Today's postings

  1. [Baren 45119] Dragons (Marilynn Smith)
  2. [Baren 45120] My Cracow trip. (key sevn)
  3. [Baren 45121] Baren Member blogs: Update Notification (Blog Manager)
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Message 1
From: Marilynn Smith
Date: Tue, 14 Feb 2012 15:01:42 GMT
Subject: [Baren 45119] Dragons
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Wow Harry, those are stupendous dragons. Eileen, I too feel badly
about your dog. My two are the center of our family. My dragon block
is almost done, my rabbits are printed. I am unhappy with the rabbits,
don't know what I will decide to do. I fell behind and it looks like
this year I will catch up. This is a relaxed exchange, I know we are
supposed to get them in on time, but a lot of us don't for varied
reasons. I just don't want to mail from the Baja, so I wait until we
get home, later in the year. I find it great fun to get cards whenever
they arrive and finally have settled into quietly waiting for those
who fall behind to "catch up". Priorities are important and because
this is a relaxed exchange I often push it to the back burner when
life gets hectic, I think others do the same.

Cheers from sunny Baja Sur,
Marilynn
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Message 2
From: key sevn
Date: Tue, 14 Feb 2012 21:23:42 GMT
Subject: [Baren 45120] My Cracow trip.
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Just published a small report ;}
read it here if you want.

http://yeh-yeh.blogspot.com/

regards.
Olek Wozniak.

Digest Appendix

Postings made on [Baren] members' blogs
over the past 24 hours ...

Subject: Knife set - handle prototyping continues ...
Posted by: Dave Bull

There is a problem to be faced with this kind of prototyping project, and that is with the selection and use of tools and jigs. These little handles are simple in concept, but not so simple to fabricate; none of the faces are square, and they are too small to easily hold for cutting, shaping and sanding.

Now of course in a commercial production situation, things like this are made on custom jigs, so there are no problems at all in handling and cutting the pieces. And I will indeed be designing and building such jigs to do the work as efficiently as possible. But the kind of Catch 22 facing me at the moment is that until the design is finalized, I cannot begin to make such jigs, but without having some samples in hand, I can't finalize the design.

That's what prototyping is all about, making a bunch of one-offs in differing patterns, in order to work out your final design. So I'm having to make some 'prototype jigs' too, because I certainly don't intend to try cutting such tiny pieces on my giant table saw by pushing them into the blade with my fingers!

Here's an example: each of the 'blanks' we saw in a previous post needs to be sliced at an angle into two pieces, resulting in two handles. This is the prototype jig - the crossbar is bent under the white plastic drawer handle, and clamps the piece firmly in place as the wood passes into the saw.

Giving us the two pieces cut at the correct angle:

But for the next two, I might want to try a slightly different angle, so have to 'jimmy' the position of the jig on the saw table surface. I suppose I could have made a more elaborate jig, that would allow delicate angle adjustment, etc., but how much time can you spend on jigs that will be tossed aside next week?

Here's an overview of the table saw, by the way. I made it back in 1987, when I was seriously thinking of setting up a professional toy making workshop, after getting many orders from local people - "Can I have one?" - for the toys that I had made for my own kids at the time ...


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This item is taken from the blog Mokuhankan Conversations.
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Subject: Lizards
Posted by: Andrew Stone


I drew these sketches from memory before going to the internet to find photos to reference and before I had decided to sprint over to Florida for a brief family visit.
I did find and take this photo of the lizard in question, the green anole,
anolis carolinensis and was happy to see it again in it's natural habitat.

[Long item has been trimmed at this point. The full blog entry can be viewed here]

This item is taken from the blog Lacrime di Rospo.
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