Between 485 & 705 SQ/FT Mid-Century Moto Mecca Makeover

[slodat]

Something to consider when making this sort of thing. You don’t have to model all features. Just an outside sketch. This is often plenty. From there you get more proficient.





A simple drawer tray with the stuff I like to have at the ready at my desk. This is also all I use for the vast majority of the design/reverse engineering I do. I have a rather nice 3d scanner. I only use it on occasion.

Also, you can put an item (a wrench for example) on a standard flatbed scanner. Import that scan as a canvas, scale it, and use it to sketch over. This is quick and works well for stuff like this.

 

[legenddc]

I haven't used this, so I can't comment on how well it works. That being said, I would try Tooltrace.ai It's supposed to work with Gridfinity.

There are also a million different files already created so the first step would be to search for what's already existing.

 

[mschoo92]

Just a quick point on choosing between Fusion 360 and SolidWorks Maker, you may want to give some thought into whether you’ll be primarily making individual parts or creating assemblies, and finding some tutorial videos on how they work in each software if you do plan on it.

I’ve used SolidWorks in my career for a while so I’m definitely biased, but I found making assemblies to be much less intuitive in Fusion 360. Other than that both are capable, Fusion 360 seems to be the better pick if starting fresh since a full license is considerably cheaper than a full SolidWorks license if you had any commercial use for it down the road.

Ultimately you’ll want to pick something that you feel is intuitive and straightforward, otherwise it can become a real time sink. CAD software and 3D printers both shine when they just “work” to help with projects and don’t become a project themselves!

 

[sakurama]

I'm not really too keen on the whole New Years resolution thing although I've done it. I could say that my goal is to spend more time in the shop but that's always the goal. Maybe completing projects is the goal, but again...

So months ago I volunteered to build new target carriers for our gun club. Years ago when Ben was coaxed into running for president (won in a landslide) he said he'd only do it if I ran for Pistol Director which I did (won in a landslide... because no one else wanted to do it). Our team has done very well and I've enjoyed my role and the coaching but more the camaraderie of the team.

Anyway, as the team has grown (now the most active part of the club) we've expanded the number of shooters and the number of points used. And the club is old and equipment is failing. Ben and I built a new target turning system but the main way that people move targets down range is a trolly with a hanger.



It's just angle iron, a rod and some binder clips. Simple enough but welded with a stick and close to zero skills. The club was and is self built so you get what you get. Ben measured and drew a new carrier and I made a few changes that I'd hoped would make the carriers bulletproof. So to speak.



I started by cutting a rod and machining the top down and then brining it to the club to test the fit. Frustratingly the trollies use a non standard ID for the rod so all the rod had to be turned down slightly removing .015".



I went with slightly smaller angle in the same 3/16" thickness, mostly for strength. Yes, it was a pain to do all this in imperial measurements.



After fixing the cold saw coolant pump one of the handles on the vise broke. The vise was a mess when I bought the saw and I tried to fix it to the best of my ability at the time but you can see that the welds holding the back are... horrifying. Every time I use the saw I see these over cooked welds and the massive slop and I think... some day I'm going to fix that. I'm trying to collect small projects like that for me to practice shooting video on and try to streamline the video process so it is as easy for me as stills.



Clean up the ends and put a heavy chamfer on to make putting them in easy.




Something you may notice is I'm trying to be more deliberate with my light. Again, it's for video but also because, as I see my career slip away to AI I want to hold on to it a bit longer, lean into it and enjoy it while it lasts. I have no idea what is going on in the world right now but none of it seems particularly hopeful.



When I got my first South Bend lathe I remember trying to turn some mild steel and getting a ******, striped surface. The guys in the shop gave me a few tips on feeds and speeds but nothing ever helped. Eventually I learned that "it is what it is" and for the 20 rods that I had to turn from .6250" to .6100" I found no solution. I searched and searched and found a lot of things but none worked.




I have a bunch of 1/4-20 taps but I wanted to use my tapping head and go faster since I'd be tapping about 44 3/8" blocks. I tried to use a drill/tap but snapped it in the hole so I went back to drilling all the holes and then using the tapping head with a spiral fluted tap.






This combo worked so well. The tapping head is a Kato that I got off ebay ages ago. It gets used about once a year and each time I feel that it was completely worth the $50 or $75 that I paid for it. A tapping head, if you've not seen one, holds a tap in a chuck that is tightened with slim wrenches (I made mine out of some aluminum - the triangles you see on the table) and as you feed the head down the tap will engage and rotate forward at half the quill speed.



You'll notice that the middle in the shot above isn't spinning. That holds a bar which needs to hit the drill column or, in my case, the new post that I had to make on the back of the mill vise. The head always spins clockwise but when you lift the quill to remove the head the tap reverses out at twice the speed. It also has an adjustable clutch to keep from breaking taps (which wasn't adjusted correctly when I broke the drill/tap) so the process is super quick and very simple.



Next I put all the parts into a bin and covered them with 2 gallons of white vinegar to remove mill scale. There wasn't any on the rod or bar stock but the angle was pretty bad.



About 36 hours later the parts were covered in what looked like fur but was disolved scale.



I then ground the surfaces to be welded to get to clean metal. All the parts are basically prepped and ready to weld now but I'll divide this into at least two posts.

Gregor

 

[Nolift911]

Love it - as over engineered as these trolly target hangers are going to be - are we going to see the "machined binder clip" launch? Its time.

 

[jake28]

Over a decade of following @sakurama and today I learn that vinegar takes off mill scale. Oh the grinding I could have avoided.

 

[sakurama]

Love it - as over engineered as these trolly target hangers are going to be - are we going to see the "machined binder clip" launch? Its time.

You know I was convinced there was a better solution and spent the better part of a morning looking for German or Japanese clips or clamps. I briefly considered adapting small sections of restaurant order rail which works by using marbles in an angled extrusion...



Which is an ingenious method and the extrusions can be had at any length. In my old studio I bought about 60' of them to be able to hang portfolio prints to visualize print order but the heavy prints were too much for the marbles so I had to buy nearly 1000 steel bearings of the same 1/2" diameter but they worked amazingly well. I got rid of them sadly and the cost would be too much. now. Also, not as strong as the simple binder clip. Sometimes you shouldn't reinvent the wheel.

But don't think I didn't try to find a better solution!

Gregor

 

[sakurama]

Getting close on the target hangers.



I rinsed them with baking soda to neutralize the vinegar. Supposedly you can use Coke to strip mill scale but it's a weaker acid and will take longer. White vinegar is less caustic than muriatic acid which is another way to go. Vinegar is the happy medium I think. Anyway, baking soda and the hottest water I could get so that the steel was warm enough to dry quickly and resist or not flash rust much.

Some of the earlier angle parts were not as precise because I was using an older end mill...



...and it was doing a fine job but at some point I didn't tighten the vise enough and it grabbed and walked. I forgot these shots because they happened a while back. The endmill chipped and one part got some digs but it's angle iron and will be shot at. Not a big deal.

But this left me without a 5/8" end mill (save for a two flute which I'd never subject to this sort of off angle cut in steel). I decided to take a bunch of endmills and center drills into Oregon Carbide Saw to have them sharpened. And since I was going there anyway I pulled the blades from the cold saw, the Festool TS55 circ saw and the KS120 miter saw. The cold saw has multiple blades for different thickness and material and my main medium blade does most of the work so I asked if they could make a new one in a slightly finer count. They offered to do that while I waited as they laser cut the blanks and then they go into a machine for the teeth. I considered staying to shoot the process but didn't bring a real camera. So another time I will because I think the process is really fascinating.



There were no 5/8 endmills in Portland but I found a long anular cutter. It's like an end mill without the center or like a hole saw on steroids. Mostly designed to be used to cut holes with a mag drill I decided to give it a try and was surprised (though I shouldn't have been) that it made the cut much easier, faster and cleaner. The center is the most difficult part of drilling any hole as the speed is near zero and the pressure is greatest. Anular cutters don't have that problem.



So there were a number of these that were bored with the end mill and they were not very tight but the anular cutter parts were super tight and clean. I will get more of these.



I rarely do production welding so I don't build jigs too often but I do like it. With the few that had a looser fit I needed to hold the parts inline and level and to set the through height of the rod so I built this jig. Here I'm setting a pin to locate the rod at the correct right angle and the correct height.



I'm surprised at my welds. It's obviously easier to weld the heavier material (though my attempts on the cold saw vise would indicate otherwise) and generally my technique is to "lay rod" where I'll chose a filler and lay it in the bevel and then pulse over it while putting gentle pressure to feed a bit of extra rod.




I gave the parts another run with the scotchbrite belt to get rid of the flash rust and then tacked them in. On the looser fit ones I would put a few tacks on the inside of the rod and then tap it square.



Once I was happy with the squareness I'd double tack on both sides then weld the inside. For some reason, after 15+ years of welding but never feeling very good at it or being able to consistently dip my rod and manage my heat it seemed like suddenly I leveled up through lack of practice. Again, heavy steel can take all the amps but still I'm very happy for a change.



My first one wasn't great. My second was pretty good and my third was on point. I started with full circumference welds but then started to just do about 3/4 of the front facing since that's where the abuse will come from. 1/16th" filler for the inside and outside rod to angle and...



... 3/32ths rod for the larger gap of the 3/8th bar stock which was a perfect "lay rod" opportunity. Four small tacks, 200 amps with a 1.2 second pulse and a slight feed. I used the 3/8th bar so that we could have enough thread engagement with commonly available 1/4-20 screws and never have one strip from abuse.



These will, without a doubt, be the last carriers that the club will ever need. It's funny to know they'll outlast me and be this legacy of sorts. I'll leave the jig at the club and hopefully if more are needed after I'm gone they'll put as much effort in.



It's been so enjoyable to just sit and weld. Each carrier takes probably about 20-30 minutes between clean up and welding. I knock them out as I have time and at about the sixth one I saw my argon tank was almost empty. On a Friday. I have a backup 80 gallon tank but my main tank is 120g and I don't like to go to the backup until it's a real emergency.



A while back I let Nadia use this spare Miller as I've been using the Speedglass helmet which I liked for the larger window. I have the two very nice helmets because when we first moved to Oregon I had kept my shop in NYC for a year or so and was taking classes on welding at the community college here - I was a bi-coaster welder. Very chic.

Anyway Nadia said it wasn't darkening so I replaced the battery but while visiting Airgas I decided to get some new front plastic and a new, stronger cheater lens. I generally wear +2.50 progressive readers but the magnifying is only at the bottom, in a welding helmet I'm looking up and I have been running +2.00 cheaters inside the helmet which forces me farther back. I like to get super close to the puddle so I picked up a +2.50 helmet cheater and some new #8 cups and gas lenses as mine were covered with splatter from years of neglect. A new year refresh.

The Miller may be my main helmet from now on. The fit is better, the drop is better (the nod and drop when you're about to weld) and the lens/window seams a little closer so with the +2.50 I felt I could see better and the gas lens was a big improvement. I'm only using 3/32 tungsten now as well. 1//16 is never something I need short of titanium and for that I have a huge pyrex cup.

So now I need to get them finished, painted and assembled.

Gregor

 

[dznnf7]

Nice project.
I bought some 1/4" hex drive drill/tap combination tools to use for 80/20 aluminum rail. I had 100's of 1/4-20 holes to tap. Since then I've used those tools with my 1/4" impact to tap a lot of holes in steel up to 1/4" thick. I've pre-drilled them to the correct tap size rather than use the integral drill, but it's very, very fast. Much faster than a fixtured setup in the mill.

 

[zmotorsports]

Nice project and welds are looking great Gregor. Well done.

 

[shibertus]

Something you may notice is I'm trying to be more deliberate with my light.

Quite noticeable. Beautiful photos!

 

[WoodsTruck]

Cool targets.
I bought some of these self healing color changing targets and made some mounts.
Works good when I take the kid out to plink.

4” Gong Color-Changing Target

Durable 4" gong shooting targets that change color on impact. Great for handgun training or fun shooting. Shop color-changing and reactive targets now.

www.da-targets.com

 

[Vertigo Cycles]

As a Solidworks user of 25 years, I admit that I was feeling curmudgeonly about switching to Fusion360. My uses for SW definitely didn't put me into the power-user category, but is was always useful to prove out geometry for machined parts and assemblies. Fusion360 has been in use for a couple of weeks now and at first, the work flow was rough, but I've slowly been figuring it out enough to tackle the 3D print projects that I've wanted to do...initially for drawer organization.

With organization in mind, Gridfinity is nice, but the power of the gridfinity generator plugin for F360 is even better. What I've learned so far is that for smaller drawers, I'd skip the grid and also choose not to generate the base that sits in the grid. This has allowed me to maximize vertical space for making multilayered drawer inserts.

For example: our little Ikea Alex cabinet of drawers has 95mm of vertical space. I was able to group tools of like size and use in a way that allowed me to have a bottom layer of (2) bins with dividers that's 46mm tall that fits perfectly within the four walls of the drawer. The most often used items are positioned at the front. The 2nd layer was made to have "ears" that glide on the drawer sides and is made to half the drawer length (front to back) so it can slide all the way forward or rearward and I have access to everything on the bottom layer. The sliding 2nd layer is actually two layers. One with fixed compartments that were sized to fit tools, and another insert that fits into its top for even more commonly used tools. If the drawer sides are shorter than the face, you can even configure the top layers to make use of the space above the sides. In my case, I get an extra inch of width

 

[zanyad]

For example: our little Ikea Alex cabinet of drawers has 95mm of vertical space. I was able to group tools of like size and use in a way that allowed me to have a bottom layer of (2) bins with dividers that's 46mm tall that fits perfectly within the four walls of the drawer. The most often used items are positioned at the front. The 2nd layer was made to have "ears" that glide on the drawer sides and is made to half the drawer length (front to back) so it can slide all the way forward or rearward and I have access to everything on the bottom layer. The sliding 2nd layer is actually two layers. One with fixed compartments that were sized to fit tools, and another insert that fits into its top for even more commonly used tools. If the drawer sides are shorter than the face, you can even configure the top layers to make use of the space above the sides. In my case, I get an extra inch of width

 

[iadr]

Late comment, maybe a drive by one, about your daughter- but very from the heart.

You got good advice already, notably from Grant G. Maybe throwing it through my own articulation and specific guesses/POV will help.

In teens, a sense of inadequacy is a huge sore spot in their psyches.
- as a teen I know driving the rest of my family through the Rocky Mountains in the late 80's in an '82 Volvo 245GL reduced me to tears. I remember it like it was yesterday but IDK if I understand it...?
Background to my own view of that- as a person, I am responsible.
I have made a circle of co-workers/friends laugh by saying "Introvert.../extrovert...? responsible?yeah!That one!" about myself. It outweighs every other aspect. Makes me a good employee, a good boss, good landlord. Comes at a price. It may have been in this thread that someone said "if you don't feel loved you go all out to at least feel useful"
But anyway back to that trip through the mountains, I think the g-forces, life long terror of heights, and overall worry and responsibility got to me. But most, the sense of inadequacy. That someone else could do better.
I'd project that on the situation you had with the MTB's in the desert, a bit.

Further, if she was the weakest rider and you were having to compensate for her, that specific sense of being patronized is brutal.

Lastly, its awkward to speak hormones, and now perhaps the culture you are either immersed in or adjacent to, forbids it as reductive, etc.
But let me point out... testosterone makes one more capable, more confident, more inclined to specific types of risk taking, and makes it feel subtly but irrationally good to do something strenuous. You had her, a teen boy, and two notably fit men. Who was the one left out of the group on that aspect?

The subsequent reaction can be a problem. I failed at dealing with that- mostly due my own often difficult headspace. The young lady I helped mature is 28 at the end of the month. We haven't talked in about 8-9 months and that was brief. It weighs on my mind.
So whether I helped with those insights or not, thank you for reading.

 

[Vertigo Cycles]

Here you go...three layers.

 

[GirchyGirchy]

25 years ago I was very proficient with Pro-E and Catia then went full time into photography and hadn’t touched a cad program until I started playing around with Fusion 5 years ago for a few projects.

I've been using basic 2D AutoCAD for 30 years and love it, and taught myself some 3D in it during some downtime at a college job. Prior to graduation, I took my school's basic Pro-E class just for shits 'n grins...what a trash software. Backwards from what I was used to and loved (make rough sketches, then reform, vs making it exact from the start), buggy as hell, just hated it.

Turns out my current company uses it too, but I only had to mess with it a couple of times before giving up on the POS. If I need something 3D printed, I give someone else a 2D DWG file with some notes scribbled on it. Someday I'll learn Fusion360 with my own 3D printer, but I can't justify the time required when we have the largest printer Stratasys makes sitting in our building and several kids who can model basic stuff in seconds.

I don't think I could even figure out how to open Pro-E (now Creo) any more. Blech.

Further, if she was the weakest rider and you were having to compensate for her, that specific sense of being patronized is brutal.

My wife got into mt biking several years ago. I'd been off roading for 15+ years then and bought myself a new bike as well to go along with her.

One of my biggest regrets is not taking it slow and riding more with her, instead of bombing ahead and then waiting. She took a bad fall and I hated that I wasn't there to help. Unfortunately, she hasn't been able to find the desire to get back into it and I'm sure I didn't help.

It was hard to not want to put the pedals down, but it shouldn't have been about me.

 

[sakurama]

Late comment, maybe a drive by one, about your daughter- but very from the heart.

You got good advice already, notably from Grant G. Maybe throwing it through my own articulation and specific guesses/POV will help.

In teens, a sense of inadequacy is a huge sore spot in their psyches.
- as a teen I know driving the rest of my family through the Rocky Mountains in the late 80's in an '82 Volvo 245GL reduced me to tears. I remember it like it was yesterday but IDK if I understand it...?
Background to my own view of that- as a person, I am responsible.
I have made a circle of co-workers/friends laugh by saying "Introvert.../extrovert...? responsible?yeah!That one!" about myself. It outweighs every other aspect. Makes me a good employee, a good boss, good landlord. Comes at a price. It may have been in this thread that someone said "if you don't feel loved you go all out to at least feel useful"
But anyway back to that trip through the mountains, I think the g-forces, life long terror of heights, and overall worry and responsibility got to me. But most, the sense of inadequacy. That someone else could do better.
I'd project that on the situation you had with the MTB's in the desert, a bit.

Further, if she was the weakest rider and you were having to compensate for her, that specific sense of being patronized is brutal.

Lastly, its awkward to speak hormones, and now perhaps the culture you are either immersed in or adjacent to, forbids it as reductive, etc.
But let me point out... testosterone makes one more capable, more confident, more inclined to specific types of risk taking, and makes it feel subtly but irrationally good to do something strenuous. You had her, a teen boy, and two notably fit men. Who was the one left out of the group on that aspect?

The subsequent reaction can be a problem. I failed at dealing with that- mostly due my own often difficult headspace. The young lady I helped mature is 28 at the end of the month. We haven't talked in about 8-9 months and that was brief. It weighs on my mind.
So whether I helped with those insights or not, thank you for reading.

So an update here is in order.

I took Nadia in a for a checkup and at a certain point the doctor asked some innocuous questions and she started to cry. Much like on the trail in Moab. He asked to speak with her alone and then talked to me and I told him about Moab, about the random breakdowns and he asked for permission to bring in a psychologist which I was more than happy to agree with. She's done some therapy but J stopped that as she felt that Nadia was fine.

Anyway, long story short, the doctor recommended some anti anxiety meds and Nadia and I agreed she should try them. With a half dose to test her reaction I could see the difference. On the lowest full dose the transformation was night and day. She comes out of her room, she talks and jokes, she participates in conversations, she's drawing and engaging and signed up for advanced art classes at school. She spent long stretches talking to Katie and I about school, fashion, piercings (she self pierced her inner lip - a "smiley" and was excited about that) and... wait for it...

Last week she said, "Hey dad, can we go out and practice mountain biking skills and ride regularly so that when I'm on the team this year I'm in shape and can keep up with my friends?"

I'd love to say that love and support made a difference but this was honestly a complete pharmacological turn about. And I'm beyond grateful for it because she's back to being the person I've always known - funny, curious, adventurous.

So thank you for the advice - I will always take all the parenting advice I can get. And I'm glad to report that things are worlds better. She has a few projects that she wants to do with me so we'll have updates in the next month or so.

G

 

[sakurama]

So I left you hanging on the target hangers...



They are finally finished. I made the project more complicated (surprise!!) by trying to do video as a way of teaching myself editing in Davinci Resolve. I'm 90% done with that but I want to wrap it up here.





It was a fun project and also one that I'm glad I'm done with. It took way too long. But the chance to sit and just weld bead after bead was super relaxing and enjoyable.



I've also started a program at our club to teach basic pistol skills/safety. I really believe in education and I'm now a certified instructor and have a few assistant instructors to help out. The majority of our students so far have been liberal, women or LGBTQ - people who are generally marginalized within the gun world and so it is pretty rewarding to serve as this welcoming and non judgmental space to learn a skill.

No photos of me teaching since I'm the one taking the photos...

As a Solidworks user of 25 years, I admit that I was feeling curmudgeonly about switching to Fusion360. My uses for SW definitely didn't put me into the power-user category, but is was always useful to prove out geometry for machined parts and assemblies. Fusion360 has been in use for a couple of weeks now and at first, the work flow was rough, but I've slowly been figuring it out enough to tackle the 3D print projects that I've wanted to do...initially for drawer organization.

With organization in mind, Gridfinity is nice, but the power of the gridfinity generator plugin for F360 is even better. What I've learned so far is that for smaller drawers, I'd skip the grid and also choose not to generate the base that sits in the grid. This has allowed me to maximize vertical space for making multilayered drawer inserts.

Okay, this isn't much of an accomplishment for those of you who are cad jockeys but...



I decided to try to actually design and model a "thing". It is a collar that surrounds the flash tube of my portable battery powered flash heads. The first time I traveled with them on a job I opened the case and found the glass domes had rattled free, shattered and then shattered the flash tube they protect. On two of the strobes. It was over a $1000 to replace the parts.

I wrote Broncolor to say they needed to address that and got a non response. So I cut up some foam with an electric knife and made a rudimentary spacer that would prevent the tube from coming loose. It's worked for 8 years.



And for 8 years I've wished for a better solution as the foam is sloppy and stop gap.

So I drew up what I wanted and then spent an entire two days trying to make it in Fusion 360. I watched a bunch of videos and was able to make the basic shape, extrude the profile and then print it out but when I tried to add the finger cutouts the model was hollow and the printer wouldn't print it because it was "an impossible shape"

It took a long time to figure out that I just used the wrong tool to "extrude" and once I was able to go back and make the model solid it printed out in TPU. Well, printing TPU turned into its own multi day adventure because there were a lot of settings and purging that had to happen. TPU is cool and a pain in the *** but it makes the spacers soft and not hard.



But I stuck with it and was able to get it designed and printed.



So this is my first ever 3d modeled part. It works perfectly and is a solution I've wanted for years and now exists in the world and I couldn't be happier about it!

Much like video editing it is a LOT to learn and take in but I'm excited to keep learning and experimenting. I know if I can get to a point of comfort with both I'll be able to do a lot more of what I want.

There's other projects happening too. I'll get to them soon.

Gregor

 

[sakurama]

Here you go...three layers.

Amazing Sean. I'm planning to build out some drawers for the back room office and desperately want to print out this sort of organization for them for all the small photo chargers, filters, batteries, etc.

Gregor

 

[bdbecker]

...I'd love to say that love and support made a difference but this was honestly a complete pharmacological turn about. And I'm beyond grateful for it because she's back to being the person I've always known - funny, curious, adventurous...

Love, support, and therapy sometimes aren't enough, as we've found out over the last two years with our daughter. As a Dad, it is a terrible feeling to not be able to help 'fix' whatever issues your child is dealing with. We finally seem to be on the right path (meds and therapy) with our daughter and have also noticed a significant improvement over the last few months. I'm glad you were able to get Nadia the help she needed!

 

[mgeoffriau]

Popping in with a couple comments but first, I'll just say I came across this thread a few months back and spent some days reading through it bit by bit. Thanks for documenting so many interesting projects as well as sharing your life experiences with us.

1. Love the mix of "this will almost certainly never break or wear out" and "this is almost certainly going to break and wear out" components on the target hangers. You could have custom fabricated clips, sure, and if sufficiently overbuilt, they'd probably last a while, but realistically - they're going to take some abuse. Using cheap, easily sourced, and easily replaceable premade clips is the superior solution.

2. You've probably already discovered this, but success with printing TPU is highly contingent on drying it sufficiently. I have found it to be much more forgiving of the exact printing settings if the filament is absolutely bone-dry.

 

[sakurama]

Popping in with a couple comments but first, I'll just say I came across this thread a few months back and spent some days reading through it bit by bit. Thanks for documenting so many interesting projects as well as sharing your life experiences with us.

1. Love the mix of "this will almost certainly never break or wear out" and "this is almost certainly going to break and wear out" components on the target hangers. You could have custom fabricated clips, sure, and if sufficiently overbuilt, they'd probably last a while, but realistically - they're going to take some abuse. Using cheap, easily sourced, and easily replaceable premade clips is the superior solution.

Thanks!

Yeah, the body needs to outlive me (easily), most of the other members and probably the club which isn't exactly the most solid structure having been built in the 40's by the members. The clips.. I tried to find a superior solution but in the end the simple one was the best. They can be replaced endlessly for pennies.

2. You've probably already discovered this, but success with printing TPU is highly contingent on drying it sufficiently. I have found it to be much more forgiving of the exact printing settings if the filament is absolutely bone-dry.

I didn't but I do now. I may need to make some sort of drying cabinet but for now the TPU is in an air tight container with a bunch of desiccant so hopefully that will work.

Gregor

 

[pejourdan]

I didn't but I do now. I may need to make some sort of drying cabinet but for now the TPU is in an air tight container with a bunch of desiccant so hopefully that will work.

Gregor

I found the easiest way to dry and/or heat the TPU/PETG etc. was to buy the AMS for the Bambulab P2S.
Got the AMS 2 Pro, but just having a an extra single filament dryer made life easier.

Buy Bambu Lab AMS HT - Bambu Lab Official Store

Bambu Lab AMS HT, Engineered to better dry & manage high-performance filament. Enjoy 14 days returns at Bambu Lab Official Store.

eu.store.bambulab.com

I can keep printing, but for the special material I could predry it.

 

[bugnut]

Gregor, good to see a post. Great news on Nadia.

 

[Grant Gunderson]

So an update here is in order.



Anyway, long story short, the doctor recommended some anti anxiety meds and Nadia and I agreed she should try them. With a half dose to test her reaction I could see the difference. On the lowest full dose the transformation was night and day. She comes out of her room, she talks and jokes, she participates in conversations, she's drawing and engaging and signed up for advanced art classes at school. She spent long stretches talking to Katie and I about school, fashion, piercings (she self pierced her inner lip - a "smiley" and was excited about that) and... wait for it...

Gregor,

It’s quite the timing that I read this as I just had a conversation about this last night with Jamie. She just had a Highschool patient that was having some very serious issues and it was 100% her hormone levels. Being a college town she has lots of young woman as patients that are having quite a few problems psychologically etc. and are on a variety of meds including anxiety meds. The first thing she does is run a course of labs to check their hormone levels. She says it’s amazing how many young woman are having problems due to their birth control they are on. Many of the younger woman are on it not because they are ******** active but to regulate things. She’s done a ton of research into this and usually switching the BC meds or stopping them fixes all of the other issues as BC uses a synthetic hormone that can really screw with their bodies natural ones in unexpected ways. So something to look into. Not many Docs understand hormones so it’s best to find a female one that does. Ie one that understands hormone replacement therapy for older woman as they will have a better idea of what the natural levels are so they could better guide your daughter on a plan.

That being said nothing wrong with taking meds when needed. I’ve personally found alprazolam with gavenpentin. Allows me to actually sleep at night instead of waking up every night at 3 am thinking about all of my todo projects.

Low dose ketamine is also something to ask about for her and maybe even for yourself. It’s safe enough they use it as an anesthetic for babies and I have personally found it’s great for those moments when the ex wife calls, etc. it allows you to move past emotional / stress / anxiety triggers and focus on what you need to do.

Okay, this isn't much of an accomplishment for those of you who are cad jockeys but...



I decided to try to actually design and model a "thing". It is a collar that surrounds the flash tube of my portable battery powered flash heads. The first time I traveled with them on a job I opened the case and found the glass domes had rattled free, shattered and then shattered the flash tube they protect. On two of the strobes. It was over a $1000 to replace the parts.

I wrote Broncolor to say they needed to address that and got a non response. So I cut up some foam with an electric knife and made a rudimentary spacer that would prevent the tube from coming loose. It's worked for 8 years.



And for 8 years I've wished for a better solution as the foam is sloppy and stop gap.

So I drew up what I wanted and then spent an entire two days trying to make it in Fusion 360. I watched a bunch of videos and was able to make the basic shape, extrude the profile and then print it out but when I tried to add the finger cutouts the model was hollow and the printer wouldn't print it because it was "an impossible shape"

It took a long time to figure out that I just used the wrong tool to "extrude" and once I was able to go back and make the model solid it printed out in TPU. Well, printing TPU turned into its own multi day adventure because there were a lot of settings and purging that had to happen. TPU is cool and a pain in the *** but it makes the spacers soft and not hard.



But I stuck with it and was able to get it designed and printed.



So this is my first ever 3d modeled part. It works perfectly and is a solution I've wanted for years and now exists in the world and I couldn't be happier about it!

Much like video editing it is a LOT to learn and take in but I'm excited to keep learning and experimenting. I know if I can get to a point of comfort with both I'll be able to do a lot more of what I want.

There's other projects happening too. I'll get to them soon.

Gregor

I love the Broncolor spacers! I had this same problem with all of my Elinchrom units. I ran their Pyrex cups to help protect the flash tubes from snow, but they never stayed put would rattle loose when skiing / flying with them then break the very expensive flash tubes. They would get hot as hell so I’d use copper wire and “ safety wire “ them in place and then use some custom cut foam spacers. Nothing worse than flying around the world to some remote mountain town and finding broken flash heads. I got to the point I’d bring complete extra setups.




I used to shoot a lot with multiple flash packs. Was a hell of a lot of work as each setup with a light stand sturdy enough to work in wind, avalanche gear etc was at least 50lbs. And that’s after I did my own conversion to Lithium batteries. The athletes hatted carrying them and we constantly had problems with the pocket wizards incorrectly firing etc. at these distances it’s really F’n hard to get them to fire simultaneously wirelessly. With skiing you only get one shot per setup. Once there was a track in the snow we had to reset in a new location so it would be pristine. I had to get really good at guessing what exposure / flash settings I needed as a lot of times I had no way of using a flash meter.

I miss the days when it paid to put a lot of work into a single image and quality paid versus the current social landscape where it’s all about volume and it’s no longer economically feasible to focus on single high quality images. That’s a large part of my decision to walk away from photography as my full time job and focus on the e-bike motor / suspension/ ski tuning business. But I’ll tell you I miss the hey day of making stupid good money in 4 months of the year and having 8 months off. I’m just grateful that at least with skiing I got to truly experience the hey day at the top where we had ridiculous budgets to work with. Looking back I got to laugh at how ridiculous it was especially in regards to our helicopter budgets, with RedBull / Swatch etc. I still remember a conversation with the global marketing director for RedBull when he told me the more ridiculous and outlandish the project the more likely he was to fund it so from that point on I always made sure to tell them we needed two helicopters with one being dedicated just to a cineflex / me shooting doors off.

If you guys make it up to Bellingham to ride this summer swing by the new shop and I’d love to show you some trails too.

 

[sakurama]

Damn, that is some incredible imagery.

Yeah, I'm actually working right now to estimate a project for a client that I've worked with for 20 years but they've approached me not as the photographer but as the subject/creative director/ producer/director and I suppose in there somewhere is "influencer" and I'm really stuck as to how to put my value.

I'm sure for you it's the same. For my entire career I've thought of myself as a "Photographer" and I would bring a ton of ideas and insight to the table as part of the production or the job. All that time I never once understood that my actual value was my ideas and insights because I so identified in my role as photographer. But photography is now a commodity and is a nearly worthless career. So like you I'm searching for other ways to make a living that leverage my skills and still allow me to do work I enjoy.

But I am still working as a photographer and I still really love the work but it's just harder and harder. It's a sinking ship filled with the holes made by social media, the internet and now AI. And you're just bailing as fast as you can hoping to make it to shore before you drown.

On that sunny note...

I've been trying to fix my hifi which developed a hiss that made it unlistenable. I did figure it out but that lead me to another rabbit hole of "recapping" which I'll get into later when I actually get into it. But that got me to clean up my soldering/electronics bench and it was just in time for Lucas who had a physics class project about electromagnets and was building a kit.





He took to it very quickly. Some of his first joints were a bit cold but he got the hang of it.



And it was fun to teach him and then let him go. Right now, as a teen, I try to keep my actual "instruction" to a minimum and just give hi the cliff notes and let him play.




It's crazy to me that this thread has spanned his whole childhood and I'm still not done with the house. He is, as of last week, now taller than me. I'm still better looking, funnier and smarter. But that could all change by next week.

Okay, I have several projects that I'm working on so more later.

Gregor

 

[trojandj]

If this site has taught me anything, you won’t ever be “done” with the house. It’s the journey.

 

[Grant Gunderson]

Damn, that is some incredible imagery.

Yeah, I'm actually working right now to estimate a project for a client that I've worked with for 20 years but they've approached me not as the photographer but as the subject/creative director/ producer/director and I suppose in there somewhere is "influencer" and I'm really stuck as to how to put my value.

I'm sure for you it's the same. For my entire career I've thought of myself as a "Photographer" and I would bring a ton of ideas and insight to the table as part of the production or the job. All that time I never once understood that my actual value was my ideas and insights because I so identified in my role as photographer. But photography is now a commodity and is a nearly worthless career. So like you I'm searching for other ways to make a living that leverage my skills and still allow me to do work I enjoy.

But I am still working as a photographer and I still really love the work but it's just harder and harder. It's a sinking ship filled with the holes made by social media, the internet and now AI. And you're just bailing as fast as you can hoping to make it to shore before you drown.

On that sunny note...

I've been trying to fix my hifi which developed a hiss that made it unlistenable. I did figure it out but that lead me to another rabbit hole of "recapping" which I'll get into later when I actually get into it. But that got me to clean up my soldering/electronics bench and it was just in time for Lucas who had a physics class project about electromagnets and was building a kit.





He took to it very quickly. Some of his first joints were a bit cold but he got the hang of it.



And it was fun to teach him and then let him go. Right now, as a teen, I try to keep my actual "instruction" to a minimum and just give hi the cliff notes and let him play.




It's crazy to me that this thread has spanned his whole childhood and I'm still not done with the house. He is, as of last week, now taller than me. I'm still better looking, funnier and smarter. But that could all change by next week.

Okay, I have several projects that I'm working on so more later.

Gregor

Thanks, During Covid, I transitioned into a staff photographer / director of photography role for Ikon Pass. It was a very small marketing team back then, I was paid very well and had an unlimited budget with the direction of just get **** done. They started to ballon with middle management, and I could see the company culture was changing. It was all good till our Japan accident. When two of my guys went for a free skiing run at the end of the trip, another group trigered an avalanche on them, killing one guy from each group and burying my best friend fro 25 minutes who some how survived. there was a lot of press coverage and my boss, the VP of creative direction got fired, and then his replacement gave me a bunch of **** for taking 2 months off, so I told them I was done and had zero desire to work for a company that couldn't understand the need for time off after that. I looked around a bit for a replacement gig, but post covid all of the ski / bike brands were struggling since they got greedy with over production during covid, and I am sure moto is the same way. A bunch of the athletes had been telling me for years to offer my suspension tuning and ski work to the public, so I gave it a try with a few FB posts and it blew up, so I switched gears and am now building out a large commercial space. I still love shooting, and when conditions line up I'll still go shoot with the local guys, but I am totally over having to make something look good from garbage conditions just to satisfy some middle management social media quotas. I also landed a large book contract last year too, so it's been fun to focus on that and going through the archives. Your moto builds are legendary as are your images. There is a lot of money in specialty book publishing right now with really good advances. Shoot me a DM and I can give you more details, but I am certain a book of your moto work would do very well.

As far as the kids go, I've been told you are only as good as them for one day, then they surpass you.

I haven't done any electrical work with the kids yet, (Stians showing interest in it tho) but I got Stian and Evelina and Jamie soldering this year to make some Christmas ornaments as gifts. They loved it, so I just ordered some stain glass stuff for Evelina and an electrical circuit kit to get them started on some bassics. I'm happy with any shop time I can get with them as that means time off of their devices.

For re-capping and other board work, I picked up a Hakko Fr-301 based upon recommendations here. I'd highly recommend it. It makes removing components, etc super simple and very quick. Just be sure to order the right size tips for your project.

Its been getting a lot of work with the E-bike motors.

 

[sakurama]

The road to hell is paved with good intentions and I feel like the house is a highway of things I've intended to finish and haven't.



Lara helped me build these cabinets in 2018? It was an attempt to add storage space to a house that didn't have much. I went overboard to make them go the full length of the wall. What surprised me was that they stayed mostly empty for years. The counter top was immediately filled and has only ever sporadically been clean. There's a psychology to cabinetry, storage and flat surfaces that I maybe still don't understand. And I miss Lara, who, while still alive, is entering the stage of needing to move to a memory unit.



When someone has Alzheimer's you never actually say goodbye. While they are lucid you don't imagine them not being that way and as they decline you reach a stage where you sense them disappearing but you don't want to acknowledge it, to you or to them. Then suddenly they're too far gone to have that conversation, to say goodbye. Like watching someone walk away in the mist.



So I spend a lot of time thinking about what's left, what can be done and what would make life better. And the answer to that for me was drawers.

Didn't see that coming did you?



To this day most of these cabinets haven't been used in a way that makes sense. Part of that is that shelves, while good for storing larger things that are shaped like rectangles, are pretty awful at smaller things that aren't. This shot shows the cabinet that was for photo gear and that top shelf held mostly chargers and smaller things like gimbals, filters, mics and what not. I attempted to force some smaller parts into the Stanley containers and it helped but you can't put chargers in them.

Last week, for the first time in months, I had a free week. For the most part when that happens I have tried to find a project that is fun and small - something with the hifi maybe. A way to escape. This time, instead of an escape, I asked myself what would make my life better.

Drawers were the answer.



I had three sheets of 18mm baltic birch that I'd been using for set tables (thank you auntie Oprah). They were already sanded and poly'd but if I didn't use them soon they'd get more damaged by the back and forth.

Part of the impetus for this project was the 3d printer and discovering the Gridfinity system. It needs drawers and I had none save for a small Ikea cabinet whose bottoms have sagged to the point of no longer closing. **** Ikea - pretty design that fails any real life stress.

I had sketched out four drawers. The end cabinets always seem to have something in the way that prevents the doors opening fully. And just writing that now makes me realize that I could easily take the doors off and build a full set of drawers to fit...

Squirrel!

To keep this manageable I decided to make four drawers that would go in the top of the middle cabinets - inside the doors. A halfway solution but one that felt attainable, could contain small things and be done in a week.



I started this process by installing a freshly sharpened blade into the track saw backwards. Surprisingly it cut but burned the hell out of the edge. Knowing something is wrong but pushing ahead is a metaphor for life.

I flipped the blade and cut sheet into the multiples of 190mm which is the number you get when you design them to be 200 and haven't cut sheet in a long time and install the blade backwards.



I measured drawers in the house to see what depth was most useful and it felt like 100-150mm was ideal so I went a bit bigger in case I wanted to add a layer like Sean did and 200, er, 190mm seemed like a good number.



As I was about to start cross cutting the lengths on the miter saw I misplaced my tape measure and grabbed a backup and found that it didn't align with my mark. I normally use only one tape for a project to hedge against errors and so I spent 30 minutes looking for the first tape and when I found it I used my Woodpeckers T-square to make a reference line at 450mm - the drawer depth.



Sure enough the tapes didn't agree and so I pulled all the tapes out and started to check them. Most were good, a couple were out by about 1mm and one, the egregious one, was out by 2.5mm.



Bending the ends brought them into agreement and so I set the miter saws stops and proceeded to cut them all very accurately to the wrong length.



Luckily my error this time was too long as I didn't subtract my 10mm rabbet. Yay, a correctable mistake. My life is filled with those.



With all the drawer sides cut I then started to think I should do a different joining method than what I'd already done throughout the house and thankfully I couldn't think of anything better. I was feeling very rusty and used up a lot of scraps trying to dial in an 18mm by 10mm depth rabbet.



After setting up the router table I started to cut the rabbets and smelled smoke. Never saw that before and I probably should have been doing this in smaller passes. Did I mention rusty?



Once I got to the point where I was happy with the router table and my test parts had good fit I ran them all and the site of the fit up made me so happy. It was perfect and the joy that joint brought can not be underestimated.

Part of the struggle of another drawer style was to hide the joinery but I realized that I want to see the joinery. I use baltic birch so I can see the edge. I want to see the process - I don't want to pretend that something is what it's not.

I did that with the kitchen drawers for Judiaann and at the time I didn't recognize the metaphor but I do now. She wanted a pretty facade and I wanted something honest and functional. I will never make a false front drawer or drawer face. I will show the joint, the structure, the process.

Functionaly honesty. Honest functionality.

And dados.

Because, as you may have guessed, this took longer than expected.

Gregor

 

[bdbecker]

Burned or not, good to see you making sawdust again!

Sure enough the tapes didn't agree and so I pulled all the tapes out and started to check them. Most were good, a couple were out by about 1mm and one, the egregious one, was out by 2.5mm... ...Bending the ends brought them into agreement...

Make sure to double-check the "push" measurement as well - the rivet holes on the hook can wear out over time and can cause error in both directions.

 

[Nolift911]

"I did that with the kitchen drawers for Judiaann and at the time I didn't recognize the metaphor but I do now. She wanted a pretty facade and I wanted something honest and functional"

Metaphor not lost on us.

Good work, stay the course.

 

[sakurama]

Yes, it feels good to be making sawdust. I didn't think I'd enjoy it as much as I have but honestly it's been a long time since the Festool collection was put into play. Long enough that opening the systainers felt like I inherited else's shop and was thrilled at what I was finding. What? I have three routers?!?



Something that's always bugged me and maybe someday I'll do something about is that the fence on the Festool table uses only two screw knobs to hold it in place and they exist in this loose channel. Obviously if you're using the fence the angle or squareness doesn't matter because the fence is the guide. But if you want to use the sled that runs on the edge track... then, you need to spend time to carefully set the fence square. It just seems very un-Festool. Maybe all router tables are like that but it feels like it should be like a table saw where it's always square.

Not the project we're working on...

Which is dados for the drawer bottoms.



I'm not a fan of the "feather board" on the Festool table - it hides everything and I don't feel like it creates enough pressure so I set the sled up as an outside guide and then push the boards through.



I tried to do the dado in a single pass and that wasn't working so I went to two passes to get to the 10mm depth. My 12mm bit is a bit tired and so is my copy bit and I should take them in to be sharpened.



I'm smiling because a freshly sharpened blade works really well when it's in correctly. Oregon Carbide Saw does all my sharpening and when they return your blades they etch your name onto them. I suppose it was vanity because I never looked at the teeth and was just feeling so special to have my name that I put it facing out. As you do.

The only wood I had to buy for this was a single sheet of shop grade pre-fin since the edges didn't matter.



Measure 6 times and cut at least twice.

I'm sure I've done it before but it was exciting to realize that the Festool Kapex's portable extensions attach to the MFT. Again, it all felt like the first time I was discovering this... "Wow, this Festool stuff is so thoughtful! It all works together and is so modular. I should really invest in this... oh, wait, this is all mine"



The dust collector could probably be core sampled and tell the entire remodel story. If I didn't throw it all in the compost.



I think this was the point where I realized I'd "accidentally" created the perfect captured drawer bottom. I probably could have gone back in my sketchbooks and found the pages where I built the drawers, or even just waded back in this thread since I use this as a diary of sorts but in this case it just made the same decisions as last time and it worked out.



I tapped all the parts together for a dry fit and it all fit nice and tight.




Then took the drawer back to room to test fit in the cabinet. The drawer will go up top for ease of access but it was easier to just check the width this way and it fit perfectly. So onto glue.





After gluing up two drawers - about all I had the clamps for - I realized that if I wanted to push them to the top of the cabinet I should probably have a handle. It would be easy enough to grab the bottom with its 5mm inset but without a way to telegraph that information you'd be looking at a big rectangle without any hints.

My normal approach is a 30 bevel and then a Festool roundover bit to soften the edge - something I come back to over and over. But I didn't want to (and couldn't now that it was glued) do that for the length of the drawer front. Besides that would look the same. I needed a way to open the drawer AND to communicate that.



I marked out 200mm on a 1/2" scrap and then used the fence on the router table to set a depth that felt about finger width and made a template for a cut out. I knew that the track saw couldn't cut at the angle inside that space, the jigsaw was a recipe for disaster because of the tight curve and long straight. I needed a way to cut the bevel with the template...

This needed a field trip.



It's been a while since I visited Woodcrafters - our local woodworking shop and Festool dealer. And when I say "dealer" I'm using that in the same way you'd use it in conjunction with "drug". Except there's no "first hit's free" here. I was surprised at the number of new things they had but nothing was begging to go home with me.

I was there for a router bit. That's it. I swear.

Gregor

 

[nicholam77]

I'll echo that it's great to see the baltic birch and the woodworking tools again! I enjoy all of your endeavors, but the woodworking + house has always been my favorite.

I love those FastCap tapes for their readability, but I think I've dropped my FastCap one too many times to trust it without checking it every time. For dimensions that need to be true (like drawer widths), I strongly prefer a quality rule like your Woodpeckers, and using end stops to batch repeatable parts. I think I just have an innate distrust for tape measures.

I like your drawer construction method, and agree it looks great with the baltic birch.

On the rabbet setup, if it's a common setup you'll use again (18mm x 10mm), then if you have an extra piece of scrap to run through, you can write the specs on it with a sharpie and save it somewhere. Then you can use that to help dial in the bit height and fence distance next time you need it, and hopefully have to run less test cuts. Obviously only worth it if it's something you see yourself coming back to.

I've always liked this cabinet / shelf project of yours and have even thought of doing something similar in my basement TV area. Looking forward to the evolution of it, and I'm sure there is some sentimental value since Lara originally worked on it with you.

Your camera gear seems ripe for Gridfinity, although I'll warn even just doing a single large drawer can be quite time consuming and uses a lot of plastic.

But here's a video I think you might enjoy:

Anyways, great work!

 

[Vertigo Cycles]

I've been trying to fix my hifi which developed a hiss that made it unlistenable. I did figure it out but that lead me to another rabbit hole of "recapping" which I'll get into later when I actually get into it. But that got me to clean up my soldering/electronics bench and it was just in time for Lucas who had a physics class project about electromagnets and was building a kit.




He took to it very quickly. Some of his first joints were a bit cold but he got the hang of it.



And it was fun to teach him and then let him go. Right now, as a teen, I try to keep my actual "instruction" to a minimum and just give hi the cliff notes and let him play.




It's crazy to me that this thread has spanned his whole childhood and I'm still not done with the house. He is, as of last week, now taller than me. I'm still better looking, funnier and smarter. But that could all change by next week.

Okay, I have several projects that I'm working on so more later.

Gregor

I may be coming into an oscilloscope that I'm not sure that I need. If I do get it and can't put it to use, I'll pass it on to you if you're interested. If Lucas is taking a liking to electronics, it's a great tool to have to troubleshoot circuits and even just investigate them. You can often "see" ripple, switching noise, and all kinds of time based functions of circuits that you just can't see with a multimeter.

Before I gave one to Ben, my kids had a great time investigating the output of one of my electric guitars and then through various pedals to see how the waves change.

 

[burger]

What the others said- it’s good to see you cutting Baltic birch again!

 

[lilscorpion]

Glad to see you back at it Gregor, green looks
Good on you.

 

[sakurama]

We interrupt this drawer build with a trip to Austin, TX for Ducati - sorry not sorry.

I love being challenged to think of solutions quickly on location and to make this just a bit more challenging I decided to miss my flight out on Wednesday morning. Turns out that Apple has "alarms" that get silenced at night if you have "do not disturb" turned on. What a great feature Apple - alarms that are silent... I luckily caught the next flight out arriving with an hour to spare to shoot the new Superleggera V4 Centenario the day before it was unveiled to the public.

I love the cloke and dagger game of keeping a prototype covered any time it's in public. Sure, spy shots abound but the game stays the same. The bike we had to shoot was the final prototype and the production versions would be between $170,000-185,000 meaning our bike was very special and completely hand assembled - taking it on and off the stand and rolling it around before the "big reveal" was a little nerve wracking.

This bike is the first production bike to be built almost exclusively with carbon fiber - frame, subframe, fork tubes, swingarm, wheels and of course the body. It's knocking on MotoGP level performance at under 350lbs and 248rwhp. I can't even imagine what that would be like to ride. Outside of terrifying.



When I moved to Oregon I'd spent so much time in the studio, lighting everything, that using natural light was actually really hard. It took a while to be able to master it but now it feels easy. Our location were these fancy private garages at the COTA track and I got in just in time to unload gear, walk around the location and then wait an hour for the sun to find a gap just before sunset. That late light allowed us to make a first series of images that were more clean...



...and when the sun went down we set up for a second series with lights.

Working with Matt and doing video I've had to figure out constant lighting - in this case LED's - so that he, Chad and I could all work with the same light. In this case a simple fresnel spot and fill. We finished around 9 or 10 and I spent the next several hours editing before Katie flew in. We had down time during the days so it seemed like a fun way for her to come and see what I do and have a very "mini vacation". I got up early and finished editing around 7am then Katie and I explored some Austin galleries before we had to return for the (actual) red carpet unveiling party.



The me from a long time ago would never, ever, shoot a party. Not so much beneath me (okay, a little bit) but also they are really hard because you have so little control. Now, I just look at it as a challenge, the same way I looked at getting assigned to shoot city council when I was a journalist.




The factory riders were there and Marquez even made a joke about the performance of this bike being so good that maybe they should be riding it instead of the GP bikes (they're not having the best season so far) and Claudio (CEO) got a good laugh from that.

Claudio did the presentation and there was a lot of grip and grin party photos after. Every person there had already bought the bike and you weren't invited unless you had been vetted. In such a constrained situation the challenge is trying to find a new and interesting way to make photos. I always bring a tripod so I can do long exposures so that people milling around become ghosts or blurs. People are very distracting.



I got lucky with this shot. I moved the camera towards the end of a several second exposure letting the brights screen and lights streak the frame. You never know if people will like or even "get" a shot like this. I loved this shot but didn't expect Ducati to use it so I was pleasantly surprised to discover it as a stand alone instagram post the next morning. Having done this job my entire life I still get excited about trying to find new ways to shoot and even more excited when someone appreciates that. Ducati appreciating it? That's as good as it gets.

The next night was another party and then on Saturday was the Sprints and Qualifying.



Marquez had crashed and showed up bandaged and rashed. Look at that hand - yikes! These guys are gladiators. I spent a lot of the weekend thinking about what a massive spectacle this whole thing was and how it all revolved around just a handful of riders. That pressure is amazing - everyone wants something from you and at the same time you're expected to perform. Millions ride on your every move.



One thing I'll say for sure is that Ducati is very different - they are passionate about what they do. Claudio was meeting and talking to fans all weekend in addition to keeping an eye on the race team. Here he was doing the parade lap with about a 100 or so Ducatisti and he had a great time. Not jaded at all.



Sunday was race day and after the big lunch that Ducati serves up I was asked to head over to the pits. Access to the pits is wildly restricted and the hardest thing in the world to get into. I have been in only once to shoot a celebrity the day before a race and only for a couple of minutes. This weekend, however, was a bit special.



I got to accompany Kayla Yaakov (green sleeves) into the garages to watch the entire race with the team. I've known Kayla for a few years now from various events and track days but this year she made history by being the first woman to stand on the podium of the Daytona 200 and she's not even old enough to drink. So Francesco (VP of Sales, left of Kayla) invited her (and me) to watch the race with the team. The most interesting part for me was standing next to Pecco's wife (center behind the guy in the white shirt) and noticing her pacing with fingers crossed - for the entire race.

The opportunity to be in the garage with Marquez and Pecco and the entire team during the actual race was surreal. I did not watch the race at all instead watching the team watch the race and seeing what each person did. It was a pretty amazing experience to be sure.

But not nearly as amazing as making drawers. So back to that tomorrow.

Gregor

 

[Grant Gunderson]

In my mind balancing flash with natural light is the utopian of photography. It’s one thing to excel at natural light or at artificial but it takes a hell of a lot more skill to combine both (and a bunch of watt seconds too). That always makes for spectacular images


I owe you an email still too.

 

[sakurama]

Yup, fully agree with you Grant. No rush on the email - I've got a full plate this month.

After deciding to just do a 200mm half round cut out at the top of the drawer I knew I wanted to make some kind of relief for fingers since the opening was small. All of my cabinets and drawers have been using the Festool 30 degree round-over bit, probably the first bit I ever bought over 20 years ago when I got my first Festool gear. I loved a tapered edge on a sharp 30 angle. Back then Festool seemed to have a lot of router bits that were all in 8mm shafts.



Now, not so much surprisingly. In fact I only counted about 8-10 bits in 8mm shafts in total and since I didn't want to remove the big OF1400 router that lives in the router table (that uses 1/2" shaft bits) I was stuck with the 1/4" shaft options. Of which there were many. The triangular one on the left was my solution to being able to use that Festool 30 degree roundover (first unboxed on left) but I also got a 1/2" cove. That last one is for trimming laminate so I considered that as well as I prefer bevels to round overs - crisp edges seem more clean.



I used the same jig and did a test cut that was almost the whole depth but left about 3-4mm flat with the idea that I'd round over the front side with the Festool bit.



The depth isn't right as the edge of the bit was cutting into the face but I didn't like it either way. I may opt to put a small bevel on the drawers edge but I may just leave it.




Since I'd already glued up two complete drawers I needed to be sure that whatever way I route these would work with the built up drawers so I checked to be sure the router would fit inside the drawer and it did. Confident with my tests I ran the router over the two fronts of the unbuilt drawers...



I'm not sure why I'm burning the corners, I suppose it's because I'm slowing down and trying to not to mess up the returns but part of me isn't actually that bothered by it.




I clamped the jig to the completed drawers and ran the router over the cut outs with out much drama. Festool is famous for its dust collection but I've found the both the router table and the router itself are pretty bad at collecting the sawdust - rout-dust? I'm not sure any of it gets picked up and the floor and myself were covered in sawdust.



With the routing of the bevel done I assembled the last two drawers and glued them up. At this point I could probably just install them as the glue should be plenty strong but I wanted to keep the theme and the "belt and suspenders" style of building by then cutting through Dominos into the joints.



The Domino cutter is another tool that I have not used in... years? It was another small revelation of "wow, this is such a cool tool, I should get one of these... oh, right, this is already mine! How cool is that?" Can I just say that with rare exceptions I don't think I ever regret buying tools - even ones that I don't use much.



I took it apart to change the bit to the 6mm size and noticed that I had a Senaca Woodworking plate. I bought this right after getting the Domino because it was supposed to allow you to center the bit on 3/4 plywood - and maybe it does but you have to use the Domino upside down which was awkward. Also I am always using 18mm baltic birch and 3/4" is closer to 19mm. So a fail all around.



This reminded me of how useless the built in Domino depth stop is: 16mm, 20mm, 22mm, etc. and none are remotely related to... anything? 16mm is almost 5/8" but who uses that? 20mm? Beats me. Everything that I do is 12mm 15mm and 18mm.




I looked at that depth stop and thought, "Hmm, not that complex - it would be a pain in the *** but I could certainly machine a new one from aluminum. It would take at least a day..." Then I removed the bit to measure the threads so I could make a dummy bit with a point to help me measure center but I didn't have a 6mm x .75 tap...

"It's been years now - surely someone has solved this already..."

Searching "Festool Domino DF500 Depth Stop" and what do you know...




The 3d printing world provides and the usefulness of the Bambu only grows. At this point Nadia and I use the printer more than Lucas.

This particular version suggested a .2mm nozzle which I didn't have and promptly ordered. Despite that the depths were pretty close.



But not perfect. I found a remix of that seemed to have solved the issues with the first three and actually had the depths that I needed: 12mm, 15mm and 18mm and seemed to be pretty accurate and fit and worked as well as the original. The first version had an option to print the numbers in a different color but I only had the .4mm nozzle so they weren't that sharp and the fit wasn't great. The second version fit well and was accurate but the numbers were inset and when I tried to fill them with some of Nadia's paint it didn't work too well. But the 18mm setting was dead center on the 18mm birch (second from left).

And at this point I'd spent too much time on it and I needed to start to pack my bags for Austin. I'm hoping that today I can bore the domino mortises and glue them in and then give the drawers a sanding and possibly a coat of poly to finish them up. But I've not even unpacked from Austin so there's a lot to get done.

In two weeks I'm doing a big shoot with Rev'It! where, for a change, I'm not actually doing the shooting but producing, directing, riding and starring in an ad campaign. It's an opportunity to push the creative while disengaging from the actual shooting. Nonetheless I have ideas to try and one of them is to fabricate a new reflector for the shoot...

G