Today has been very good. Morning started early (I am in my manic cycle phase) with conversations with wonderful people, starting with Shelley Park who is less than a month away from completing my new guitar, and the great flute maker Patrick Olwell.
Then I was supposed to talk with a psychiatrist about a medical approach to mediating my Cyclothymia (i.e., Lithium etc.). Except overnight I looked up about everything they use for Bipolar Disorder and Cyclothymia. My current pharmacological dosing for heart issues won’t allow any of these drugs used for Bipolar disorders. I am also now looking at decades of high resolution data collected in my email (for mood and activity), CPAP data since 2010, medical records and such, and theorizing at this point that the cyclothymia itself is not the condition to be treated, but is perhaps a symptom. I suspect this cycle is from some longer term heart issues featuring faster pulse rate and chronic a-fib that are the result of simply too much plumbing to pump my blood through. Adding drugs to try to stabilize my energy cycle won’t do anything without address this potential root. Hopefully with the data that I will amass and tabulate my doctors and I will spot the obvious.
The most obvious is that - at a week shy of the age of 66 - I need to exercise and move more, and drop a significant percentage of my body weight, and simply diversify my activities to keep my physical and emotional health thriving. Lately it has been a long and seemingly endless depressing slog of getting all caught up with flute orders and then curling up with another Anna Pigeon mystery on the iPad when I am worn out of discouraged or simply not wanting to commute to work (a one minute walk in the rain).
I’ve still allowed a few flute orders in recently so that we can pay our bills every month and none of these are stressing me out. I also just added a bit of Social Security to that, taking only a $40 a month hit in the long term that will take 11 years to equilize, and am starting to unload some instruments to fund us over the next few months at least. So I have only some 20 hours of orders work to accomplish at a pace where I enjoy it rather than stress out over it.
Everything else will be simply a name added to a wait list instead of a formal order. Getting the last keyed flute project done last week coincided with my slightly manic high - so I might feel differently in 2 weeks when the hypersomnia begins again. Or I might revel in my hibernation then, and wake up after the Holidays.
Thus I was able to enjoy a longer chat with Dr. Olwell this morning. We discussed his recent initiation right into the art glass community and whether his experiment qualified. It involved a full course of antibiotics and a salad bow. I recently sent him a housewarming present of flute parts, ones returned with minor cracks, prototype pieces, pieces sacrificed for this and that purpose such as the boxwood head joint that has my maker’s stamp engraved on it everywhere. Even a few pieces that could be actually used just to confuse him after telling him it was all trash, should he examine it closely (which he actually did to my delight. He had some interesting observations).
Patrick also reported that the box arrived crammed into his mailbox with a corner of the box torn open, and a chunk of a boxwood flute joint sticking out 3” or so. He photographed this in-situ to add to his photographic essay of “How to Not Pack Your Flute for Shipping!” The wood is intended for his woodstove - though Pat says he’s such a spendthrift and went through each piece seeing if there was anything worth salvaging for repurposing. He and I are going to have a longer chat on the Holiday weekend. Such flute pieces burn really hot so one has to be somewhat careful lest they burn their house down! Pat is well familiar with this - Mopane and Blackwood are considered two of the best firewoods available in much of rural eastern Africa where these woods grow. Burns like coal. Here is a good example of its firewood potential from a previous Holiday season. Am going to ask Patrick if he would like to do a Zoom-based joint season’s greetings on the same theme though he’ll have to send me some of his pile of rejects. He has some I am sure.
Note that my last name is used as a verb in this video!
After Lunch, I got into some Heavy Metal finally. This is really my last remaining keep awake at night worry and now I have a plan and will accomplish this before we celebrate my birthday on the 4th. Frustrated with various weather and Covid-related delays I am finally moving that Gorton P1-2 Pantograph Mill waiting for me in Poulsbo. I decided that instead of moving the heavy 640 lbs gangly mass of it, I would instead move it piece by piece until what is left is a manageable base with the knee and column. Everything that can be removed easily is now off the machine. Tomorrow I will weigh these pieces and subtract that from 640 lbs to see what is left.
The column with knee and table at this point can be safely slid in its vertical orientation into a pickup or equivalent. It can also be carefully tipped in on its side, using its center of gravity as the pivot point. I may call up a small army on the receiving end to help lift it into the workshop should that be necessary. To get it there from the driveway, whatever vehicle I use has to negotiate the torturous and dangerous wettish grass hilly route between my driveway and the workshop. At one point the route passes between the NE Corner of our house and the inside corner of our property. A third of that narrow distance is 4-5’ below the pathway with a vertical drop-off. I have had a large chip truck pulling a very large chipper there during the dry times but I would worry about the wall giving away and the vehicle ending up inside the part of the house where I have my 3D printing lab set up! My vehicle choices range from a U-Haul van or truck for $20 to a large Penske truck with a 1000 lb capacity lift gate for $160 or borrowing my neighbor’s truck. I’ll probably go the cheaper U-Haul route as it has a cover and is lower to the ground and has a ramp, and keep the vehicle a few extra days if I have to due to rainy weather. I’m planning to move this last part sometime next week and have it all set up and running in December.
Today continued well with getting my booster shot with no reactions. Not even soreness. At home Nancy’s new and lovely Saltarelle D/G Accordion finally arrived from Italy via Acorn Music in Great Britain. She has been wanting one of these ever since she started playing! It sounds perfect.
Tomorrow I work more on the glass flute front and maybe work on a minor exterior gutter drainage issue that will be easy to fix. Nancy will be in Seattle and I will give her accordion a try - though I still have no chops for push-pull-push-pull-push-pull-pull-push of diatonic accordion fuckery. I am sure I can play Piano Accordion. Piano keyboards are fine but buttons are cooler - so I play a 3 row C-System Soprani.
Next week I celebrate my 66th and if the weather is good I may go birdwatching near Vancouver Washington. The Sandhill Cranes and Snow Geese are there in abundance, apparently. The Ridgefield NWR has a 4.5 mile driving route where one has to stay in one’s car, which you essentially use as a blind. I have a year pass to the refuge and plan to use it with 2-3 or more visits before the permit needs to be renewed.
There are still Turkeys in the grocery stores - even Organic ones. Nancy and I will probably be working on Thanksgiving as is our norm these days. I do have a Tails and Trotters picnic roast to braise. We will save the turkey for December.
Pictures at 11
Here are the parts I removed from the P1-2 Pantograph Mill - still in the boot of my car. This includes the swiveling parallelogram-shaped pantograph itself. the tracing table, the slider underneath the pantograph for positioning, the spindle which is in the cooler wrapped in bubble, the motor and all the various bolts used to hold everything on to the base. I brought the spindle in to show Nancy. It is really sweet!
And then here is the heavy base, which includes the knee and the work table. I will know more precisely how much this weighs tomorrow. I estimate 450 lbs. Its about 36” long from the back to the end of the cross slide spindle. Vertically from the floor its about 43-44”. Its current on jack screws so that the forklift will be able to slide under it, and lift it into the van or truck. I could almost fit this into our Honda Fit except that we would probably damage the car. If conditions are too wet to drive it close to the workshop, I’ll have to park it on the driveway and use some muscle, plywood and rollers, or rent a small tractor to carry it up the hill. I really don’t want to leave this part out in the rain at all! These are really well constructed and massive machines. The pantograph itself an be locked down and the machine used as a simple 3-axis mill. Since I have a nice Clausing mill, I do not need that capacity.
I have a small variable speed Proxxon lathe that I will mount on the bed lengthwise parallel to the slits. The glass tubes with the insides finished will spin between centers. The diamond-embedded cutters will be turning on the milling machine spindle. The pantograph will follow a 2X-sized trace of the outside profile of the flute parts. 180 grit followed by finer grits will complete the outside profile. Theoretically this machine can be then used to locate and cut the grooves or facets used as weight-reducing surface ornamentation. However I plan to do that using the tradition glass engraving lathes and tooling for that step.
Totally unrelated: While most of the Sound was enshrouded in fog yesterday morning, I went early to a place at the end of the road called 3 Crabs just east of the mouth of the Dungeness River north of Sequim. Lately, this spot has been one of the more active birding hot spots around here - much more so than Point No Point. Especially you you are into watching sleepy American Wigeons. There have been about 800 Wigeons hanging out there according to the daily reports on eBird.
More pictures of milling machine parts tomorrow, which I will organize and spread out in my workshop. Expect more posts between now and the end of the month, followed by occasional hibernation. The other instrument making blog is still on hold and may be for sometime. I am having too much fun!
Casey