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src

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  1. Thanks all, and to all who hit the like button too.

    Continuous baby steps it seems like. One day.....One day she will be finished. I am to ornery to quit!!

    Carl, fortunately only one was left in the solution so there was only one to remake. No more progress other than a couple of blocks stropped. 

     

    Got a call from Better Half this morning, her car wouldn't start. Its been pretty cold the last couple of mornings and her commute is only mile or two now that she is taking the train to work - a tank of gas lasts her all month. I dont think she is driving it enough to fully charge the battery during the week. It was at 12.15v when I got home, once I jumped started it it was showing 14.2 at idle so I am assuming the alternator is ok. It was 12.5 with the motor off after driving it for a couple of miles. We will see what it does after sitting on the charger overnight. The battery is less than 2 years old. Good times! LOL

    Sam

  2. Well now, 4 weeks turned into more like 10 or 12. We delivered the project to the buyer and finished up some details on site. The last week was intense; start at 5 am work through to 8:30 PM to get out of the building we were in before a nightly fire works show. The entrance to the building is 75 feet from the main launch tubes so the building gets closed off for two hours. one night we decided to just work through as we had a final acceptance test the next morning. Holy Smokes, when those first rounds went off I about jumped out of my skin!

    We finished up took a couple of weeks off for the holidays then went back to it. Been driving down to a project location again 5 days a week. Start at 5am leave at 1:30pm. Its amazing what a difference a few hours makes; I can make it to the site in 30 minutes but it takes an hour and a half to get home sometimes.

     

    OK, enough rambling about non build related details. Last weekend I made my boom irons and blackened them. Apparently I left one in the solution and wandered off to do other things. When I went to clean them up and get some wax on them I could only find 3. HHmmmmmmm. Where on earth did it go, I know I made 4. Looks in the jar of blackening solution. Whats that line of black fuzziness? I bet thats my other iron, lets get the tweezers and dig it out. Hmm, cant grab it, whats up?? The wire I made the standoffs with had completely dissolved into powder, all that is left is a lump of brass ring that was the hoop. Ok, time to make another one, it just came out of the solution a few minutes ago.

     

    IMG_1213.thumb.jpg.8f3b27531d2d173ce2dd69fd92632a74.jpg

     

     

    Three irons and a lump (sounds like a song), still need some clean up:

    fore-top-boom-irons.thumb.jpg.dbc3e7538752fef8084f5f99e6e02f9e.jpg

     

    Current state of my Fore Top Yard. Not much different than a few(?) weeks ago. Got the bands on and primed as well as moved the 4 stops to a more accurate position, apparently I had them too far out. Fore-top-yard-01.thumb.jpg.5ca4825f4a66b8ce0513b1c4c9f4960d.jpg

     

    Looking at the pictures I posted back in November I have shaped the Fore T'Gallent yard, now, where is THAT disappeared to?? Perhaps its time to clean the work bench? Nah, I would rather blame the dog.....

     

    Sam

  3. Mark, Nice progress and good to hear your sinuses are clearing up.

    15 hours ago, mtaylor said:

    To everyone's dismay, the refired her up, got the head spinning, and the light went out.  (If had been a chip, it would have remained attached to the chip detector as the detector has a strong magnet in it.). 

    HHHmmmm.... Any possibility this was a coincident? They "Just Happened" to have a light flash on just in time to land at a nudist camp??? I mean, a crew of lonely young testosterone laden men in or just out of there teens flying over a nudist camp? Seems like a fairly creative way to spend an hour or two. 😁😁

     

    I was at work the other day and the subject of the blimp hangers came up - one of the guys parents live over that way. He mentioned they are so large they have their own weather system inside them??? Seems unlikely to me, do you know of or recall anything like that? It gets cold and misty in Orange County where these hangers are, perhaps its condensation forming on the steel and dripping he is referring to?

     

    Sam

  4. Mark, good to see you getting some build time in until the weather decides to cooperate. That balsa dust can be unpleasant to be sure. The one that REALLY gets me going is Baltic Birch.

     

    Ken, back on the 16th you wondered if the old hangers are still there in Santa Anna. They are, it is hard to see them from I5 (the closest freeway) but sometimes if you look just right you can catch a gimps of them. I recall my brother has a photo of his 28 model A pickup with one of the hangers in the background from a car club trip. Monsters thos building are.

     

    Carry on Mark, airbrush or hand brush, looking forward to the results.

     

    Sam

  5. Mark,

    Dust can be a real bear once you are sensitized to it. Baltic Birch really gets to me, I have to leave my respirator on for several minutes and run the dust collection at work a few extra minutes or I end up sneezing repeatedly.

    Would something like this, but an a smaller scale help? Should be pretty easy to build one, just a simple box and some sort of grating on the top over the filters.

     

    1186877195_dustextraction.jpeg.a25a53891f80755ac31405a1c055a722.jpeg

     

    Sam

  6. Hi Jo!! Getting caught up here. You have come a long way since I last stopped by. It looks like you solved your weak spot issue. Thinned epoxy or thin CA can solve many issues. Luies idea of gluing a couple of battens on with pva would have given you some additional insurance until you were ready to add in your additional structure.

    Either way great job.

    Sam

  7. Jo, you're not dumb at all. Heck, I just figured out the difference between a yard and a yard arm!! The Yard is the whole thing, the Yard Arm is the part that extends past the cleats! (I think...)!! All along I thought they were the same. Its a learning curve and you learn by doing and asking questions.

     You are doing fine, relax and enjoy the ride.

    Sam

  8. Hey all!

    I have a day off and some time to venture about here as well as get a bit of build time in. Over the last couple of months i have had some time to finish my Fore Yard as well as get started with the Fore Top and Fore T'Gallent yards. Current status below. I am not 100% satisfied with teh footropes and Lanyards? Slings? that support them. They are kind of misshapen. If I cant straighten them out I will have to re-do them.

     

    I believe the center portion of the yards were supposed to be 16 squared, I am finding it exceedingly difficult to 8 square stock at this size, I stopped there.

     

    I originally built the Stuns'l hardware completely from brass but the banding that mounts to the yard looked to thick even at 1/64" so I made those from the foil that caps wiskey and wine bottles. It worked well, but I need to prep/prime them better in the future, some of the paint peeled off and required a repaint. I suspect a more thorough cleaning with alcohal and maybe a brushing of vinegar to slightly etch the foil will work better. Thoughts anybody?

     

    That's all the news that is fit to print. Best guess is November before I get back on a more regular build schedule. (Murphy, you stay in your corner!!)

     

    Sam

    Fore-Yard-progress-09-29-19.thumb.jpg.42ecadb19a9a109e5f39e44f3f88bfa2.jpg

     

     

     

  9. Jo,

    Your progress is looking great! Barrels dont look bad at all, as Ulyses said, some fine sand paper or a fine nylon scrubby pad. will knock that shine right down. If you go the scrubby pad route dont use the kind you clean pots and pans with, go to an autobody finish suppler. 3m makes some, I think the light grey is the finest, check first though.

    Sam

  10. Mark, good to see you building again. Looks good to my eye.

    In regards to OC suggestion about coating the delicate parts with CA, what about thinned epoxy? You would have more working time and use fewer brushes. Something like West Systems is already thin and I have thinned it down in the past. It is however expensive if this is the only thing you would be using it for. I have tried this with the 5 minute epoxies from the LHS, doesnt work as well, it cures but stays somewhat flexible.

    Sam

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