ProjectNight.com
Wednesday Night Project Night, Page 7 of 7
Most recent night first.
16 Jul 2008: PHOTOS IN CAMERA. Matt's shop.
Major function. Genuinely fine maduro cigars, Churchills. A Merlot and Cab that shut down the projects and moved the entire crew outside the shop to enjoy the ambiance of a Fairbanks summer evening in the parking lot. Had to shoot a few mosquitoes, but there is always plenty of ammo.
Projects were done. The monster band saw was cranked up to full speed to cut a handle for the monster maul for adjusting big beams on timber frame houses. Big electrical conduit hangers were modified to hang modified ABS pipe for a modified seamless gutter for the prestigious Alaskan Alpine Club world headquarters. Half the cost of commercial seamless gutters. Now getting a bit over ten times the amount of work, but, that is the Alaskan way to do projects. Saving a dime and making the project PERFECT is worth any cost.
The Owl Report has it that the owl at Tim's shop is nesting in a hole in a tree ten feet away from the owl nest Tim made at ProjectNight. He didn't give a hoot.
New toys were brought forward for analysis. There are some high quality tools being made to make some specialized tasks very efficient. Unfortunately they cost so much that they must actually be used to earn their show time. Work is in progress. Call Matt if you want a high quality small timber frame cabin or house, or two.
We went through certain other concepts that must remain secret, and required us to first post the guard dogs. Expect a full report at the proper time, or just keep an eye on the northern horizon.
10 Jul 2008: PHOTOS LATER. Jon's shop.
Drilling the new ice tower nozzle heads was completed. Tapping, welding and stuff next.
Fine wine, gourmet cheese, watermelon, shop stories.
So from where does that vibrating humming noise in the house water pipes come? The well pump? Water flow through a constriction in the line? Email your answer to Doug@Buchanan..ws. And what is the cure?
As to the matter of water... A little iron in water is not yet on any terrorist list, especially if the water is high quality commercial well water with no iron to start with. But the Divine All Mighty Environmentalist Division of the Benevolent Government Authority has just decreed that the standard old plain steel or cast iron pumps on water delivery trucks must be changed to stainless steel pumps, at $1,500 each, so you can get some of the more toxic alloy metals in stainless steel, in your water, and pay more for it. The bureaucrats therefore get to write more regulations that produce more excuses to write revenue-producing citations, and therefore issue more paper reports. Machine shops therefore get to make more custom stainless steel pumps. The humans are on schedule.
Had do sharpen a drill three times to get a safety wire hole through a certain stainless clevis bolt for the swivel on Betty's Floating Island.
Profound planning was completed for the AlaskanAlpineClub.org headquarters, a gaggle of adventures, and a few conspiracies related to the overthrowing of whatever needs to be overthrown. Take a number and be patient. Lot of things need overthrowing. Easy process, just takes time. On the list of projects.
2 Jul 2008: PHOTOS LATER. Jon's shop, or near John's shop, over in the trees by the cabin, on the bridge across Goldstream.
A record was set. Not one project, not one, advanced even a metric inch. Everyone was over by the cabin drinking fine brew, near the brewery, and some finer distillate. The stories crossed Goldstream and back several times. We can make a single malt Alaska scotch from malted Alaska barley and some peat squeezings from the old peat bog behind John's shop, on the other side of Goldstream. We will let you know when the first batch reaches Goldstream.
The obscure foot bridge across Goldstream, just down from the larger nugget stretch, just above the fine flour gold flatwater stretch through the main gold bearing part of the valley, was made from an old catwalk on a North Slope oil drill rig. How it got there is not entirely known, or would want to be mentioned. A lot of North slope oil field and pipeline equipment and materials seeped out beyond the oil field, and some of it never got that far north.
Do you know how much it cost for harbor fees if your fishing boat sinks at its harbor slip in Ketchikan, or how much it costs to get your canoe out of the Ketchikan boat impoundment area if it gets impounded because one tie-off comes untied-off? Just do not let it happen. And if you cannot afford to unimpound your canoe, and therefore paddle a piece of scrap styrafoam across the harbor to reach your fishing boat, expect to irritate the harbor cops who got their maliciousness training from the National Park Service cops.
I wonder what Fairbanks stories are told in Ketchikan.
The new ice tower nozzle head was chucked up to drill the nozzle holes, then was unchucked when project night was completed. Fortunately there is a little time before it starts freezing again.
25 Jun: Matt's shop. Camera man forgot his new camera. Matt has not sent the photos he took.
The little gap in ProjectNight reports facilitated some projects in other parts of the world.
Serious attempt to drill safety wire holes in the ends of some stainless steel bolts. The guy was guessing at the drill speed. He guessed wrong. Did a lot of drilling at a high speed. Did not get much hole. No problem. Next project night at John's shop. John knows about these things.
Cut a lot of ABS pipe into rain gutter troughs that will have no leaks and be half the cost of commercial seamless gutter, at only ten times the hours of dink-around work. Well, that is what Project Night is all about. And an ABS pipe rain gutter is the sort of idea these Alaska ProjectNight sorts would attempt. The first lengthwise cut through ABS pipe tends to pinch the blade. The second cut is more reasonable. Remember that if you are ever cutting ABS pipe lengthwise. And use a slow drill speed for drilling stainless steel.
Some standing around in the Alaska summer, drinking fine local ale, and discussing the political lunacy of humans advanced all that needed to be advanced.
16 April: Duff's shop.
First, an actual project was advanced, with a lot of attention by the Project Night folks who so rarely see an actual project at Project Night. The ski rack got done just in time for the snow to melt, so the skis would have a place to patiently wait for next winter.
Then there was a darts project.
Then there was some sort of group endeavor with a hand held power tool of some sort.
Then the quintessential lignitized wood project was brought forward with the Scotch and beer and wine, for the photo.
9 April 2008: Matt's shop
Rudolph Steiner was mentioned. From that edge of the universe of knowledge, the expedition went farther out fast, leaving the shop tools idle but the brew supply diminishing. They seem to have found their way back, but they brought knowledge not common to many conversations, and that might frighten those who do not question what they are told.
There was the demonstration of the new get-out-of-the-way mortise and tenon joint making machine. Wow. The shop toy making industry is on full voltage.
Then there was the ski pole basket transfer project, putting good old baskets onto the red ski poles found in the dumpster, from the broken blue ski poles found in the dumpster. That required a little heat from the heat gun, and some Old 55 from Silver Gulch Brewery.
Well of course the 5.4 million year old lignitized wood project came out, for the photo, and was then put back. Sometimes the appearance of the project is the project. At least it did not get lost at the edge of the universe during that conversation.
2 April: Jon's Machine Shop.
Sure good thing the frayed snow scoop showed up, needing a couple pop rivets, or that whisky sitting on the 105 mm recoilless rifle shell would have been the only project that got done.
But there was no small volume of pontificating on profound concepts, all ascribed to the archives.
However, the web slave is uploading this report more than a week later, while sitting in the ice shack of the AlaskanAlpineClub.org Web Cam on John Reeves' Ice Tower, so the archives are not at hand, so that's the full report.
26 March 2008:
Duff's shop
A sheet of plywood was painted white, for a sign. Start to finish, completed project, white. Arduous project. Barely got it done by the time we left the shop. Several of us were required to carefully examine the paint, and insure that it dried at a uniform rate.
The dart throwing project slowed some other projects.
The northern lights were whipping around the sky, which required observation time.
There was much discussion of spring garden planting, and why the drill press was not working as preferred.
All manner of other projects were greatly advanced to near completion, or not so near completion.
The camera guy was
sent up to the shop headquarters to photograph the progress on
new kitchen counter back tile project being pursued by three of
the project night folks during this Project Night. The tile is
brown.
The process and progress are revealed in the photos. But apparently the planning was advanced, not unlike the projects back down at the shop.
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