Geeklog Site

Gyotawho? Gyotaku!

Tue, 22 Dec 2009 03:12:06 -0500

If you don't know what Gyotaku is, it's the art of rubbing fish. You have to be gentle with them cause fish only like to be rubbed in certain ways.
What it really is though is the artwork where you'll have a inked fish transferred to paper. Lots of times they'll have additional information written on there, like the size, date it was caught, weight. Etc etc etc. The sushi bar I frequent has changed ownership and the original owners took their art with them. Not that I blame them in the slightest, they're awesome prints.

Anyway, there are some bland photos up now, instead of pretty fish prints, so I'm going to try applying my paint on glass art style to some faux gyotaku and see how it turns out. This is probably a project that will wait til after the new years, but I think it'll be fun. I'll be sure to post pics as it comes along.

o/

Typin' it up ooooold school

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 00:13:20 -0500

What do you do when you have too many projects going on? Get another! Latest on the block is going to be the Royal 10 typewriter. Chances are it's older than you.

I got it on the cheap from ebay. It's a little rusty and needs a good cleaning, but I'm sure with that taken care of it will be a phenomenal machine and an awesome piece of history. One of the things I find terribly interesting about it is the lack of the 1 key. To produce a 1 you type a lowercase L. Also without the 1 you don't have the exclamation mark. To produce this you type a period, backspace and then type an apostrophe.

This is the first typewriter. In being shipped the carriage was free and slammed around totally destroying the gears. There wasn't much that could be done for it at that point as it quickly took it from a restorable piece of machinery to something that's only worth the remaining parts.

In searching online I found a guy out of the Netherlands who does reproduction water slides. If it's the full set what I'll be doing is a full tear down and restoration. It should be quite exciting, and when it's done I'll have my very own typewriter. If I like you enough perhaps I'll type you a letter.

2009.10.08 Not here yet........ Anxious, must type with mechanics soooon!

2009.10.31 First typewriter was destroyed during shipping, lack of proper packing. Got a 2nd one in, and used the first as a parts machine to fix all the minor things that were off.

I'll get on to the write up of replacing the carriage slide, but just a bit about what I've done so far.

The first thing of course was a major cleaning and lubricating all the parts up. The keys E G and F did not hit correctly and the strike lever would not return to it's original position. I found that by slightly bending the connecting rods I was able to get the keys to lower all the way back down to normal and type properly. This was a pretty easy fix and I was able to do it with some long needle nosed plyers.

A couple minor parts that I pulled from the original typewriter were the rollers on the bar that goes down on the top of the paper. There were originally only two, but I like the way the paper is held with 4 rollers on there. The other thing was that my first typewriter had 5 tab stops with it, while the newer one had only two. The older ones look a bit cooler too. I'll take a comparison pic later. Anyway I cleaned up the first ones and transported them over on to the second so I can have an ample amount of tabulation.

Here is the actual first major repair I've done, and hopefully barring any unforseen accidents, any other repairs will simply be in thr course of regular maintenance or cosmetic in purpose.

I'm moderately pleased with myself on this one as it involved removing the entire carriage assembly. It did take me quite a few hours and I was pale and shrunken from lack of sleep when it was done but it was an accomplishment.

The issue was that when you'd return the carriage to the beginning of a line, the characters would step down until they reached the regular height of the rest of the line. I wasn't sure what was causing this until I spun the typewriter around and looked underneath to find that the slide attached to the carriage itself was broken clean through. The bolts and bars that are all over the rest of the carriage was what was holding it in place, but the fact that it was split in two meant that it wiggled a bit.

What I was able to do was take the slide from the original typewriter, remove it entirely, and then disassemble the carriage from the new typrwriter as well and use the original for replacement. It definitely helped having a parts machine to break it down step by step instead of having to fool around with my actual functioning machine first. As there is only a year difference in age on these machines the slide was exactly the same. Also in having it apart I was able to further clean things up and get them properly lubricated.

When everything was said and done, the rebuilt carriage worked even better than when I first got it. It's definitely much smoother on the return as well as in advancing. By the way, is anyone else disappointed in the G.I.Joe movie that Cobra Commander doesn't have a bitchy voice like he did in the cartoon?

Manfrotto + Gorillapod = Gorillafrotto!

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 16:51:32 -0500

I picked myself up a Gorillapod Focus, as well as a Manfrotto 488rc2 head, and connected them all together for my D70. It's fun to work with, you can get it all set up at various angles.

I need to play around with the gorilla pod more to see exactly where all I can put it, but the possibilities are pretty endless, at least from what I see.

Perhaps I'll tidy up my mirror so my camera can take a picture of itself, that way you can see the setup. Anyway, I'm still somewhat under the effects of pain killers from having my wisdom teeth pulled so I'll write more later.

Edit. Here's a picture from my crappy phone. Better one to come along soonish I'm sure.

My mind is always in them.

Mon, 14 Sep 2009 03:42:11 -0400

That's right! Gutters! And now the glorious homestead is quite nearly fully equipped with them. I decided to go with the plastic gutters because they seemed pretty durable and easy to piece together. Prior to the installation of these, I had one small 4 foot section of gutter above the front door. Now I have gutters that go around the entire house.

I'm setting up a downspout in front, and I have one already installed in back. They will both empty into a pair of 55 gallon rain barrels. That will give me a total of 220 gallons of emergency water for the plants, when the months are absurdly hot and dry here in the summer. I'll post a couple photos sometime, I know how awesome photos of ones gutters can be.

Because I'm worth it!

Sat, 22 Aug 2009 15:57:32 -0400

The time is drawing near, and it's a whopper! So to celebrate my 30th year on this planet, click that little wishlist button to the right and show me how much you care =D

The more expensive the gift the more I'm bound to like you! Promise!! September 23rd is the big day!!!

iPd and the boost gauge pod of annoyance

Mon, 03 Aug 2009 23:32:02 -0400

Over the years I've had plenty of good dealings with iPd, for various Volvo parts. That all changed when I decided to order the boost gauge pod for Roxanne. I was excited to have it in as I've been doing various performance updates, so having a boost gauge, to make sure everything is running all proper seemed like a good move.

The annoyance came on full force when I finally received the pod. I had dealt with them over the course of a couple weeks trying to get all of the parts to hook up the gauge. In the end I find out that because I didn't order the "R sport" kit that I wasn't going to be getting the parts to actually hook the gauge up correctly. This in itself dismayed me as many of the photos on the site, and on forum postings they've made showed the pod displaying the VDO gauge (which looks a lot more correct in the T5 model than an R gauge would).

On top of that, the pod I received was cracked in two places and the finish on it was absolutely awful. My intent is to eventually have it wrapped in vinyl that matches the dash, or other trim in the vehicle, so hopefully that will take care of any concerns with the finish and cracks. The only issue I see that may arise is how to make it more properly seal up to the dash. The trim provided is entirely inadequate, and the double sided tape that came with it doesn't stand a chance in Texas heat.
Anyway. More will be posted as more is figured out. Stay tuned.

I am the Irrigator!

Mon, 03 Aug 2009 23:27:04 -0400

So I decided to do the back yard up all proper and such. Running in ground irrigation is actually pretty cheap, and easy. I was pleasantly surprised. Granted I don't have the lines fully buried yet, but that will be taking place throughout the week, and once that's done. Sprinkle sprinkles of looove.

r0x4n3 +1

Fri, 19 Jun 2009 05:40:36 -0400

Time to get a baseline on her. Taking it to the shop wednesday to get in a couple dyno pulls. I'll post the results as soon as I have em. The stock rating is 247 horsepower and 243 torque. Now the dyno pull is in as well. I got pretty much exactly what I was figuring on. Even with a pull during 102 degree weather.

So the downpipe is on its way. I also ordered a boost gauge, just so I can get an accurate reading on what kind of boost it's putting out. I also found someone else with the same (stock) engine that put down 206 whp/226tq on a dyno, and now that I'm back from the dyno you can see I got pretty much the same. 201whp/229tq

The 2nd run wasn't as good and just proves the point that the intercooler/intake system needs upgraded on these vehicles, especially in this kind of weather.

I also intend on getting some before and after audioclips of the exhaust, that I'll get posted as well. Stay Tuned for pics, clips and writeups. o/

Totally Decked Out

Tue, 05 May 2009 13:34:49 -0400

Well, after how many months, progress if finally underway. Magical having a deck time commence! Just shy of 300 square feet. My deck is mighty.

It was definitely a bit of trial and error, and while it's not super perfect, I think it's pretty decent for my first go at deckery.

To start I lagged some boards against the foundation of the house. I did so using some concrete bolts and some spacers to keep the board from being completely flush against the foundation (this should help prevent rot).

Next up, sinking some 4x4s into the ground. These are the outer supports for the deck. I figured I wanted something with a bit of angle to it, not just a total square. So I set them so there would be a 45º angle at the outer corners.

Dinah enjoys investigating the post holes as well. Nothing more fun than little cat prints. It's a shame it had to be covered up. Maybe sometime in the far far future there will be an advanced culture that comes along and finds out about Dinah and my cats from this lone footy.

Anyway, at this point I attached some doubled up 2x8 boards to the board against the house, and ran them out to the outermost 4x4 boards. From there I ran some of the "diagonals" as well as the outer most bit of the frame.

You can also see I ran a cross board as sort of a center support, and while I have some other supports up here, I had to remove them after the fact as I decided I was going to run the boards perpendicular to the house instead of parallel.

From the get go I knew I wanted to have a tree in the deck, so I decided to go with a crape myrtle. They grow very quickly, and the kind I wanted to get has some nice pink/lavender blooms. It's one of the taller varities of crape. It's called a "Basham's Party Pink." Here it is just planted, and as you'll see shortly it's grown a good amount and has also bloomed quite nicely this year.

Here's another shot of it, about 8 months later. That was the span of time that passed from when I stopped working on it. What can I say I get a bit lazy from time to time. I added the last bit of bracing to the outer part of the deck, and I also ran an irrigation line to the crape itself so it always stays nice and watered when it needs to be.

And now, boarding! Yeah. Granted the deck was just an inch or so too long, but it's worked out decently enough. I'll make up for the difference with some steps. Fast forward some more boards and a little work with the saw.

All in all it turned out decently well and for the first part I'm very pleased with it. Just a little more finishing around the hole where the crape comes out and Blammo. Magic deck of fantasticness.

Next year I'll work on the canopy and all that jazz. Hopefully I'll have seen another couple feet in growth out of the crape by then as well. And that's the end of my story for now.

Vote vote vote! Origami FTW

Sun, 19 Apr 2009 15:09:00 -0400

All right. Origami Sushi is the best damned sushi bar in all of the Austin area. So to help me emphasize that point please go to http://www.austinchronicle.com/feedback/restpoll/09/ fill in your info and put "Origami Sushi" in the favorites listing pleeeease.

ja ne