Merry Christmas

Recovering from our insane schedule the past month...

Our tree, festooned.

The Saturday previous, Josh and Colin came to visit. Josh had never seen Snap Circuits
before.

Children tend to listen to adults who are not their parents more patiently.

Brotherly love on Christmas.

The tiniest Clone Warriors.

Henry looked up the instructions for building this on the Lego website.

The proud Lego maniac.

My mother gave the boys gift certificates to the local toy emporium. Max picked out two science kits involving slime and slime-like substances.

Felice measuring out chemicals.

Max is holding colorless slime in his blue gloved hands.

Merry, Happy, Christmas...

Sorry posting has been light,work has been killing us...

Max built a brain for Chaunukkah.

Felice's mom gave her these tight fitting pyjamas.

Some links:
Cannon Fuse
Sniping in France
How to Wear a Ruana

Hope to have some spare time soon! Maybe even take a half a day off on Xmas.

This and that...

Felice bought Max a toy drum set:

Here's a picture of the entrance to my shop. It looks chaotic.


A few links:

• The Finished Part blog
• Shrinky Dink Microfluidics
• Glacern Machine Tools, Machine Shop Videos
• Model Engines, 1937 (Pathe is online! Massive timewaster.)

Sunday Drive

We decided to drive up north to Rickreal for the flea market.

An Oregon fall day on Hwy. 99W. There are two highway 99's...99W and 99E...both run N-S.
Felice and the kids took some pictures while I drove.

A lot of fence...$$$

Happy boys.

Fertile farmland.

Give me the camera, Max!

I bought this pocket thickness gage at the flea market.

A small pinion gear meshes with the dial face to set the zero.

On Display

I made a jewelry display for the Co-op...

I had to mark the hole locations for the hooks that hold the earring cards. I decided to use this assembly...

A nice old Lufkin tool...holds two rules at right angles to t'other.

The display is done.

See, it rotates...

Felice looking really enthusiastic in her new (to her) drafting chair.

Earliest Uses of Various Mathematical Symbols

Gurley manual of surveying instruments , I picked up a copy the other day. The plates are great.

Tinysaur, tiny dinosaur kits...

Henry's Workstation

I finally downloaded LDraw onto Henry's computer...The install is painless and free. Oh yeah, it's a 3D Lego CAD program.

Notice that he is using a trackball.

"Dude, this deadline is killing me."

Quick Super Soaker Repair

We picked up a Super Soaker D5000 at a yard sale yesterday. Unfortunately it wouldn't pump up.

I removed all of the screws holding the two halves together.

Then I used screwdrivers to pry that orange cap off (to the right). It has a small lip that retains it.

The plunger o-ring was a bit worn/dried out so I replaced it with one from my handy O-Ring Assortment Kit
. It's a pain to press the orange cap back on, pressing it against the edge of my bench worked best.

Now it works.

Telescoping Magnetic Pickup

I threw an old set of TV rabbit ears in the trash.

Then I took it out of the trash.

I peeled off the felt on the bottom and removed the steel plate.

A screw holds each antenna on.

I drilled out the rivet head.

Then punched out the rivet.

Leaving me with one telescoping antenna.

I counterbored a piece of steel to accept a magnet.

And drilled the other end to be a slip fit over the antenna end.

The parts...

Epoxied together. Now I have a slightly cumbersome telescoping magnetic pickup just like one that you could buy at the dollar store.

More Toy Repair, A Fishing Rod

Max broke his magnetic fishing rod.

The plastic tube failed.

A classic failure.

I sawed off the tube with an Xacto razor saw.

I turned up a grooved dowel to fit inside the tube.

I mixed some epoxy. I will never again buy the twin tube style of epoxy...it's impossible to get the same amount of resin and hardener to come out at the same time, their viscosities being different.

Dowel smeared with epoxy inserted halfway into the tube.

Fixed!

A subdued, yet happy, Max.