So then it was off in the rains for the trip to the hospital for the deed. Bizarre incident #2 had to be the image on the screen: I’ve seen this sort of thing in a dentist’s office but it was mighty strange to stick my head up my own ass as it were. The good news: no lesions; the bad news: the beginnings of direticulitis. Doc took a biopsy and that was damned odd to see and even weirder to feel. It sorta itches now… In the recovery room I discovered that my resting heart rate is a rather incredible 55; I’m obviously still in semi-hibernation from our prolonged winter.

Got a prescription so hopefully the pain from my predicament will fade and the area will heal but there still wasn’t an obvious trouble spot that indicated whence cometh the problem. Doc sez he recommends going in via the front door next time but that’s a real procedure and I’ll have to go to the big hospital for that one. Sigh.. Patients leave via the back door which seems appropriate; from there I went and pigged out on fast food just because.. Skipped the fries at least. Pharmacy is out of the prescription so I gotta suffer another day of burning butt syndrome B4 I can get some relief.

–Next up: must shake off lethargy and disspel writer’s block to produce invites for the big birthday bash..

–And then I got a call from Todd with the news that one of our pals tried to commit suicide the other day. Nice guy but he’s living with the burden of two families; i.e. his own (married a gal with 4 kids: go figure…) and his parents who won’t leave him alone to live his new life. Family biz and he’s stuck in the web: no way out. Kinda wait and see Todd thinks; i.e. leave him alone to sort for a few days and then nag him to get back into his network of friends who can at least commiserate with ‘been there, done that’ anecdotes.

–More later; it’s getting cold and I gotta got put more wood on the fire. Sigh.

–Had a very nice Christmas day with all the kids and grandkids in one place (Stockton) and Jerry and Serena cooked up a wonderful Greek feast. We went home with ziploc bags full of leftovers and those should sustain us thru New Years Eve. Made it home in the rain (which was less severe than feared), low fuel light just started blinking as we pulled into driveway. Paid the dog sitter and wound up with $5 in my pocket. My sister gave me $50 for Xmas and I’ll be cashng that post haste. The dilemma: should it be food or gas money? I fear it’ll have to go into the tank.

–Managed to make a tiny bit of income in the shop in ’10; a couple of interesting, if small, jobs; have now been waiting 2 weeks for latest parts to come back from anodizing so’s I can ship ‘em with a bill for all of 2 hrs labor.

–With help from Eugene I started reconfiguring shop ‘furniture’ to set up a dedicated welding space in an area that’s thankfully free of flying metal chips and coolant mists. Hope to have that all sorted in a week or two after wall sockets are upgraded.

–Missed Burning Man in ’10 but managed to rent out the RV which really helped the bottom line. After much rainy weather RV now has a warped door and I’ll have to get that mended in ’11. Hopefully I’ll be able to rent it out again for the next BM which, sadly, I must also miss. Might buy tix when they become available but will probably sell ‘em as the date draws nigh.

–Found out that the reason I’m hobbling around is due to a growth in my left foot. Doc sez surgery to remove it is complex and risky and suggested I just live with it. Going to WESTEC in March so must go directly to my goals then leave B4 pain becomes excruciating. Sigh. Still waiting for Trevor to make his avatars available for rental so I can do these expeditions virtually. Despite lack of dough I really need to look for a larger capacity lathe: had to farm out a big job to another shop a few months back because my Myford didn’t have the horsepower needed to remove metal fast enough to make the job profitable.

–Judy’s a trooper: the things she does for our rescue doggies is really over the top. I handle the bills and she handles the gooey bits: pills, poo, and even worse. Still it ain’t cheap; I figure $20k in vet bills and meds in a bad yr and ’10 was a bad year. Haven’t managed to set up a 501-C-3 yet because we can’t afford lawyer and accountant to keep up the paperwork. Catch-22 kinda thing. So holler, friends, if you know anyone who might want to take a couple of middle-age, cuddly Cockers home..

–And speaking of expenses (when am I not?) Blue Cross saw fit to raise our rates THREE TIMES this yr and now I’m paying $24,000/yr for just the two of us. The good news, such as it is, I’ll turn 65 in July whereupon I at least will be able to tell BC to take a FLYING FUCK and switch to Medicaire and supplemental coverage; said total being around $500/mo: not cheap but hey, every little savings helps, eh? Oh, did I mention I’ve registered the domain http://www.fuckbluecross.com ? Don’t know what to do with it but I saw an opportunity and I took it.

–Soooo what’s ’11 got in store? Hope to take calliope #5 to Maker Faire, along with blown-up still photos of the kind of things I’ve made in the shop. Hope to drum up some more biz. Hope to do some more welding work: that seems to be the quickest way to make money; i.e. it happens a lot faster. I think ’11 may be the first yr I won’t be able to attend Hackers but hey, I’m past due to skip it and let ‘em turn the pile a bit.

–Trying to think of other things I can do to pimp the biz. Have decided that WordPress is a PITA and not ideal for posting the photo/text stories of my various projects so am considering going back to basic, un-pretty html and saying to hell with “style sheets”. Would be interested in chatting with anyone who has been there/done that and succeeded.

–Welp that’s about it, world; stay tuned for further info.

If anyone in our extended family has any pull with a bank or has any suggestions what we can do to keep a roof over their heads please get in touch with me or Judy ASAP. Natch, money from a deep pockets pal would save the day but I have few illusions about your own individual predicaments and I only include this plea because the situation is so dire.

Thanks for reading to the end,

–I decided to find a way to increase the thread depth somehow. This would give the screw more bite and it would mean air would have to leak thru a longer, twistier path to escape. I thought about using nutserts but these don’t sit flush and I would have had to use gobs of sealing compound to make the connection air-tight. Another idea was to weld up the bad holes, ‘twist’ the hole pattern half the angle between holes and use a Formdrill to friction-drill the steel, stretching it so that a form tap would produce a longer thread. But I distrust the integrity and shallow thread depth produced by a form tap and so that was out. In the end I opted for Plan C: I drilled out every other hole to 3/8” dia and chamfered the edges a bit. Then I switched on the lathe and, using some 3/8” dia steel rod, I made six: 3/8” long threaded inserts. Next I made a ‘quicky’ bridge to hold each insert in the correct location, inside a drilled hole but flush with the surrounding steel and squarely so that fasteners wouldn’t go in crooked: http://www.flickr.com/photos/steamboat_ed/4853355009/in/set-72157608281318568/ This whole scheme worked very well and I think I might do it again intentionally, so to speak, should I ever again have need to attach something to thin wall tubing. Welding was, relatively speaking, a breeze and by the third one of the six I had it down. The mating parts had chamfers that permitted good penetration with a fusion weld and I used almost zero filler rod to connect the dots: http://www.flickr.com/photos/steamboat_ed/4853310601/in/set-72157608281318568/ End result: very little grinding needed and, after chasing the threads one last time with a plug tap and the right lubricant (Cool Tool II) I was able to snug up the six #10-32 socket heads well enough to get a good airtight seal using a bit of paper gasket material instead of the O-ring. As for the 6 remaining not-so-great bolt holes I added phenolic washers, the kind used for air logic fittings, to each bolt hole in the plug before gently snugging up each of these screws and that seems to have achieved an adequate seal.

–Thinking I might want to attach stuff later and not wanting to perforate the plenum’s integrity when the time came, I made six 1/4”-28 threaded bushings. Two were welded on top of the plenum, on centerline and at each end, to provide anchor points for a cable trunk which will run parallel to the plenum, along one side, to protect solenoid wiring. I welded the remaining four on the sides, near the bottom and close to the ends. These will provide attachment points for legs or whatever, to provide a bit of lateral stability as the contraption will be plenty top-heavy once all of the whistles and solenoid valves are fastened in place.

–Once all was set to rights I did a pressure test. Sure enough I found two massive leaks where for one reason or another I failed to complete a weld all the way around a 3/8” pipe fitting. Once I’d welded these two correctly test results were much better although not stunning. The big aluminum plug held great even at 60psi (3 times estimated working pressure). But it turns out one of the twelve fittings I used to plug the whistle attachment bushings leaked, despite being threaded in with two turns of good gas-rated Teflon tape. Well there’s always something, eh? Anyway once that was sorted the plenum seemed ready for paint: woohoo!

–I had intended to paint the plenum white but I couldn’t find the damned paint can anywhere. Bottom line: it’s blue, because it was handy. Looks pretty snazzy, I gotta admit http://www.flickr.com/photos/steamboat_ed/4853310567/in/set-72157608281318568/

–So today the moment  came when I could finally test one of the cheapy solenoid valves I got from ebay. I mounted one valve with a whistle attached, I dropped shop air pressure down to 5psi, rounded up enough AA batteries to make a 12-v supply and twisted wires together. To my delight I actually got a note out of the thing! I increased air pressure to 10psi and this produced a much brighter tone. Jumping up to 20psi (what it used to take to get any sound at all out of calliope #4) the sound went all to hell with several overtones in the mix so it’s definite: the new valves let through a much greater air flow than the old sprinkler valves.

–There is an oddity that happens when the valve first opens: there’s a very loud pop and wheeze before the bell sounds and I’m guessing this has something to do with me supplying air to the (short but fat) plenum from a long skinny source, i.e. two lengths of coiled air hose at the end of a 25-ft string of overhead plumbing. Once the first note has wheezed into life though, subsequent rapid activations of the solenoid valve seem to be ‘normal’. Something to do with the elastic properties of gases methinks. I’m hoping the whole system is good to go, but not entirely trusting my own gut feeleings as to the nature of the wheeze I hope to get a second opinion later today from Rich Gibson as to the readiness of the system, as it stands, for the remaining solenoid valves prior to ordering same.

I’ve found a better type of solenoid valve that has a much higher flow rate and they only cost $30.- apiece. That means that finally, FINALLY I’ll have a calliope that doesn’t require an air compressor to do its thing: the ass end of a vacuum cleaner ought to be sufficient. That’ll reduce the electrical load and it’ll also reduce background noise substantially.

I’ve adopted a different attachment method using pipe-to-tube fittings that eliminates the hassle of unscrewing the solenoid assembly from the valve if a little local work is required.

I’ll post photos to flickr one day soon…

Meanwhile back at the ranch I’m still broke and looking for odd jobs. The good news is I’ve turned 64 and I’m counting down the days until I can tell that bloodsucking leech Blue Cross, who still tap us to the tune of $1,800/month, to go take a flying fuck.

            Well now I know why nobody’s building calliopes: the correct valves cost $120 apiece! With tax that works out to about $1,500 per octave!! Despite assurances from ‘country cousins’ that economic forecast is rosy in future I’d still like to build #5 using the OPM principle: “Other People’s Money”, don’t ya know.. So open up those wallets friends and neighbors! Maybe it’s time for a slightly more snazzy donation station in the shop.

Wednesday, June 02, 2010, 11:21 AM:

            –Continuing last night’s thoughts this morning I thot I might construct one of those ‘donation thermometers’ that I’ve seen outside of the local hospital and our local ASPCA, with goals plainly stated and status indicated as a climbing red bar on the white painted thermometer. Maybe it could be rendered in some webpage-friendly format, along with a link to paypal? Must ask Noelle and maybe Rich.

            Well maybe Grainger will have something cheaper? Will have to do a little rummaging. Not sure if there’s a difference in price between brass or SS these days but will investigate that angle as well. And then there’s the possibility of re-re-engineering the high pressure ones Tsutomu gave me; gotta see if I can make a larger ‘piston’ and enlarge the orifice still more.

            Another test I need to do: get some pipe plugs and drill ‘em out to different diameters to determine just how large the whistle air entry hole has to be for it to be blow-able with vacuum cleaner exhaust. A favorable outcome there might mean it’s barely possible to use existing valves or  cheaper renditions of same with larger orifices.

            The other thing I need to do is to figure out just how those green ones come apart: so far all attempts to dismantle one have been in vain. Will have to get a little more aggro in future; i.e. the place where one would expect to have a nut is, in fact, a rounded-over shaft end (I think) and I’ll have to try grinding off the nub to see if the solenoid can then be removed from the valve assy. Said valve assy is topped by a massive nut but it can’t be removed by anything other than an especially thin wrench that I don’t have. Don’t want to modify the one I’ve got to do the deed either, but that may be the final answer; forceful disassembly of first one will tell.

            Noodling while waiting for camper shell place to redo wiring in truck so that camper shell transferred from old Ranger still works with new Ranger; i.e. red ‘taillight’ and internal lighting which is sorely missed at present.

            Ah! Good old ebay comes to the rescue! Took Rich’s advice and searched over there. First hit: exactly what I need for a third of the store-bought price. Still and all I want to get some more input B4 I spend a grand on two octaves worth. These look good:

            3/8”, 12vDC, $30.95

http://cgi.ebay.com/3-8-Electric-Solenoid-Valve-12-Volt-Air-Diesel-B21N-/290439374847?cmd=ViewItem&pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item439f8927ff

They’re a bit bigger than I really need: 1/4″ NTP is plenty big enough but I guess I can bush ‘em down if nothing smaller is available.

Thursday, June 3:

Had an idea this morning: if I replaced unions with quick-connects (the kind intended for plastic tubing) maybe I could connect the dots with short pieces of copper or even stainless tube (I’ve got lots left over from another project) then I’d have a rigid system with a very small footprint and it’d probably cost less than unions too. Will first test the quick connects on metal tube: it’s an easy thing to do, yes?

            First up was what to do with #4. After talking to the pros I decided the best thing I could do is give #4, sans whistles, to Rich who has an idea that it could be used either as some sort of MIDI-controlled flame effect device or as a multiple air-rocket launching carousel. Either way it sounds like a fun challenge and I can’t wait to see what comes next!

            Before dragging the old mechanics and electronics to Rich’s ‘shop’ Kris and I did a rough calculation to determine manifold volume. Working the numbers seperately we both came up with a piddly 95 cu in. for the steel torus.  Although more than the 48 cu in of calliope #3 it was still a bit less than I would desire for a proper plenum.

            The goal in making calliope #5 is umpty fold, but the change in layout will make the design compact enough to be carried by one person, which also means it might actually fit atop the boiler in my fairly narrow steamboat. The plenum will be made from 4″ square 1/8″ wall steel tube. It will have an internal volume of at least 235 cu in, even tho footprint of the whole device will be about half what it was. Routing of wiring will be greatly simplified as well and that increases the likelihood that #5 will be capable of running propane. Now that I understand the importance of maximizing valve orifice area I’m going to search for off-the-shelf valves that operate more like organ valves rather than solenoid valves that depend on a small piston sealing an even smaller hole. The trick will be finding them with 1/4” NPT thread; to get the smallest footprint I can manage.

After remachining the existing valves on #4 I managed to cut plenum pressure from 80psi to 20psi. The valves I have been using look like this:

http://www.ascovalve.com/Common/PDFFiles/Product/8262_8263_HSeries_GP_R1.pdf

What I want to find and/or build is something that’s still solenoid operated but that toggles a plug of some kind to lift (or better fall into plenum), exposing a much larger opening. By having valve fall into plenum area the gas flow would help reseat it to give a crisper cutoff, yes? The valves closest to this concept that I’ve found so far look like this:

http://www.ascovalve.com/Common/PDFFiles/Product/8210R1.pdf

The goal is to get the silly thing to work on as little pressure as possible; say 5psi or less… The kicker, of course, is that 24 solenoid valves won’t be cheap; I figure a thousand bucks at least and although I’m told my economic forecast is a little rosier these days I’m still waiting for the check, so to speak…

            After talking with Rich and Kris I gather that the electronics for 24 pipes is not much more complex than those for 12 so the idea is to combine the 1” dia pipes made for calliope #3 with the 1-1/2” dia ones from #4, giving me 2 octaves and the ability to play more MIDI tunes with less tune ‘squeezing’ needed.

            Anywayyyy the first step is to start sketching out a top view so that I can get an idea of just how closely I can pack valves, to determine the length of 4” square tube I’ll buy to make the plenum. In #4 I put the solenoid valves far enough apart so that they could be screwed into their corresponding fittings on the plenum; i.e. about 4” apart. But by using unions instead of straight pipe nipples I can reduce this distance to maybe 3”. By staggering the pipes in the Y direction I can decrease the X separation still further. An added benefit of staggering pipes in a double row: if I decide to use propane I can make a much more compact, straight pilot light that will nest between pipes in staggered rows.

Saturday, May 22, 2010, 8:53 AM:
–RV living observation: every Oscar needs a Felix: it’s starting to get messy in here even tho it’s just ME!! Maybe I can talk Judy into coming along next time??
Got txt msg from Eugene: he’s getting on commuter train and so will probably beat me to the gate. Silly boy: his phone crapped out and he can only text message now; now there’s an interesting failure mode!
Just saw Garb walking by, gave a shout-out and also met a great gal who’s learning welding. She did fulltime RV-ing for 33 months and had some good ideas like icecubes in the toilet on way to dump station, etc. Hopefully I’ll be able to get my dream instructor visit for ‘used RV 101’: the course everyone like me must pass to be well informed and able to cope with all the shit that can go wrong, heh.
Conked out early last night; some time B4 10, which is early for me!
It was fucking freezing last night! Finally got up and closed roof vents so I didn’t require a nazal blanket snood to keep the frost at bay. Still very glad I brought along my favorite flannel blankie in addition to sleeping bag; stuffed inside the bag it was quite cozy.
Can’t seem to ger AC outlets to work so no hot coffee this AM; made do with chocolate Soy Silk (yum!) and tiny cereal boxes. Pity they don’t perforate ‘em any more; will take photos of early-morning-bleary failure mode later. Glad Panasonic.s laptop battery’s good for umpty hours, unlike old IBM.
Getting ready to head over to my booth, taking laptop, hairbrush, Tucks pads (holding off morning dump until I get to a real toilet), etc. Pleased that food situation isn’t as dire as I’d feared. May try to hit the pub across the tracks tonight for din-dins..
–Hindsight: it was a looooong day! But thanks to Mike it was bearable. Took us both a while to get into the rhythm of the show but once that was done we took turns roaming. Two pair of eyes definitely a plus: each saw things the other missed. I was only one with camera but we both snagged lotsa cards, flyers, etc.
–I’d be hard pressed to invent a better torture test for my pneumatic widgets than a bunch of kids!
-Hole puncher failed in a hindsight-predictable manner but I managed to piece it back together. Didn’t punch very well after that but it did contiue illustrate the principle. Will fix permanently when time permits; i.e. at home in shop: it’s an easy fix there…
-Foot pedal valve on drillpress occasionally locked up but time was the cure: wait a minute or so and it would unstick and work fine for another half hour or so. Possible culprit: too-gooey oil in air lines? Dunno.
-Air operated air gates kept having retaining nuts unscrew; must use loctite to secure ‘em better. Gates occasionally hung up in the open position. Suspect it was because air pressure was much higher than I usually run; Mike noticed this: apparently my preset air pressure of 50psi was wandering into the red; i.e. around 120psi. Made in China, yes? Quality control: no. Gotta come up with more predictable and MUCH quieter air compressor if I ever do show again.

Best Thing I Saw: Sorry, nothing leaps out this yr. Had wanted to see singing Tesla coils and have to say they were ‘born’ to play the theme from Doctor Who. Not much leaps out beyond that. Must transcribe notes for more recollections.
Met a lot of folks I know from Hackers, Dorkbot and Burning Man, plus some others that had heard of me and wanted to meet me. Odd to think I have ‘fans’, hehe. Still at least I don’t have a coterie of sychophants like Jeri Ellsworth! It was fun to see her; we seem to be ‘ships in the night’ most times she’s in town but we did manage to connect the dots this time: great fun!
Saturday was a loooong day! Show stayed open until 8:PM. Discovered I’ve got a problem with right shoulder; possibly from humping too much firewood last week; dunno. Bottom line: even toting a camera becomes agony in short order; gotta get some exercises to strenghthen that area.
I’ve also got a growing back problem: never noticed it around house and protracted winter but I can’t seem to walk for more than about 10 min before I get agonizing pains all down the right side of my back. Mike was a double godsend! Maybe I’ll be his helper next year!
After late quitting time I met up with Egmont and Helga in their neat little RV and we gabbed on while I scarfed salami and yummy smoked cheese on good sourdough bread.
After visiting with the Websky clan I met up with some folks at a fiery cauldron in the parking lot and wound up getting steered towards someone who had a cannon and was trying to find out more about it: woohoo! Found four well-wrapped folks huddling in a tricked out RV and we gabbed on for a while; found out we had mutual friend in Heidi, etc. They’re working on something Burner related and I offered to help. Bit of a distance between us but I can’t resist working on Burn-y stuff, hehe.
–It was FREEZING cold! Soooo glad I brought extra flannel blanket when I finally got back to RV. Still no luck getting ‘shore power’ hookup to run stuff on board so had no heat, no lights, no microwave and no coffee in the morning. Sigh. Would have been good to have at least had an extra warm body or two to keep the chill off but no such luck! Gotta get Judy to go with me next time!

Sunday May 24:
– Met many kewl people including a guy who makes genuine pipe organs in Northern Calif; must connect dots to learn more about pipe construction. Mike managed to make several whistles out of popsicle sticks; several of them working pretty good. Still some things that need to be to be sorted out and quantified to yield consistent results. Maybe we’ll both go visit that pipe organ factory, eh?
Ran into Mitzo one day; had his kid with him so I’m sure they had fun.

–Show wound up at 6:PM

Monday, May 24, 2010, 4:07 PM:
–Recuperating from cascade FAIL: lifted back hatch of camper shell on truck but the air shock had come undone; dropped on my head, knocked off glasses, which hit gravel and fell apart. Rich had just driven up so he snagged lens I couldn’t see. Tried to lift Trader Joe bag out of back but handle failed. Finally got everything indoors, then got spare glasses out of RV. Spares had take the brunt of the coffee I spilled days ago so had to clean ‘em to see what I could do to fix main glasses. Found tiny Philips upstairs and got ‘em sorted although now there are gravel scratches I’ll have to live with. Costco wouldn’t renew my eyeglass prescription because the tiny time window has closed. Have to find local optometrist I don’t trust to get new prescription I guess. More hassles!!!

Well so far today Scott’s called and Todd’s called; good fun talking to both, heh.
How could turkey meatloaf be too spicey for me to eat? Have gone with Plan B: Top Ramen for dinner.

Thursday, May 20, 2010

Drive down and check in a total breeze: good parking, no line! And then…
-Toilet paper fail; had to wipe my gromit with an ass gasket
-Cellphone fail: radio OFF and NOBODY knew how to turn it back on; didn’t get it sorted til after I got home
-Had seen traffic fail with 101N down to 1 lane in SF so took San Mateo bridge to even worse hassle: 84 miles in 3 hours
-Missed Verizon closing time by 10 min
-Home to look up Blackberry fix and network FAIL while finding data: doggy had chewed off Cat 5 lock tab.
-First thing webpage sez is click on an icon I can’t find. Found another one and got it working again a little after 8:PM
-Nighttime FAIL: not much sleep; now that antibiotics are past tense I had to pee 4 times, waking doggies every time. Whiners got me up tooo early!

Friday, May 21, 2010

First thing to do today: catch up on missing sleeeeep! Don’t have to be at Faire until 3:PM but will try for earlier.

-Last stuff to pack:
–paper bag for ass wipes in RV, Plastic trash bag, Tucks pads, laptop, power supply, coffee pot, coffee, water, crazy glue, coffee mugs (where the heck did they go??), small hammer, drift punches to fix improperly assembled newly store-bought chair, CDs, extra air hose and fittings, etc etc