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Mar. 19th, 2011 07:46 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
catsittingstillSo I've been working on the canoe a bit. Well, rather more than a bit. Things keep taking longer than I expected, and in an effort not to fall behind I've been pushing myself to work a bit longer than is quite comfortable. If I want to have the new canoe done by the time my dad and brother visit I will have to start the push to finish now, I think.
Anyway, when last we left our intrepid hero, I had discovered the concave curve in the hull at the first and last cross-wise station. I clamped battens to the next two stations back, brought them in to touch the stem forms and used them at different times 1) to measure the amount of carving necessary to carve the stem forms to the requisite ridge (that will match the inside bow and stern of the boat) and 2) to measure the amount wider the first and last crosswise stations had to be to eliminate the concave curve. I also made the stations a little deeper to make a less challenging curve in the ends of the sheer (the part of the hull that will have gunwales later.)
I transferred these new widths to a piece of tracing paper (yay tracing paper!) taped over the old set of forms, and then used a french curve to mimic the curve of the old station as much as possible but run it through the new points. Then I took a deep breath, transferred the new design to plywood, and cut it out and smoothed it. It seems to work.
I bought an angle grinder, believing it would make carving the ends quicker and easier. And hey, if I slipped and carved too deep, I have more plywood, right? However it turns out that angle grinders are heavy and large enough to be hard to get your hands around. And they vibrate and twist as you're trying to use them. I can only use one for a while before I have to stop--even stop for the day--so I'll be able to use my hands tomorrow.
So the day before yesterday I hit one of those "I must not do this anymore today" points and I was looking around the shop, wondering what else I could do. I couldn't do this step right now but if I could pre-do some other step, I could keep the project going and not waste time. And it occurred to me that clamping a chunk of wood to each station and then clamping the battens to the chunk of wood had been slow and fiddly, and if I was planning to use the hot-glue method, I would be doing it a lot. The clamps don't have to stay on very long--but it takes just as long to set up to clamp for two minutes as to set up to clamp for two days.
So I thought people sometimes make ridges that match the edges of the stations and glue them on. My experiments with using hot-glue to glue plywood chunks on had been mixed--some plywood chunks stayed, but some disintegrated because the glue between layers wasn't very reliable in a small chunk. And sometimes, under the twist and leverage generated by a long strip clamped to a small chunk, the hot glue had failed. So I figured white glue, and something other than plywood, and a long ridge matching the edge of the station rather than a lonely small chunk--and hey--I could use the hot glue like clamps--put on the white glue, clamp the ridge to the station with real clamps, lay down beads of hot glue to hold it in place, and move the clamps to the next ridge on the next station. It doesn't have to be beautiful, just solid, so the beads of hot glue can stay in place but once the white glue is cured, it will provide the necessary resistance to leverage and twisting.
But what to use for materials? Well, remember when I had those 1 x 1 1/2 true pieces cut out of two by fours to make the insides of the boatshop doors? And I got confused and got three times as much wood as I needed? Well a 1 inch ridge is really too thick. But I held a scrap piece of that material up to the edge of a station, used a pencil to draw around the edge of the station, used the compass to draw a second line inside the first, cut it out on the bandsaw, then cut the curve in half lengthwise to produce 2 identical curves--one for each side of the station.
It took a couple of iterations of this to get enough ridge to go all the way around the edge of the station, but it was light work that didn't bother my wrists and hands. I figured I'd do the two stations inboard of each last crosswise station, and then use the ridges to clamp battens to while I tested the degree of carving on the end station. That would let me test and see if the ridges would be strong enough and convenient enough for the job without actually doing every station--which would be a waste of work if the idea didn't work out.
And yesterday I clamped battens to them a lot and they worked fine, so when I reached the end of angle-grinder time I made ridges for most of the rest of the stations. I still need to do half of four stations, but I'm making good progress and I expect to reach the end of angle-grinder time fairly promptly today so I will have time to finish the job.
Plus having the ridges glued on made it easy to clamp a plank to the stations and verify that my spacing is indeed correct for my planks. Which I was pretty sure would be the case but real wood, even thin wood, doesn't always act like a tape measure.
Album
One of my songs, Ballad of the Valkyries, was written originally without an instrument. Now I'm perfectly capable of coming back and putting chords on things, but this song was written for Eve Online, a computer game that takes place in space. And I have an ocarina program on my iPod that I sometimes play around with when I'm playing Eve because it has this pretty, lonely, sound that seems to me to suit the pictures on the screen. And since the iPod version doesn't require that you blow into it, (there's also a version for iPhone that only makes sound when you blow on the microphone, or so I hear) it's possible to play this ocarina and sing at the same time.
Cool. Add into that the fact that it has notes in a lower octave that a physical ocarina just can't have (using patterns of closed holes that would just produce an out-of-key squeak in a real ocarina), and it becomes a why isn't everyone using this type instrument.
So I think I'm going to arrange that song with an iOcarina part--as in, I've already written the arrangement, I'm just wondering if I need to change it up so it doesn't become monotonous as it's a rather long song. The amusing thing is that with the Zoom I could do multipart arrangements so I could play chords if I wanted. Of course if I did, people would think "synthesizer" rather than "ocarina" and I'm not sure I want to go that route; though I think synthesizers are often paired up with space I really liked the picture of the lonely space miner playing her ocarina.
And a couple of mornings ago I had a doctor's appointment (checkup) and I took my sheet music and my iPod and put in the earbuds and practiced the ocarina in the waiting room, which I would never have done with a real ocarina because I would never inflict my practicing on strangers who weren't free to run away. But with the earbuds, nobody can hear my mistakes but me.
But I've been letting the practice-with-the-metronome-and-the-Zoom slide a little bit, and I need to stick with it. Surely I can fit Tuesday and Thursday night recording in around the canoe.
Anyway, when last we left our intrepid hero, I had discovered the concave curve in the hull at the first and last cross-wise station. I clamped battens to the next two stations back, brought them in to touch the stem forms and used them at different times 1) to measure the amount of carving necessary to carve the stem forms to the requisite ridge (that will match the inside bow and stern of the boat) and 2) to measure the amount wider the first and last crosswise stations had to be to eliminate the concave curve. I also made the stations a little deeper to make a less challenging curve in the ends of the sheer (the part of the hull that will have gunwales later.)
I transferred these new widths to a piece of tracing paper (yay tracing paper!) taped over the old set of forms, and then used a french curve to mimic the curve of the old station as much as possible but run it through the new points. Then I took a deep breath, transferred the new design to plywood, and cut it out and smoothed it. It seems to work.
I bought an angle grinder, believing it would make carving the ends quicker and easier. And hey, if I slipped and carved too deep, I have more plywood, right? However it turns out that angle grinders are heavy and large enough to be hard to get your hands around. And they vibrate and twist as you're trying to use them. I can only use one for a while before I have to stop--even stop for the day--so I'll be able to use my hands tomorrow.
So the day before yesterday I hit one of those "I must not do this anymore today" points and I was looking around the shop, wondering what else I could do. I couldn't do this step right now but if I could pre-do some other step, I could keep the project going and not waste time. And it occurred to me that clamping a chunk of wood to each station and then clamping the battens to the chunk of wood had been slow and fiddly, and if I was planning to use the hot-glue method, I would be doing it a lot. The clamps don't have to stay on very long--but it takes just as long to set up to clamp for two minutes as to set up to clamp for two days.
So I thought people sometimes make ridges that match the edges of the stations and glue them on. My experiments with using hot-glue to glue plywood chunks on had been mixed--some plywood chunks stayed, but some disintegrated because the glue between layers wasn't very reliable in a small chunk. And sometimes, under the twist and leverage generated by a long strip clamped to a small chunk, the hot glue had failed. So I figured white glue, and something other than plywood, and a long ridge matching the edge of the station rather than a lonely small chunk--and hey--I could use the hot glue like clamps--put on the white glue, clamp the ridge to the station with real clamps, lay down beads of hot glue to hold it in place, and move the clamps to the next ridge on the next station. It doesn't have to be beautiful, just solid, so the beads of hot glue can stay in place but once the white glue is cured, it will provide the necessary resistance to leverage and twisting.
But what to use for materials? Well, remember when I had those 1 x 1 1/2 true pieces cut out of two by fours to make the insides of the boatshop doors? And I got confused and got three times as much wood as I needed? Well a 1 inch ridge is really too thick. But I held a scrap piece of that material up to the edge of a station, used a pencil to draw around the edge of the station, used the compass to draw a second line inside the first, cut it out on the bandsaw, then cut the curve in half lengthwise to produce 2 identical curves--one for each side of the station.
It took a couple of iterations of this to get enough ridge to go all the way around the edge of the station, but it was light work that didn't bother my wrists and hands. I figured I'd do the two stations inboard of each last crosswise station, and then use the ridges to clamp battens to while I tested the degree of carving on the end station. That would let me test and see if the ridges would be strong enough and convenient enough for the job without actually doing every station--which would be a waste of work if the idea didn't work out.
And yesterday I clamped battens to them a lot and they worked fine, so when I reached the end of angle-grinder time I made ridges for most of the rest of the stations. I still need to do half of four stations, but I'm making good progress and I expect to reach the end of angle-grinder time fairly promptly today so I will have time to finish the job.
Plus having the ridges glued on made it easy to clamp a plank to the stations and verify that my spacing is indeed correct for my planks. Which I was pretty sure would be the case but real wood, even thin wood, doesn't always act like a tape measure.
Album
One of my songs, Ballad of the Valkyries, was written originally without an instrument. Now I'm perfectly capable of coming back and putting chords on things, but this song was written for Eve Online, a computer game that takes place in space. And I have an ocarina program on my iPod that I sometimes play around with when I'm playing Eve because it has this pretty, lonely, sound that seems to me to suit the pictures on the screen. And since the iPod version doesn't require that you blow into it, (there's also a version for iPhone that only makes sound when you blow on the microphone, or so I hear) it's possible to play this ocarina and sing at the same time.
Cool. Add into that the fact that it has notes in a lower octave that a physical ocarina just can't have (using patterns of closed holes that would just produce an out-of-key squeak in a real ocarina), and it becomes a why isn't everyone using this type instrument.
So I think I'm going to arrange that song with an iOcarina part--as in, I've already written the arrangement, I'm just wondering if I need to change it up so it doesn't become monotonous as it's a rather long song. The amusing thing is that with the Zoom I could do multipart arrangements so I could play chords if I wanted. Of course if I did, people would think "synthesizer" rather than "ocarina" and I'm not sure I want to go that route; though I think synthesizers are often paired up with space I really liked the picture of the lonely space miner playing her ocarina.
And a couple of mornings ago I had a doctor's appointment (checkup) and I took my sheet music and my iPod and put in the earbuds and practiced the ocarina in the waiting room, which I would never have done with a real ocarina because I would never inflict my practicing on strangers who weren't free to run away. But with the earbuds, nobody can hear my mistakes but me.
But I've been letting the practice-with-the-metronome-and-the-Zoom slide a little bit, and I need to stick with it. Surely I can fit Tuesday and Thursday night recording in around the canoe.
