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.

00212 Living room desk almost done

Living room desk
Originally uploaded by Lenny & Meriel.

Almost finished... fading fast... can't make a fist...

00211 RC car mod

An idea I've been entertaining recently (in my parlour with cucumber sandwiches) is to make a "robot sand drawing vehicle".

Now it was looking like a fully robotic (i.e. with embedded microcontroller) vehicle was going to be very expensive and complicated to make. However I've stumbled upon this article by a guy called Jason Striegel, in which he describes how to mod a cheap RC car to take a microcontroller.

The idea here is to create a programmable vehicle that will draw in the sand, either with one or more pre-programmed patterns, or taking an input from a digital image (say a drawing from a Palm Pilot) and copying it on a large scale. The image copying thing would be cool, although it sounds a little daunting to implement. We'll see.

00210 Sticks of pooh

Moulin Huet boat
Originally uploaded by Lenny & Meriel.

What's brown and sticky (and floats)?

The first one is from Moulin Huet. I think I'm slipping into a "flowers for masts" thingy.

The other two are from Herm - I'm definately going to revert to the racing two boats idea. After all that was how it all started.

00209 Living room desk

Living room desk - the plan
Originally uploaded by Lenny & Meriel.

This is the reason I haven't posted up anything recently. It's pretty much done now, just needs a lick of paint and some cupboard doors.

Here's the set with the images in a time-lapsey kind of fashion

00208 Spikey and the pine cone boat

Spikey & Maxi
Originally uploaded by Lenny & Meriel.

Got down to Petit Port on Sunday and scribbled out a quick one with the new small (children's) rake that I thought might work. I'm getting used to it and maybe if I extended the handle and shortened the spikes, it might be a worthy successor to the old favourite.

I also managed a Pooh Stick Boat at Helen and Richard's place. Three hulls and a pine cone - pity the light wasn't up to much:

00207 One last cup

So it would seem that the last of the non handicap cups has fallen to me for the small bore season. I was in a three-way tie shoot-out with Dave Allen and Ron Le Prevost. Fortune smiled on me and I won with a 98, versus the other two's 96 and 95.

It has to be said that in the inter insular I got a 98, 94, 96, 100 and to be honest, I'd rather ditch a cup in the individual for a better performance in a team event.

Also, so that it stands noted, the Guernsey 'B' Team for the Hampshire League, of which I was one of five, were the victors. So I guess that that would be the best win of the season, being a team shoot.

00206 Flames

Flames
Originally uploaded by Lenny & Meriel.

At Petit Port again. I'll definately be doing more here - there are loads of high rocks from which to get a good vantage point over the work.

00205 Celandine boat

Celandine boat
Originally uploaded by Lenny & Meriel.

Quite pleased with this one, as it goes. Quite often the ones that take five minutes to make are the most satisfying. The trick in this case was to get the weak flower stem to stand up straight, but as it happens it was quite easy. You just get a stick slightly wider than the inside of the (hollow) stem and stick that in the hull, then thread the stem over it - voila.

00204 Hatch

Hatch
Originally uploaded by Lenny & Meriel.

The eggs are back and this time they're hatching.

Half an hour or so at Petit Port and as usual, I could have done with an hour to get it just right. The difference this time was that I got to make three, so I'm trying out the "missing egg" thing. The jury's out for me on this one. I though multiple eggs would be a winner, but I'm not so sure Publishnow.

00203 Block of flats lamp

00203 Block of flats lamp
Originally uploaded by Lenny & Meriel.

A really basic and out of proportion model of a lamp based loosely on a building.

I've been wanting to get on and make a project that uses a "basic stamp" for ages - it's a microcontroller the size of a stamp that you can program from your pc using basic. Then I've come across some interesting stuff about how to control lights by thinking of them as elements of a matrix. So the idea would be to have a lamp that emulated a building (like the time lapses of building exteriors at night), with tennants or worker going in and out and switching lights on and off in seemingly random rooms.

Now that's fine with on/off commands, but what if you want on/off and colour changes - ooooooh, it could be really interesting.

I even thought you could have a lift up one side (or up the middle or anywhere or everywhere - mwahahahahahahaha).