Month: March 2010

Contacted shirt supplier. Should be able make an initial small-order with a penalty fee, but it’ll get in the stuff there’s demand for.
Also enquired over getting patches made. Ballpark prices fairly reasonable. But don’t think I could get much of a markup on them. Still..

Received in the post today; 24 DIL sockets. Should allow quick replacement of the 4N35 photo-isolators on the parallel port breakout board I’ll be making for the Bonsai reprap. I really don’t want to kill the workshop PC, after-all. Nor do I want to have to re-solder the board when something inevitably goes sparkly-wrong.

Currently doing inventory on mobile shop stock. Almost there.

[20/06/2010: Amalgamating old posts from “Dreamwidth Creative Blog” into sci-fi-fox.com to re-purpose DW blog account.]

Paw-pads:
Well, the Shore 75 rubber is now here, the 60 has been returned. I’ve not yet caught up with the orders though. There’s a rare collective motivation going on in the house right now that’s saying “Yes, let’s actually clear stuff out!”

Workshop:
Over the past few days I’ve filled one of the wheelie-bins all by myself just with stuff from the workshop. And there’s more yet to come!
It’s been a really harsh thing to do though. I’m a packrat, and I do tend to use the things I pick up sooner or later. But it’s best not to dwell on it all. The space is far more important atm.

Reprap:
Ordered some more Bonsai prototyping bits, but the aluminium tube was out of stock in the end, so I’m going to have to go with stainless instead.
You see, the first simplification I’m making to the Mendel layout is to use the frame as the runners by wrapping the studding with push-fit tube. It should also have the benefit of making assembly and adjustment easier, if I cut the pipes to the correct lengths. Just assemble and tighten.

Art-bike:
Also stripped down the big bicycle frame someone dumped in the alleyway. The front fork stem is the same diameter as the stem on the unicycle I picked up last year. Will have to do some careful grinding and welding, but fitting the unicycle up as the front wheel should be fine. And the frames pedal cranks look like they’ll swap with the unicycle ones, so I can hopefully get the mechanism I was after working alright.
It should make it all into a nice half-horse and buggy. Eventually.

Blacksmithing:
I’ve got a rough forge assembled, but I still need to line it with refractory. Have fire cement and perlite, but think I need to pick up some dry sand too. Well, and some charcoal.

Video:
Got some footage from the digital camera that needs editing. Also haven’t yet tested the capture machine I assembled last week. It’s on my to-do list.

T-shirts:
Seeing who’s interested in what types and sizes. Think I can afford to get one atm. No reply from supplier atm. Will call them in the morning and make an order for the large blue UKFur shirts.
Also converted the carrying case that came with the shirts into something more like a portable shop by chopping down an Ikea hanging rail and mounting fixings inside the case. Now I can store the rail inside the case and use the case as the base of it.

Art:
Yeah, I’m behind on this. But I am catching up.

[20/06/2010: Amalgamating old posts from “Dreamwidth Creative Blog” into sci-fi-fox.com to re-purpose DW blog account.]

First mail-order UKFur shirts have been posted.

Got a reply from the manufacturer, so can calculate more accurate prices now.

Also heard back from TOMPS. Will hopefully have the correct hardness rubber tomorrow. Just have to send back the Shore-60. Little suspect of them saying it should be fine in regular post, since they state it’s not when they’re sending it. Can understand they’d want to keep the postage cost down since they’ll be giving me a credit note as postage repayment.
Will pack it well and send as Recorded.

BIG clear-out is in progress here.

[20/06/2010: Amalgamating old posts from “Dreamwidth Creative Blog” into sci-fi-fox.com to re-purpose DW blog account.]

Busy busy bee.. or ladybug, since they’re everyfuckingwhere

Old 1.7Ghz machine is out of storage. Running diagnostics to see if I can isolate where the hardware problem is (I suspect the 80Gb boot disk), before installing Win2000 and a capture card on it. And nothing else.
Will also put the old 5.25″ floppy drive in it and see if any old disks still work.

Yesterdays castings are de-moulded. Unfortunately two sets show small areas of unmixed pigment. Will have to double-stage mix it from here on. Still, getting closer to high-resolution shots of all sets, as well as having display sets.

Called TOMPS, still no word yet. Sounds like the boss is out of the office a lot these past few days. Still, have someone wanting a footpad order, and won’t be able to honour it until I have the shore-80. It’s been a week since I emailed them about this.

Up to 9 Mendel brackets cast. Should have the rest needed in an hour or so. I’ll lock up again for a bit after that, get some artwork done, before casting some more pads in the evening.

Had a reply back from the connector company, wanting to know the pitch of the connector image I sent them. I thought I’d included that in my description. Yep. Ugh..

–

DorkBot London was very entertaining last night. My main point of confusion had always been that I’d never found where they talked online. Simple answer; they don’t. You go along, meet people and then communicate one-to-one. This seems surprisingly traditional for such a techno-arty field.
I suppose things like the 2600 meets are the same though. It just feels a little upside-down to me though, having mostly gone to groups or forums which then sparked real-world meetings.

EDIT: 5.25″ drive seems to be working intermittently. Will have to strip it down and clean it.

[20/06/2010: Amalgamating old posts from “Dreamwidth Creative Blog” into sci-fi-fox.com to re-purpose DW blog account.]

More macro shots

Another batch of pads is packed up and ready to go.

First took the opportunity to re-photograph them all in macro mode properly though. Here’s the winning shots so far, cropped and resized to 75%.

About to go upload them to my DA and FA accounts.

More will be cast tomorrow before I head out to Dorkbot London in the evening. Means next order will ship friday, most likely.
Will also be casting up 12 reprap-Mendel frame brackets for the Bonsai Repstrap prototype. And I’ll get photos of the new colour mix.

Still no word from resins supplier. Will be phoning them tomorrow to get this Shore-80 situation sorted out.

[20/06/2010: Amalgamating old posts from “Dreamwidth Creative Blog” into sci-fi-fox.com to re-purpose DW blog account.]