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Time, time, time
Oct. 16th, 2005 09:57 pmSo I didn't do any of the things I intended this weekend,with the sole exception of some swatch testing for some polyester resin work. 24 freaking hours to cure, assuming that it cures at all given my slapdash approach to catalyst addition (we don't need no steenking %-by-volume!) and the temperature. But hopefully, they'll give me the data I need (yes, you can use poly resin directly on PVC *and* pingpong balls, suede absorbs resin beautifully (no surprises), leather doesn't absorb it so well (Thus leaving a glossy surface, which is what I wanted), and yes, cardboard absorbs it well enough to allow me to make a form out of stiff cardboard and then coat it in resin to give me a reasonably solid basis for actually fibreglassing)).
There's a much longer list of things I didn't do, so it's probably time to make a new to-do list. They're split into "home" and "work", work simply means "things that require *real* tools".
Work:
* Chopper. I've been riding my pushbike into work a lot more lately. And I've decided I'd ride it even more if it looked more like this. At the end of the day, that frame is maybe a week with some steel pipe, a grinder and a welder. Plus painting. Devil's in the details, but the joy of it is that outside the frame, everything else can come straight off a cheap, stock pushbike. For the moment. Then I can build the spring forks. And add hydraulic disc brakes (yeah yeah). And have things chromed. All in good time. The main thing is learning to weld with MiG kit.
* Megan's bedside table. Legs are done, just have to cut the tabletop to size. Again, I could spend weeks doing other things to it (and probably will, for v. 2), but for the moment, just finishing it would be good.
Home:
* Fix the Spada :) Fix the CBR, really, but that'll be done this week.
* LED fashion accessories. A year or so ago I made an arm bracer thingy for Megan that had mercury switches, and lit up different rows of LEDs depending on the position of her arm. It was cute, and it even worked. I have a plan for a somewhat more space-age bracer with chasing LEDs, embedded in resin over leather (hence the swatch testing). Still have no idea where to put the electronics, but that'll work itself out as I build the bracer. Even if I have to run a wire up her arm and down to her belt :)
* Fibreglass curing booth. I suspect this will be the old washig machine we have, gutted and fitted with a thermostat to keep it above 20 degrees C.
* Alarming Kitty device. The metal frame didn't work so well, so I'll be redoing the base in fibreglass (hence the swatch testing). Unfortunately, I may have to go get a whole new Hello Kitty head from Smith St at some point.
* Yet Another Alarming Kitty device. I have an idea for a, I dunno, spaceage cryogenic pod thing, containing the disembodied head of Hello Kitty. I have rough designs - just need to learn to draw ....
* PIC programmer. Should be higher on the list, since it's required for my current plan for the Hello Kitty device (I've ordered some 7-segment LED digits for the cryo-pod display panel, which will be a PIC-driven alarm clock.)
* DMX-512 ! I have, for a long time, been just about to build megan a little model theatre for her Edward Gorey cutout theatre kit thingy. Part of the plan for that is a "real" (albeit scaled down) LX board and dimmer system, using LEDs as lamps. I finally got around to reading up on DMX-512 the other day, and it's an incredibly simple protocol, so the current plan is to build an old-school 0-10v analog lighting board (6 channel to start, see how that works out) with an analog->DMX converter, and then a custom DMX-512 compatible LED dimmer driver. We'll see.
* LEDs. Did I mention the LEDs? 2 plans - a PICxie and a Blinkenmini. Both, not entirely coincidentally, could in theory be DMX-512 compatible ....
I think that's about it, for this summer. Me being me, there's a whole lot of stuff in there that's beyond the scope of my current skillset (that being kinda, y'know, the *point*), so if you have any experience building custom pushbike frames, or PIC-based DMX-512 controllers, or fibreglass, or if you have concept sketches for cryogenic pods containing Hello Kitty heads, do feel free to drop me a
line ....
And yes. I know I haven't done any of the things on my last todo list (which contains a epressing number of the same thigns) yet. But I did move house, change careers and go to Europe. One has to be flexible about these things.
sol.
.
There's a much longer list of things I didn't do, so it's probably time to make a new to-do list. They're split into "home" and "work", work simply means "things that require *real* tools".
Work:
* Chopper. I've been riding my pushbike into work a lot more lately. And I've decided I'd ride it even more if it looked more like this. At the end of the day, that frame is maybe a week with some steel pipe, a grinder and a welder. Plus painting. Devil's in the details, but the joy of it is that outside the frame, everything else can come straight off a cheap, stock pushbike. For the moment. Then I can build the spring forks. And add hydraulic disc brakes (yeah yeah). And have things chromed. All in good time. The main thing is learning to weld with MiG kit.
* Megan's bedside table. Legs are done, just have to cut the tabletop to size. Again, I could spend weeks doing other things to it (and probably will, for v. 2), but for the moment, just finishing it would be good.
Home:
* Fix the Spada :) Fix the CBR, really, but that'll be done this week.
* LED fashion accessories. A year or so ago I made an arm bracer thingy for Megan that had mercury switches, and lit up different rows of LEDs depending on the position of her arm. It was cute, and it even worked. I have a plan for a somewhat more space-age bracer with chasing LEDs, embedded in resin over leather (hence the swatch testing). Still have no idea where to put the electronics, but that'll work itself out as I build the bracer. Even if I have to run a wire up her arm and down to her belt :)
* Fibreglass curing booth. I suspect this will be the old washig machine we have, gutted and fitted with a thermostat to keep it above 20 degrees C.
* Alarming Kitty device. The metal frame didn't work so well, so I'll be redoing the base in fibreglass (hence the swatch testing). Unfortunately, I may have to go get a whole new Hello Kitty head from Smith St at some point.
* Yet Another Alarming Kitty device. I have an idea for a, I dunno, spaceage cryogenic pod thing, containing the disembodied head of Hello Kitty. I have rough designs - just need to learn to draw ....
* PIC programmer. Should be higher on the list, since it's required for my current plan for the Hello Kitty device (I've ordered some 7-segment LED digits for the cryo-pod display panel, which will be a PIC-driven alarm clock.)
* DMX-512 ! I have, for a long time, been just about to build megan a little model theatre for her Edward Gorey cutout theatre kit thingy. Part of the plan for that is a "real" (albeit scaled down) LX board and dimmer system, using LEDs as lamps. I finally got around to reading up on DMX-512 the other day, and it's an incredibly simple protocol, so the current plan is to build an old-school 0-10v analog lighting board (6 channel to start, see how that works out) with an analog->DMX converter, and then a custom DMX-512 compatible LED dimmer driver. We'll see.
* LEDs. Did I mention the LEDs? 2 plans - a PICxie and a Blinkenmini. Both, not entirely coincidentally, could in theory be DMX-512 compatible ....
I think that's about it, for this summer. Me being me, there's a whole lot of stuff in there that's beyond the scope of my current skillset (that being kinda, y'know, the *point*), so if you have any experience building custom pushbike frames, or PIC-based DMX-512 controllers, or fibreglass, or if you have concept sketches for cryogenic pods containing Hello Kitty heads, do feel free to drop me a
line ....
And yes. I know I haven't done any of the things on my last todo list (which contains a epressing number of the same thigns) yet. But I did move house, change careers and go to Europe. One has to be flexible about these things.
sol.
.
