Roadside Mysteries

The big laser is being played with to some extent:

We got the buttons, joystick and analog current meter installed!

So far the operation is via manual control and individual commands from the computer but soon these colored buttons will allow the user to place the laser beam exactly where they want it and then move it where they want, when they want. Think the 007 movie  Goldfinger and the famous lines: “Do you expect me to talk, no Mr. Bond I expect you to die.”

And Mr. Wallace is back from Scotland to get the next upgrade completed.

Laser Web served up on a Beaglebone

… whatever that means.  A claymore refers either to the Scottish variant of the late medieval two-handed sword or the Scottish variant of the basket-hilted sword.

No, just a lesson on the HUB’s MIlling Machine

Steve placing in the bit

Center punching the location of the hinge

Suseth making a whole lot of wood chips

Today we learned how to use the wood milling machine. I forgot what we were making but the machine made a lot of noise and sawdust.

Picknick time at Boyd Lake State Park:

Boyd Lake beach is more clay than sand

The clay is easy to find and sample. Just watch out for various bird (and people) droppings. You might think the clay would be good for making  DIY pottery, perhaps?

Clay test pieces

These are what I would call “Raw Boyd Lake Clay” in that the material was never processed to remove the sand and bird shit or whatever might be in the clay before rolling it into the shapes seen above.

Hot Kiln, up to 1800 deg. F.

This is  a small kiln the HUB got free. It’s small, but it was free, so we took it.

Cooked out Clay

The clay samples are shown above, each taken out of the kiln at a temperature listed below (I needed to put this data someplace, and it shows how long it takes the kiln to get up to temperature.

Kiln test, start time 9:58 AM

TIME            TEMP Dec. C         Samples

10:04                200                     one, band #1 greenware color

10:12                 400                     two, dand #2 red with dark spots

10:18                 500                     one, band #3 red, reduced dark spots

10:26                 600                    one, Band #1+, bright red, no sport

10:40                 700                     one, band #2+, as above

10:59                 800                     one, Band 3+, as above

11:39                  900                      two, unmarked, dark drown

Hub Grand Opening

The link above gets you to the YouTube video of the FCCH Grand Opening!

We entered a film at this year’s 48 Hour Film Fest…

Not a proper movie camera

OK,the picture above is a mock-up of an old ’50’s style camera made from a cardboard box and two smoke detectors. We used it to make a little promotional bit for the NoCo 48 Hour Film Fest. They will be showing our film on February 28!

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