Stop me before I mill again.

[tyggerjai]

So I've been lusting after a little baby lathe and mill recently. But alas, given that I'm now redundant, spending money on luxuries is really hard to justify. Hopefully, when I get back from Venice, I'll find a job fast enough that I still have money in the bank from the redundancy, which I can then blow on toys. But in the meantime, well, I have time up my sleeves.




So one of these projects, of course, is putting the spada back on the road for bunnikins There are two main parts to that - clean out the carbies, and re-upholster the seat. If any of you know a good motorbike seat re-upholsterer in Melbourne (or would like a crack at it yourselves, in return for whatever I can do in return), let me know! But the first step involves carby cleaner, so Lo did I go and buy some carby cleaner in the city. And then, I needed some change for the bus, so I foolishly (because I don't know what I was going to find that would leave me change from $20, but never mind ...) went into the technical bookshop. Whereupon I promptly purchased not only the first but also the second book in a charming and practical little series for the time-rich and cash poor. In case you can't read that top subtitle, it says "Build your own metal working shop from scrap". Which sounds like an ideal project, or at least it would if I had a shed. Apparently, I'm not even allowed a charcoal foundry (book 1) until I have a shed, though it occurs to me that the factory next door is empty ....

I've been grumbling, recently, about the lack of decent cheap gear packages for robotics - you can get very expensive packages, or very crap packages. A foundry, of course, is a brilliant solution to the problem - casting gears, even in aluminium, is the perfect technique, and remarkably cheap. So I'm looking forward to casting stuff.

Now I just need to learn to whittle :)

sol.
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Comments

[morganjaffit.livejournal.com]

Insane and fantastic.

I can whittle, if that helps? Mind you, I'm not at all sure I can knit a charcoal foundry ... can you make it out of maple?

[tyggerjai.livejournal.com]

Yeah. I've decided not to move to San Francisco, but instead to bring the insane and fantastic here. And there are few things more insane or fantastic than 12' steam-powered mechas built from scratch.

You can! That's the cool thing. There's a lot of sand involved, but basically the furnace is a 5-gallon pail (packed with sand), and the forms are all made from wood. Pine, generally, but maple would work for that too. Then there's the patterns, which is what the whittling is for. I'm not crazy enough to make my own charcoal. Yet.

And stop me if I start to talk about smelting ores. That's just silly.

sol.
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[morganjaffit.livejournal.com]

There'a a few ex-pat San Fran'ers here that I go to dinner with occasionally, and they seem to be of the opinion that SF has done it's dash, anyhow.

Me, I think Melbourne is right up there on the "could well be next" stakes - all it needs to push it over the line is a 12' steam powered mecha.

[tyggerjai.livejournal.com]

*nod*
These are my very thoughts.

sol.
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[vaingloriesque.livejournal.com]

Any story I've ever heard about people whittling ends with slicing open of thumbs and the proud display of resulting scars... perhaps you should wear gloves? ;)

Oh, and I was wondering how you'd do at guessing these...

[tyggerjai.livejournal.com]

YEah, that's bunnikins, and it's why she's not allowed pointy things. And morganjaffit has other amusing stories (in hindsight) of the night Megan sliced her thumb open.

Uh, yeah. I looked at the answers too soon! But I would have got the Billy and the Leonards, and that's about it :)

sol.
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[bunnikins.livejournal.com]

Didn't slice my thumb open at all. Cruelly maligned, me! I've never cut my thumb open.

[morganjaffit.livejournal.com]

No, that is quite true.

Of course, I now know more about how thumbs *work* that I ever wanted to. From the inside. And what colour those ropey tendons people have inside the palms of their hands are.

But there was no cutting of the actual thumb or thumb area, no. No indeedy.

[bunnikins.livejournal.com]

See? Cruelly maligned, I tell you. I never cut off anybody else's thumb, either. I have, in fact, a full set of digits, and no extras. And yet still I am maliciously denied the simple pleasures of sword ownership....

And guns aren't even pointy. Where's the justice, I ask? Oh, woe.