. Immersion in the problem with no BS, no interruptions no hassles. None of the stuff that reduces the efficiency of the employees.

In addition to the beneficial detachment, I'm enjoying the constant change and challenge. There's always something new. As an example, my current boss wanted some graphics displayed from a database. But he wanted a copyright watermark placed on each one. I hadn't a clue how to do it. So I was forced to spend a pleasurable 2 hours figuring it out and implementing it.

Hey! Where'd my job go!

2009-02-21T10:35:00.002-05:00

I don't like to rush in to anything so I thought I make my first posting of 2009. Being the Most Boring Person Ever, I really don't have that much to say.

Anyway, as of 1/9/09, I found myself unemployed. When you work at a web start-up you are totally delusional if you don't expect to be laid off every day. Sadly, my day came up. I was working for some pals. My boss was more upset about it than I was. He's a softy.

My big lesson was taking a month off turned my brain into mush. I was surprised by how quickly I was losing my edge. When I started some contract work it hit me like a sledgehammer. So now my neck hurts. But I'm getting smarter again.

Think Better, an Innovator's Guide to Productive Thinking by Tim Hurson

2008-10-05T10:47:00.006-05:00

This is basically a 'self help' sort of book. According to the author, if you buy this tome, read it, and apply the contents, something great will happen.

So I bought it. And I read it. And I applied the contents.

What this book is about is thinking more creatively, not thinking more deeply, as it were.

The core premise of the book is that typical thinking relies heavily on what we've done previously. Learning by experience is what humans do. Hurson calls this 'reproductive thinking' as it reproduces the past. This is frequently a good way to do things. But no amount of reproductive thinking will turn an adding machine into a spreadsheet. To make this leap, you need "productive thinking."

The crux of the book is how to think this way. Suppose you have some problem. You assemble your team of people (works individually too, but that isn't his focus) and write down every solution the team can think of to that problem. Analysis is not allowed - just raw ideas. Within a few minutes, people have called out the obvious solutions. The leader of the group keeps writing them down and asking for more using a number of techniques in the book. Before long, people will start giving dubious solutions. This is good. Finally, at some point, the answers become bizarre. This section is what Hurson calls the "third third" of the list. He posits that the good stuff - the truly innovative solutions - are at the bottom of the list. Most of the time, they are worthless. But if you allow these fledgling ideas to live for a while, sometimes they attain flight status.

While we had our power outage, I had 9 days to try this. I am designing some software. I started making a list of the solutions to my problems (this software has many facets which constitute many problems.) I wrote down ideas, concerns, drawings - anything. What I found was that once I ran out of ideas, I'd make some connection, and I'd get 25 more ideas. Then I'd be empty. But the next day it would happen again. It was difficult, but I finally - finally - made it to 100 ideas and thoughts, an arbitrary goal designed to make me stretch. Then I saw another connection and wrote down 30 more ideas! I stopped because the ideas, if valid, were straying from the actual problem domain and started applying more to an alternative piece of software.

I ended up with 3 really good innovations. (I'm sure others would think of these things instantly, but by God they were new to me!) One of these innovations would allow the software to perform a seeming completely different function with only trivial modifications - if it's built right.

There's a lot more to the book, as it talks about how to make the ideas to concrete solutions, walking through phases of idea-to-solution. Again, posing each step a problem then using these free-flowing lists of solutions to find the most innovative answers to problems.

So, the pros:

1. The technique seems to work for me as an individual.

2. Trying it is cheap. You need a) the book and b) office supplies. You do not need a guru, a Change Process Facilitator, pure Tibetan mountain spring water, or to sacrifice a chicken.

3. There are probably 6 phases and numerous sub-phases in the full solution process. So there are other parts of the book that I didn't mention but are worthwhile. For example, he mentions that some people in the organization may work against you. Commendably honest. Such a person is treated as a problem to be solved. You write this person's name down so you can make lists of solutions to this persons behavior. This section is short and I can't help but feel he stopped short for political correctness - and perhaps legal reasons!

The cons:

1. The book is almost certainly a sales tool for the author's consulting company which he mentions repeatedly. Perhaps the book is an answer to the problem, "How can we educate people about our system and thus make more money?" in which case it's a very practical proof of concept!

2. I can't imagine a team of people using this technique because it feels 'new age.' You'd have to have a lot of trust among coworkers.

3. The book is repetitious. Make lists! Make lists! Blah.

4. TMCBSHA. I mean, Too Many Cute Business Self Help Acronyms. The industrial strength solution he discusses has many phases and sub-phases. It seems like every one of them as some hokey acronym associated with it. examples:
IF (imagined future)
DRIVE (do, restrictions, investment, values, essential outcomes)
AIM (advantages, impediments, maybes)

Now, each of these sections may be worthwhile but my god it's killing me. This is what makes me suspicious about the technique. I feel like he's putting the sizzle before the steak. I don't need sizzle to work a problem. But Hurson might need it to sell his book!

5. The numerous steps (and their acronyms!) in the full solution need to be in a diagram so I can follow them.

Finally, if you make your living by thinking (versus, say, by chopping off ninja heads) and you're in a rut, consider _Think Better, an Innovator's guide to Productive Thinking_ by Tim Hurson. I give it a 3 of 5, where no such book can possibly score a 5 due to the built-in hokiness and cheerleading of it all.

9 days without power thanks to Ike

2008-10-05T09:38:00.005-05:00

Hurricane Ike hit Louisville like a sledgehammer leaving 350,000 people without power. Our neighborhood suffered and inordinate amount of infrastructure damage. A large tree fell onto some power lines and snapped 5 poles. With such great damage and so few people affected, we were last to be restored.

It was fun, sort of like camping, but with porcelain. Our stove is electric and our gas hot water heater has an electric component to the thermostat or heater. We lost the contents of the freezer almost immediately. But why spend $700 or more on a generator to save $100 of food?

Most essentials (ie coffee maker) were handled by our little 1000 watt Honda generator. We bought a Coleman one-burner stove and cooked out. We burned a lot of candles. I wrote by oil lamp light in the evenings. The lovely and talented wife knitted outside by day and caught up on "House" episodes by night, thanks to the Honda.

It was rather peaceful. However, by day 7 it was getting old. The cold showers were brutal. And there weren't any computers or internet access.

While roughing it, I made a little alcohol burning stove. It puts out a remarkable amount of heat. I'd make a better design if I really wanted to cook on it however. There are plans on the web for better pepsi can stoves for not much more work. Be advised, these things are reasonably dangerous as they burn uncontained alcohol. Google 'pepsi can stove' to learn more.

The lesson to take away here is that you can do a lot with a little - if you're innovative. This little stove worked - it boiled water in about 5 minutes using about half an ounce of denatured alcohol. The stove is the bottom inch or so of two coke cans. You stretch one half using a (full) can of soda. Then you can insert the first bottom into the stretched bottom. You then seal the seam with thermal tape or heat-proof epoxy. I used a small nail to poke 8 burner holes (around the rim) and a few fill holes in the center. There's a piece of fiberglass insulation inside to help contain the alcohol in case of a spill. You pour alcohol in the center, warm the whole burner with a candle until the alcohol boils, then ignite the burner. Deluxe rabbit-fence is used as a pot holder. The coin you see is a nickel used to cover the fill holes once the stove was burning. Sorry, I don't have any pics of the stove in use.

Dad's Clarinet

2008-10-05T09:15:00.004-05:00

I've become interested in the clarinet again. I dug through the closet and found the clarinet my father played in the late 40s and early 50s. I played it from 3rd to 12th grade, through 1980. My son played it in middle school (through about 2000) before switching to the violin.

It's just a plain-jane Leblanc Normandy model. From any measure except sentimentality, it's not remarkable. That being said, 60 years later, it still plays pretty darned well!

As you can see, the keys are tarnished. I am not sure there's any plating left to polish.

Making a chessboard pt 9

2008-05-28T23:40:00.011-05:00

Tonight, except for gluing felt on the feet, I completed the chessboard. It was an enjoyable project.

After the 2nd coat of oil dried, the board was quite rough. This surprised me. I went over it lightly with some fine steel wool and all the roughness went away - it became silky. After a good dusting, I waxed it with Johnson & Johnson's paste wax. The same stuff - down to that yellow metal can - that my mom used to use when waxing our floors back in the 60s. I must say that I like the simplicity of using tung oil and wax.

Enough talk!

Here's the board with the set I bought, and a lovely quilt made by the wife in the background. The quilt's better than the chessboard!

And that's that!

My son and I played a few games on it tonight, he nicked me for a draw! The board and set go well together. The set is the Club Series chessmen from Cajun Chess.

Perhaps I'll have additional thoughts about the chessboard later. Now it is time for bed.

Making a chessboard pt 8

2008-05-26T18:58:00.009-05:00

I finished the sanding today (in other words, I got really tired of sanding.) A random orbital sander is sounding good right about now. If I make any more, I'll probably get one. The Wife wants more quilt racks so I can probably get one. It's really for her, you see...

Here are some pictures. The tung oil added a bit of a tint...

Making a chessboard pt 7

2008-05-25T21:54:00.007-05:00

Well, this is really dragging on. If I would quit making mistakes I'd be done!

Anyway, I cut the miters pretty much by eye on the bandsaw and cleaned them up with a chisel. This is something a skilled craftsman can do with ease. Which is to say, I made a mess of it.

So I give you, ladies and gentlemen, BRUTALCAM (tm) ... Here are closeups of the patched/repaired miters. To see this yourself you'd have to push your eyeball up against the board - so it isn't quite as bad in person.

Obviously the one in the upper right is rough. When making the cut on the bandsaw, I cut on the wrong side of the line. Pretty serious when 1/64th of an inch in unacceptable! But as it was the 2nd miter cut on that piece, and as I cut it too short, there was nothing to be done except to deal with it and try to do better next time. The dark spot is actually glue, so this will probably look a little better (a little less bad?) after some finish sanding. I'm as pleased as punch with the other corners.

Here's the board again, this time with it's first sanding. Tomorrow I have specific rough areas to sand. Then it will time for the final sanding and the finish.

And once again, the board with the new pieces on it. Why? Because I can!

Stay tuned...

Abbey Road on the River

2008-05-25T21:44:00.003-05:00

My son and some of his High School friends got a unique opportunity to play a gig at Louisville's Abbey Road on the River, the world's biggest Beatles festival. In the last few weeks they formed a band, selected a few songs, and worked up a set - while taking AP tests, finals, and graduating. It was nuts.

Here's a link to the band's page... It will likely change in the near future...

And here's a clip.

Needless to say, we're as proud as we can be of our son.

Making a chessboard pt 6

2008-05-22T20:49:00.008-05:00

Tonight's adventures...

I decided that the borders of the chessboard made the it look too bulky, almost as if it was single block of oak. To remedy this, I decided to cut scallops in the bottom of the border. I'd leave "feet" at the corners but cut an arc between them.

This represents one of my four border pieces. The pink rectangular area represents the groove that the board's lip fits into. The arc at the bottom is what I want to cut. In actuality, I selected a chord of a circle, not an ellipse as drawn, but my gimp fu is weak.

Here's a pic. It's sitting on the tablesaw which might made it hard to see.

Here's another pic. Hopefully the plywood will make it easier to see.

Ok, it's a tad subtle. Compare to pictures in previous postings to see the difference. The arc/scallop is a chord of a circle with a radius of 80" or so. I didn't have a circle jig that large sitting around so I had to improvise. I decided that I wanted the arc to go from 0" deep by the feet to 3/8" deep in the center. I did all the calculations in Excel to plot several points onto my template. Then I could connect them and have a reasonable approximation of the arc I wanted. The method sucked my soul (ok, measure 3" over and 5/64" up...) I needed a less tedious way.

I marked three points on my template - the top of the arc and the point by each foot where the arc will leave the wood. I got a thin strip of plywood scrap and bent it so it passed through all three points. I made sure the strip bent evenly. I then traced the curve made by the bent strip onto the template. After cutting to the line on the bandsaw, I had a template I could use for all four borders. Worked great.

More to come!

Making a chessboard pt 5

2008-05-21T20:13:00.009-05:00

I've cut the miters now. With the board being out of square somewhat and my lack of specialized tooling, I was forced to cut the miters on the bandsaw and clean them up with a chisel. Given that I have never done it, three of the four corners turned out well enough. The fourth, unfortunately, is a train wreck. I can disguise it at the cost of Yet More Time. Looking back, of course, it is very easy to say, if I spent half as much time being careful as fixing st00pid mistakes, I'd be done...

Oh well, I'm getting smarter by the minute... So enough with the whining, here we go.

Here's the board with the borders. All mitered. Now you can see the accent strip very well.

Here's the best corner.

And here's a closeup. The camera angle is being kind to me. There's a black line there though I expect it will fill in with sawdust. Hey, I'd prefer a perfect miter, but I'll take it where I can get it!

Finally, here's a motivational picture I took for myself. This is a set I received today. I bought it for this board. It's a decent boxwood and ebonized boxwood set with a 3 7/8" king.

Yeah, I cropped it to be a tease. ;-)

The next step is to repair the bad miter and glue the borders on. Then I'll re-evaluate the situation. Optionally, before the gluing, I may put a decorative arc in the borders so they don't look so heavy.

Stay tuned...

Making a chessboard pt 4

2008-05-18T12:20:00.017-05:00

More chessboard progress. I spent most of my time since the last post fixing mistakes. They do seem to compound on a project like this.

Here's the board after a sanding on its plywood sheet.

This picture shows that I can't take pictures. Anyway, this shows the profile of the border. The groove will fit over the lip made by the plywood giving a lot of gluing area. The groove was made from multiple passes on the tablesaw. It's rough but it will be hidden. The accent strip has been attached but is still untrimmed. In the spirit of being a cheeseball, I've since run the borders through the planer to make the accent strip flush on both edges. :-D

I'll tell on myself a little here. Due to some error propagation, the playing area needed to be trimmed - the squares weren't perfectly aligned. But I did it poorly causing the border to fit badly at best. There was a 1/16" gap between the accent strip and the board. It doesn't sound like much but it looked like a chasm. Completely unacceptable. I filled the gap in with some scrap and planed the edge reasonably straight. As you can see, the worst of the damage is fixed. I still have some finagling to do but it will be minor.

This close-up shows how it all comes together. Obviously I still have to miter the border. The accent strip is Brazilian Cherry. Which isn't related to cherry at all. Hopefully it will stay this color! There are some gaps between the accent and the board that will disappear with sanding and finagling.

And finally, here's sort of what it will look like. Pretend the corners are mitered. The ends of the borders are a little rough. Not to worry, I'll be cutting an inch or so off when they are mitered.

I'm not too sure about the oak border. Maybe I'll use cherry on the next one.

Hillary Please Stop

2008-05-16T13:55:00.000-05:00

I ran across this amusing site today. Hillary Please Stop

Making a chessboard pt 3

2008-05-10T13:01:00.022-05:00

Now I need to cut the board across the strips. The problem is, I don't have a good edge to push against the tablesaw fence. The solution is the panel jig. In the simplest case this is nothing more than a straight piece of wood that serves as a fence attached to a sheet of plywood. Now, the panel jig's fence is perpendicular to the board's direction of travel through the table saw. The board has 2 good edges for that. Here's the panel jig. As you see, there's isn't much to it.

(note - I built mine upside down and reversed. That is, most of these jigs have the fence on the side closest to the operator. And usually the jig is on the left of the blade, not the right. I don't know why I made it this way now. But it has advantages and disadvantages... )

The next two pictures show the before and after of me cleaning the edge of the first square. Note the board's good edge is against the fence. That's how I know this edge will be perpendicular.

Before...

and after...

As soon as the edge is clean, I immediately write the numbers 1 through 8 on the board, on the first maple strip, such that when the new strips are cut each has a number. This will allow me to reassemble the board in the same order. It keeps the grain matching and looking good.

Now a challenging task is ahead - I need to make 8 strips - but but how wide? The problem is that the squares aren't exactly 2 1/4" like I had planned. They are about 2 3/16". I measured across the board and found it was 17 7/16" wide. I divided by 8 to get the average width of a square. This was something bizarre, of course, something like 2 23/128ths. I could approximate it to 32nds of course... Instead, I converted the fraction to decimal... 17.96.. and set my dial caliper. Now that I know how wide these strips should be, how am I going to do it? I should be able to cut these on the table saw now that I made a good edge. But that will leave a thin piece of wood stuck between the fence and the blade. In addition to being dangerous, I don't have any wood to spare if it gets chewed up.

I decide to use the panel jig instead of the tablesaw fence. I use my calipers to measure from the leftmost edge of one of the saw blade's left-set teeth to position a wooden stop:

Note the bar clamp - the stop must absolutely not move. Now I push a clean edge against the panel jig's fence, and push a clean edge against the stop. The sets the width of the strip to be cut as accurately as I know how.

There's now nothing left to do but push wood through the saw. I make sure the chessboard doesn't slip by pushing the board against the jig's fence, but I push the jig through the saw. Better jigs have a toggle clamp that pins the work to the jig. If I used mine more often I'd add one.

So I make a few cuts, measuring each one with the calipers to make sure nothing has slipped. Here I've cut 2 with the next ready. You can just see masking tape on the trailing maple edge - I has some trouble with this splitting out as the blade passed through. The tape adds enough support to prevent this.

Ok, all 8 strips are cut and laid out in order on the panel jig.

Now what? How do you get a chessboard out of that? Simple! Rotate every other strip end-for-end!

Suddenly the game board appears!

The next steps will include a light sanding of the new edges to remove any wood splinters or burrs that could prevent a good glue-up. Then back in the clamps it goes for gluing! After the cleanup I'll glue the whole board down to a sheet of plywood to strengthen it.

I'll add a border to it to protect the outside squares and hide the plywood substrate. I consider the miters at the border's corners to be the most difficult part of the project.

Then the real finish sanding will happen. This will level the board and the border and hopefully be silky smooth. Finally, I'll apply a finish. Oil gives luster and depth, polyurethane makes it tough as nails. Maybe I'll do both. I have not decided.

More to come...

Making a chessboard pt 2

2008-05-10T08:30:00.016-05:00

So I got my pipe clamps and, did some test fits, then glued the board together. Here's the beauty shot:

That's actually of a dry-run. When doing involved glue-ups it is important to be sure that there won't be any problems. You don't want to be surprised while the glue is drying! In this case, notice the small bits of wood between the clamps and the board. I discovered that the boards were thin enough to slip beneath some of the clamp faces. That would have been annoying had the glue been applied already.

Also important is that the boards are in the same exact order and orientation as described in the previous posting. That's why I lettered them all.

I was rewarded immediately during the real glue-up when I tightened a clamp too much and the boards flew out. I ended up getting glue where I didn't want glue which made for additional cleanup. Anyway, I was able to start over with no chance of getting the board (with their custom-matched edges) back in the wrong sequence.

The next picture fills my breast with pride and the smell of olde-world craftsmanship.

Basically, I thought the board had a bit of a bow in it, and it displeased me. I found the heaviest thing in the shop that was nearby. That vise weighs perhaps 40#, more then enough to push the board down against the pipe clamps. A good part of woodworking is dealing with the real world - such as boards that don't behave.

If you enlarge the image you can see the glue squeezing out from between the boards. That's ok. Let it dry. Don't try to wipe it off or you'll smear it into the wood. This is very important if you intend to stain the wood (which I don't) because the glue residue will inhibit the stain leaving an unsightly blemish you can't do much about. After an hour or two, the glue will be set up but not yet hard. It will peel off very easily. I had to go to work, so by the time I got back in the shop the glue was rock hard.

Here's the board after the glue-up. Now, all that dried 'squeeze-out'... To remove it, I carefully ran my narrow chisel, bevel up, down the length of the glue lines. Some of the boards weren't perfectly aligned in height leaving places where glue could hide. Unsightly! While I could have sanded it off, that makes no sense to me. So I held the chisel nearly vertically with the bevel away from me, and I pulled it down the glue lines. This popped off some globs of glue and, as it cut the wood and made gossamer shavings, it leveled the uneven glue lines. Basically, I used the chisel like a light-duty cabinet scraper. I could feel the chisel being deflected as it hit patches of glue. When I could pull the chisel without it wandering, I knew I was done. Now when I run my hand over the board, I feel minute undulations, but I don't feel any catches where the boards are glued together.

The next stop is for me to make a straight cut across all 8 boards. This will be the reference edge from which I'll make the next 8 strips. Note these will be cut 'the other way', making strips of alternating squares. This is the only operation that stresses me - I must push the board straight through the saw or I'll snipe an edge and it won't glue well. It sounds easy, and it is - until the board is almost cut through. You have to push the work through the saw, past the blade. You also have to push the work against the fence as you do this. But there's only 2" of space between the fence and the blade. You gonna put your hand in there, stumpy? I can think of two different ways to do this safely. A dry-run (unpowered!!) of each is called for.

More to come!

Making a chessboard

2008-05-10T07:46:00.009-05:00

While procrastinating on finishing the lathe, I decided to make a chessboard. I've started playing again recently so it's been on my mind.

I have a nice set I bought many years ago. Based on its size I decided that 2.25" squares would be appropriate. I selected some maple and walnut from my racks. I resawed four slices of each type of wood each about 5/16" thick. Then I ran them through the thickness planer until the best side was very smooth and the other side was reasonably smooth. Then I cut each strip to width on the table saw.

Here's the result:

You can see that not all the pieces are the same length. That's ok, I'll be cutting across those strips soon to make 8 new strips of alternating color. The uneven ends (including that label, lolz) are destined for the scrap pile.

What you can't see is that each board is lettered on the scrap end. This allows me to know which face is up and the orientation of the end of the board.

I'm going to glue the 8 pieces together next. The table saw is pretty accurate, I could probably glue them as-is. However using a hand plane I can use and old old trick to make the edges virtually perfect, giving a superior gluing edge.

The trick is that if you get two boards and clamp them in the vise, both are oriented with their faces outward, when you hand-plane their edges your planing errors will cancel out. When the boards are laid flat again, they will fit together wonderfully. The reason is that the hand plane my be cocked to, say, 88 degrees as you plane. Planing each edge individually could cause the mating edges to be 4 degrees out of square. That's unacceptable. But when they are planed together (with both faces out - critical!), 88 degrees on one board becomes 92 on the other. Add 88 to 92 and you get 180 degrees - perfectly flat. In the picture, you can see the two boards in the vise. I've clamped them in with their edges at the same height. That hand plane is a Stanley (Bailey) #8c jointing plane. It was made in about 1922. I really enjoy using it.

Here's the mess after I jointed all the edges. You can see maple and walnut intertwined in the shavings between the plane and the vise . Those are what you want - it means the plane was cutting both pieces at the same time, and thus they will meet at 180 degrees.

More to come, this post is full ;-)

Another chess outing

2008-03-25T19:30:00.004-05:00

I played again this week. I won two reasonable games, then played this abomination with the white pieces:

Stormcrow (1705) vs. JT (1900)

1. d4 c5 2. Nf3 cxd4 3. Nxd4 a6 4. e4 Nf6 5. Nc3 e5 6. Nf3 Bb4 7. Bg5 Qc7 8. Qd3 Nxe4 9. Qxe4 Bxc3+ 10. Kd1 Bxb2 11. Rb1 Qd6+ 12. Bd3 Bd4 13. Re1 f6 14. Qxd4 Qxd4 15. Nxd4 fxg5 16. Rxe5+ Kd8 17. Rxg5 g6 18. f3 Nc6 19. Nxc6+ dxc6 20. Kd2 Kc7 21. Re1 Bd7 22. Rge5 Rae8 23. Bc4 Rxe5 24. Rxe5 Re8 25.Rxe8 Bxe8 26. f4 h6 27. Bd3 Kd6 28. c3 a5 29. Ke3 b5 30. g4 g5 31. f5 Ke5 32. a3 c5 33. Kf3 b4 34. cxb4 axb4 35. axb4 cxb4 36. Bc2 Bf7 37. Ke3 0-1

There was more, but I was in time pressure and unable to record it. I got off balance in the beginning and allowed a dreadful pin. According to Crafty, however, black's 11th and 12th moves were poor. On move 13 I played Re1 - not generally bad, but too slow. White wins a bishop gratis by simply playing 13. Nxd4. The natural recapture with the queen is disastrous:

13. Nxd4 Qxd4? 14. Qxd4 exd4 15. Re1+ Kf8 16. Be7+ Kg8 (16. ... Ke8? 17. Bc5+ Kd8 18. Bc6#) 17. Bc5 (threatening Re8) g6 18. Bxd4 (closing the hole) Kf8 19. Bxh8

I believe a spare knight (or rook), two great bishops, and the e file would have been enough for the win. This was against a 1900 player (his rating floor) and would have been my best win ever. So close, and now gone forever!

The silver lining is that I see that I can recover from a poor opening and these A-player "giants" can indeed be felled. This game was a good demonstration of what can happen if you neglect your development - black's seemingly superb opening should have collapsed because his pieces sat idle on their starting squares and his King languished in the center while white's pieces flooded the board! And finally, Crafty is giving me a better grip on reality - Crafty can improve on nearly every one of my moves. If I work to improve even a fraction of these, the quality of my play should increase dramatically.

Playing chess again

2008-03-20T20:56:00.006-05:00

Show me a good chess player and I'll show you someone with a miss-spent youth. Anyway, I'm trying to keep the noodle from calcifying as my age advances so I've started playing chess again. I haven't played a tournament game in 17 years. I found a club that plays three quick games each Monday evening. Last week I got smoked, getting 1/2 of a point out of 3 and I probably didn't deserve that. This week I did better, winning the open class with 3 out of 3 points. I scored my first victory against a USCF class "A" player.

Here's the game. It's probably the most active game I've played. My opponent is known to be fearless and aggressive. He didn't disappoint!

Stormcrow (USCF 1705) vs JB (USCF 1881)

1. d4 e6 2. c4 b6 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. Nf3 Ba6 5. e3 Nc6 6. a3 Bb7 7. Be2 h5 8. Ng5 Ng4 9. Nge4 Na5 10. b4 f5 11. Nd2 Bd6 12. Bf3 Nxf2 13. Kxf2 f4 14. Bxb7 Nxb7 15. Nce4 O-O 16. Qxh5 Rf5 17. Qg4 fxe3+ 18. Kxe3 Bf4+ 19. Kd3 d5 20. Ng3 dxc4+ 21. Nxc4 Bxg3 22. hxg3 c5 23. Bb2 b5 24. Ne3 c4+ 25. Kc2 Rf2+ 26. Kb1 c3 27. Bxc3 Rc8 28. Rc1 Nd6 29. Qxe6+ Kf8 30. Ra2 Rf6 31. Qg4 Nc4 32. Nxc4 bxc4 33. Re1 Rc7 34. d5 Kf7 35. Bxf6 Kxf6 36. Rf2# 1-0

Black was in time trouble towards the end which explains his last few moves.

This leaves my rating at 1733 - I'm a middle "B" player. My goal is to become an "A" player which requires a rating of 1800. It's doable this year. To gain the 67 points I'll need to have 4 wins (net) against peers. And of course, I want to hold onto the rating.

Crafty chess program

2008-02-28T18:53:00.003-05:00

I've started playing chess again. I found a delightful chess program on the innerwebs called "Crafty." It's written by Robert Hyatt, the same guy who did Cray Blitz, so the mojo is flowing.

Crafty has a mode in which it annotates games and generates an HTML file of the game, variations, and diagrams. Unfortunately, the graphics for the diagrams don't seem to be available. The board looks terrible without them ;-)

So here's a link to a page that offers public domain piece art that works well with Crafty.

Finishing the headstock

2008-02-09T19:24:00.000-05:00

Not much more to report, repairs on the lathe are coming down to a large number of very small tasks. I decided to replace both belts with Fenner link belts. A Fenner link belt is a v-belt made of some very tough stuff. The trick is that instead of the belt being a continuous loop, Fenner uses interlocking pieces:

While the piece is 2" long or so, the adjacent pieces overlap so that adding a 2" link adds about an inch of length to the belt.

And since the belt was on I added a belt cover from an Atlas lathe. Same manufacturer, probably a different model. Fortunately it fit ok. You don't want the spinning cogs under the cover exposed.

Here's what it looks like with the cover open:

The motor needs to go on soon. It looks like I'll be mounting a 1/2 HP 3-phase. This requires some electrical work so the starting the lathe is a few weeks out yet.

Remaining biggies for the lathe include making a shim for the leadscrew mounting bracket and repairing the carriage's lateral movement gears.

New motor for the lathe

2008-01-27T11:52:00.001-05:00

I acquired 1/2 HP and 1 HP 3-phase motors yesterday. So that's one more issue that's resolved. I just need to decide which I want to use. The 1HP is quite heavy. I'm not sure the motor mount on the lathe was designed for a motor this large. I could mount it on the wall or a separate stand.

I also acquired appropriate oil for the ways and spindle on the lathe. Unfortunately, they come in lifetime quantities. I would have been ok with 1/4 of a lifetime supply and ordering more later! I got Mobil Vactra2 way oil and ISO 68 hydraulic oil.

I getting to the point on the lathe were there are 100 little things to do and not much worth writing about.

I did more renovations in the basement to make a nicer shop area. I removed some dog whelping pens that had been down there for 15 years. I had expanded them for my wife's dogs, but she's out of the dog scene now. It was much easier to delicately *cough* remove them with a reciprocating saw than it was to build them. They were filthy with dust and mold :-/

I'm going to use a VFD to convert single phase 220v house electricity to 3-phase for the lathe. While I'm at it I'll install a small breaker box in the lathe area. I'll have the lathe on one breaker and lights and common 110v outlets on 2 more. I'll put up two 2-light fluorescent light fixtures and make provision for some incandescent task lighting.

As far as the lathe is concerned, there isn't much to do to have it minimally running. There's a hand wheel on the apron that allows the carriage to be moved quickly up and down the lathe. There's a housing that allows a gear connected to the hand wheel to engage a rack under the ways. That housing is broken. It's about the most common failure on these lathes. In addition, I need to make a shim to reposition the extremely dubious shop-made bracket supporting the left end of the leadscrew.

My colonoscopy

2008-01-10T23:57:00.000-05:00

You can read about the details elsewhere. I'll hit the high spots.

The doctor can't see anything if your intestines aren't clean. I was instructed to fast the day before the procedure. Sure, I could have a small amount of semi-solid food such as unflavored Jello but why bother. Starting at midnight, I ate nothing. I was free to drink clear liquids, coffee, tea, and soft drinks that had no red dye in them. In the late afternoon, I broke out the 'bowel prep kit' which I got from the pharmacy. The kit contained a plastic jug with a powdered chemical within, some flavoring packets, and 2 pills. The first thing I did was to take 2 pills. They didn't seem to do anything. Then I added enough water to the jug to create a liter of a flushing fluid. (Apparently the procedure has been improved - others tell me of having to drink a gallon of the stuff, not a liter! A gallon of anything would be very very tough to drink.)

An hour after taking the pills, I started drinking the flushing fluid at the rate of 8 oz every 10 minutes. 4 glasses total. No big deal. It doesn't taste bad but it is a little thicker than water and somehow 'wrong.' What I learned was that you chug it. The end of the glass never stops going up until the liquid is gone. And you don't just pour it in, you suck it in. Get it in and down as quick as you can. The reason is, if you stop, it is very hard to start again. Like I say, it's odd stuff.

Over the course of the evening I chased it with a few glasses of water and got the desired result. I wasn't on the toilet all night or anything like that.

Then, at 5am on the day of the procedure, I repeated the flush process with 4 more glasses of the stuff. By the time I was done, I was as clean as a that area can probably be. I felt as fresh as a country meadow. :-P

I was getting very tired of washing my hands.

The procedure itself was a breeze. First, I removed my clothing and donned a hospital gown designed to be insufficient on multiple levels. Then I sat and froze in an examination room for about 90 minutes. /fume

The next stop was the room where the procedure happens. I got an saline IV and answered some medical questions. The nurse produced the instrument which had a business end at least 120 cm long and about 15mm in diameter. It's marked every 10 cm, lol, for navigational assistance. She plugged this nozzley thing, which I assume had been previously sterilized, into a machine. When the time came, the nurse injected *something* into the IV. I got drowsy pretty quick. The nurse instigated some chit chat...

And I was done. I was awake and my wife was there. I don't remember going to sleep and I don't remember waking up. 20 minutes later I was in the car, and 30 minutes after that enjoying my first solid food in over 42 hours.

I woke up a little during my procedure, watched for a while on an LCD screen that was set up, felt some pressure and said "ow", and the nurse knocked me back out. No pain at all that I can recall.

So if you need to get it done, don't worry, it really isn't a big deal.

The Countershaft

2007-12-29T19:53:00.000-05:00

The lathe's countershaft is an improvised replacement. It's some manner of hard steel rod. It was perfectly suitable except that it was 5" too long and was protruding from the pulley that connects to the motor (hereafter known as the drive pulley.) To make matters worse, the last 6" of the rod was threaded. I decided to address this unsightly safety issue.

The smooth part of the shaft wasn't long enough which left the drive pulley sitting on threads. This didn't seem sensible to me. I determined the shaft's proper length and cut the excess off. That was a good start but it left the threads under the drive pulley. I removed them by turning the last inch or so of the shaft down to 1/2" from 3/4". Then I made a sleeve that would bring the diameter back up to 3/4" by boring a 1/2 hole in an aluminum rod. I pressed this to the shaft. It was a tight one-way fit. Finally, I turned the sleeve to the proper diameter, faced the end of the shaft, and broke the corners.

This was the first press fit of this size that Marco and I had ever done. It could be likened to monkeys doing math.

If I'd had the steel, I would have made the sleeve from that. We'll see how long the aluminum lasts.

Here are pictures of the countershaft in place.

While I had it all apart, I decided I didn't like the retaining collar on the right end of the countershaft and the pulley on the left end rubbing against the casting. Didn't seem too make a lot of sense. As an experiment I cut some washers from a plastic jug. We'll see how long they last. I don't expect they'll have too much pressure on them.

Repairing the bull gear and cone pulley

2007-12-08T19:39:00.000-05:00

Probably due to the previous 'fix' to the lathe, there is a considerable amount of wear on the hubs of the bull gear and cone pulley. As far as I can tell, there was no bearing between these parts. They were pressed hard together by the force of the spindle and frequently spun at different speeds. The Zamac hubs rubbed and eroded themselves down. Eventually, the outer edges of these parts started rubbing together and caused scoring. A bronze bushing in the cone pulley stopped the damage to that part, but the bull gear kept getting chewed up, if at a slower rate.

I decided to make room for a bearing between the bullgear and cone pulley. I'd size it so the edges ended up close but wouldn't touch.

The bull gear's right hub has seem some mysterious wear. I don't know what caused it. It was unsightly so I removed it. It also prepares for a possible retainer bearing similar to the one I put by the change gear. In addition, there are 60 holes at the edge of the bull gear for indexing. As is all too common, the retaining pin got pushed in while the lathe was running and tore up the holes. I smoothed the hub and indexing holes.

I turned the bull gear over and took about 90 mils off the the hub area. Note the damage to the edge of the piece - this isn't machined. That's where it wore against the cone pulley.

I turned my attention to the cone pulley. It's hub was not nearly as damaged due to the protection offered by the bronze bushing. I ran over it with Marco's mill. Again, note the damage towards the edge. That's where it rubbed against the bull gear.

This picture shows the bull gear with the sintered bronze 'oilite' bearing in place. The bearing is proud of the surface to prevent the wear around the edges of the parts.

Here is it all together. The cone pulley and bull gear are protected from one another by the bearing. Since the bearing is thicker than the amount of material I removed, the edges of the parts no longer touch, as seen in the following picture.

I need to file a few flats in my spindle for set screws. But otherwise this completes the headstock repairs.

More lathe stuff

2007-12-02T22:17:00.000-05:00

I ordered parts from www.mcmaster.com (McMaster-Carr). They have a superb web site. You pretty much describe what you're looking for, and the site presents you with a list of matching parts and additional selection options. Before long you're down to a part or two and you can select the one that suits you. It's painless.

On thing I discovered about my spindle recently is that it's not like the others I've seen on the web. The bearing shoulder on mine is fully 1/2" shorter. That, and the lack of a flange bearing, was why the headstock had that weird thrust path.

Here's the spindle. The part we're concerned with is the shoulder in the middle of the image. I have to get the force from that shoulder to the thrust bearing.

I ordered a remarkably thin needle thrust bearing and a sintered bronze flange bearing. My friend used his Sherline to part the flange bearing to length. In this picture you can see how the bronze bearing channels the thrust from the spindle shoulder to the thrust bearing.

The back gear isn't really secured now that I removed that huge bearing. Originally I was going to secure the gear to the cone pulley but I've nixed that. Instead I turned a UHMW retaining ring that consumes the empty space between the back gear and the thrust bearing. Here's the ring. Note how it rides on the flange bearing. The ring fits relatively loosely and, being UHMW is very slick. If all goes according to plan, the back gear will not be able to affect the bearing.

Here it is all together. The back gear has no where to go.

Now there is still a little work to do on the spindle. The mating hubs of the bull gear and cone pulley are abrading one another. This is a very high-wear part of the design. Perhaps over time a bearing between has been lost. But now the hubs have rubbed down and allowed the outer edges of the parts to touch and scar. I'm going to turn the hubs smooth then remove enough material from each so a 1/8" washer bearing fits between them. I'll leave the bearing a little proud so it prevents the outer edges from touching. This should be easy enough.

Stay Tuned!

The headstock

2007-11-16T23:47:00.000-05:00

I've been enjoying tinkering with the lathe, which was the point after all. I put the new back gears on, no problems there to speak of.

I pulled the spindle off. Due to heinous hackery the spindle's bull and back gear didn't line up with the mating gears on the back gear shaft. It was an adventure getting it apart. The biggest problems involved set screws - a previous owner had cranked them down so tight they left divots on the spindle. The divots prevented the close-fitting gears from coming off the spindle.

As I examined the spindle, I discovered something very wrong with it. The 'path of thrust' through the spindle was plain crazy. When you put something in a lathe, you normally squeeze it between the headstock and tailstock. Or the manipulate the cutters in such a way as to push on the headstock. This can transmit a lot of force to the thrust bearing in the headstock. With this lathe, the path of force was:

The nose
The spindle
The bull gear's set screw (!)
The bull gear
The cone pully
The back gear
The ball thrust bearing

That is not correct at all! None of the gears on the spindle should be in the path of thrust! One thing I noted was that the spindle was a 1.25" OD rod. The right 80% of the spindle has a steel sleeve that brings its diameter up to 1.5". Why is this? One reason is that the step formed at the left end of the sleeve is a dandy place to put a bronze flange bearing. This transfers the force to a ball thrust bearing that's against the left babbitt bearing.

So with this scheme, the path of force is:
The nose
The spindle
The bronze flange bearing
The ball thrust bearing

Much better!

As I was planning this out, I noted that the back gear isn't really attached to the pulley. There's nothing to keep the back gear from sliding around. Previously the thrust bearing kept the gear captured and led to the silliness described above. The back gear rides on a brass bushing that protrudes from the pulley. I'll pull the bushing out a little, perhaps 3/8", mill a groove very near the edge, and use a spring clip to capture the gear.

Lathe Stuffs

2007-11-04T10:58:00.000-05:00

I've been having an exciting adventure with my lathe. As described previously, it's a 'project' lathe. That is, it is a project simply to get it running! One silver lining is that I can't really hurt it. So I've been tearing it down to see how it works. First, there are a lot more individual parts than I thought. You don't see them until you really pay attention. Second, I know how the lathe works now. Previously it was abstract "this turns this" sort of general idea. Now I know precisely how it works, and I know what the parts are called.

While my lathe was made in 1939 or so, the Clausing corporation still has some parts available! Amazing. They were kind enough to send me a parts list. You can see it Atlas/Craftsman 12" engine lathe parts diagram 101.07383. I can use the part numbers to find suitable replacements on eBay.

Now, for the dirt.

I took the tailstock completely apart. Something very bad happened to it. I suspect whatever it was destroyed the hand-wheel and bent the ram screw. What's left is a well-intentioned bastardization. The worst part is that the culprit didn't have a left-handed Acme thread laying around (who does!) to make another ram screw. So he bored out the ram's left-handed Acme thread and re-cut a common right-handed thread. This means the tailstock works exactly backwards to every other tailstock on the planet. Fortunately, fixing this is relatively easy - I'll bore THOSE threads out and press in the appropriate nut. Now, the machinist did a commendable job of turning a large bolt to make a new ram screw - it isn't an easy thing to make. It sure looked like a lot of work - far more work than spending a few bucks on a left-handed threaded rod or a few more dollars on a new ram screw.

I took the backgear assembly apart too. I was not pleased - again, something rendered the backgears unusable - they wouldn't stay engaged. I saw another full assembly on eBay and bid on it, as a lark. To my surprise my low-ball bid won. Comparing the new assembly with the original, I can see my backgear shaft has been replaced, and badly. Instead of turning a replacement shaft, the person found a section of pipe... Now, the backgear shaft is indeed hollow and contains another shaft which is on an eccentric. This eccentric is used with a lever to engage the back gears when appropriate. The fit of the eccentric shaft within the section of pipe was poor to say the least which is probably why the back gears would not stay engaged. To add insult to injury, the pipe had a larger diameter than the original shaft. So the guy bored the gears to fit. Now they aren't even useful as backup parts. Terrible decisions.

I'm not comfortable running the lathe without all the safety equipment. I scored an Atlas spindle pulley guard on eBay to replace mine, which had been lost sometime in the last 70 years. Atlas made the Craftsman lathes so the part are generally interchangeable. It's a tight fit - the bull gear actually brushed up against it. In addition, the new large back gear is wider than the old one and crashes against a large washer that's beside the mating spindle gear. So I have two problems to address - but it looks like with some creative reordering of washers on the spindle, I'll be able to make this all fit.

So far I've spent less than $35 on eBay to get critical parts. I still have to buy the left-handed tailstock screw and nut but those shouldn't be too much.

The original purchase price was quite reasonable, I'll have this running for about half the price of a well-cared for lathe.

Ms Stormcrow makes a pleasing quilt

2007-10-22T18:51:00.000-05:00

Ms Stormcrow has nearly limitless energy. Here's her latest quilt. Each block is made of various dark fabrics and several scrappy light-valued concentric circles. The circles are machine appliquéd and left rough-edged so they fluff up in the wash.

Eagle Ceremony

2007-10-21T10:48:00.000-05:00

My son earned his Boy Scout Eagle rank some time ago, and we had his ceremony recently.

Here's a before-ceremony shot. Why the pensive look? Because Thomas and Trey are rough-housing with gusto, and he's probably wondering if he's going to get an elbow in the face.

Here's the after-ceremony shot, sporting a new neckerchief. The time does fly by, indeed.

Here's a pic of Justin and his troop participating in Justin's Eagle project. Justin and his troup designed and built a privacy fence around an exposed portion of Raptor Rehab of KY. This pic says it all - all the boys are working together.

Caveat Emptor

2007-10-21T09:58:00.001-05:00

I've been examining my lathe. Fundamentally, it's sound. However, practically, Houston we have a problem :-D

This is probably a common situation when you don't really know what you're buying, you can't really inspect what you're buying (ebay), your funds are limited so you can't just go buy a showroom piece, and the item must be within a reasonable drive.

The issue is that as far as I can tell, it's been dropped. There are too many cosmetic issues to chalk it up to happenstance or age. Here's the score of defects:

1. The tail stock has a non-original handle, a chip out of the casting, and works oddly.

2. A bracket holding the lead screw has been welded.

3. The handle on the cross slide has been replaced with a faucet handle (remarkably, it's very comfortable to use.)

4. The pot-metal carriage traversal mechanism is broken. The seller did give me replacement parts, however. I don't know if they fit!

Those issues are cosmetic, really. I probably need to rebuild the tail stock and see what's going on inside there.

The other issues are

4. The motor's bearings are shot. This is a 1 1/2 hp Baldor. If I can replace the bearings I'll have a prize. This motor isn't original and is about 4 times more powerful than the original motor. I'll probably put a spare 1/2 hp motor on it and proclaim victory. And sell the Baldor.

5. The counter shaft isn't original and the cone pulley was slipping. I could make it work pretty easily. However, this is a key part of the lathe. I can't use the lathe to make this part. I need to make this right since the rest of the lathe depends upon it.

6. The back gear shaft is also not original. Chances are, there's some damage to one of its mounting bracket castings. I'll remake the shaft, should be easy. The problem is the back gears won't stay engaged. I get conflicting reasons why from the web. I expect I'll be making a new part that will keep the arm engaged.

7. All the bearings need to be inspected. The babbitt bearings look good, thank goodness.

8. I need to replace the lost-to-time gear cover as a safety issue.

So the lathe is indeed a project. But not everything needs to be done at once. Once the counter shaft is repaired and I strap on a new motor I can run the lathe.

This lathe, an Atas/Craftsman 101.07383, is pretty old, and as it turns out there isn't much information on the web about it. Clausing was kind enough to send me a 1941-ish parts list, however, and it is posted here with permission.

My new lathe

2007-10-13T21:24:00.002-05:00

I suppose the surest sign of getting old is buying a lathe. Especially a metal lathe. My lovely wife said, "And exactly what are you going to make with that? napkin rings? Candlesticks holders?" I was like, "I will probably use the lathe to make accessories for the lathe."

She just rolled her eyes and walked off.

So, I acquired a 1939 Craftsman 12" lathe, model 101.07383. It isn't a very popular lathe but it will do nicely for a while. The previous owner, Jim, was a remarkable man and a professional machinist. In his spare time he build and flew an aircraft. Around town, he was the guy you went to when you needed something fixed. He could tell you how to fix it or make the part you needed. Jim passed about 2 years ago.

I'm not really sure what happened to this lathe, but it is showing signs of being used and maybe abused. Most of the more ornate pieces are gone, replaced by more mundane parts. For example, a wheel on the apron has been replaced by an old water faucet handle! Perhaps this is what a working man's 70 year old lathe looks like.

My list of projects are:

1) Replace the motor, or repair the bearings.
2) Replace the counter shaft
3) Find out why the back gear shaft won't stay put.
4) Repair the carriage's traversal gear assembly

So once these are done, the lathe should be operational if not perfect.

Fortunately, I have access to a spare motor. #1 is handled for now.

Here's a picture. I'll get better ones up when the new basement shop isn't dungeon-dark.

I got the counter shaft off tonight. It isn't original and needs to be replaced. This should be cheap on ebay or easy to make. It isn't much more than a steel rod with two flats on it. I will have to learn how to replace bushings however.

Some sort of pepper sauce

2007-08-22T20:25:00.000-05:00

My son grew a lot of jalapeños. We didn't know what to do with them all, so in a fit of desperation I made some type of pepper sauce.

I read that roasting peppers improves their flavor. I certainly wasn't going to roast them in the house. And I don't have a grill. But I do have this little George Foreman grill thing. It's great for sandwiches and so forth. I figured I had nothing to lose so I took it outside and got it warming.

I washed the peppers, sliced the stem parts off, sliced them down the middle, then pulled out and discarded the seeds and the other stuff in there.

The Geo Foreman grill is yer basic clamshell grill - there's a cooking surface on the top and the bottom. I put the pepper halves face to face in the grill so the outside would be exposed directly to the heat and the insides wouldn't be. I let them roast for ten minutes - when the skins start turning black you're getting close. In retrospect fifteen would have been better. I took the roasted peppers inside and started peeling the skin off. The skin comes off easily if the peppers are well-roasted.

I grilled and peeled a few batches of peppers. Then I pureed them with a handful of sesame seeds and enough balsamic and white vinegar, in equal portions, to make it blend well. And maybe 1/4 teaspoon of salt. Not too much. Puree like the wind!

I put the resulting mixture into a pot, brought it to a decent boil, then turned it down to simmer for about 15 minutes.

That's it.

I think it's going to go very well on chicken or pork.

So busy

2007-08-21T22:14:00.000-05:00

School has started and the new programming job is ramping up fast. I haven't had much time to do anything interesting lately, much less write about it.

The wife and I did can 21 more quarts of tomatoes the other day. We're going to have good soup for the next 2 years!

The Ruby-on-Rails framework/language I ranted about previously is turning out to be pretty effective. So far it lets me do what i need to do, and easily, as long as I stay within some pretty reasonable boundaries. For example, it won't let me join two tables if there's no relationship between them. I think I can live with that.

Ruby on Rails, part 2 or 3

2007-08-13T22:09:00.000-05:00

I've been working on an email delivery system. Today I added some safeguards that will prevent it from mailing the same content to a subscriber twice in one day. In addition to keeping the boss from screaming, it allows me to recover from delivery errors elegantly. It was easy enough to do. Then I added an admin facility that shows the status of the delivery run. Again, easy enough. To do this I made a new method in the controller. This was a one-liner to fetch the data. Then I looped over the data in the view, generating an HTML table as I did so.

My wife's and son's garden has produced

2007-08-11T19:58:00.000-05:00

We had tomato overload. Fortunately the wife knows how to can. We also have a plethora of jalapeños and banana peppers. I have no idea what we're going to do with them all.

More Rails

2007-08-10T18:27:00.001-05:00

I've been heads-down learning Ruby on Rails at the new job. So far, so good. I'm working on an email delivery system using PowerMTA as the back-end. I didn't have too many problems writing the daily delivery selection code. I did have to stray from the framework a little to deliver using different templates. Sometimes these sorts of deviations make frameworks really collapse. Fortunately, not this time. I also wrote code to track opens which was very easy.

I celebrated by getting all my code checked into SVN and leaving the office today (Friday) at 5:01.

My nephew graduated from Navy boot camp

2007-08-02T22:31:00.000-05:00

Congrats to Zack for a job well done!

Ruby on Rails

2007-07-27T21:14:00.000-05:00

Well, the new job is a web startup that uses Ruby and the Ruby on Rails web development framework. So far so good. I generated a cheesy little app earlier this week.

Ruby is a scripting language that's sort of like a well designed, objected-oriented perl. Rails is a framework that stresses convention over configuration. This is orthogonal to the current Java and .net frameworks out there. Configuration of a Struts application, for example, is a pain in the butt. Yet Rails accomplishes the same task with almost no configuration. The reason is that with Rails you're expected to lose your ego and follow a few pretty reasonable conventions. For example, all table names are expected to be plural, such as "customers." All tables are expected to have an auto-increment column called "id" which is the primary key. When you follow the conventions, Rails generates workable web pages and Ruby code that create, edit, delete, and update rows in your database. The code produced isn't just hard-coded glop, however. It's reasonable Ruby code with plenty of hooks in it for inevitable real-world modifications.

Most web pages aren't too involved. They really come down to getting data from a database and displaying it and updating data that is already there. At my previous employer, we used an ancient VB3 application to making changes to reference tables (states in the country, transaction codes, etc.) While these rows didn't change often, when it did it was a pain in the butt. The application was flaky and didn't update all the reference tables. Due to auditing rules, we had to jump through hoops and otherwise waste a lot of time to use SQL in production. And there was no time to rewrite applications that were for internal use only! The end result was an permanent time-wasting application that was using obsolete technology, was buggy, and was a partial solution. Rails would have generated the bulk of the application in about 5 minutes.

Now, there are some complex web pages out there. I have not yet done anything really complex in Rails. So the jury is out regarding how much of Rails is just hype. I recall the hype surrounding Visual Basic. The demo was always a rolodex, and it went together quick. (insert oooos and ahhhhhs from the PHBs) Then, after the purchasing VP and his VP pals went out to a victory lunch, the programmers would figure out that when you got off the beaten path, the application framework collapsed and had to be entirely coded by hand anyway.

Here's some particularly egregious Rails hype:

[Rails] was super productive and it was super fun, too! A community of contributors grew up around it to make it even more productive and more fun! Rails has been growing fast. It has capabilities that you have to see to believe!!!

And in the same page, there's a little play, where the savvy programmer shows off in front of the boss:

Boss: Hey, CB ... you say it [Rails] lets you produce code like ten times faster than the tools we're using now?
CB: Yep. It's called Ruby on Rails, and it's at least 10x.

The web is full of statements like this. Maybe they are true. But such too-good-to-be-true comments make me very wary. I've been around the roundhouse a few times!

Here's the article. Actually, if you want learn a little about Rails, it's really good, cheerleading aside.

Make yourself as a Simpsons character

2007-07-23T21:45:00.000-05:00

Here!

Here's me!

Another 10 mile hike

2007-07-22T09:47:00.000-05:00

My scout troop got in another 10 mile hike on Saturday. We went to Bernheim forest, just south of Louisville. The weather was perfect. This is the last hike we need to complete one boy's hiking merit badge. This also is his last requirement for his Eagle badge. His Eagle ceremony will be combined with my son's, as well as something for the scoutmaster, who has really gone above-and-beyond.

Here's a link to a topo.

Detox

2007-07-19T09:06:00.000-05:00

I'm between jobs now. Actually, my next job starts Monday, but I'm taking some time off before it starts. Just detoxing from the previous job and doing things around the house. The wife isn't lashing me too bad :-)

My son and I worked on the porch some...

Ms. Stormcrow makes lots of quilts and wanted to display one in the kitchen. I designed a quilt rack to her specs. A decade ago, I was going to make a Arts-and-Crafts-style bed, but it never happened. So I had plenty of white oak sitting in the shop taking up space. Much to my dismay, the oak was all still rough cut, so I selected some planks and hand-planed a straight edge on each with a Stanley #8C. Then I cut the lumber to width on the table saw. I planed it to thickness using a planer.

I mention the planer since I love the freedom it gives me. I don't have to accept the standard 3/4" thickness. I left the brackets at 7/8" so there would be plenty of wood for the hanging hardware, thinned the top from 15/16" to 3/4" to save weight, and made the hanger bar at something like 9/16" so it would fit through the brackets easier.

Other that the wood being gnarly, the grain changing directions several times on the edge I was trying to bullnose, everything went smoothly. I finished it with some typical Minwax stain and a coat of water-based poly.

Today I hung it in the kitchen using some really excellent drywall hangers.

She's happy. When momma's happy, everyone's happy.

The AK-47 turns 60

2007-07-07T08:59:00.000-05:00

The favorite weapon of freedom's enemies turns 60 today. It's quite a big to-do in Russia. Vladimir Putin is making a show of it. Why not, it's about the only they ever built that's worth a damn.

Here's an article about it.

Two haikus:

No more retreating
Dreams of farm machinery
Instead, Kalashnikov

(I respectfully beg an extra syllable due to the long Russian name.)

Noble intention
Unintended consequence
Adolph laughs in Hell

Haiku

2007-07-03T15:20:00.000-05:00

Empty cubicle
Forgotten papers rustling
Someone took the chair

Voting with Your Feet

2007-06-30T09:14:00.000-05:00

I'm a computer programmer by trade. One of the great "innovations" in the management of computer programmers and their craft is the outsourcing of work to offshore "resources." That means (Asian) Indians.

This was discredited as a general purpose long-term strategy about 10 years ago. The reason is that the company loses the nuts-and-bolts knowledge of how their software operates and thus becomes dependent on the consultants. They lose the technical ability to check their estimates and designs. They also lose the drive to improve their technology. Technology changes fast. Most innovations are just hype. Some aren't. Managers don't know which is which. The consultants have no incentive to rock the boat. The result is slow turn-around on projects (the company is locked in), poorly vetted designs (the company has no technical eyes), and stagnation (no innovation.)

My current employer, however, never got the memo.

This destruction doesn't happen immediately. It sneaks up on management because the consultants are soooo nice and take care of soooo many troublesome details. The people displaced by the consultants move on and thus the trap is sprung. As the company starts bleeding employees, project deadlines become at risk so they hire more consultants to pick up the slack. It spirals. And which employees leave? The ones who are the go-getters and want to build and accomplish. And which type of employee remains?

To make matters worse, our company used consultants as a substitute for planning. That is, a VP somewhere demanded that our software be internationalized so we could tap the entire world market. Now, is this rocket science? DUH TAP THE JAPANESE, KOREAN, AND EMERGING CHINESE MARKET. For the last three years, at least, that should have been a constant goal as we maintained our software - I18n software works in the USA, too! But we sat on our thumbs instead, always doing what was easiest and had the lowest risk. The VP set the completion date of The Blessed I18N Event with little technical input. It was arbitrary and artificial. We don't even have any clients who need the new software. And the ONLY way to make the artificial deadline was to go to India.

The decision to outsource my job was made six months (or more) before they bothered to tell me. Why upset the little people! So instead of spending my time documenting and preparing for it (I am a professional...) I got "Oh, by the way, the project you've been working on for six months is canceled, these Indians are going to do it instead."

Lovely, eh.

The executive who made the decision to outsource has been whacked, and the guy that followed him has also been whacked. They operated from a different and somewhat competing office. I suspect their motives weren't so pure. Good riddance.

When I met the customer-facing Indians I was pleasantly surprised by their competence, diligence, and humor. In short, I tried to dislike them but couldn't! They are really good, pleasant people. I like them all. My discomfort is not their fault.

But the fact remains that my job responsibilities are nominal and my team is destroyed. I don't code anymore and the new architect has made it clear I am not to make any decisions - that's his job. >:-|

So, three days ago, I voted with my feet and resigned. It sucks but I didn't see good odds of any improvement within the next few years. The architect is younger than me and more athletic, so I can't even out-live him. :-D

I'd been seeking a good job for about 9 months. I didn't see a reason to go from one unsatisfying job to another.

But mutual need happened at just the right time, and I landed on my feet at a web startup being run by some pals. Pretty sweet. Perhaps a nominal pay cut but I'll be challenged, have more job satisfaction, and some camaraderie. I need these things.

I'll be doing a lot of my work using Ruby and Ruby on Rails. Learning a new technology will be nice. In the meantime, I suspect they'll want some stuff done in Java too.

The new company is called The First 30 Days and is about life changes. Like changing jobs, for example.

Vapor and Lathes

2007-06-24T12:08:00.000-05:00

Computer programmers don't construct anything you can touch, see, show off, or really measure. More often than not, software we write is discarded before it's ever used. Really. We create magnetic patterns on a spinning aluminum plate. Truly vaporware.

So I am drawn to machine tools. Metal is permanent, tactile, heavy, shiny, sharp, smooth, hot, and cold. You can give it to someone. You can create something useful from a lump of something that isn't. Machining is anti-programming.

So now I'm searching for a metal lathe. Not something huge because I ultimately have to move it. But something just right, like an Atlas 618 perhaps...

(link)

So I'm looking at ebay trying to find a suitable lathe that's affordable, in good shape, and within a reasonable drive. Slim pickin's.

Enigma

2007-06-13T15:34:00.000-05:00

I've always been fascinated by codes and ciphers. Lately, I've a renewed interest in the Enigma. Here's a virtual museum. I've exchanged emails with the fellow who runs it. It's a labor of love, and it's clear he really enjoys it.

Check this Enigma-like machine out. The builder is a remarkable woman, her site is here.

She's probably smarter than you, deal with it ;-)

Atlas Shrugged

2007-06-04T19:15:00.000-05:00

My friend Jeff badgered me until I read this book by Ayn Rand. It is, overall, tremendous.

The premise is that in an alternate ca1960-ish USA, the world is a mess. Europe and South America are all "Peoples' States". The US is sliding that way as those industrialists who invent, produce, and do are plundered more and more by government looters and moochers. People are taught that rational thought is pointless - only needs (especially others' needs) matter. Man has stopped thinking, allowing others to define his values and decide his actions. The looters' premise is that each person is required to work to the fullest of their ability and be rewarded by measure of their need. The skilled machinist may have to work 18 hours a day - to his ability - so he can feed a lazy man's 12 kids. Those kids _need_ that food. As the new governing body, a central planning board, ascends in power, their looting and evil accelerates. In addition, for everyone who buys into the central planning agency's 'thought is useless' philosophy, there's a near-total abdication of personal accountability as there is no incentive to take any risks - people are rewarded by their need, not their accomplishments.

Suddenly, Industrialists - the movers and shakers, the employers, the inventors - begin disappearing without a trace. As they disappear, without suitable replacement from the labor pool of moochers and looters, society starts to fail.

The book focuses on three industrialists - one olde-blood Spanish elite whose family made a fortune in copper mining, who forgets his legacy and falls into debauchery, a self-made iron magnate who creates an incredible alloy, and a woman who runs the oldest and best railroad in the country.

Read the book to find out what happens when these industrialists self-sufficient attitudes collide with the new philosophy of self-sacrifice for ones' neighbors and their needs.

This book is about 1100 pages, sometimes it's very dense reading. The truth of the matter is that it could probably be edited down to 800 pages. Or, I am too unsophisticated to understand that the parts that seem repetitious to me are in fact truly different. A most remarkable aspect of this book is that, while it was written in 1957, it reads like it was written last week.

Highly recommended.

Eagle Scout

2007-06-02T08:23:00.000-05:00

My son earned his Eagle Scout award Thursday. He's a fine young man.

Ruby Fun

2007-05-26T16:42:00.000-05:00

I've been looking into Ruby lately. For the halibut, I decided to create a rotor-based encryption program in the spirit of Enigma. Easy peas, once I quit thinking I knew how things worked and started modeling the actual machine.

Here's a snippet that shows rotor #3.


class Rotor3 < BaseRotor
 def initialize()
  super
  @rot =
  [
  [22,2,0,14,25,21,24,3,17,4,19,8,11,18,10,5,9,12,6,15,16,20,23,13,1,7],
  [2,24,1,7,9,15,18,25,11,16,14,12,17,23,3,19,20,8,13,10,21,5,0,22,6,4]
  ]
  @notches = [3,5,16,19,22]
 end
end

The @rot array-of-arrays shows how a pin on one side of the rotor is wired to a pin on the other side. The @notches array is analogous to a "notch" in the rotor where a pawl would be able to engage a ratchet, spinning the rotor adjacent to this rotor. In this example, when rotor three rotates from position 3 to position 4, the next rotor should also be rotated.


EJEXCBTZHHSSPGEESJEWVNJKRGKDMDUSLPIIFUUBDDYZLAOZKK
OFAUCVITGJMNFPJFNRFZZXUPUQUSZHMZPFKPBLWURBTYCHTNOR
DVSQEGXCJIHZCHRIEQOHJLLSQJFMOKQMTRGWMFIEWQHTKCAFIV
QUALZTNCRLTMFRJROXTKQVIPPIRTVHZIRIQRSBIBSBOZFRSLKV
YEIHSVHYSJHFPAKEZMTEGURWJOKGZNBVDFZKKKHIRRMHYVUEFC
XHMEPXFABFCGCZCMYABPWTVZXBVGEDRNEKUYGXCN

SPAMalot!

2007-05-19T10:46:00.000-05:00

I was fortunate enough to win tickets to see SPAMalot, the stage adaptation of "Monty Python and the Holy Grail."

Parts of it were so funny it made my head hurt.

No spoilers, just go see it if you can. It is as irreverant as the original but in different ways.

Ruby on Rails

2007-05-17T07:26:00.000-05:00

Taking a break from the TAS project - I need to rethink my code generation strategy as it pertains to the operator precedence parser.

I installed Ruby on Rails last night. Install itself was easy. I found this excellent tutorial and created a st00pid recipe book application. Then I modified it a little, not really knowing Ruby. I monkey-see-monkey-do'd part of my changes, and guessed otherwise. This was possible due to the 'convention not configuration' midset of the Rails designers.

Rails is very much a code generator. With all such 'rapid development' tools, the first app they show you is a Rolodex. How my eyes roll. With many such tools, when you have to write a real application, the work-level goes up and suddenly you're doing all the same work anyway.

I find the "no XML config" philosophy behind rails to be refreshing and in total contrast to Hibernate. I'm getting pretty tired of XML. I'll fiddle around with RoR for a while and se what it can really do.

Now, if I only needed a database-enabled web app...

TAS Must Die, Chapter 24

2007-05-11T07:16:00.000-05:00

Again not a lot has happened. I need to hit the lottery and become a professional hobbiest.

Most of my work lately has been improving the operator precedence parser (OPP) as I implement more of Iscript's command set. Not surprisingly, most of the mojo is in the expressions, not the rest of the syntax.

I don't like the feature of OPPs is that they provide no mechanism for robust syntax checking. Or at least the 'student' version I started with doesn't. The problem is that I implemented a stack for operators and a stack for IDs. Easy to use but it allows the following:

( 3 2 + )

When the ) is scanned, it will cause the + to be reduced. It works but isn't syntactically correct. In reality, '2' never should have been able to follow '3'. This could probably be solved by using a single stack for IDs and operators at some loss of elegance. You'd have to implement a "can this follow that" sort of routine. The stack itself would handle matching parentheses. The action table would handle "is this token valid at all" checking.

The other thing that I believe will come back to haunt me is that I push Tokens onto the ID stack. This isn't wrong in itself, but a Token is what comes back from a lexer. By the time I'm parsing it, I suspect I need something more high-powered than a Token which isn't a lot more than a name and a general data type. This became evident when I started dealing with associative arrays. Since all I have to work with in a Token is a textual name, I end up representing v1[v2] as a variable called "v1@v2". This will cause me to have to dismantle this in the Executable which is ridiculous. I can use "v1@v2" as the variable name, but under the hood I should keep track of the discreet parts (v1, v2, and their relationship) so I don't have to re-parse them later. Basically, instead of pushing Tokens onto the ID stack, I should probably be pushing Pcodes! I'll have to investigate this.

TAS Must Die, Chapter 23

2007-05-08T10:25:00.000-05:00

In order to address the issue with "[...]" having three different meanings, I implemented a TokenStream decorator that determines the context of the "[" token and changes it to something with more meaning. No problems doing it except for a constant stream of wetware failures.

I then modified the operator precedence parser to injest one the new "this open bracket signals an array" meaning. Works fine.

I'll add the other two [-tokens tonight perhaps. The big-O-n^2 operator precedence parser configuration is starting to require a lot ot typing. I suppose I have "made my bed" at this point, perhaps if there is a rev 2 I'll slim it down.

TAS Must Die, Chapter 22

2007-05-04T22:19:00.000-05:00

Work is sucking the life out of me. Not much progress on this project.

I shifted gears a bit and installed jboss. Then I wrote a totally crappy servlet that compiles some test iscript file, executes it, and displays it to a browser. In short, I now have a stem-to-stern proof of concept.

I took a gander at some of our other iscript. I need to implement while loops and such. No big deal. The gotcha right now is part of the expression parsing.

In iscript, you can have some very similar looking stuff actually meaning very different things:




Yes, iscript can't support a subroutine but by God it supports associate arrays. /rolleyes
This snippet would assign the value of x["zoot"] to bob.

Now, check this.





This assigns "zappa" to bob. Swell, huh? The syntax on that last line means, "get the value of fred ("zoot" in this case), and treat it like a variable name, and use its value (zappa)." So the presence of the variable to the left of the open bracket changes drastically the meaning of the construct. Nice.

This gets tricky for my operator precedence parser. The operator stack is of no help if I need to know if the previous token read was a variable. I may be reduced to checking the token stream and replacing open brackets that follow variables with a different, synthetic token. That is, if the token stream is

variable [ variable2 ]

then what the parser is given is

variable ndx variable2 ]

where ndx is an operator that gives the parser enough information to reduce correctly. Now '[ variable2 ]' looks nothing like 'ndx variable2 ]'

Another option which is especially nice is if iscript doesn't support anything fancier than 'variable [' for associative arrays, is for me to tokenize variable as an indexVariable. The it would probably be possible to reduce [ variable2 ] to an index if the topmost item on the variable stack is an indexVariable.

It's also possible to have indexes on the "name" portion of SET



Where if bob is 7, x[7] will receibe a new value. The brackets function differently yet again, however, in this case:



If x had the value of "pie" a new variable called 'pie7' would be created. Without the brackets the statement fails. I need to look into this more, however.

Also note that the expressions are pretty free-form. I am pretty sure this is valid:



so append the value of the value of y to the value of the value of x, and create a new variable with that result, and assign 4 to it.

I think this is likely the most dificult part of the syntax.

On deck:

1) Solve the bracket issues
2) Implement about a zillion test cases that show said work is reasonably correct
3) Implement the "include" executable. This is fundamental to any real test of our iscript. This will probably also make me reimplement my servlet in a more reasonable way.

Several hours of work there, easy.

TAS Must Die, Chapter 21

2007-05-01T22:20:00.000-05:00

Work's been a killer lately. I haven't done much on my project. I decided, since I was pretty tired, to concentrate on getting all my junit tests to work. The biggest problem I had was that I was playing fast and loose with white space. Basically when passing HTML from the input stream to the output stream, I was losing all leading and trailing spaces. This is ok until we get some iscript embedded variables in there:

(*v1*) hello

is not the same as

(*v1*)hello

It was actually pretty tricky to get this to work properly. The parser assumes correctly that all whitespace in the iscript and embedded variable sections is removed as we read from the InputStream. Otherwise we'd have to load the parser up with explicit code to devour the spaces that appear between tokens. I had to use a modal flag so I could tell when to ignore whitespace and when not to. Most unfortunate but a more practical answer doesn't present itself.

If I were using a parser generator, inserting code to devour whitespace would be easy. Adding such code to a hand-coded parser would make the code hard to read.

At this point I need to gather more iscript sample files and continue improving the parser.

TAS Must Die, Chapter 20

2007-04-29T21:41:00.000-05:00

I made the changes to the Operator precedence parser as per my previous entry. Works great.

I decided that I probably had a cruft buildup in my Executable subclasses, so I started writing some junit tests. They aren't traditional low-level tests. I just couldn't build meaningful Executables without writing a lot of code or making the Executable trivial. So I ended up writing test classes that focused on testing an Executable class, but if other Executables had to be invoked, so be it.

The junit tests include a piece of iscript that tests some Executable. This is parsed then compiled in Executables where are then executed. For conditionals, I might have the iscript emit a 'true' or 'false' piece of text in the appropriate part of the if/else/endif. For expressions, I fetch the result from the global variable hashmap and compare it to an expected value.

So far I turned up a little crud, nothing too bad. I need to see how iscript handles weird cases, such as ("a"*3) or ("bob" && true). Once I know the proper behavior for the corner cases I'll be able to fix the rest of the junit errors.

Oh, and if you aren't using junit, you ought to be. It's a Sure Thing.

TAS Must Die, Chapter 19

2007-04-28T08:52:00.000-05:00

I expanded the operator precedence parser (OPP) to handle explicit types of IDs the right way. Then I corrected all the fudging I did with the datatypes. Suddenly the whole thing really works better. Quite satisfying.

I missed another syntax element, namely that a variable being set can also be indexed:



With a little agony, I was able to use the same OPP for this. The first gotcha was that by the time the recursive descent parser (RDP) has scanned BOB and [, we've read too much to satisfy the syntactic needs of the OPP. Fortunately I had built a pushback into my TokenStream class. So upon scanning "BOB[" in the RDP, I push BOB and [ back onto the stream and then invoke the OPP which scans a reasonable expression and works fine. The second gotcha was that I was using the --> token to know when the expression was over. While this works for

VALUE = expression -->

it doesn't work for

NAME = BOB [ expression ] VALUE...

Lovely, eh? I modified the OPP to accept an 'end token'. Now I passed --> or VALUE to the OPP as appropriate for the situation. This produced the right result. Even so, I don't like it - it doesn't feel like a bulls-eye.

Currently the OPP throws an exception if it scans a token which it can't find in its OP table. I believe I can simplify by using this event to inject a synthetic end-of-expression token and let the RDP handle any syntax error caused by the mystery token.

For example, the following input would cause an exception:

id1 + id2 XYZZY

Assuming XYZZY is not the end-of-expression token. What's key is that a parser notes the syntax error. This is the situation that was happening last night. Unfortunately, it WAS valid with the new use of the OPP. I changed the parser so I could specify XYZZY as the end-of-expression token.

Now, upon reading a token that isn't in the OP tables (such as VALUE or -->), the OPP pushes that token back onto the stream, and uses a totally fabricated 'end of expression' token instead. Now what will happen is that the expression will be reduced as per normal and the mystery token is available to the RDP.

Here are some possibilities:



While parseing BOB[a+b]..., the OPP scans VALUE, inserts the end-of-expression token, produces pcode for BOB[a+b], and pushes VALUE back onto the stream. Now the RDP resumes with VALUE. We're good. Then the OPP sees the 10, gets confused by -->, pushes it back, and injects the end-of-expression. 10 is valid. The --> is left to the RDP which likes it.

 (note the typo in VALUE)

After the OPP scans the ], it sees VAXUE which the lexer has probably misinterpreted as a variable. The OPP checks its tables, finds it (!) and throws an error since an VARIABLE isn't allowed after a ]. Good.



Someone typed a known token accidently. The OPP sees it, doesn't have a table entry, injects the end-of-expression token, and pushes WRONGTOKEN. BOB [ a+b] is recognized normally since it is valid. WRONGTOKEN is then scanned by the RDP which throws an error since it expects VALUE. So we're still good.

Stay tuned. This will let me unravel some of the unsatisfying crud I did last night.

TAS Must Die, Chapter 18 (or, why the STAY PUFT Marshmallow Man pwns me)

2007-04-27T08:47:00.000-05:00

Everytime I look, I find another stinky wart in my code, lol.

Instead of adding any type of factory or if/else/switch facility to allow me to create specific pcode instances, I made the operator precedence table very very explicit. So when I reduce a '*' I know to generate a MultiplyPcode instance. Previously I generated a generic "binary" pcode with "*" as an attribute. But then getting from "*" a representative class required a Factory or switch().

Now, the explicit parser table works great though adding new Redux/Pcode/Executable classes is tedious. But there's nothing to break in the approach so once it works, it will work forever. But is it too explicit? Individual rows for every possible operator and ID type is great, totally accurate, and easy to use. But the table is getting unweildy. The very incomplete table is already 15x15 or so. I can see it floating up to 21x21.

Currently, the table uses the stack's topmost operator on one axis and the input operator on the other. The intersection identifies the action to perform.

This works great until you get 6 operators with the same precedence. Like >, >=, ==, !=, <=, <. Now I'm adding a huge number of virtually identical cells to the table. Perhaps associating the operators with a numeric precedence would have allowed the table to be structured differently and a lot smaller. Instead of:

action = crossIndex(stackOp, inputOp)

where action is shift() or MultiplyReduce(), I could have done:

diffTypeOfAction = crossIndex(stackOp.precedence, inputOp.precedence)

And now if diffTypeOfAction is reduce(), you execute stackOp.reduce(). That extra step seems to allow the table to be about 1/4 the current size without any loss of functionality. Since my operators are all left-associative and of consistent precedence (there is no a>b>c>a type of precedence chain) I think I can create a reasonable set of abstract precedences.

Making the table too explicit caused me to make another poor decision. I fudged ID-type tokens. Because I was tired of adding rows and columns to the precedence table one night, I slammed the Token's class to VARIABLE so I didn't have to mess with numeric or string constants. I knew I'd be revisiting it. But like 3 of the 4 Ghostbusters, I didn't know the form of The Destroyer. In my case, it's a bunch of Executables that don't know the type of their operands! D'oh!

Perhaps the Stay Puft marshmallow man would have been better.

TAS Must Die, Chapter 17

2007-04-26T07:23:00.000-05:00

I started working on code generation. For me, this is converting a list of pcodes to a list of executables, executables being classes that implement an interface called Executable. If you can imagine it, it requires implementors to define a method called "execute()".

Preliminary work on the assign, emit, and emitVariable executables went well but did point out flaws in my symbol management, or lack thereof. There are a few places where I 'forget' that some operands might be constants and these won't be found in the run-time datastructure of iscript variables. I could cheese out and check the values for a leading number or quote and figure it out that way. But fixing the problem is the right answer. This will reverberate all the way into the operator precedence parser, I fear, and ultimately cause me to add two more rows and columns to the precedence table.

It's probably just as well, my current mechanism, as I think about, probably doesn't complain about having a constant as an l-value. I don't know what would happen if I did.

Once I have the symbol issue resolved, I'll be sailing again.

Last night's main trauma was an issue caused by my BinaryOperatorPcode class. This class manages an operator, two operands, and the result of an operation. Think

result <- op1 operator op2

So I have this class which can display the pcode for any binary operator - plus, minus, divide, multiple, and, or, etc. It works great. The problem comes when I want to generate the Executable instance. But which executable! It's one thing to print a string like "+" or "*". It's quite another to create an instance of a class that does the actual work.

So I have a pcode class with any one of 15 or so binary operators in it. How DO I determine the proper Executable. One way is to use some hideous switch() statement in the pcode... I hate these, and running if-else-if constructs for two reasons. First, such statements imply bad OO design. Sometimes they are necessary but can be hidden in a Factory or Builder of some sort. Second, with a little work, you frequently find that there's no need for the switch() at all. switch() is an easy symptom-fix.

I think that this is the case here. When in the operator parser, I know each operator specifically since I have to shift and reduce based upon each operator's specific precedence. Invoking the "BinaryOperatorRedux" class was convenient but ultimately unhelpful with regards to generating the very specific Executable instances.

I'll revamp my precedence table and remove all of the BinaryOperatorRedux references. I'll replace them with references to operator-specific reduction classes. Since operator manipulation is identical for all binary reductions, specific classes will almost certainly subclass an augmented BinaryOperatorRedux class, supplying a "protected Pcode getPcode()" method. And once I have an operator-specific pcode class I don't have to do any logic to figure out the appropriate Executable. MultiplyPcode will probably produce MultiplyExecutable, after all.

The cost of this is a larger precedence table and many more classes. But the classes are all trivial. Each operator-specific reduction class adds one 'run time' line of code to the system - the code that tells which Pcode class is proper. Each operator-specifc pcode class again adds one 'run time' line of code - the code that tells which Executable is appropriate. Each operator-specific Executable class will add one 'run time' line of code to the system - the code that does the actual work.

As I typed this, I became sure that I have a good answer. I'll add a fair number of one-liner classes and reduce run-time complexity by eliminating switch() statements.

TAS Must Die, Chapter 16

2007-04-23T22:43:00.000-05:00

Made nice progress lately. The operator precedence parser is integrated now and works fine. Discovered I had forgotten that within the HTML, iscript allows you to embed iscript variables. For example, in:

my name is (*name*)

(*name*) will be replaced with the value of an iscript variable named "name."

I added the '(*' and '*)' tokens to the lexer file and built a new iscript lexer. Then I changed the iscript parser to recognize this and produce a slightly different 'emit' command. It worked the first time. /flex

Here's a snipped of my pcode which is pretty darn experimental:

Click it for a full-sized view.

I'll probably start the servlet next. It shouldn't be any harder than anything else. :-/

I'll need a translator to convert the pcode to executable stuff, and probably a really lame caching mechanism. Then I should be able to see pages display.

I'll then be in a loop of:

1. parser doesn't handle X
2. lexer doesn't support the tokens
3. mod lexer
4. mod parser
5. view using servlet
6. goto 1 until exhausted

TAS Must Die, Chapter 15b

2007-04-20T07:16:00.000-05:00

I implemented an operator precedence parser in a more object-oriented way. I am not sure if it's actually better than the common C implementation.

It currently doesn't have the mojo for IScript's syntax. But I could get there simply by defining precedence rules. It would probably take me about 20 minutes.

I ended up with 5 new notable classes and interfaces:

1) A ParserAction interface, instances of which perform shift, accept, reduce, and error processing. A traditional OPP includes a table of actions which are scalars. The scalars are used in some manner of switch or if/else construct to find the code snippet to execute. A more hardcore C implementation would use pointer-to-function. In my OO implementation, the table includes action class to execute. This is analogous to C's pointer-to-function construct. I currently have 4 implementations of this interface. When the final parser is all done, it would be easy to have 15.

2) A map of input-Token-to-action. The key would be the input Token. The value would be an instance of ParserAction.

3) A Map of Token-to-#2. The key is a Token (taken from the top of the operator stack.) The value is the map described in #2 above. When the ParserAction says to shift, I use the input Token to find the appropriate #2 from this map, and I push it onto the operator stack.

4) A Stack of 'operators'. This is the biggest departure from the typical 'student' OOP implementation. In the trivial case, you push operator characters onto the stack. When it comes time to pop the stack and do something, you do a lookup to determine its index into the precedence array. Instead of pushing the operator character (like a "+") or more OO Token, I push the entire map from #2 above. Now when it is time to decide how to treat an input Token that's an operator, I peek() the map on the stack, do a get() from it using the input Token as the key, and invoke the resulting ParserAction. There are no extraneous lookups in this implementation.

5) A Stack of IDs. When we scan an ID, push it onto this stack. When we reduce, we'll pull from this stack and sometimes push back a temp variable.

The code works well.

I didn't get the elegant lean code I was looking for. Perhaps I expect too much. I do have a very nice parser that doesn't feature some god-awful if/else construct or switch statement that's as long as your arm. The actual core of the implementation is perhaps 8 lines of code. The rest includes a lot of setters and getters and other 'non-breaking' code.

TAS Must Die, Chapter 15

2007-04-18T12:24:00.000-05:00

While spelunking with Iscript syntax, I noticed that the expression on an IF statement is fairly robust with logicals and parentheses. Once you can have nested parentheses, you have to support a stack of some sort or you just can't parse it properly. I did the expression parsing in P1 using a recusrive descent parser. I wasn't in the mood to remove the left recursion from Iscript's more complex conditional statements so I decided to implement an operator precedence parser.

The typical OPP, as per the link, includes a table of precedences. This tells you if 1+3*5 should be treated as (1+3)*5 or 1+(3*5).

I've done a few prototypes now to refresh my memory. It occured to me that I was implementing an algorithm in java using the exact same architecture I used many years ago in c. And it was clunky. So I scrapped it - I decided that the table of precedences just doesn't work as well in java as it does in C.

I'll likely replace the traditional grid with a class that is initialized with Token-on-stack and Token-on-input pairs. Each pair will resolve to a ParserAction class which guides the parser. Java doesn't have a very nice initialization mechanism so it will be annoying. But the part that does the actual parsing will be lean.

TAS Must Die, Chapter 14

2007-04-16T07:12:00.000-05:00

I started creating the P2 parser this weekend. I took a delightfully neaderthal approach which was to write just enough code to dump the iscript tokens to sysout, find a cohesive batch of them (like the SET statement, for example) and code it up.

It didn't take long to get REM, SET, and INCLUDE mostly working. I suspect as I feed different iscript files through the parser I'll find different cases that the parser doesn't handle. I don't actually have any documentation for iscript. I have no clue as to the full extent of the supported syntax. That's made maintaining it for these last 2 years pretty invigorating at times.

What's interesting about this phase of the project is designing the pcode. I think of pcode as über assembly language. Each pcode statement will do a specific task and contain all the information to do so. For example, of I know a token is a number, I'll probably mark it as such in the pcode.

|set|someVariableName|314|

The pcode interpreter could figure out of 314 is an integer or a variable. But I've already done that in the lexer and parser. So why not have

|set|someVariableName|314,contant,integer|

I don't know if the pcode interpreter will need all the information, but if I have it I might as well provide it.

I'll probably start writing the Factory in parallel. The factory will accept a list of pcodes and return a list of executable classes. This will allow me to execute the pcode - and check my work.

Adventures in Anodizing Aluminum

2007-04-15T10:01:00.000-05:00

My wife told me to get a hobby or die. So my friend and I are building a tube amp - a copy of the venerable Fender 5F1 circuit. First, it is amazing how involved it's been to convert that schematic to a real thing. There are the parts called out for by the schematic, but then the nuts, bolts, bushings, washers, wire, mounting hardware, you name it. It's been eye opening and educational which is the whole point of the project. I could buy a vintage amp for less than I spent making this one, lol.

Now, we're making everything that a couple of hacks can make. The control panel plate is the thing the guitar plug and volume knob are mounted to. We made ours from aluminum. It's what we had. But aluminum is soft and scratches easy. I could could spray it with a Krylon enamel rattle-can, but that's boring and I have spent a LOT of time on this amp. I don't want to cheese out now. We decided to anodize it.

Aluminum rusts, just as steel does. That's why el-cheapo lawn furniture can turn your hands black. Anodization is a process where the aluminum gets a different type of rust than normal. The anodized surface is a thin coating that is almost as hard as diamond. Remarkably, the basic process is simple and as safe as anything that involves sulphuric acid and a battery charger.

It's a three-step process.

First first step is where we run current from the battery charger through a lead cathode (- side of the charger) through the acid, through the aluminum parts to be anodized, and to the anode (+ side) of the charger. This causes a layer of aluminum hydroxide to form on the aluminum parts.

The second step is where you drop the now-anodized aluminum part into a bath common clothing dye. The aluminum hydroxide surface has microscopic pores that are open. The dye can sneak right into those pores.

The third stage is where you boil the parts in water. The heat makes the pores close, trapping the dye and hardening the surface which, magically, becomes a 'hydroxide monohydrate' which I do not pretend to understand.

All this, and you can't really over-do it. As you apply the current to the acid bath, the oxide layer starts forming on the parts. This layer does not conduct electricity well! As the layer gets thicker and thicker, it conducts electricity less and less. So the process is self-limiting. After a while, electricity can't flow, and it all just... stops. Crazy. The Lord provides.

Armed with our knowledge, we tried an experiment yesterday. We produced lovely un-anodized aluminum and burned our anode hangers in half. Funny, but really, I didn't expect total failure. I thought we'd get a mediocre result and have to make an adjustment. We did deviate from The Plan a little, so next time we'll follow the instructions better.

Here is an example of some parts anodized by a professional. Look around, you're probably surrounded by anodized aluminum. Stay tuned.

TAS Must Die, Chapter 13

2007-04-14T09:57:00.000-05:00

Here's where I'm heading. The square boxes below are programs. The ovals are lexers or other output files. The round-corner boxes are input files that will be consumed by lexers.

L1Gen is the hand-coded lexer generator. It produces L1, a lexer for lexer descriptions. L1 produces the tokens that allow P1 to read a lexer description and produce a lexer. L2 is a lexer that tokenizes iscript files. P2 is a parser that will use L2, ingest an iscript source file, and produce pcode that is the logical equivalent of the iscript source file. The TASMustDie servlet will ingest the pcode and produce HTML which is lobbed at the browser. I expect the servlet will be non-trivial and implement the Command and Factory design patterns. Basically, the servlet sucks in the pcode, rips through it by line, and invokes the Factory to produce Command instances. Now we have an executable version of the textual pcode.

Everything through and including L2 is working as far as I can tell. So now I should start writing P2 and designing the Pcode. Iscript isn't very tricky until we get to the point where we have to communicate with the Tandem. Then the syntax gets a little different. So I probably have more lexer work in my future. For all that I don't forsee and difficulties. I mean, what could possibly go wrong??!

I'm taking a breather now. So far, the lexer generator is working. I'll probably create a pretty brutal test of it soon. This will involve creating a iscript lexer (L2 in the diagram) using L1Gen's lexer, and creating an alternative to L1Gen's using the third iteration of a bootstrapped lexer. I can probably run 10,000 tokens through each one, easy. If the output streams aren't the same, there's a problem.

TAS Must Die, Chapter 12.

2007-04-13T23:04:00.000-05:00

Just a quick note. Today I was able to bootstrap the lexer-generating parser. That is, the parser can now generate a lexer which it can use to generate an identical lexer. At one pass of the optimization phase, the lexer flies up to about 5,500 states then finally optimizes down to about 50. I have no idea why it's producing all those temporary states. The hand-coded lexer generator uses the same backend calls and doesn't seem to have any difficulties.

I suspect I'll be revisiting this at some inconvenient time.

TAS Must Die, Chapter 11

2007-04-12T17:24:00.000-05:00

More on design patterns. I have this graph of states, and I need to navigate it for multiple reasons. Sometimes I want to count the nodes. Sometimes I want to group them to remove redundencies. Sometimes I just want to generate a printable version. Or generate the lexer.

Say you want to print the state diagram. Normally what happens is that you write the navigation routine and right there in the middle of it, you put your "print" function. You get that working. Then you decide to count the items in the data structure. The navigation code you already have has the print stuff buried in the heart of it. That's no good for counting. So you copy/paste the navigation code and replace the "print" stuff with "count" stuff. About the 3rd time you do this, you realize it sucks and you want a different solution. In C, you'd pass a pointer-to-function as an argument. You'd navigate and then call the function to do the task-specific work. Pretty good stuff, but maybe a little fast-and-loose. As normal with C, you're at the mercy of the programmer's skill, mentality, and deadline.

Java has no pointer-to-function language structure. But using the Visitor design pattern we can cook up something that acts the same and has a little type checking in it. The wikipedia link is very good, but I'll paraphrase.

1. Create an interface called Visitor that has a visit(SomeObject) method, where SomeObject is germane to your problem domain. For this project, I had a graph of states, so my method was


public Interface Visitor {
void visit(State s);
}

2. To the class that manages the navigation data structures, add the following:


void accept(Visitor v) {...}

This is the class that manages navigation. For a binary tree of type node, you might have


public class Node {
// stuff
    public void accept(Visitor v) {
        if (leftChild != null) leftChild.accept(v);
        v.visit(this);
        if (rightChild != null) rigthChild.accept(v);
       }
}

Rock solid. Now, accept() is totally divorced from what the Visitor is actually doing. Visitor is an interface so by definition there's no implementation and no way for accept() to make any assumptions. A particular Visitor could generate a printable Node, count the nodes, search for a match, anything.

In my case, since my graphs (and states) are managed by the Nfa class, I implemented the method there.

3. Create an implementation of Visitor. Add the function-specific code to the visit method.


public class CountVisitor implements Visitor {
    private int count = 0;
    public void visit(State s) {
        count++:
        }
    public int getCount() {
        return count;
        }
    }

4. Add any auxilliary methods to the Visitor implementation as needed, such as getCount() above.

Here's an example from my project.

When I generate my lexer, it's important that my states be numbered starting at zero. For efficiency, the state id will be used as an index into an array! Given that I am creating and destroying hundreds of states as I convert the NFA to a DFA, the state IDs are all over the place. As I navigate my graph of states, the visit(State) method is called once for each state. The visit method simply adds a reference to the state to an Arraylist. Now I know all the states.
When I am done, I call the renumber() method and just iterate over the states, reassigning their IDs. To use the visitor, the following does the trick:

Visitor v = new StateRenumbererVisitor();
nfa.accept(v);
v.renumber();

It can be hard to get your mind around this. Once you do it, however, you'll be hooked.