The Squamidian Report – Jan. 4 / 14
Issue #606
Including:
The Ontarion
Hi All,
The dog ate the fudge. A large plateful of thick, rich, sweet fudge.
The amazing thing is she didn't even get sick, heck, I thought it would
have done her in. I'll start at the beginning. 'The Wife' did a lot of
cooking and making of stuff like fudge and peanut brittle and pies etc
for giving out as Christmas gifts as well as for our own use. She makes
a slab of fudge that is about three quarters of an inch thick by about
ten inches square. She had given said slabs of fudge to several people,
and had cut up a slab and placed it in a tin cookie container to give
to her friend across the street. We decided to go out the other night
for supper, something we hardly ever do. And to make it even more
unique, we left the dog at home. The dog usually tags along when we go
out because, well, just because. She, the dog, generally just sleeps
when we have gone out without her but we have learned we can't leave
any food items, like bread or anything else that normally gets left
out, out. If we do, she tends to take the item and stash it behind
something or under a cushion. I guess she figures she'd better prepare
for hard times on the off-chance we don't come back. However, this big
tin of fudge was on the table in a container with a lid. We didn't
think she'd even notice it. Wrong. When we got home the container was
on the floor, the lid removed and almost all of the fudge gone. It was
not stashed anywhere, not hidden under or behind something. The only
clue was that the dog acted a bit sheepish when we approached the empty
container.
She didn't get sick but did spend a fair amount of time in the back
yard, assumably relieving herself of all that sugar. Her stomach
rumbled for a few hours and that was it. I have no idea how anything or
any one could eat that much very sweet stuff but she did. She didn't
even appear to have a sugar buzz. 'The Wife' had to made a replacement
batch.
*
Flying the SR 120 has proven to be a challenge, but a
very fun challenge. We kept Christmas to a minimum but I did get a nice
Blade SR 120 helicopter for my birthday to add to my R/C stable of
radio controlled things that fly. The reason it is challenging and has
required some learning on my part is the way it differs from my other
R/C helicopters. They are 3-channel, coax rotor machines. That means
they use twin, counter rotating main rotors for stability. If you
neutralize the controls, they tend to stabilize into a fairly docile
hover, relatively speaking. The 120 is twice the size of my other ones
and several times more powerful, and more important, it is 4-channel
control. And, it is single rotor, much more realistic but much less
inherently stable. A 4-channel airplane incorporates ailerons, a
4-channel heli has side-to-side movement and yaw is controlled by the
left thumb lever instead of the right thumb lever that controls rudder
on 3-channel systems. And it is fast and can 'get away' or out of
control very quickly.
I've been working on simply hovering in the living room. Thats the
first step in learning to fly it, learn to keep it under control. Due
to several reasons including the turbulence from the rotor wash, it
tends to move back and forth and sideways on its own and the
osculations increase if you don't counter with proper, tiny, gentle
movements of the correct sticks at the right time. It does not have
that set of counter rotating rotors to act as a stabilizing gyro,
making it closer to the real thing from a handling point of view. My
first attempts resulted in numerous, immediate crashes. Nothing too bad
as I was usually able to get it powered down before it would get too
far out of control.
Each flight has improved, slowly at first and now crashes are pretty
rare. When I can't bring it back under control I can usually land it
before it hits anything. It still wants to 'get away' but I assume that
at some point my hands will have learned to control it smoothly. What
is really tricky is jumping back and forth between the heli and the
airplane. Control is different and therefore your hands must adjust to
compensate.
Now this is kind of funny...so many of us in my motorcycle chapter are
into and have R/C equipment now that we basically have an 'airborne
division'. We are thinking about having designation patches made up.
Several of our riders have the quad style helicopters, ranging from
tiny little things that fit in your hand to very large camera
platforms. One person (DrMucker) has a unit worth over $2500 due to all
the bells and whistles he has. He uses his unit for photography and
video, and has a heads-up display attached to his controller that gives
flight info readout as well as displaying what his camera is seeing. It
also has incredibly sophisticated on-board electronics that can even
fly the unit back to where it took off from if the unit looses signal
contact with the controller. You'll get to see some of his video in the
spring when we do our slow speed skills training because he will
capture some pretty cool video from some pretty cool angles as he
maneuvers over, around and though the bikes. Most simply have the
small, indoor helicopters like my first units, and they are having a
blast flying them. And a lot of laughs. Sit in on one of our coffee
meets and you'll end up laughing so hard your sides will hurt.
Oh, this is something many of you in the central and eastern parts of
this country don't want to hear, but we've been flying out R/C machines
on green, grassy fields and playgrounds under balmy temperatures, and
any of our riders who didn't put their bikes away for the winter are
happily riding to our meets.
doug
****
****
THE ONTARION REPORT
Hello everyone and welcome to the Squid for 2014!
So we’re into another year and it’s just getting colder and colder here
in KW. I hope our level of snow stays no deeper than it is right now,
for the rest of the winter. I managed to clear the 2” that were on the
driveway this afternoon but my fingers were about to drop off by the
time I was done. I have a great pair of Fire Department winter woolen
mitts that were given to me when I retired by the Deputy Chief. I guess
he figured I’d be blowing lots of snow in my spare time! He was right
and I’ve used the mitts every time I’ve used the blower. They actually
were the heavy black mitts that I wore for 30 years to fight fires in
the wintertime and they’re still like new. They were FD issue and they
have a solid 1” thick role around the wrist that keeps the wind from
whistling up your sleeve! They are really warm and even when they got
soaking wet while working a fire hose they still kept my hands warm. As
long as you didn’t take them off to scratch your nose they would
maintain the heat but if you did remove them even for a minute you
defeated the purpose of their intent. Like a dork, I figured I could
clear the little bit of snow from the drive today in five minutes and I
wouldn’t need my big black mitts! Well, I was wrong, it took me a half
hour and my little knitted dress mitts just didn’t do the trick! Like I
said, my fingers were about to drop off by the time I had finished. Oh
well, I’ll know better next time for sure! I also figured I wouldn’t
need the spout on the gas container when topping up the gas in the
blower. Well, I was wrong about that too! As the gas level reached the
top inch of the opening on the tank, the gas can slipped in my hands
and spilled gas on the blower motor as well as on the floor of the
garage and I guess onto my boot toe too. I didn’t realize it got on my
boot until I was back inside and Carole said she could smell gas in the
hallway. I checked and sure enough my boots smelled like gasoline. I’ll
have to take them down stairs and clean them before I do any TV
watching this evening. Can’t leave them in the closet smelling like
that otherwise everything in the closet will pick up the odor.
*
This morning I took the capacitor from my old (1975)
Sears table saw down to an electric motor repair shop on Breithaupt St
to have them test it to see if it was the cause of my old saw refusing
to start. It only took them about two minutes to find that it was still
as strong as ever. The motor repair guy asked me what it was for and I
told him it was off my old Sears table saw. He asked what was happening
or not happening with the saw and I told him it just stopped working.
The motor was my next bet to check I told him but he suggested I try
one more thing before taking the motor out. He asked if I had an air
compressor with which I could blow out all the electrical controls on
the saw. I said yes but I had tried blowing the sawdust out of the
controls and it didn’t make any difference. He said that being the “on
off switch” and the overload reset control were sealed units they were
hard to clean by blowing the sawdust out but, if I pushed in the
“Reset” switch and held it in while blowing air in beside the switch
knob I might just clear the minute particles of dust off the internal
contacts that were likely preventing contact from being made, thus
allowing them to once again make the start circuit complete and most
likely the motor would start. All the way home I was thinking that I
had given the switches a good cleaning when the saw first quit working
but maybe he was onto something. So I’d give the air pressure one more
try the way he suggested. I got home and went right back down to my
workshop to do just that! I reinstalled the capacitor and gave the
reset switch a push and a good blowing out once again. I then plugged
in the saw and “Viola” the saw started first try! This was both good
news and bad news! I now had my old faithful saw working once again but
now what would I do with the beautiful new table saw that Carole and
Adam had just given me for Christmas? I finished putting the old saw
back on its legs and cleared up my shop. Then I went upstairs to give
Carole the news! She said there was no problem taking the new saw back
to Home Depot if I would still be happy with the old one. I said there
was no sense keeping the new one since the old one is still in good
shape and all cleaned up now! I called Adam and told him about the
situation and he just chuckled and agreed that it was ok to take the
new one back. He suggested that I might find another tool or two in
place of the new saw that I could use for my woodworking projects. So
I’m going to return the table saw and have a good look at what else I
can pick up for the money! I do need a good bench sander and who knows
what else! All is not lost and I’m sure I’ll find something else to fit
into my workshop and the old Sears table saw will live on! I’ll have to
call the Motor Repair Shop and thank the repairman for his suggestion!
That’s about it for this week folks!
Thanks for tuning in and I’ll look forward to talking to you all again next week in The Ontarion Report!
Bye for now … Greg
PS: Something To Think About>
When your tool quits and you’re about to give up on it, don’t! If you
play with it long enough, you may just bring it back to life!
****
Have a good one..
the doug
The Fine Print!
The articles in these issues are the sole property of the persons writing them and should be respected as such.
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