–For those curious about previous work on Short John Silver you can click over to The Art Car Project, which archives back to the genesis in 2005 or thereabouts.
Recent work is still in the camera, but all major structural changes (which involved welding, machining and painting a couple of contraptions) are done and installed. Hope to start festooning hull with EL again today.
–It’s ‘too hot to fuck’ weather so I’m working early morning a bit and late at night a lot. Gotta skip tonight due to Second Tuesday gathering so am posting photos for show-and-tell.
First up: here are the new gunports getting their final treatment B4 mounting:
–And here are the gunports screwed in place and painted:
–Have also built and installed a trailer hitch that works with the little two-seater wagon. Have tested it and it works well. I can make sharp turns without binding, too.
Have been working on various projects evenings, as it’s been too damn hot during the day. Here are a few photos of that mess on the electronics workbench. Happy to say Calliope has made it out of the machine shop hopefully for the last time, so everything else should be software and electronic-related stuff that happens in the ‘dog free’ room, heh.
Well here we go with another test of the whole magilla, minus photos until I can figure out how to upload them. Some of the following is pasted from Arachnophilia; let’s see if this works..
June 14: DMV has been wanting some photos of Mutant Vehicle progress so here goes!
Delrin widgets so EL can turn a corner under tension.
Same thing only different. This one’s located on the bow, portside, at the “water” line.
Shot of one of two new faux kerosene lanterns. They’re solar powered so there is no further electrical wiring.
Learned my lesson in years past and finally got around to swapping out conventional roller chain for stainless roller chain. Big difference and no gummy chain clogged with Playa dust!
Waiting for glue to dry on pairs of plywood risers. These will support swivel stools on the “dinghy” that will be towed by Short John.
Shot of “dinghy”. Still a long way to go but it’ll be shipshape in plenty of time! Next up: bolt stools thru plywood riser donuts to steel reinforced cart deck, then a painted canvas “hull” will be attached to frame, followed by EL accents and sequenced, rolling waves beneath.
Initial lash-up of dinghy and Short John Silver, to get an idea of geometries for tow hitch. Connecting the dinghy hitch directly to the lower rung of the boarding ladder (which is steel and bolted to the frame) solves several problems. In addition to a hitch there will be a power umbilical to run EL and CCFl stuff off of Short John’s monster battery. Metal hitch bar will be ‘twined’ with yellow EL, to make it resemble a rope.
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–There’s nothing I like better than ’stirring the pot’ and yesterday’s BBQ was quite the fun time! I think I’ll keep with this mix: Burners, Dorkers and Hackers do well together. There seemed to be a pile of info being swapped and, being host, I got to benefit on the spot with stereo problems diagnosed (dead amp) by Alan, followed by stereo fixit shop address from Freddy (who also brought swordfish steaks: yum!). Kris arrived late but brought a monster yummy apple crumb pie, then stayed late and succeeded in pushing my flame calliope project forward so far that I believe I *will* have it in working order in time for Makers Faire. Gothalot and company got pretty far on the Temple build too! The central platform frame has been completed; only plywood decking needed to finish it up (G is awaiting further donations; any takers? www.paypal.com then enter templeofcommunity@yahoo.com ). Rod donated a whole day and really kick-started things. Several young bucks helped too; neighbors started getting curious! Gothalot put on a TV show with footage of the April Fools Cannon Shoot at Bruce Heppler’s digs: some fun! Hope to add photos of BBQ stuff soon.
Third try to upload photo from laptop. Theoretically I’ve uploaded an image but now I can’t find it or preview it!!
Still trying to get the knack of uploading photos. Last night, using the laptop, I clicked the “add media” icon and, after I had selected the photo to upload …nothing; i.e. no upload happened. Repeated the proceedure and same thing: no upload happened. Seems to work OK from the big computer but now I’m trying to figure out how to reposition the photo to the right of the text.
Well it’s been an interesting week, what with the trek Lancelot and I made to Bruce Heppler’s Annual April Fools cannon shoot. Didn’t take a pile of photos but I’ll post a few. Lancelot brought along a first rate video camera and did a pile of hi-def stuff and with luck I’ll post links to it in a week or so.
This is also test #3 and for some reason I can’t upload photos!!
Another thing I can’t figure out is how to change the position of this posting; i.e. I can’t figure out how to move it to the ‘April’ section.
March 1-31: Had to do a boring, repetitive production job to help pay the bills (Blue Cross raised our rates for a third time; now the nut is $1,800/month!!). Have been working on cannon, setting it to rights. Grief mostly behind me but Sandybear is still missed in the shop. Buddybear’s staying pretty close these days and so is Shadow. Melanie roams as usual, none the worse for the change in lineup. Sigh…Last year around this time I got to shoot my cannon for the first time and in so doing learned a lot about the proper kit one must have on hand. I’ve spent the past few weeks noodling on what’s needed and making up a proper set of tackle so that I’d be ready in time for the next Big Event, which is scheduled for Saturday, April 5.The first thing I needed to organize was a better method of aiming the beastie. Last year I missed the targets completely and managed to snap branches off of a nearby tree three times! I did quite a bit of searching around for what I wanted and failed completely, so I wound up making my own whatchacallit. It looks OK; the real test will be whether or not it works tho…