Breakfast, Dinner, etc.

I made pancakes this Sunday morning.

Apples fried in butter and glazed with brown sugar, the whole thing drizzled in maple syrup. 1/2 whole wheat, 1/2 white flour pancakes, recipe largely from the Joy of Cooking.

Max says "wipe my hands", overlooking the fact that he probably needs a shower as well. This is what happens when you don't supervise a dinner of rice noodles.

We couldn't decide which of the two pictures was cuter.

This webcast has a segment 2 minutes in on our html head earrings. Yay, we're on fake TV. Now I need to get back to work and make more as we're out of most of our geeky stuff right now.

This is why I love America.

Various Stages in Making a Girandoni Receiver


Ok, only one air rifle picture, this is the ugly green Crosman 400 I resealed this week. The stock is now stripped and stained a walnut brown, and I reblued the metal parts, and painted areas where the original paint rubbed off. I'll post a picture of the completed project later...

Happy New Year!

Drilling Paper

Someone asked on the Etsy forums about drilling paper. I figured that it would be a good learning experience to try drilling paper with some pretty low tech methods.

A 3/8" diameter thin wall piece of tubing from the hobby store. I countersunk the end with a 82-1/2 degree countersink.

The "zero-flute" or "weldon" style countersink, but any countersink would do.

Set up in the drill press, rotating around 1200 rpm, I brought it down into a stack of paper.

Drilled 1/2" deep, a little ragged, but overall a very quick way to put holes in a bunch of paper at once.

The tube is jammed up with paper discs, it would be best to add a slot/hole in the side to allow the discs to eject. I then tried this using a hand drill and it worked fine as well. While not as good as a professional paper drill, clearly this method works well enough for short runs.

Yet another topic to address in my massively outlined, completely unwritten, guide to drilling for craftspeople.

You'll Put Your Eye Out!

Just a few staged pictures for your Christmas.

My Little Sharpshooter

Is this how it works?

Deadeye Max.

Having brought Christmas Cheer to my Redneck friends, let me reassure those of you who may be ready to scream at me about gun safety that:
1) I know the internal workings of the Daisy BB gun, and removed the shot tube, determined that there were no BBs in the rifle (or anywhere that the children could lay hands on them), plugged the shot tube (barrel) so that nothing could escape the gun were it to be fired, and finally that Max is incapable at this point in his development of physically cocking the rifle in order to make it shoot.
2) Max was under my watchful eye at every instant of this photoshoot, and I do not let him wander around with a BB gun normally. This rifle is always locked up in a cabinet. He was reminded constantly not to aim the rifle at any persons or animals, the last picture was taken by holding the camera away from my body, so at no time was the rifle being aimed at my person.
3) This is a part of our embracing Korean culture, as Korea has a great tradition of using air powered weapons for hunting and shooting.
4) Were I to let Max fire a BB gun, he and I would be outside, with a suitable backstop, and both wearing safety glasses.
5) This is part of my clever plan to get one or both children into the 2016 Olympics.

Have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

The New Taig Carriage

A small Christmas present, the new carriage:

It's a hard anodized aluminum extrusion.

Note the t-slot on the back of the carriage, and the dovetail on the front.

They will, at some point, be used for mounting a stepper motor...

The small setscrew locks the gib adjustment screw. The ding on the t-slot was not part of the production design...

Anyway, not a bad redesign?

Recovering...

Apologies for not posting lately, we were all stricken with severe colds, as well our businesses are harsh masters at Christmastime. We hope to be less busy in a few days...but here are some pics.

Max started using the computer. I wish he could do my book keeping.

Well, it's a start.

"Noodle Sandwich!"

Mmmmm. Henry invented this treat.


I was recently reminded of one of my favorite children's books:
100 Pounds of Popcorn
Which is a great primer on sales and capitalism, even for adults!

Did I ever mention that you can still buy Hardtack?

Not PC, "Shooting: For Boys" It has a great chapter on convincing your parents to buy you a rifle.

I just bought this fly by night branded LCD TV at K-Mart. I feel better about shopping at K-Mart if I remember it's really S.S. Kresges