Places to Go

Photo From Here

Here's something I should mark down on the calender. Pretty much a straight shot down I-65 from my place. Surly and I were there for a bicycle swap meet a couple of years ago. We both unloaded some treasures and neither one of us drug anything much back home - mission accomplished. I'm not so sure that would happen with the motorcycle swap meet but it might be a fun way to kill a few hours.

I didn't realize when I joined the Amateur Radio Relay League in order to learn more about ham radio that there are things called "hamfests". There's a couple of those coming up on the calender as well. One in LaPorte and one in Brazil - that would be Brazil as in Indiana, not South America. The one in LaPorte is not too far away, plus there's a museum there I've never been to. There was an auto museum but apparently it has closed down but over thirty of the cars are now in the county museum which I believe took over the building. Even if the hamfest is a bust, I could salvage the day by stopping at the museum later. If gas stays below $2.00/gallon, the cost of driving over there and the admission fees together would still be under $20.00. Other than the library, hard to spend a whole day anywhere for less than a double sawbuck. 

And when I get the Sportster running later this year, I'm going to take a ride over to North Judson and check out Kersting's HD and museum. I've been there a couple of times but it's been a while. I can check out the Hoosier Valley Railroad while I'm there. I've been there lots of times but as long as I'm close, be a shame not to check out the trains. 

There's a nice bike path at the far end of the rail yard. The Traveling Pirate and I rode it a couple of years ago. It's nine miles long now but there are plans to extend it. Looking forward to getting out on the bicycle more this year. I was going to sign up for a 5K walk this spring that I've done several times but they've raised the price to $33.00. I can't see paying $11.00/mile to walk. Maybe sign up for the Tour de Max bike ride instead. It's been a few years since I rode that one. Don't know if I need to ride the 62 mile version like I used to but they've got a 25 mile route, if I remember correctly.

Enough of that. Time to get busy. The Missus has been in the hospital for the last few days so I need to do the laundry.

Have a good week.

Let's Hope So

Photo From Here

I got a chance to see the layout for the new machines that are going to be coming in to the lab at the college. Looks like there's going to be both manual and CNC lathes and milling machines along with a grinder, saw, etc. Much of the equipment that's currently in place is going to have to be shuffled around and the one resource room is going to become the office for the new full time lab czar and maybe the tool crib for the precision tools. Lots of work to do in the next couple of months. They're hoping to offer classes starting in March - probably why they kept me on. Some extra muscle as well as someone to keep up with the regular maintenance chores while the machining program is getting set up. The new guy seems to be pretty cool, by the way. Looks like he and I will be able to work together well.

Don't have anything to report on the project front. Between the weather and chauffeuring the Missus back and forth to the doctor/hospital, I haven't been able to get going on anything. It's supposed to be a bit warmer for the weekend. Hopefully I can get out a do a little something.

A Craftsman's Legacy

My wife turned me on to A Craftsman's Legacy on one of the PBS channels. It comes on after a couple of the cooking shows she watches on Saturday afternoons. I've only seen a couple of shows but it's definitely worth checking out, especially since it's so damn cold outside. I went to the web site and it looks like you can watch previews of the shows right from there. That's pretty cool. The show's host, Eric Gorges, is a custom bike builder and he's already done shows on saddle making, blacksmithing, woodworking, boatbuilding, gun and knife making, guitar making, as well as a couple of others. This struck me as kind of funny because, while I'm certainly not an expert at any of those things, I've managed to try my hand at many of them.

Boat building?

I made a tiny one.

And a little bigger one. And I've got a bigger one still under construction. (Read that either way you'd like. Bigger still or still under construction. With me - still under construction is probably more appropriate.)

Blacksmithing?

Done a little bit of that. And if you look closely at the left side of the photo of the pond sailer, you'll see some gouges I hammered out from old files I made expressly for that project.

Woodworking?

I made myself a door.

Saddle making?

Not hardly. But I can do a half-ass decent saddle stitch as seen on the holster and the sheath. The knife I made from scratch using my blacksmithing skills, the black powder revolver from a kit which covers the blade and gunsmithing. 

Guitar making? 

I'm no luthier, but I did make a hammered dulcimer. For a cheap home-made instrument it actually has a pretty decent sound. (I drilled the holes for the tuning pegs on the milling machine, by the way. That way I could have the spacing exactly correct and I could put them in at an angle.) I wouldn't call myself a musician but after I made it I did learn to play The Wabash Cannonball for whatever that's worth.

The point here is not to blow my own horn. If I was going to do that, I'd have to make one first. In fact, I remember seeing a black & white documentary about Illinois Jacquet and him visiting a factory where they made saxophones and thinking at the time you'd have to be quite the craftsman to make a saxophone and I wouldn't mind trying my hand at it. However, the point here is that we should all be making things. In addition to the TechShop/maker spaces I mentioned recently, there are lots and lots of other ways to learn skills and pursue your passion. I attended the Marc Adams School of Woodworking a few years ago when I found out I was going to be teaching Woodshop. I learned enough in one weekend to be able to bluff my way through when it was time to teach the wood lathe. I've been to several blacksmithing conventions as a member of ABANA and IBA. and was fortunate to have learned a few things from some of the best smiths in the world. There are schools and workshops out there for just damn near anything you want to learn. Want to learn how to drive a team of oxen? Tillers International. Blacksmithing, boatbuilding, fibers, or sustainable living? North House Folk School. I attended a class on building NASCAR stockers years ago and Surly and I attended a workshop on aluminum forming with Ron Covell. It's out there if you look for it.

Do yourself a favor this year and learn a new skill. Take a class, attend a workshop, watch a DVD, read a book, whatever it takes, and then try your hand. Put down the phone and pick up the hammer, saw, knitting needle, crochet hook, shovel or rake. Feed your mind and exercise your hands. Those opposable thumbs are there to make and hold tools. Don't let them go to waste.

Anita Ekberg

Photo From Here

Anita Ekberg, the star of the Fellini film La Dolce Vita passed away.

RIP

Couple Mo' Things

I got this in the Rivendell Bicycle newsletter:

"You should always pay attention to quality. A coffin, for instance, should last a lifetime."

- Kurt Tucholsky

I've often wondered about the whole coffin/casket thing. They embalm you, put you in the coffin and then seal you up in a vault and put you six feet under. Lot of effort to preserve your remains for no real good reason. Other than contaminating the ground water, seems to me the old pine box would serve just fine. Dust to dust and all that.

Photo From Here

The caption from the other site says it's a flat tracker but I say put the lights back on and run it on the street. I'm going to have to get me a Guzzi one of these days.

Even though it's been colder than a well digger's ass the last few days, I'm itching to get back out and work on something. And in the spirit of gearing up and being ready when it warms up a bit, I ordered some aluminum for the door panels on the VW. As you can tell from the photo, I ordered it from Online Metals. I placed my order early Wednesday morning and it showed up here on Thursday - quite pleased with that. Most of the VW suppliers sell the panels but I wasn't sure if they would fit the Super Beetle for one, and the sheets were about half the price of the store bought. When it warms up (it was only 15 degrees in the shop yesterday at noon, zero outside)  I'll get my lay-out, take them to school and cut them on the shear, then put some type of pattern on them with the bead roller. I'm still not sure what I'm looking for with the dash on the car. Hopefully something will hit me while I'm working on the door panels and finishing up the floor pans.

Time to see if I can get the car out of the auto-shed and down the lane. Need to do something other than laying around snacking.

Couple O' Things

Too cold to do much of anything today. The wind started blowing last evening so we're looking at -25 windchills and maybe actual temperatures of -10 below tonight. Fortunately we didn't get much snow Monday night - three, maybe four inches is all but it's enough to cause some drifts. I think I'm going to spend most of the day either reading or down the basement cleaning up the bench and starting back on a little metal working project I started a couple of years ago.

I need to go into the college some time this week for about an hour - need to get my syllabus posted and a couple other things to be ready for next week when classes start. Looks like I'm still employed as a lab tech even though they hired a full time guy. Not sure why they would need me and him but they must have a plan. The boss said to keep on keepin' on, so that I will. It'll pay for my commuting expenses and help with the toy/tool budget so I'm not complaining. Especially since I wrote another check for my health insurance yesterday.

I talked to a young guy who's attending Purdue. Told me what he's paying for a year. He'll probably have close to $100,000 invested in a four year degree by the time he's done. He said they've shortened up the requirements, however. His program used to require 136 hours, now it's 120. Apparently they're trying to keep the cost down and get people to graduate within the four year time slot. That's a step in the right direction. The Maker Movement book mentioned people relocating to be close to a TechShop. For the price of a university education, I can see that as being an attractive alternative. Find cheap housing, take the classes you want, work in a well equipped shop and pursue your particular passion. Wouldn't work if you want to be a concert pianist, but if you want to make things might be the right way to go.

Alcoa has come up with a new process for making aluminum sheets. They can make them faster and 30% stronger with the new process. I saw it here.

I saw this in a comment here a while back. It's been a long time since I've heard anything by Country Joe McDonald and got me to thinking during this annual time of reflection. This one was from 1971, the year I got married and I turned 21.  Lots of time has past but we still haven't learned anything. Once again we've got riots in the streets, protesters carrying signs, and unrest throughout the world. I wish everything was going to be all roses and sunshine for 2015 but there's another war coming - there always is, God help us.

So here's my somewhat melancholy advice for 2015: Pay down your debt, stockpile some groceries, learn new skills, make beautiful things, plant a garden, lend a hand when you can, and hug your babies. And if you can't do that, just don't be a dumb-ass.

Stay warm.

Maker Movement Manifesto

I just finished reading The Maker Movement Manifesto by Mark Hatch (thanks Kevin). In addition to being the CEO of TechShop, he's got quite the resume. MBA for starters, former director of global technology at Avery Dennison, former director of computer services at Kinko, and a former Green Beret. With a background like that, I figured what he had to say would be definitely worth reading and I wasn't disappointed. But I've been a fan of the maker movement ever since I became aware of it several years back, so I was pretty much hooked going in.

The Maker Movement Manifesto is broken down into these parts: Make, Share, Give, Learn, Tool Up, Play, Participate, Support, Change.

Several of these really struck a chord with me:

"Making is fundamental to what it means to be human. We must make, create, and express ourselves to feel whole." As a shop teacher I spent my whole career training people to have the skills so they could make things. A big part of my teaching philosophy was to have the students make projects. Nothing really unique to me, standard old school shop practice going way back to Sloyd and Manual Training. What's interesting is, while the Maker Movement was coming into being, shop classes were being closed. Rather than incorporating the new high tech computer driven machinery into existing programs, they shut the traditional programs down and decided we all needed to go to college and become engineers or scientists. In the Maker Movement innovation is not driven by the engineers and scientists. It's folks like you and me. The kinds of people who like to use their brains and work with their hands. They just never had an outlet for their creativity before.

"You must learn to make. You must always seek to learn more about your making. You may become a journeyman or master craftsman, but you will still learn, want to learn, and push yourself to learn new techniques, materials, and processes. Building a lifelong learning path ensures a rich and rewarding making life and, importantly, enables one to share." That's me right there. I consider myself a master craftsman but I still want to learn new techniques, materials, and processes. It's just hard to do without access to the tools and the community.

"You must have access to the right tools for the project at hand. Invest in and develop local access to the tools you need to do the making you want to do. The tools of making have never been cheaper, easier to use, or more powerful." Not just me - having access to the tools is part of the Manifesto. I've definitely invested in tools over the years. If you've been reading here for any length of time, you know I've got a pretty well equipped maker space. However, it's all old school equipment. The only thing I have in the shop with a transistor or a chip is my radio. Not that that's all bad. It just limits my ability to work with new processes and materials.

They are going to be adding machining to the course offerings at the college soon. They will be getting both manual and CNC equipment of some sort but I'm not sure what. I don't know what the politics are in a state community college system but if I were in charge I'd be looking into converting the lab where I work into some type of maker space right about now. I've mentioned before that nothing is made at the college. Not only is there the community college but there is also a private university, several high tech manufacturing businesses and a progressive vibe around much of the area. Seems like the area could support a TechShop/maker space of some sort while fulfilling the traditional role of the community college. Seems also like the people in charge of education are always behind the curve rather than taking a leadership role and being out in front. If you accept that we all must learn and make, then the decision to fund areas to do just that should be a foregone conclusion. The question then becomes how to best meet the needs of the students and the community.

The Maker Movement Manifesto is a good overview on the Maker Movement - where it started, where it is now and where it's headed. For a guy like me, it's good to see all the exciting things that are occurring. From my viewpoint, this is what education should look like rather than the traditional path. Go to the work space, take classes, pursue your ideas/dreams. If you fail, you fail fast and the cost of failure is merely part of your education, not a major setback. You're surrounded with a bunch of like minded individuals opening the way for cross-pollination of ideas and a support group of experts if needed. I just wish there was one close by.