catsittingstill (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
catsittingstill) wrote2014-08-08 08:44 pm
catsittingstill) wrote2014-08-08 08:44 pm
Entry tags:
Stuff
I have been working on an Octave Mandolin part for Outward Bound, beyond simple chords. I have come up with something I like and have been trying to memorize it. I think I'm getting a lot quicker at learning new things.
I have been working on some new words for Cripple Creek, as Carole (new banjo player) and Ed (excellent banjo player) at the barbershop both know how to play it. Ed isn't comfortable singing it (banjos really only like to play in G and in G the song is either too high or too low for him. I have the same problem. But I figured out that I could take the first and third lines and give Ed the second and fourth lines and together we could sing it.
But I wasn't happy with the words which are kind of boring and sexist, so I did a little revamping. Ed wasn't there today and I won't be able to go next week because I will be out of town returning dulcimers but week after next we can get together and see if we can make it go. Carole and I worked on Cripple Creek, I'll Fly Away, Blackberry Blossom and ... something else that escapes me at the moment. Oh, I think we kind of worked on Cripple Creek twice because we tried out my new verses and then we tried it out with me playing melody along with the banjo, which I hadn't practiced at all. Carole was impressed with how fast I went from picking out I'll Fly Away to playing the melody along with her (not that I was playing it perfectly, and not that it's very fast or complicated, but you know--it's that the bear can dance at all.) So that's another point of view on me getting faster at learning things; maybe it's real.
Also, after skyping with Peggi on Monday, I got all inspired and went back to work on my instrument case which had been kind of languishing since I had family over because the next step was putting on the latches. I had made the shims that mated the curved surface of the case to the flat surface of the latches, but kind of got stuck because drilling the holes through the latches, the shims and the case is scary. It's the sort of work where one little slip puts the hole in the wrong place, and while I could probably fix it, it would be a lot of work I don't want to do. So I was having trouble nerving myself up to do the deed
I finally got myself over the hump by doing some not-scary stuff. I plan to build a box inside the instrument case, under where the neck of the instrument will go, to hold picks and tuners and such. I'm going to put in pair of props, with a u shaped depression in them, to hold the neck of the instrument, and they will define a space that becomes a box, as soon as I install a lid below the level of the neck. But I need thin light board-equivalent to make the props and the lid. I've decided to make more woodstrips/fiberglass to saw into the proper shapes for that. That meant I had to saw a bunch of leftover white pine wood strips to an even length and glue them together, which was a nice amount of non-threatening simple work to do yesterday and this morning.
And once I had cleverly figured out how to clamp them together and clamp a board over them to make them lie flat on the strongback (now pressed into service as an auxillary workbench, so I didn't tie up my workbench for 24 hours) I realized that if I first clamped a bunch of stuff together to make a sort of form to force the top of the latch to line up with the top of the shim and drilled the holes through the shim, I could then put the shim up against the side/lip of the case, and drill the holes the rest of the way through to the inside of the case.
This reduced one very scary step to two moderately scary steps, which made it easier to bring myself to do it.
Then I did the same with the top shim and top part of the latch and now I have one latch installed, and it latches. The upper shim flexes somewhat when it latches. I think the problem is that the heads of the screws I am using are kind of domed, and I think they come up farther than the designer of the latch was thinking, and they interfere with the latch a bit. I'm going to file them flatter and see if that helps. If that doesn't do the trick, gluing the shims on with dookie schmutz will probably take care of it.
I'd really like to have this done in time for OVFF.
I have been working on some new words for Cripple Creek, as Carole (new banjo player) and Ed (excellent banjo player) at the barbershop both know how to play it. Ed isn't comfortable singing it (banjos really only like to play in G and in G the song is either too high or too low for him. I have the same problem. But I figured out that I could take the first and third lines and give Ed the second and fourth lines and together we could sing it.
But I wasn't happy with the words which are kind of boring and sexist, so I did a little revamping. Ed wasn't there today and I won't be able to go next week because I will be out of town returning dulcimers but week after next we can get together and see if we can make it go. Carole and I worked on Cripple Creek, I'll Fly Away, Blackberry Blossom and ... something else that escapes me at the moment. Oh, I think we kind of worked on Cripple Creek twice because we tried out my new verses and then we tried it out with me playing melody along with the banjo, which I hadn't practiced at all. Carole was impressed with how fast I went from picking out I'll Fly Away to playing the melody along with her (not that I was playing it perfectly, and not that it's very fast or complicated, but you know--it's that the bear can dance at all.) So that's another point of view on me getting faster at learning things; maybe it's real.
Also, after skyping with Peggi on Monday, I got all inspired and went back to work on my instrument case which had been kind of languishing since I had family over because the next step was putting on the latches. I had made the shims that mated the curved surface of the case to the flat surface of the latches, but kind of got stuck because drilling the holes through the latches, the shims and the case is scary. It's the sort of work where one little slip puts the hole in the wrong place, and while I could probably fix it, it would be a lot of work I don't want to do. So I was having trouble nerving myself up to do the deed
I finally got myself over the hump by doing some not-scary stuff. I plan to build a box inside the instrument case, under where the neck of the instrument will go, to hold picks and tuners and such. I'm going to put in pair of props, with a u shaped depression in them, to hold the neck of the instrument, and they will define a space that becomes a box, as soon as I install a lid below the level of the neck. But I need thin light board-equivalent to make the props and the lid. I've decided to make more woodstrips/fiberglass to saw into the proper shapes for that. That meant I had to saw a bunch of leftover white pine wood strips to an even length and glue them together, which was a nice amount of non-threatening simple work to do yesterday and this morning.
And once I had cleverly figured out how to clamp them together and clamp a board over them to make them lie flat on the strongback (now pressed into service as an auxillary workbench, so I didn't tie up my workbench for 24 hours) I realized that if I first clamped a bunch of stuff together to make a sort of form to force the top of the latch to line up with the top of the shim and drilled the holes through the shim, I could then put the shim up against the side/lip of the case, and drill the holes the rest of the way through to the inside of the case.
This reduced one very scary step to two moderately scary steps, which made it easier to bring myself to do it.
Then I did the same with the top shim and top part of the latch and now I have one latch installed, and it latches. The upper shim flexes somewhat when it latches. I think the problem is that the heads of the screws I am using are kind of domed, and I think they come up farther than the designer of the latch was thinking, and they interfere with the latch a bit. I'm going to file them flatter and see if that helps. If that doesn't do the trick, gluing the shims on with dookie schmutz will probably take care of it.
I'd really like to have this done in time for OVFF.