Current Events

This cute little fellow is named Melman. I have seen him at market a number of times. He is very small but he has an attitude that would fill a much larger dog. He was growling at me when I took this picture. His owner said “Don’t pet him, he doesn’t like people”. I complied and managed to get this photo at great risk to my person.

She visited my booth and after seeing the folk art wooden cut out dogs that I offer and asked if I had any that looked like Melman. At that time I didn’t, but since then I have rectified that problem.

Now there are Melmen:

In the process of sawing out those puppies my bandsaw broke down. That is the way of tools - use them, they break. In this case the key that locks the pulley to the to the motor shaft had backed out while I was running the saw and flown off to parts unknown in my shop. I spent a long time looking for it, using a magnet in the dust, to no avail.

So then I drove over to the big box home store and asked the old-timer there if they carry key stock. “No, don’t believe we do.” Having purchased it there before I told him that they do, in fact, carry that product. Rather than argue with my elder, I set off on foot and eventually found the bin of flat, round and square stock. The key needed to be something under 3/16” square, so I bought a length of a square steel bar, square in cross section.

Since my bandsaw was made in Japan it has metric everything. So the bar stock I bought had to be ground down to fit. That process took way longer than it should, walking between the grinder, the belt sander and the saw, constantly checking for fit.

After several hours I produced a short length of metal that sort of worked as a key. I had to hammer it in, so maybe this one will stay put. If not, well, I have several more feet of key stock and experience with how to grind it down to fit. Not that I want to go through that again.

That job finished, I was then able to finish sawing out Melman. Or is that Melmans. I am not clear on that point.

I did have the idea to make a giant Melman, maybe three feet long, but for now, I need to deal with the life size versions prior to making that Trojan Melman who will be full of, well, I don’t know what - maybe tiny Melmen who jump out while everyone is sleeping.

Next up, I resumed work on a walnut bowl. I use a right angle close quarters drill with an extender and pad for sanding turned work. In the past I found that the Milwaukee p/n 0375-1 worked very well and was built to last a long time, even under continuous duty and lots of pressure.

Of course, Milwakee stopped making them, and didn’t give me a heads up so that I could set a few aside for then they fail. Sure, one can find them for sale, used, but that’s kind of a crap shoot.

So I bought a cheap Chinese version, made of solid Chinesium, which of course, lasts just a small fraction of the time that the Milwaukee version lasts.

So, of course it crapped out as I was sanding a bowl that has a deadline. That is how those things go.

I do have a spare, different brand, that I bought years ago, so I was able to press it into duty and get the job done. That one has a strong spring on the trigger, so strong in fact, that I can’t keep it depressed, so when I use it the revs go up and down - like a chainsaw being used to saw a small tree - ree, reee, reeeee, ree, and so on. Very annoying. A replacement should arrive tomorrow, and I may even consider buying a used Milwaukee off eBay. We will see.

Our drought is still going strong. My lawn is dying, my trees are suffering and while the weather forecast routinely says that there is a 30% chance of rain somewhere in the vague future, it never arrives. I have a neighbor who pays a lot of attention to meteorologic conditions and I asked him when we were going to get some rain. His answer, “Never”. That sounds bleak, but with the current path of the jet stream, the strength of El Nino and the paucity of tropical storms, who knows - he may be right. I said “But what about tropical storm Chantal that hit here last July?” It originated in the Gulf, blew up and blew through here and dumped ten inches of rain, causing much damage. While I would prefer that out rainfall occur in a more regulated and measured fashion, at this point we could just use the rainfall.

I wrote that I read “Dune”, by Frank Herbert and that I wasn’t going to read other books in that series. I kind of did read “Dune Messiah”, skimmed it, really, and while I found “Dune” to be a pretty well written, well thought out book, “Dune Messiah” struck me as more of a short story stretched out to novel length. I had some good parts, the ending wasn’t bad, but most of it was a lot of blah blah blah about “I’m blind, I can’t see, I can’t tell what is real and what is prescience” then the dude actually does go blind and wanders off into the desert.

I mention this only because I have become convinced that our drought is connected to my reading about a planet where it never rains. Yep, I have no doubt about it. So no more Dune books for me, bring on the rain now, dammit!

Today is the two week anniversary of the loss of my little orange kitty Queenie. This one hit me hard, I don’t know why, but time will pass and I will make it through. The loss of a cat, in the big scheme of things is not huge, friends have lost family members and somehow they manage to keep moving forward. I must take a cue from them. But I still miss my girl. Good thing I have another cat, Eadweard, known here has Eddie, who was rehomed to my house just about a year ago. He is taking good care of his Pappy and I am thankful he is here.

But this is the first time this century that I have not had an orange cat in the house. To get another one or not, that is the question…