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Finished the mini bedroom audio rack with Rubio Monocoat and glued it up. Now in place and making me happy. Also shown are the Bendy Head headphone stand from Peter @Iron_Dreamer and coasters from Nate. Thanks again guys, and thanks to Steve for the design, lumber, and help building!

Went for a hike yesterday on Paine Mountain, right behind our house

Without protective coverings... Without protective coverings...

Building back on the new job. The painters have their work cut out for them, making the battered old trim look good. I only have to trim two doors with old trim. You know you're working on an old house when the nails you remove look like this.

Prepping dates before their union with goats cheese and bacon. And scene

Batching out cheese boards for all of Kasia’s Family’s gifts. Super easy, but they will think I put in massive amounts of work.

I made brisket chili today so that dinner would be ready when I got home, I then decided that I wanted biscuits as a side.

a pre turkey day new year teaser. sanken output transistors, in parallel. with appropriate switching power supplies, capable of about 25 amperes. can be built with 30v, 35v, 40v power supplies if you change out the pzta06/pzta56 with bf722/bf723 then you can go up to 60v supplies. with 40v supplies and big enough heatsinks, 100 watts rms into 8 ohms. lets see how much joamat can shrink this one. balanced output impedance, .5 ohm

TLDR: if you are an old Plasma hold out it is time to move on. current OLED is significantly better in 99% of the viewing experience and getting 4K + HDR alone is worth it. -- couple weeks ago we upgraded from the old 50" Panasonic UT50 plasma (~2012 era) to a 55" LG C2 OLED. i knew it would be a jump but i am shocked at the improvements. every single aspect of viewing is better with (maybe) one exception in cinematic motion. i was never a fan of smoothing but with this TV you can very delicately apply it to de-judder and even things out. 1917 4K last night was absolutely spectacular. had i realized the jump from blu ray to UHD 4K I probably wouldn't have waited so long, however 4K is starting to get less expensive and i have a pretty large physical library of blu that will take a long time to upgrade even 30% of.

Milo & Otis finally had another chance to do a project for fun. I have been wanting a small scale audio rack for the bedroom rig. Steve came up with a design idea using some 8/4 mahogany that he got for a song a few years ago from a guy closing up his shop. We also had a length of 8/4 white oak left over from a job last year. The shelves are mahogany and the tapered legs are white oak notched into shelves. Got all the pieces milled and a dry fit done today. It's looking great and will be greater still with sanding, chamferered edges and Rubio Monocoat finish.

Saw my favorite band (or the lead singer Mark Burgess and other non-original members) The Chameleons last night. Met the guitarist in the Mexican restaurant next door, had a nice chat. Got to meet up with several folks I know from FB-land, one couple came from about 2 hours away! Fun times! After their set, Mark came out and was chatting with a bunch of us at the Merchandise table. I got this idea - having had my son with me to see his two-person live show recently - to ask him to wish my son a happy birthday for next month. Mark was awesome to oblige, and I have a nice video I will send Andrew on his BDay!

Pre-Test - all is looking good, though all my suitable thermometers are broken..

Mad science shit... I got it mostly dialed in. But after pulling six double shots, sampling them all and drinking two of them completely, I am buzzed...

I think I have mentioned that my brother saved the redwood siding from the mid-century ranch-style house they took down to build their new house. I have been ripping it into various widths and planing a portion of it into interior paneling for my sister in law's tack rooms. It has been a hassle using a Jet bench top planer that the contractor bought because the smaller Dewalt he borrowed for me was inadequate. The samples I planed in my shop flew through the Hammer and came out beautifully. With the Jet, I'm pushing and pulling and frequently having to flip the stupid switch between two speeds that trips to neutral regularly. The other pain has been the two-sided "helical" blades because the stock ones were practically pot metal and lasted only a couple of hours per side even though redwood is quite soft. We got some Jet carbide replacements that are much better, although I think I have already chipped 5-6 of them and not on nails as far as I can tell. Still, from green or white or gray painted 70-80 year old boards are looking good and will make for beautiful if rustic paneling. I took the pics of finished boards before I was done yesterday. After adding up the boards in various lengths and in widths from 4" to 11", I realized that I have planed over 1000 linear feet of boards.

So the LCD3 Zebrawood showed back up tonight and I think I just bought a pair. Rob, you get the LCD5 and we'll compare and see if they're worth it, kay?

Recently got to go see Arturo Sandoval at Dimitriou's Jazz Alley in Seattle. I posted a pic online and, well, a good bit of the band decided they'd post that picture as well, including the man himself! Then we got to have a performance of Autumn Leaves by Deeds/Deedles/Diane Schuur (if anyone knows/of her). First time at that jazz club, and won't be my last.

The ponywall cap and railing are White Oak and the round pickets are set directly into the floor, negating the need for a bottom plate. It makes for a really modern look IMO. The pickets will be painted the same White as all the trim. The brass bar hanging above the ponywall is actually a pot rack. I finished the railing to perfectly match the White Oak flooring. The two bi-fold doors on the far Left are factory made. The four other bi-fold doors are built by myself to match the other two. Someone screwed up and ordered doors that didn't fit, so to avoid a multi month re-order, I just built them.

Battery holder printed well clips in right. Going to mount them to the wings of the drill cabinet to allow for my fat fingers to access the buttons.

Some progress with Tube Hybrid(something). PSU; left – Board with filament transformer and transformer for GRHV style regulator (+100V). To the right is Connex SMPS, put it in top of the first board and you have PSU with 6.3VAC, +100VDC and +/-30VDC. Amplifier board with a tube daughter board. The required -5V is done on the amplifier board with a smd 7905 and a few capacitors. Will it work? Who knows?

soo to get it into a dissipante 3u chassis

I loved Hogan's Heroes so much that I started digging a secret "tunnel" in the field behind our house. I never got further than a hole a few feet deep with a piece of plywood covered in dirt clods and weeds as camouflage, but I still outfitted it with some stuff and played out there... RIP LeBeau 😢

Now I’ve listened to CFA3smd something with switched mode power supply for almost 2 months and I’m happy with it. So, no plan for a golden reference supply. I’m too lazy and I think the switched power supply is good enough for me. Next “project” is how to power a Tube Hybrid. The Hybrid needs +100V, -5V and 6.3VAC for the tubes. The PSU has to be rebuilt. The amplifier board is finished, in theory…

Creating GoFundMe now.

Making the most of global warming and got in a ride to the coast this morning. It was 65 at 6AM...

Ping-ponged up a sign out of HDU for a friend.

Winding down on another remodel. I'll post a few pics for anyone interested. Cabinets all installed. Waiting on appliances mid November. Bottom cabinets are veneered in Fir. As is the island and floating shelves.

Looks fun lit up with the more traditional jack o lanterns.

Couldn't let Jeff have all the fun. Didn't come out quite like I hoped but ok enough for this year.

When I was at Al's Brother Tom's house for Thanksgiving yesterday, I came upon this log that was cut from a fallen tree. I realized that I had about 20 minutes before dinner would be served and I happened to have a 1/4" chisel in my pocket that I forgot to put away, so... It just happened to fit on this metal stand that they had.

Thanksgiving, so excess calories in a variety of forms.

It's BBC's has submarines, murder, spies, ununderstandable English, and Rose Leslie. Pretty entertaining.

Jalapeño, Sausage and Cheese Kolache

Wilco fans, got a grail this morning at a local record show

R.E.M. - Murmur On a short list of the best debut albums in rock music, IMO. Still love this one after all these years.

Soooo, back tracking again. I bought the Aluminum Cali Tool from Amazon but did not notice the seller was one of those mini Amazons that sell everything from their own warehouses after several delays in shipping I finally got the delivery today, and it was a cheap patio heater. So that was refused and is going back and I went and got a 26 gallon quiet tech and an auto drain from Lowe’s. They even had it priced wrong with a sticker so I got it for $50 less than the going price. Now I am compliant with all of Steve’s recommendations.

Welcome to Vermont

Loose Dry fit for the Ipe/Sapele cocktail table. Hopefully it will get warm enough at some point in the shop to actually finish it.

I did a 20 mile ride today and somewhere along the way I wondered whether @MexicanDragon has logged 20 miles total on his new Vado that got him so excited. Waiting for a reply...

This morning required French toast.

Bill Frisell, Greg Tardy, Gerald Clayton, and Johnathan Blake, Four. "...a stunning 13-track meditation on loss, renewal and friendships” written mostly during lockdown. Ex.

On a new job today. Today is all about delicately removing these door trim plinths and base moldings in the hallway. I can't find this trim to patch in the kitchen, so I'm removing it in the hall, to patch the kitchen with. It's 200 years old and brittle as all he'll! I'll put similar but new molding in the hall.

Some folks “over there” seem interested in Kevin’s Tube Hybrid. So, I removed a lot of small components from CFA3smd boards and replaced them with dual triode and double op amp. All according to info I found in Kevin’s library on google drive. It should all fit in the same box as CFA3smd. PSU needs additional voltages, 5- and 100-volt sections and filament for tubes.

All of the pulls for the lower cabinetry had to be inset into the doors and drawers. I built a jig for my trim router, which made it an easy task.

I waited a year for this stuff to dry -- apparently almost to the day -- and then jointed and planed it. Looks kinda similar. But now it's flat and smooth.

Back at it, brisket style.

Finally got to break out the smoker for the first time since I bought it a couple months ago. @cetoole found pork shoulder for 99 cents/lb, so I got an 8-and-change pounder and broke it in. I had a cayenne and garlic infused garlic honey that I've liked before spread over it and rubbed in, along with some brown sugar. Let it rest overnight uncovered in the fridge, ground some salt over it today while the smoker was going through its initial burn in/up process. Have a learning curve (smaller-than-13-hour-hopper, so I ran out once), but... it doesn't suck.

The plywood walnut definitely has more of a red tone than the solid walnut; but then again, the drawer fronts do not really match the top so not too big of a deal. The dog supply cabinet is as far as I can get it now without decisions on drawer pulls.

meow_irl