I have a baby shower to go to tomorrow, so I whipped up some new height charts. Lighting is bad, so it’s hard to see that the colors are dark brown and fuchsia.
And, we’ve been wanting curtains, so I utilitarianly sewed up some expanses of purple faux suede and hung them up.
all told: an hour and a half!
I haven’t done much of anything these last two weeks! Well, not craft related anyway – I’ve spent lots of time with family, which is great, just not productive. 😀
I completed some simple craft projects as gifts so last minute I didn’t take any pictures. They weren’t too exciting anyway, so it’s all good (felt flower pins and notebook covers).
I have made very little progress on the cat feeder – perhaps a half an hour of time total in actual physical progress and maybe two hours of pouty contemplation. I poured some spheres for the center of the measuring/dispensing device which I have realized are about a 1/2 inch too small. This evening I decided I will put a bunch of screws into the ball all over, spray it way spray foam, and carve/sand the spray foam down to the tops of the screws before I smear two coats of silicon caulking over the whole thing. If that works, I’ll make up a second one.
I saw some movies, decorated a tree and made some wreaths, painted a bowl, cleaned my house and my aunt’s house, and played a lot of Machinarium. I also started a new project which is building a RepRap 3D printer with some people I met at the Beaver Bar Camp this summer. I will post general things about it here, but plan on posting very detailed things somewhere else (not sure where, yet). Here are a few pictures of some of the things I did.
Height Chart
I wanted to put some decorations and tools up on the walls, but I dont’ want to put big holes in the wall since it’s lathe and plaster. Instead, I got some free wood scraps and covered them up.
Here’s the big one. I just need to get another molding hook so I can hang this one up.
While I was doing this, I noticed something in my closet… A whole shelf taken up with foam pumpkins. ??
What’s the big deal, eh? Well, I realized that I got those pumpkins several years ago and the whole point was to carve them for Halloween, and Halloween was coming up in just a few days! If I just FINISHED that project, I’d have a whole shelf to hold more stuff! And then … I realized if I just finished ALL of my projects, I wouldn’t feel so cramped in the craft room! And, because I’m a bit obsessive, I realized that I needed to put all of my projects on the table right then. So, here they are!
So, I put everything away except those pumpkins …
… and actually carved them and now they’re out on the porch (still) and will later go up in the attic with the rest of the Halloween decorations. Yay, a clear shelf!
I may have decided NOT to hack my servo. After doing more reading, I’ve learned that when you hack it, you can’t specify how many degrees it turns. You can only change the rate with which it turns and in what direction. I’m not sure if that will work well. I can imagine getting it to turn very slowly over a 15 minute time period and by adjusting the gears, change how far the dispenser is turned. OR, keeping the ability to specify how many degrees it turns. I figure the next thing I need to do is get a way to start attaching gears and actually try it out. That, and buy an appliance timer.
So, tonight I used some very sophisticated and high-tech materials and tools to start that process. First, a very important thing I realized I should share with you all: my thinking head band.
Its a sparkly yellow flower!
Ok, then onto the working! Here is a very sophisticated and high tech material for the grasping part of my turning gizmo.
Check out my precision measuring and marking skillz!
My very sophisticated and high tech precision tools. I actually love my tin snips – they cut everything! … I wonder if they ever get dull?
I learned two things cutting these notches out: 1) the pvc pipe cutter breaks the plastic all the way to the end and 2) the tin snips work well, but don’t snip it closed at the end – you’ll get a small break. Here is the notched graspy thingy!
Look! It fits! At first I thought I was going to drill a hole and glue in a shaft to which a gear would be attached, but now I think I’ll just find a big gear and just glue it to the bottom. I’m all about function here…
Actually… I am harboring fantasies of rebuilding the cat feeder when I know it works using brass and aluminum and the Steampunk aesthetic! Yay!
So, a friend asked me if I thought I took on too many projects. I immediately thought of the 40+ projects logged in my project list and answered with an emphatic “YES!” She asked how I could change that … and I was confounded. Why would I want to do that? I figured, so long as I got some things done, it was ok… I still don’t see this as a major problem. Even when I’ve decided to go to Washington tomorrow to buy a used industrial serger.
And even when I went and got an old treadle table so I could use my Elna Grasshopper with the burnt out motor. 
And especially when the treadle table is pretty cool, but really decrepit and in need of repairs…
So, that’s at least three new projects. It’s a good thing I haven’t officially finished the “Optimize the Craft Room” project, because I’m going to have to do some fancy rearranging to get both of those things in there and would have to consider that a ‘new’ project, too…
I just hooked my servo up to my teensy board and loaded a 180 degree sweep program and it worked! My heart actually started beating hard and fast in excitement!! Now I have to figure out how to get it to sweep the servo once at prescribed times and then figure out the mechanics of changing this rotating motion to a continuous motion effecting two cat food dispensers… Fun nights ahead!