00235 Bumf

I don't really have anywhere else to post these and even if they are of no use to anyone, they should still be allowed to the see the light of day (or the light of room). They're both from our recent trip to London:



You have to look more closely at this one, or at least I did until Meriel pointed it out (and that's when I got the camera out):

00234 Stool progress

No not an update on my constipation, but the images of the stool seat. I've got this leftover oak from the shelves in the house and they've been cut down and biscuit jointed together to make a large enough surface for a seat. Then I've laminated the leftover reclaimed French railway oak from the living room floor to each biscuit jointed seat and compressed it like so:



Then, once dry, Dave, the woodwork supervisor has set me up with this rig for routing out circular shapes and voila, circular seats:





Next up, it's putting a curve on the edge of the seat and beveling the legs and then treating them and screwing them on. Probably take the rest of the year and that backgammon board isn't going to make itself.

00233 Bighugelabs

There are only a couple of things worth using here, but I really like the DNA thing:



The Random person link is a particularly good way to browse through Flickr members.

The only other thing (apart from their Flickr Widget) is the other thing is the on black feature. I might swap some of my image links for this in future. Here's one from a shot I took at Petit Port recently:

00232 Decoupage

So I'm still thinking about making this backgammon board and as soon as the stools are finished, I'll probably be able to crack on with it. The only issues I seem to be having with it are that I can't decide how to press on with the playing surface. I need to make a decision as to how I'm going to place the markings on the board.
One idea is using decoupage to stick bits of paper onto the surface. I'd then cover the surface of the board in a varnish or an epoxy coat. The only problem then is whether I varnish the surface before or after the board is assembled. If I use decoupage, the bits of paper will be raised from the flat of the playing surface and I really want it to be smooth, this means having to pour varnish on the surface and letting it set to give an even finish. Then, of course, I'd have to make sure the rebate in the frame is large enough to take the increased thickness of the board and I'd also be wondering how scratch resistant the surface would be.

Anyway here's a picture of some bits of magazine stuck to paper as an experiment:

00231 Pumpkins

I was getting a little tired of the Halloween posting on the Make Blog, mainly because it reaches saturation point before Halloween. However, seeing as it's something the kids like doing as well as the adults, I can easily see the attraction of pumpkin carving. We used apples as well as pumpkins, just like we did about five years ago and I must get round to making some dedicated tools for apple carving, then it'd be soooo much easier. Even making something to take out the core to the same diameter as a tea light would be a major help.






The ones on the left are ours (just to illustrate the "cutting the skin, but not piercing the flesh" approach to carving the apples), on the right are the Foley/Bonner-Morgan's home-grown versions - very nice:

00230 KRAP

So I went KAPing and took out the Maxi Dopero on a very light wind day. And so the kite just wanted to go over the seaboard side of this fort and the camera was in the middle of the fort and I was on the land-ward side. All I could do is tie off the kite to the railings and head inside the fort to retrieve the camera suspended over the parapet (or whatever it's called). When I got there I discovered that the kite was miraculously still flying on the other side of the fort. Either there were weird thermals, or the wind moved through 90 degrees and then back again as soon as I picked up the line.
Did I mention it had already crashed before and the kite went into the sea? If you think that the Dopero resists the pull of the wind with alot of force, you want to try pulling it out of the sea. Man that was a fight.
I'm going to have to sort out what's up with it before I try getting back on that horse again.

00229 KAPing Saint's View

I've been meaning to get round to this for ages, but not had the balls to do it. The Maxi Dopero made it all possible and without it, I'd be lost. The winds were light and the sun was out. The only tricky thing was launching from the garden, which was small for such a large kite and completely in the wind shadow of the house. The wind was easterly and mild, so I'll have to try an early morning one when we have a good day and a Westerly. Actually the direction was spot on for walking down the narrow alley between the house and the hedge - it's the only way to get from front to back with a kite as the telephone wire comes in overhead.



Still, I'm pretty pleased with the results - even managed to get some of the sea off the east coast in shot.

00228 I've got the legs

After receiving the legs that I'll be making the stools out of and reviewing the materials that I have for the seat, this is the latest iteration of th bar stool:



Here's Cara with all the legs and a close up of a finished surface:



The legs taper - which I wasn't expecting. And so it seems that without an even remotely simple way to straighten them without revealing the screw holes at the top of each leg, I'll have to stick to the current shape. The only other option is to slim them down, but keep the taper. We'll see.

I'm going to the class tonight, where I'll be giving Barry the oak to be thicknessed down to make the seat.

00227 KAPing bonanza

Two outings in the same week, just like a London bus (kind of).

The first one is Fort Saumarez near Lihou and by crikey that Maxi-Dopero seemed to be constantly over flying, probably because I set the bridle at too acute an angle. Still, it proved that the kite is really very stable.
The second shot is from the Flowform and was much less stressful.
I'm quite liking this oblique view I'm getting from the rig, but I really need some more interesting subject matter.

00226 The best laid plans ...

So after deliberating for weeks on the design of the board I was going to make during the course of my evening classes, I was faced with the revelation that the school in which we were attending the classes was undergoing a minor spring clean, the result of which was that 40 laminated table legs were now available for anyone who was interested. Barry, the course tutor, suggested that someone might like to think about a bar stool project.
So I did the Sketchup thing:



Funny thing, really, seeing as we need two custom sizes bar stools for the island. Anyway, long story short, this will be the new project and THEN I'll do the backgammon set.

Should I be pleased? The funny thing is that I SHOULD be, but I can't help dwelling on the weeks I spent obsessing over something trivial.

Oh, did I forget to post up the legs available? They're really nice:



Oh, and the other thing that I forgot to add was that all of these ideas for the stool were based on a design by Alvar Aalto

00225 Refinements

So I feel like I'm finally getting down to something that I might actually make:



Pity that the pieces haven't arrived yet as they're the lynchpin for the whole shebang.
Still, the feedback I've been getting from Greybeard has echoed my thoughts about the counter tray, which is really the only detail worth pissing around with, apart from the outside of the box - but I'm pretty happy with that anyways.

I think I'll need a fairly comprehensive discussion about the choice of wood, but I'm looking forward to that. Roll on Monday ...

00224 Nicey Dicey!

My dice have arrived! Hoorah. Now just got to wait for the pieces to come (sound of drumming fingers).

00223 Sketchup roundup

Just remembered that all (I think) of our sketchup images on Flickr are tagged and so here's the page of them. No reason, I just like reminiscing.

00222 Backgammon designs again

So I'm now having the usual problem of making too many designs for the board and the more I make the less I like them - Classic.

Here's the latest suggestion:



And here's an experiment with Youtube, which I might yet use more often if it doesn't piss me off too much:



And yes, I do know that it doesn't pause enough on the detail of the joints on the box lid.

00221 Backgammon evening classes

So this will be my next project, a backgammon board or two:



I've got alot of ideas as to how to make one, but as yet I haven't actually made one, so here goes. Maybe I'll dip my toe in the instructables water with this one. We'll see how the first draft turns out.

00220 English Pooh Sticks

Did this one while we stopped on a walk through some gardens when we were in England for Meriel's folks' 50th wedding anniversary - name of gardens lost due to deteriorating memory.



And then later a bad shot on the pool (but with nice colours):

00219 The Ladder Masters

The Ladder Masters
Originally uploaded by JohnSusan&Sofie.

And here is the view of our superb Tour spectating position from the other side of the road. Cakey was there and snapped this one.

We were made up.

00218 Mini egg

As an experiment I did this little egg at Petit Port, but to be honest, it's as much work as a large one. However I did get round to sorting out the finishing a bit better - instead of flattening the sand around the egg, I've started doing a swirly, cyclonic pattern, it works much better:



And here, for comparison are mine, Meriel's and Jonah's:



In all fairness to Jonah, he hadn't quite finished before the tide came in and washed it all away. However he did get to jump on mine as is tradition after the photos are done:

00217 Two KAP outings

With the last of our guests gone, I've got round to posting up the KAP images I took while they were staying. Always worth taking the gear to the beach, as there'll always be an hour here or there when you won't have anything to do but sit under the sun - and who would want to do that?!?

So here's George taking a picture of the rig standing in the sea at Vazon alongside David and Jonah playing boules (which is only in because it's got the flying boule):



Then another load from about two weeks later, this time with the Bayfords at Grand Roques. We all liked the portraits because everyone agreed that it was soooo an album cover:



It's good to get out.

00216 Tour

I've been tardy in posting this up, but here's the meat of what happened when I visited London for the day of the Prologue:

I got to the side of teh route well early, but the crowd was already two deep - I've heard attendance figures bandied about from 500,000 to two million. Anyway there were loads of people there. Needless to say it looked like I was going to get a crap view. But after a couple of phone calls to Dan and James (who were coming down later), we ended up with ringside seats (or ladders):



And here are the two notable bits of vid from the day. Firstly Bradley Wiggins' fourth place ride with accompanying screaming:



And then Fabien Cancellara's superb winning ride:

00215 Skim

Don't usually go for the "find on web and post to blog" thing, but just had to post this:



Blimey, it's like my all time dream.

00214 Living room desk finished

Living room desk finished
Originally uploaded by Lenny & Meriel.

And so am I.

Forgot to post this here - it actually needs a little more work, but I'm done in for the mo'.

00213 Herm reed boat

Herm reed boat
Originally uploaded by Lenny & Meriel.

Don't know what it is that I've been doing recently, but it's really distracted me from pissing about.

Here's one I forgot to post up. Quite pleased with it, although the sails were going to be more numerous and decreasing in size towards the top. Sadly it was not to be.

It floated for a while before capsizing - really thought it would go further.

If I'd had the time I would have made another for a race.