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Fixed image to make it a little more family friendly

Well, their boat stuff works pretty well. Here is a repair I need to fair down and paint - waiting for the weather to warm up.

Are you making stops for the Woodpeckers track you put in? Steve found some flip stops from Rockler if you want to check out a fast cheaper option than the Woodpeckers StealthStop I bought (and haven't received yet). I tried my HVLP sprayer for the first time today. Three coats of shellac on the base and drawer faces of my dad's desk. Super easy and smooth once I got the hang of it. Controls for air flow, material flow, spray pattern, and size of pattern takes a little effort to dial in but it was definitely a lot easier than the alternatives. And a much nicer experience than the airless sprayer I tried a couple of times. In less happy news, I learned that the maker of the 8' LED lights I installed wasn't playing around when they said not to daisy chain more than five lights together. I had one string of seven lights that I had originally intended to split up with an extension cord at some point but forgot all about it. Yesterday that group of lights started flickering and went out. Turns out the first one in the chain was melting. 😳 I've now made sure five is the most and might reduce that to four.

Tried out a new finish today, Total Boat Halcyon in satin. So far pretty impressed (minus the price). As easy and as fast drying as lacquer in a water based varnish. After thining a little with water it was easy to spray with a HVLP gun. Being a marine varnish it should be pretty durable.

Malcom Cecil and Robert Margoule's Tonto synth.

Looks great, Steve. Building the tree house sounds fun, something I would never attempt with my kids. They would ask every 5 minutes when it would be done, then fight over the best spot when it was finished. Maybe one day I’ll hold each of them their own chair. Little more work done on the miter station. Figured I should get the counter top done so I can work off it. Woodpecker rail slots cut and test fit in place. Will shoot a couple coats of marine varnish on it tomorrow then mount it in place. Then drawer boxes. Hate drawer boxes.

Crikey! A very tasty "Kiwi" Sausage roll, consumed in a very gentrified Healdsburg Plaza. Not shown: Steak & Cheese Pie, Steak and Mushroom Pie.

I think you won't go wrong with the Forrest blade. But a Ridge, Tenryu, etc. would surely be just about as good. I generally only use one of the bandsaw ports. I have not notice it working any worse doing so. And I don't have my whole shop plumbed. Instead I have a single large hose that I move from tool to tool. Works just fine. My #1 shop rule is that I am never in a hurry, so I don't mind a few extra minutes moving things around. https://www.rockler.com/rockler-dust-right-4-quick-change-handle-with-expandable-hose

If paper towels hadn’t worked okay my next try was going to be a thin handkerchief.

The diodes can go bad, especially the zeners on the output sockets but that's about it.

I have a set of the Woodpecker stops on order, but shoot a link to the other ones. I figure worst case I can also make some. The desk looks awesome. I really like using a HVLP. I have a Devilbiss Finshline, but picked up a Harbor Freight Black Widow. I really like the HF gun, shoots way better than the Devilbiss.

Alden likes to play parts of that travesty for people because of how god awful it is. 😆

I meant to post this last week when I actually built it, but forgot to. I also forgot to take finished pictures with the newel caps in place, but use your imagination. A couple of weeks ago one of the bosses told me that he forgot to call the stair guy to build railings at the new addition of a smallish job. By the time he remembered, the stair guys schedule was too far out to meet our deadline. The railings needed to mimick the existing railings of the San Francisco Victorian home. He asked me if it was something I thought that I could do. Stairs and railings are usually a specialty, and as such are usually subbed out. A sub genre of finish carpentry, if you will. I haven't actually built indoor railings before, but I knew it was something that I could accomplish. There were no solid newel posts available in the size that I needed, so I built my own. As these will be painted, I used Poplar. It's a good, stable wood that doesn't have the most beautiful color or grain pattern, but is easy to mill and takes paint very well. The exception are the pickets, which are Alaskan Yellow Cedar. Kind of felt right using a wood from my home state. It's not soft like the usual Cedars, and has a very unique smell when cut. I got to use a lot of tradesman tricks and practices, and a lot of the math that I told my teachers I'd never need. Yes, they we're right. I did a lot of good preparation, so it wasn't just dumb luck, but it did fall together beautifully. The absence of a lower rail that the pickets sit on is a bit unique, but the existing rails pickets also connect directly to the stair treads. It actually works quite well at tying the newer, somewhat modern addition to the classic Victorian style. The caps not pictured are a pretty simple double cap design, with the bottom cap being 5/4 material, with a smaller top cap of 3/4.

Installed the carcasses. Picking up acacia butcher block for the top tomorrow. Then I need to put together 17 drawer boxes/pull out trays.

The sound: it’s spectacular! Compared to a Stax SRM-007tii with 60’s Mazda Brimar 6CG7’s or 50’s RCA long black plates with D getters, the sound is far more relaxed, analog, detailed, expansive, dynamic and musically involving. I can’t wait to get some NOS EL34’s in here. The Berkeley Reference DAC shows off the Megatron’s speed and transparency; the DAC and Megatron are both detail monsters. The Megatron is a far more capable amp when connected to the Berkeley Reference DAC than a current low-noise, low-distortion reference amp, such as the Topping A90, which I also have. The balanced inputs: dead quiet - perfect with the Wireworld Platinum 8 series XLR interconnects. The voltage gain: I can’t imagine needing any more gain than I’m getting with the 1958 Holland D foil getter E180CC’s (thanks to the community for the tip on these) and the 1948 RCA 5751 triple mica black plates. I will say that this amp takes a solid hour to warm up, however. Temperature: just touched 126F on the exterior of the right transformer case after a couple of hours - the internal temperature was typically within a couple of degrees when previously measured, likely due to the machined vents around the tubes. SMALL UPDATE: Kevin suggested some whisper fans to deal with the heat buildup; this is an excellent idea. Hum: there is none whatsoever, there is only dead silence, irrespective of where the pot is positioned - it’s absolutely impossible to tell whether the Megatron is on, when powered from a current-gen PS Audio regenerator set to 120V. Definitely T2 level stuff! I CANNOT THANK KEVIN ENOUGH

posted for the owner who will comment much further. (for some reason he cannot publish high res pictures)

Just finished today with the raw version, case and final cables are left for later. Soekris PSU and buffer boards. The designed Amgis transformer was not on stock, so I had to replace it with a 2x6V Toroid. 'm using OPA1602 now, but will switch to OPA1612 when they arrive. Have not yet finished the controll board, although I'm not sure I will. The sound is very similar to the dac2541, definitely better than the RME ADI2FS or other similar quality DS based DACs. More spacious and detailed. I think it even bests the Qutest, although it was a while I listened to it the last time. Can only recommend!

Ran my first (mostly in person) conference since COVID this weekend. It was nice to see people in person!

Late to the party, but here goes. Lured a nice small case off of MLA for a cheap penny, wanted a compact CFA (SE). Took some time for my slow mind to figure out how to best use the space in three dimensions, but I found a solution that works fine so far, if you're planning something similar. No interfering leads or unwanted nearness of critical components, and bias can be set without problem. In reality, I'm surprised it turned out quite airy and spacious, considering the limitations. Note the Müller Rhombus transformer device ("Konzept Raute"). This romboid plate interacts wit the circular toroid shape and the electromagnetic waves are forced through the four holes in an endless loop in this electronically confined space, and thus traps all hum in an existant/nonexistant void. This amp is noise and hum free. I'm particulary happy with the volume control, a 24-position Swiss Elma switch that's been lying in a drawer for 35 years. 15K (why not?), shunt coupled and making as little contribution to the signal as possible. I think this plays a part in the clean, revealing sound of the CFA design. The odd resistor out is in the position I mostly listen to, a hand selected Syldavian military plutonium component (0,01%) from 1953, made in a numbered series of three of each value (I own the third one as well) and these days sold on ebay in Hong Kong for not less than $1200, if available at all (only one for sale during the last nine years). Set the bias at first to 150mA, it sank to 135 after some time, which was to be expected. Decided too raise it (why not?) to 200mA. Put the lid on and after three hours it was stable at 175mA after a last fine-tuning. Gets warm, but not too hot. Like all successful, completed builds it sounds wonderful , but if that lasts only time will tell. If so, I may be tempted to follow up with a CFA3.

There is a good point of view to have in life, never buy anything from Hifiman!

RIP to a random person: Krysten Gentile. Krysten died a few days ago, at age 40, of stage 4 metastatic breast cancer. She worked at the same company as my wife Karen; I was able to meet her once when she and Karen had a Zoom call with each other. I poked in and had a brief but very pleasant chat; Krysten's persona - so bright and beautiful - shown through even in that brief moment. A truly beautiful and amazing woman, she fought hard, and was public in her fight and in positive thinking to help others. She created a web site & podcasts with another Philadelphia-area woman with stage 4, "Making The Breast Of It." She touched Karen's life, and even a tiny bit of mine. Obituary: Krysten M. Gentile (nolanfidale.com) And....FUCK cancer!