Monthly Archives: September 2009

Make-ing Things

September 3, 2009 – 8:57 pm

I’ve been busily  making stuff.  Here’s what’s been keeping me busy:

This is my version of a Woolly Mammoth guitar pedal I’m going to call “Mastodon Dave.” This is the test wiring.  Yet to be done is to get Kristin to paint the case, and then I’ll do the final wiring.

I’m working on a balsa glider with plans I got from (the incomparable) Make Magazine.  Here I am working on the critical step of joining the two sides of the fuselage together.

You can see that the two sides are more or less straight.  After doing some more finicky work, sanding, gluing, tweaking, and fussing, it looks even a little better now.  In the background of the above photo, you can see my new telescope – the latest accoutrement for my long series of intellectual obsessions.

The fuselage nearing completion.  Shaping the nose cone was a little hard.

Here’s a little trick I picked up from this guy’s photoset – bevel the edges of the equipment bay hatch so it will slide in and out rather than tack-gluing it or using tabs like the plans said.  I am really happy with the job I did on it, too, and when it is closed, you can barely tell there are two seams there.

I’m also working on the physical hardware for the sensors for my Fishapp. It’s coming along well, but slowly, as the mounting and hardware is the hardest thing about those kinds of projects for me.

Happy Making!

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Moving the Fish

September 3, 2009 – 8:43 pm

Here’s a few pics from our move to NC.  As most of you will know, we have a 55 gallon fish tank that we love, and we wanted to move the tank and all the fish to their new home in NC.  Here’s the fish in coolers, getting ready for the move:

And here we are, in the car, with the fish loaded, gassing up, about to move.

The fish were troopers and here there are in their coolers, waiting for us to be able to set up the main tank and send them home again.

If you’re interested in the details, here’s what we did: We bought two large coolers, lined them with large trash bags, and bought cheap batter operated air pumps and a digital submersible thermometer.  We poked 2 holes into each trash bag and stuck airline tubing in them, one tube for the airpump, one for exhaust.  The idea is that the airpump will continually pump fresh air into the water, the bubbles will agitate the surface for gas exchange, and the exhaust will vent off any “old” air.  Left some air space up, sealed the backs, threw them in the back (wedging pens under the lid so the tubing will not get crimped).  All worked great!  Thinking of starting a business moving rich people’s fish.

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