Posted by Jerry on October 3rd, 2004 — Posted in Journal, Motorcycling, Woodwork
Well, it looked fine this morning when Eve was trying to improve my circus skills – yes I can walk the tightwire, even walk on stilts – after a fashion – but the unicycle utterly defeats me for the present. Anyhow, we now have the loan of a pair of strap-on stilts from which I can take a pattern. I’ll let you know how our version turns out, both in the blog and on my site at http://www.lostbiro.com/ where I have the plans for my traditional stilts (as well as the tightrope).
After an exhausting morning doing circussy stuff we had a bite to eat and headed off to Bungendore for an excellent ride on my bike – I adjusted the chain yesterday, providing me with an excuse to do a little test run 😉 We followed the sunshine up to Bungendore and stopped at the wonderful woodwork gallery There were some great chairs and other works by Neil Scobie and there is a current exhibition of work by Terry Martin.
Eve and I had milkshakes in the cafe there and came out just in time to catch a heavy rain shower – luckily we had our wet weather gear and aside from some mild wind gusts, the trip home was quite pleasant – and we had the benefit of a truly fabulous rainbow as we came down the hill into Queanbeyan.
We made a nice curry and rather than watch Titanic yet again, I thought I might get out into the shed and finish off some trellis to complete the final side section of the carport – it looks great – even got the mitres on the corners right this time! I’ll throw up a photo here when Sharon returns with the digital camera.
And now I have the trellis stuff out of my shed at last, I have a bit more room to make the next round of bookcases – so that will be the next little project
cheers
Jerry
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Posted by Jerry on October 1st, 2004 — Posted in Journal, Music, Recipes
Actually the start of a four day weekend for me wooohooo! Up at the crack of 8.30, leisurely breakfast of cereal and coffee, then a browse through the latest Australian Woodworker magazine – good piece on Egyptian lathes and the questions over evidence they had them, and a good article on Angel Polglaze – a chainsaw sculptor. Also a good readers tip on converting a jig saw to a scroll saw.
While my partner busily packed for the Southern Cross Crazies quilting retreat, I put in a bit of practice on some strathspeys – now have Monymusk down fairly well – though probably still too round and Irish sounding for the discerning Scottish ear.
Second breakfast: Apricot lattice (or Danish as we call them) and coffee
A quick bound out to the shed to cut a length of rod for a quilt, and put a couple of grooves in the ends to stop the hanging string from slipping off, then back for more tunes – damn need more waltzes too…
Lunch – some cheese and honey on crusty bread, and coffee
Then late afternoon expedition to cart stuff to the quilters retreat – held at GreenHills at Birragai on the Cotter Road (a beautiful location, even better on the motorbike). They seemed pretty well set up there for the weekend.
Back home, polished the fiddle (it really needs stripping back and re-varnishing – maybe after the China tour), hammered out some more tunes (repaired my old shoulder rest – now about 28 years old and the rubber feet had perished, so I did a quick repair using old bike inner-tube rubber. It’ll do the trick. I use another one on the hardanger fiddle, but it’s convenient to have one on each fiddle because different tunes sometimes demand different instruments.
Prepared some satay and rice for dinner – I love the Pataks simmer sauces – they make life so easy: just chop up an onion, some capsicum, a potato or two into cubes, add some Chinese stir-fry vegies throw the lot into a pan with the sauce and a half-sauce-jar of water and simmer for about 20 minutes (meanwhile dump a couple of cups of rice, dash of salt and a couple of cups of water into the rice cooker and set and forget). The smoke alarm tells you when it’s ready 😉 …er actually no, you remember to stir the satay occasionally and cook until the spuds are no longer crunchy, and serve when the rice is cooked – easy!
Then off to the bus depot to collect my daughter from her trip to Sydney where she is appearing (briefly) in a movie being filmed there – the “Mary Briant”. Eve was most appreciative of a hot dinner after a week of 4.00AM starts and a long cold and wet ride home on the bus. We shared a cup of tea and a exchanged news – her costumes look fabulous… but what have they done to her hair!! I guess the 1780s were a time for big hair and bustles…
Otherwise just a normal day really
cheers
Jerry
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Posted by Jerry on September 25th, 2004 — Posted in DIY, Journal, Woodwork
Well, I’m not likely to get me welder’s certificate anytime soon!
At least I was able to strike an arc and this time I didn’t just burn a hole through the metal like I did the last time I tried. I was able to actually lay down some metal on the mild steel plate – though it was a bit haphazard. you see, the arc is so bright you need to wear this really really dark shade on the protective helmet to avoid eye damage.
Thing is you can’t see a thing when the shade is down. I tried it outside and could see a faint outline of the table where I was meant to be working, but there was too much light coming in from behind the helmet. So back into the garage I went. There I set up a couple of the band’s spotlights shining directly onto the work – that did the trick!
Now I just need to be able to keep the arc going for a while so it builds up a continuous bead of weld metal. Maybe I’ll have better luck tomorrow….
I did manage to find a good web site for the amateur welder though – just click the link 🙂
Cheers
Jerry
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Posted by Jerry on September 23rd, 2004 — Posted in Journal, Music
Full Circle – Live at the Pot Belly in Canberra (well you wouldn’t want to hear us dead now would you?)What a great night! good audience, great atmosphere as always and there’s always a Guinness or two 🙂
Sometimes – it being International ‘talk like a pirate’ day we just sing sea shanties – unaccompanied. some call it Acapulco, nah – it’s archipelago – must be, because on all them islands they don’t have many instruments so they have to sing just like that… okay who’s the smartarse who reckons we were singing a-capella?
Cheers
Jerry
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Posted by Jerry on September 18th, 2004 — Posted in Journal, Woodwork
Woody stuff…
One of the things I picked up at the wood show was a thread cutter for wooden dowels – this will open up a number of possibilities – particularly for building embroidery frames with adjustable tension. The prospect of collapsible or adjustable-height stools has a certain appeal too – especially for camping at folk music festivals
I have since bought the matching 5/8″ drill bit for the 3/4″ tap to match the 3/4″ thread cutter. And they work a treat. Okay, so I put a square nut on the end of a broom handle, but it’s a start!
And I have been trying to set up my dovetail jig for ages – and managed to destroy the bearing on the dovetail router bit – so a trip to Carba-tec got me a replacement bit (AUS$29.95) that’ll teach me to release the plunge on the router too soon! You would think that a simple chinese half-inch dovetail jig would be easy to set up, but I needed to see the demo at the wood show to learn that if the offset for the vertical piece is inboard of the horizontal piece then tearout is much less of a problem. I have also learnt to use backing pieces to stop this problem altogether… oh well we live and learn 🙂
Cheers
Jerry
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