Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Oxygen

Someone once said, "Sex is like air.  It doesn't mean much until you aren't getting any."

I ran out of oxygen in my oxyacetylene tanks, which has again ground my progress to a halt.  Plus Dad has been feeling bad and I had to get the hedges under control (those pesky hedges). Of course this would happen just before a holiday weekend when I can't get resupplied until Tuesday.  Ah well.
I will follow the advice I got off a coffee mug: remain calm and cary on.
Plus I took advantage of the time and repaired my fist canoe, the Learning Curve.  It's still ugly, but it's still tough and working.  I should be back on track by the end of the day.

Thursday, May 26, 2011

Setback


Well, this morning I can report a series of setbacks.  Not exactly good news, but I am taking it in stride.

The goal for Wendsday was to have the mechanicals mocked-up.  Unfortunately, while I was on track, I failed to get it done.  The chain kept coming off.  The temporary universal twisted itself out.  Then, the fly wheel broke. Then it broke again.  After about the fifth time, I decided I was after it the wrong way.  I could go on rebuilding the mock-ups or I could just solve the problem.  Or, more accurately, the problems.


So, the problem offered an opportunity and a lesson.  Mock-ups are about sketching ideas with function.  Whether they work is unimportant compared to what we learn from them.  In this case, the problems I encountered during the mock-up phase were not only telling me what was wrong with my mock-up, they were informing the design process.  Everything that went wrong can be fixed, and those changes will become the final design.  
It's hard to say if this is a big time saver.  On the one hand, I only lost a day in finding out what was wrong and what I would need.  On the other, it is possible that if I had attempted to build the whole thing out at its highest fidelity, I may or may not have gotten it right.  There is no way to tell since I can't go back and try it the other way.  However, there is the fact that this couldn't be solved with drawings.  Granted, I have done sketches along the way, but not to solve problems as much as much as crystalize the ideas and solutions along the way.  Drawing is important as well, but the mock-up is making it happen.


Anyway, I was hit by a feeling of anxiety today which I have previously only felt in school.  You know that feeling when you have procrastinated a bit only to realize that the project or test is the next day and you haven't gotten anywhere?  That's the feeling.  Ah, procrastination. It's like masturbation: feels good at first, but you're only screwing yourself.  Luckily for me there has been a lot of rain and the river is swollen, so there is no opportunity to spend time fishing and canoeing instead of working.  

Oh, and as insult to injury, I also had a comical moment of stupidity just before bed.  I left the barn to get a few extra logs for the stove.  Since we live in the country it's normally dark, but with dark skies swollen with rain clouds, it was really dark.  I know the yard pretty well, so I moved along through the dark until I struck my face on the light pole (recently unplugged for whatever reason).  Good way to end the night, but I did one better: a hearty laugh at the irony and a cup of sour mash by the fire.

Monday, May 23, 2011

Break Time

So, I got a bunch done on the free wheel portion, so I took a break.... and went fishing.



This bass is a symbol of the High Life.  Enjoy responsibly..... the beer, not the bass.... no, wait: both.

Me and Monty

And so, I have retuned.

Chicago kept me longer than I intended, but it was good to work and see my old friends.  Gregarious as I am, I feel pleased to be back in the shop (tentatively going by the title Armadillo Design Werks).  There is something to the ballance between solitude and congregation which I find hard to manage.  Still, I am back and I have a new companion.  
Meet Monty.  Monty Ward.  He's the lathe, the skull lamp is unexplained.


Yesterday I got the bench built, making use of some old 4X4 posts and a rejected countertop I have had since my days in apartment maintenance (ten years at least).  It needed a good cleaning, and all the wiring was shot, but I have gotten it going.  There are parts missing, but I have managed to manufacture or adapt other equipment to serve.  


It's all making me anxious though.  I seem to be spending a lot of time in the ancillary tasks and it is not forward progress on what is the true task.  I have little time, so I need to push harder and move faster.  This will require a greater sense of organization.
During the last two weeks I was working with some very talented designers on a project which had a solid deadline and was moving forward.  However, as is often the case on big projects, we were beset by problems.  The details are unimportant, but we moved through and got it done (there were no other options which helps keep things moving).  What I remembered from this experience was that one deadline is not enough.
The tasks involved in making require multiple deadlines.  Parts need subdivision from the whole.  The boat, in this example, is a hull and the mechanicals.  But each part of the mechanicals is a collection of more parts.  Follow this thinking too far and you are faced with a classical paradox which will cripple you.  In the proper perspective, each deadline is a milestone for the ultimate goal.  If you focus on the milestones, you will eventually reach the goal.  
An example:

My friend Joe and I were once headed up to my family's cabin in Northwestern Ontario.  It was the first time we had been there, and in our particular style, we had agreed to go early and cary half the gear in addition to an eighteen foot open bow boat.  We misjudged our ability slightly, and aided by one of the worst maps ever drawn (lovingly penned by my brother Sam over coffee at the Chicken Shack) we got lost and were pretty screwed.  However, as things would turn out we made our goal (again, there was no other option).  We did this by carrying the boat down a trail in short sections: get to that tree by the rock and then rest, and then on to the next goal.  Eventually we got there.  And so did the boat.  

It's time to implement that thinking on this boat.  I drew my own map, have my deadline, and now all I have to do is progress.  
Me and Monty have work to do.
What choice is there?
  

Sunday, May 8, 2011

Got the Tools, Got the Talent

Well, the last part of that statement is still in question.  But, I did finally get the lathe I need to continue putting this thing together.



It's old, and hasn't been used in a while, but it should do nicely.
I will have to make some tooling for it, and a special bench to mount it to, but everything seems to be in order.  I would hope some of you had the same reactions I did.
"That's awesome!"
"It's so old!"
"Why did they let it rust like that?"
"Does it still work?"
"Is that a cloth belt?"

No worries.  I am being called away for some work in Chicago, but I will be back in a week to finish the job.  If I can keep myself on track, I will be done by June.  And, this work, while it takes me away from the boat, is going to alleviate money concerns for supplies.  Besides, I love it when I am working.  Maybe a bit of a break will give me the perspective and motivation to really tear through the remainder.
Who can say.

While I was in gridlock waiting for tools, I did get out on a small local river.
Remember Kitty from the previous post?  Turns out she has a bit of hydrophobia, so I got her to go canoeing with me in the learning curve.
It was really fun.  We did tip over, but it was actually my fault with the steering, and after a short time, we were pulling off some pretty slick maneuvers.   At one point, we rode the current around a couple of tight turns and put her through a gap between two fallen trees only wide enough for the canoe.  Dead on.  Very cool, and not bad at all for her first time.
There is something to this sport.  There is a greater value in the water than people can quantify.  We spent a couple of hours on a small local river and it cost little to nothing in gas (drop off and pick up, sure) and we had a blast.  We saw deer, a coyote, geese, fish (and not the bad kind), and beavers or muskrats.  As the Great Recession continues, it's nice to know that the finer things in life are still available to even the lowliest of Americans (I mean me, not her).  And, as I get my nieces and nephews into this, they will become the future of the sport and hopefully carry a respect for the rivers and lakes in their own back yard.

Kinda sounds like a Travel Illinois brochure, but it's no less true.
And never mind the time/date thing.... stupid camera.

Friday, May 6, 2011

The Big Slow Down

Seventy-three days.

That's what I've got to finish this thing.  The trouble is, I am in the big slow down while I wait on supplies and tools.  For the most part it's tools.  The other night I solved my freewheel problem, but it's all on paper until I can get a lathe to make it.  The good news is that I should have one tonight.  My niece Katie is engaged to a guy named Chad, and Chad has a lathe I can borrow.
Of course, there is something odd about borrowing a machinists lathe since they weigh a lot and are typically stationary, but it is still going down.  I will no doubt have to come up with tooling and wire up an outlet for it, but it's the direction I have to go.
Also, I have a friend who does back yard sand casting, and he has tentatively agreed to make some parts for me.  This is a big turning point.

I remember explaining this to a couple of attractive women one night, not long ago.

We were having drinks and talking about generalities, and one of them (who I will call Doc) said, "That's great that you can just think of an idea and then make it."
"Yeah, it is pretty great," I said, looking up through the smoke filled room and flashing my hero's smile.
"And you're so good-looking," Kitty said next to me while she rubbed my arm.
I turned my smile on her, catching, as I turned the flash of passion in her eyes.
"It's not as easy as all that, though," I said, "the easy part is the idea.  That's the sex.  The rest of it, the parts where you turn an idea into a product: that's the relationship.  Nobody thinks about the relationship until after they have the sex.  Then all of a sudden they have to realize it's going to take work and commitment to make it work."
"You're just being modest," Doc said.
"Isn't he cute," said Kitty?
I may have blushed.

Ninjas may have attacked the bar at this point, in some nefarious attempt to stop me and destroy the city and I probably fought them off in a Jack Burton style.

I will leave that for a different blog.  The point is, I am knee deep in the relationship part.  And this is going to take hard work, long nights, and a lot of commitment.
I'm thinking of Blue Collar Man by Styx.    Maybe a montage of me working and that plays in the background blending in to Eye of the Tiger by Survivor.




Wednesday, May 4, 2011

Saboteur

Having gone away for a day or so, I returned with evidence of a saboteur in the midst of my shop.
It appears to be a sort of boat-hating raccoon with utter contempt for what I am attempting to do.  This, of course evidenced by his defecating on my work bench.
Gross?  You bet.
But, I am prepared for such subterfuge.  While I cannot hunt him down easily, I have a few tricks up my sleeve.  Or, rather, I have a large sack of leg traps and a bag of Oreo cookies.
We shall see who comes up on top.

Monday, May 2, 2011

Workflow

The progress is continuing.
I have secured my oxyacetylene supplies and I think I have a solution for the universal joint (it was mocked up with a piece of rubber hose).  I am in a small stand still until I get a lathe and some other supplies, so I took the time to do what I should have done before I started: organize my work.
This starts with organizing my space.
Anyone who has built anything knows that a clean shop gives rise to a desire to work.  Further it facilitates the tasks at hand by stopping us from endless searches ("I saw that wrench over next to the coffee pot....I think") and distracting tasks of immediate organization.  The former is most common, but the latter will kill hours at a time.
It always seems to begin with some sort of rooting around in a box of parts or tools.  You're in there, and you can't find exactly what you want cause it's just a mass of things.  You find stuff you needed yesterday and a part you replaced cause you couldn't find it.  Then, having reached the point of utter frustration which is bordering on anger, you dump it all out and reorganize it.  Good work, but you just lost two hours of your project because it needed to be done.  We had a word for this when I worked at Scott Padiak and Associates: protocol.
Keep your stuff where it goes.  If you use hammers at the vice, the hammers should live together near the vice.  It's simple, but why walk across the shop to get a hammer when you really use it at the vice most of the time?  Goes for every tool.  Drill bits lived at the drill press, saw blades with the saw, and so on.
I set mine up that way last spring.  It's not done (my hardware section is a mess) but I know where my tools are and don't look for them.  What I did organize is of a similar nature: my workflow.
When I run a big job, I like to keep a running list of what needs to happen.  I envision all the tasks by type- in this case hull and mechanicals -and I break those down further into components or tasks.
The mechanicals are broken into drive and prop.
Under drive are the gears, the shafts, the universal, and so on.
It doesn't matter how you do it.  What matters is that you do it.   This time I am using an antique mirror that was in the loft.   I cleaned the bird stuff off it and wrote on the glass with a sharpie.  I like to be able to add and erase entires, so I use something like a white board or glass.  Some people prefer big pads of paper.  It's a preference.   I do recommend using something big enough to see it all there at one time.  If you have to flip pages it will not serve the same purpose.
Anyway, I need to get back at it.  Today I need to do some digital modeling and some drawings.  I got some feedback on the blog, and it seems people would like to see the big picture a little better.  So, next post will contain some images of where this is going.   Seventy-seven days till show time. Need this thing in the water soon.