The Two Projects
Mar. 27th, 2011 08:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
catsittingstillBoy am I tired.
Album
I started the day (well, after I lolled around till 11 or so) with a real practice. I put some honest work in on all 11 songs. It took me two and a half hours.
Now there is no way I can manage that every day and still keep up with both the canoe, and life. So I guess what I'll have to do is do real practice on, like, three songs each day and basically just a run-through on the others, and alternate which ones get real practice--which is what I had more-or-less been doing all week anyway. I may end up having to concentrate on getting two or three songs up to recording level, record them, then move on to a different two or three songs. I was kind of hoping to be able to get them all up to that level and then record them in a couple of weeks or a month of Tuesday and Thursday nights, but that may have been an impractical dream.
Also I discovered a weak link in my production chain. GarageBand will supposedly record (given the right peripheral, which the Zoom H4n might qualify as, or might not) 24-bit audio. However if I record 24-bit audio on my Zoom and then import the files into GarageBand, it converts them to 16-bit. I am given to understand that 16-bit files come out "noisy" so this may not be an acceptable level of bit depth. Another option would be to use Audacity, which is free (cool) but which I have never used before (well, never successfully) (not so cool.)
However, on the bright side, I am now able to play and sing for most of two and a half hours without being in pain. I may not sound as good at the end as at the start, but this is still a significant improvement in stamina, so go me.
Canoe
The first strips went on so easily that they gave me a deceptive idea of what would be feasible in a week. I had planned to put on three pairs of strips each day for five days to get 30 strips on the boat this week. Instead I managed 28, working six and a half days.
I had forgotten that I would certainly need to do wedge strips (long skinny triangles that convert the upswoop at the stems, which after a while gets very hard to plank, to a more level strip-strip interface at the stems.) In fact it turned out that in the back I needed to do two pairs of wedge strips because one was not enough. Now the triangles are simple enough conceptually but they are the very devil to fit such that the next strips go over them smoothly without any embarrassing gaps. It turns out the best way to do it is to cut them as simple long triangles, glue them on the boat, and get the tops levelled with the existing strips with a low angle block plane, and a straightedge (or one side of a framing square) to check how you are doing. When you have it levelled, you have to restore the bead at the top. The outside and a surprising amount of the inside can be done with the block plane but the bits near the stations have to be done very carefully with a chisel.
I basically spent two days on that. I intended to have 30 strips on the boat before the weekend and have the weekend off. Instead I worked through the weekend and have 28 strips on the boat.
I also discovered that when you find out too late that a couple of strips weren't properly aligned with each other before the glue dried, and the joint is wonky, it's possible to cut the joint with an exacto knife, force more glue into the cut, and use a small c-clamp to clamp bits of cut-up strip on each side to force the joint straighter. I'm not sure how it will come out looking, but it was worth trying and will probably be un-noticeable on the finished boat. But that was another hour of work without any more strips on the boat to show for it.
Also, I read that since the hot glue doesn't hold as well as staples, the guy who does the hot glue recommends pre-twisting or bending the strips with a heat gun. Steve very kindly loaned me a heat gun so I wouldn't have to buy one, and it does work. The best way seems to be to clamp the strip to the form, a few inches up from the existing strips (if you get too close, you melt the hot-glue securing the existing strips to the forms.) I keep worrying I will set the mold on fire but so far it hasn't happened--though the duct tape on the ends has curled up a few times.
However this adds another 40 minutes per pair of strips--I was expecting to do two strips an hour but it's more like one strip an hour at this rate.
Anyway--I'm behind on the boat despite working extra and feeling a bit discouraged about it. It's not the end of the world--it was kind of a pipe dream to finish the stripping in three weeks I guess--but it means that much less time for the rest of the work if I'm really going to have it ready when Jake and Dad come.
So I have quit working on the canoe and have virtuous plans to go to bed early(ish). Maybe if I get started early tomorrow I can get caught up.
Album
I started the day (well, after I lolled around till 11 or so) with a real practice. I put some honest work in on all 11 songs. It took me two and a half hours.
Now there is no way I can manage that every day and still keep up with both the canoe, and life. So I guess what I'll have to do is do real practice on, like, three songs each day and basically just a run-through on the others, and alternate which ones get real practice--which is what I had more-or-less been doing all week anyway. I may end up having to concentrate on getting two or three songs up to recording level, record them, then move on to a different two or three songs. I was kind of hoping to be able to get them all up to that level and then record them in a couple of weeks or a month of Tuesday and Thursday nights, but that may have been an impractical dream.
Also I discovered a weak link in my production chain. GarageBand will supposedly record (given the right peripheral, which the Zoom H4n might qualify as, or might not) 24-bit audio. However if I record 24-bit audio on my Zoom and then import the files into GarageBand, it converts them to 16-bit. I am given to understand that 16-bit files come out "noisy" so this may not be an acceptable level of bit depth. Another option would be to use Audacity, which is free (cool) but which I have never used before (well, never successfully) (not so cool.)
However, on the bright side, I am now able to play and sing for most of two and a half hours without being in pain. I may not sound as good at the end as at the start, but this is still a significant improvement in stamina, so go me.
Canoe
The first strips went on so easily that they gave me a deceptive idea of what would be feasible in a week. I had planned to put on three pairs of strips each day for five days to get 30 strips on the boat this week. Instead I managed 28, working six and a half days.
I had forgotten that I would certainly need to do wedge strips (long skinny triangles that convert the upswoop at the stems, which after a while gets very hard to plank, to a more level strip-strip interface at the stems.) In fact it turned out that in the back I needed to do two pairs of wedge strips because one was not enough. Now the triangles are simple enough conceptually but they are the very devil to fit such that the next strips go over them smoothly without any embarrassing gaps. It turns out the best way to do it is to cut them as simple long triangles, glue them on the boat, and get the tops levelled with the existing strips with a low angle block plane, and a straightedge (or one side of a framing square) to check how you are doing. When you have it levelled, you have to restore the bead at the top. The outside and a surprising amount of the inside can be done with the block plane but the bits near the stations have to be done very carefully with a chisel.
I basically spent two days on that. I intended to have 30 strips on the boat before the weekend and have the weekend off. Instead I worked through the weekend and have 28 strips on the boat.
I also discovered that when you find out too late that a couple of strips weren't properly aligned with each other before the glue dried, and the joint is wonky, it's possible to cut the joint with an exacto knife, force more glue into the cut, and use a small c-clamp to clamp bits of cut-up strip on each side to force the joint straighter. I'm not sure how it will come out looking, but it was worth trying and will probably be un-noticeable on the finished boat. But that was another hour of work without any more strips on the boat to show for it.
Also, I read that since the hot glue doesn't hold as well as staples, the guy who does the hot glue recommends pre-twisting or bending the strips with a heat gun. Steve very kindly loaned me a heat gun so I wouldn't have to buy one, and it does work. The best way seems to be to clamp the strip to the form, a few inches up from the existing strips (if you get too close, you melt the hot-glue securing the existing strips to the forms.) I keep worrying I will set the mold on fire but so far it hasn't happened--though the duct tape on the ends has curled up a few times.
However this adds another 40 minutes per pair of strips--I was expecting to do two strips an hour but it's more like one strip an hour at this rate.
Anyway--I'm behind on the boat despite working extra and feeling a bit discouraged about it. It's not the end of the world--it was kind of a pipe dream to finish the stripping in three weeks I guess--but it means that much less time for the rest of the work if I'm really going to have it ready when Jake and Dad come.
So I have quit working on the canoe and have virtuous plans to go to bed early(ish). Maybe if I get started early tomorrow I can get caught up.
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no subject
Date: 2011-03-28 04:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-28 11:19 am (UTC)The laundry piled up to three baskets worth the other day while I wasn't looking, and I hate to tell you what the kitchen sink looked like yesterday.
Maybe I can say I'm working on everything but the kitchen sink :-)
no subject
Date: 2011-04-01 04:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-04-01 09:28 pm (UTC)