n_maher

Today's fun was working on the next two retirement plaques for our two longest-tenured employees who are both retiring at the end of the month, one of whom just happens to be my boss (John). They have 86 years of federal service between them. Anyway, I'd been working on a concept for him for a while, wanting to make the plaque something that would be unlike anything else that someone would receive. When Jackie, our Community Planning Liaison Officer, I seized an opportunity to talk to a friend who is the Director at the Naval History and Heritage Command in Boston, MA. For those that don't know, that's the group that is responsible for the maintenance and upkeep of the USS Constitution. So last week I took a few hours off one morning and drove down to Charlestown to pick up some raw materials that they were kind enough to give me. The hardest part of the day was spent machining copper that was taken off of the hull of Constitution during her overhaul in 2015. I decided to use a sheet that had significant patina and try to preserve that by engraving off a small portion to reveal the name of the person that the plaque will be for. I used a diamond tipped drag bit, I'm pretty happy with the results. My mill is unexpectedly struggling when trying to plunge into soft metal, I don't know if I've got the plunge set too fast or if it's an issue with my tooling, regardless it was way more of a hassle than it should be. Next up was using a piece of ash that was taken off of the ship recently. The maintenance detachment actually is pretty much working on the ship year round removing rotten wood and replacing it with new. Most of the ship is white oak, still grown in a specific forest in Indiana, but this piece of ash was pretty cool in that it had finish on two surfaces and had pegs that had been used to join it to other, adjacent pieces. Overall w/ one coat of finish Edge detail, w/ original finish. The top recess will get a command coin in it and the bottom pedestal will support the name tag. I've made two matching plaques which is appropriate since they are holding the retirement party together on Thursday and I figured it'd be weird if I made one substantially different than the other. There's not much left to do on these aside from apply a bunch of coats of finish. The end grain in particular is obscenely thirsty. I'll try to post finished pictures but I tend to be terrible about taking pictures of projects when they are done.

Outfrickenstanding work, Naaman.

Not nearly as exciting as some of the other entries here but I got the east coast ping pong table back up and running today, with integral dust extraction, for another retirement plaque. The plaque itself probably doesn't look all that impressive, but the multiple layers/depths, and clean up to have it look decent represent about 2-1/2 hours of programming - and that's after finishing the design. Upside is that I taught myself some stuff, downside is that I've got two more projects to complete this weekend due to the number of people retiring at work. I'll post some details on those soon enough as they use some truly incredible materials. Intermediate phase of cutting Raw (unfinished, but sanded) product

I can only echo the sentiments of others, shit, this sucks. RIP Steve.

Happy birthday, Todd! And cool news on the in-family space cadet.

The other option is to have the panel threaded to match the pitch on the switch so you literally thread it thru. I've had to do that in a pinch on a really thick panel but would avoid it if possible, it's high risk (fit). I'd opt for the back side recess which I've successfully done after the fact if push comes to shove.

The full squish rig is still broken (derailleur) so I decided to try the hard tail as a 29er today. Was a shit ton of fun and I think I may prefer it this way. Time to find a second set of 29" rims.

That, I would argue, is pretty reasonable. 😉

I guess I took this statement, "LeverCraft Coffee isn’t going anywhere, and we will be refocusing our efforts to provide excellent beans, tools, and education to our community," to mean that they would be continuing to sell coffee. Yes, they closed the cafe but that wasn't the whole business.

Failed how so? The online shop interface still seems to be working, not that I'm going to attempt to go all the way through the process to pre-order $200/lb coffee beans. I have my limits.

All of this.

We could probably print/machine an example so you could see how the switch fits, assuming you have the switch on hand already.

I'm incredibly slow and inefficient at it which is frustrating given how well I know 2D CAD. Still it was satisfying to design even a simple part and have it fit. There's no way on earth I could have designed the actual dust extractor, or put differently I probably could have it would have just taken a year. But all the required parts are printed now and the three main pieces of the body are permanently affixed. I'll get one of my homer buckets setup as the first extraction vessel and hopefully make some wood chips next weekend.

Happy Birthday, Bryan. Here's to hoping your day started with good coffee and ends with good whiskey - and that everything in between was great.

The gulf between me and a ~$4000 espresso machine can be measured in leagues. Like 1000 of them.

I think for the most part, you don't need a scale but they can't hurt. I've been making perfectly acceptable espresso for years now without one. For me it's a matter of the fact that I don't want my process to become so arduous that I don't want to go through it. Am I sacrificing something as a result? Almost without question. But is it enough to worry about? Not for me. I can always add more steps to the process if I start to become unsatisfied with the results. I've expressed enough of my love of this machine that I won't belabor the point here again. My thoughts for you are wether or not you think whatever machine you buy will be a gateway or an endpoint? If you think this is step one on a slippery slope I'd recommend the Bambino for it's low cost of entry, ease of operation/usability, and predictability of results. As most hobbies teach, you can always upgrade later. If you buy something 3-5x as expensive and end up not enjoying the process or results you've sunk a significant chunk of change into an appliance that doesn't have much resale value.

Can confirm. Fucking way. Spitting frozen shit just to the north of you too.

I successfully designed (Fusion360) and printed my first part on Wednesday. It's an adapter to transform the diameter of a cyclone dust separator that I'm printing for use with the Shapeoko as my had and I are going to use the machine to make parts/pieces for a quad of Adirondack chairs this winter. Stock part left, my part right. Combined Assembled with 2/3's of the separator, the third piece is printing now and should be done in about 12 hours. Then I have to print one more each of the nozzle/hose pieces.

Happy Thanksgiving to the best internet family out there. Like my tall friend much pie was consumed, but not too much. There's no such thing as too much pie.

Smoked 7lb bone in turkey breast. Was delicious.

^^^ Looks delicious.

Happy Birthday!

Not today but yesterday I had two what I call “Real Men of Genius” moments. #1. Had leftover poutine and thought to myself, I bet that would make a hell of an omelette. Result was yes, indeed, it was delicious. #2. Had leftover smoked pulled pork. Decided nachos were required. It was a good day.

I was getting ready for a bike ride this afternoon and hunting through the dryer for some gloves when I spun the drum by hand and it made a huge bang. Hmmm, that's weird, says I. I find the glove and attempt to restart the dryer and no joy, no spin, no heat, no nothing. So I make the executive decision that this is not going to ruin my ride and inform the family that laundry is off limits for a while. Got in a good ride with two local buds and then got to work. Initial prognosis, the belt is still around the drum so deeper we go... Problem found, the belt had slipped off the idler pulley and then the spring that loads the idler had fallen off so the whole drum had to come out to get at things to perform the relatively straight forward repair. About a half hour later everything was back together and working. Worst part is that the belt is worn so I'll get to do at least half of this again sometime sooner than I'd like but at least it's working again.

Or just talk to the guys at Howe & Howe... https://www.howeandhowe.com/