Less than two weeks after installing our new Okuma CNC lathe at work, our machinist turned out a newly designed contact tip for our printer. The lathe allows us to hold the tolerances needed to refine our printing process and to make subtle adjustments to the geometry with turnaround time measured in minutes rather than weeks. We immediately put the new contact tip into use and it performed perfectly.
Digital Alloys is located in a rather developed part of Burlington. Even so, the Vine Brook Wellfields can be found less than a half-mile from the office. My current morning routine involves arriving at the office at about 6:30 AM and setting off on a 2.5-mile round trip walk to get breakfast. That walk takes me past Vine Brook which I paused this morning to photograph.
We received this photo of Maya in a text with no explanation. She appears to be inside a large toroidal shaped beach ball and to have lost one leg. We suspect this has something to do with her term abroad orientation.
An image of me and my mom that I have never seen before. It was one of many that I discovered after digitizing negatives from my mother’s photography collection.
Maya let us know that she arrived in Amsterdam safely with a message that included this photo and a hypothesis that the Dutch must be very tall people.
Maya left today for Amsterdam where she will spend the next four months studying on a term abroad. Jeanine organized a family send-off which took place at Time Out. There, we were joined by cousin John Quinn and enjoyed delightful food, procured from no less than six of the more than a dozen food establishments housed within. In front of the food court was an ice rink (featuring one foxy skater) and an antique 1960 International Metro Short Van converted into a food truck. Maya requested that special notice be given to her packing efficiency given the 1/3 of a year stay.
Earlier this week I started scanning film negatives that were part of the collection of photographs that I recently retrieved from my mother’s home in advance of its sale. Had I completed the task using my flatbed scanner, it would have taken me weeks to get through the collection. Instead, I purchase a $20 LED light table and placed my camera with a macro lens on my camera stand. I used heavy tools from my shop to hold down the curled edges of the film. I thought about using a glass plate for this but then remembered how a prism works. Using this technique, I was able to plow through several hundred negatives in about 6 hours. Expect to see some newly discovered photos over the coming days.
The printing technique we use at Digital Alloys requires that we maintain an inert atmosphere inside our printers to inhibit oxidation of the metals we print with. We use argon gas pumped into a large hermetically sealed glove box. Maintaining this environment is not easy given that we must pass hundreds of wires into the sealed chamber. Early versions of the printer had difficulty maintaining the environment because outside air made its way into the box traveling between the cable insulation and the wires within. This was solved by employing hermetically sealed pass-through connectors. The price for one such connector for a USB connection is $650. When a purchase request came to me for two of these, I could not believe the price. I denied the request and returned home this evening to build one myself. I cut the end off a USB extender cable, peeled away all the molded plastic and resoldered the connection leaving about a half-inch of bare, tinned wire. I then potted this end of the connector inside an empty pass-through housing with an inch of epoxy. The cross-section of the hermetic boundary is four tinned 24 gauge wires. I can guarantee this will work and the cost for the USB components and epoxy was under $8.
Photos of my parents I have bever seen before. This explains a lot!
Jeanine taught a cooking class this evening at the Concord Carlisle Adult Learning Center. The class was called One Week’s Worth of Meals in an Hour. Apparently the new title attracted a much larger class than last year’s version entitled, Healthy Soups and Stews. As is usually the case, Jeanine fretted about not being prepared for the class only to report that the session went off without a hitch and was a great success.
I have started to scan old photos I recently retrieved from my mother’s home before I forward them to her in Minneapolis. Expect to see a number of them in the coming days. Pictured above is my mother (on the right) and her father and sister-in-law, Juanita. This is one of the few pictures I have of my grandfather (abuelito). From the stories I have heard, I have him to thank for much of my ingenuity and problem-solving instincts.
The finishing touches for our guest bathroom included the mirror frame I built last week and a new light fixture. I can now mark this room as done. In total, I replaced the showerhead, shower control valve, bathtub spout, vanity faucet, toilet paper holder, two towel holders, the shower sliding doors, all the cabinet knobs and the already mentioned items from this morning. Pictured below is what the bathroom looked like when we moved in.
Just down the street from our home resides a former soccer teammate and brother of Christopher Reeves of Superman fame. When I saw the top of a huge crane from our kitchen bay window, I immediately grabbed my drone for a closer look. It appears that they are removing a large tree that is threatening the structures. At first glance, it appears like the crane might be poised to pick up the house.
I am slowly replacing all the brass finished hardware in our master bathroom with brushed nickel. So far that includes the vanity faucet, Jacuzzi faucet, and tub spout, two towel racks, two robe hooks, all the cabinet knobs, and a toilet paper holder. Today I refinished items for which no replacements are available. This included the Jacuzzi tub hardware (two hand grabs, two aerator controls, the drain and drain control knob) and the shower door. Both required full disassembly so I could sand, prime and refinish each item without getting paint on everything else. It was an all-day project which produced a very satisfying outcome.
