Red Sky Mods - Part Two

[Capt' Brian]

Ahoy all, hope you are having a fine damn pirate day!

What did you do in the foundry Waho? From what I know it's hot and dangerous work.


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I'm not expecting it to be delivered for a few more days, but I wanted to mention that for next batch I am going to not only have some of that terrific Quilted maple for panels, but I'm going to be able to offer it as body wood as well for the first time.

Here is a listing for almost the same thing I got off e-bay. I'm not going to use my own win listing as I'm not sure what personal info might be gleaned from it.

Awesome Quilted Maple Block 22 1 2 x 10 1 8 x 2 5 16 | eBay


Isn't that just some freaking awesome looking wood? Yo ho!


Ok, so much to do, back to work I go...

 

[Waho]

Ahoy all, hope you are having a fine damn pirate day!

What did you do in the foundry Waho? From what I know it's hot and dangerous work.

I was in the core room making disposable sand "molds" for v8 cylinder heads. I ran a machine that took raw sand and added a two part resin and curing gas to make hard sand parts. I made 2 of the 4 parts of the completed sand core package. They'd come off my machine and I had to visually inspect the core quality (1.2mm max defect depth, professional eyeballer I be ), run it though a definner to remove excess sand left from the parting line of the tooling and stack them on a rack. 8 20lb cores every 75 seconds, all day every day

Definitely dangerous as we regularly had to enter the machine to fix quality defects and minor mechanical/electrical issues. I've almost lost a finger on the unload assembly, smacked my head on guide pins/rods on many occasions, and had a 7000lb piece of tooling be ejected from the back of a machine while I was behind it. Not to mention getting sand shot at high velocity in my face/eyes, all the while being in the 100 decibel range and 150 degree heat index. My machine was about 50 feet from "melting" where they had all the molten aluminum and 30 feet from "heat treat" where the raw heads were baked at 600 degrees before being dunked in a tank of water which regularly exploded.

No wonder they pay auto workers so much, it sounds horrible just reading it back to myself after being laid off for 6 weeks.

 

[Capt' Brian]

Can anyone guess what this is?





Just got done cutting out panels from the small block I had. Took off my dust mask and realized I could smell hot metal and then it dawned on me that my bandsaw blade had died cutting this.

Man this stuff is hard to cut but I wanted to get it ready for panel offerings on the next batch.

Ack, I need to get this dust off me better, it's pretty nasty stuff and I can taste it in my mouth, clothes must still have a bunch of dust still on them. Time to change clothes and get back to other work.

I like getting the harder jobs done before I work on the easy stuff!

 

[Waho]

Can anyone guess what this is?





Just got done cutting out panels from the small block I had. Took off my dust mask and realized I could smell hot metal and then it dawned on me that my bandsaw blade had died cutting this.

Man this stuff is hard to cut but I wanted to get it ready for panel offerings on the next batch.

Ack, I need to get this dust off me better, it's pretty nasty stuff and I can taste it in my mouth, clothes must still have a bunch of dust still on them. Time to change clothes and get back to other work.

I like getting the harder jobs done before I work on the easy stuff!

Looks to me like black and white ebony...

Either way its absolutely gorgeous!

 

[Capt' Brian]

Bingo! Black and white ebony. Been keeping my eyes open for some for a loooonngg time now, finally found some perfect for panels.

 

[aidreon]

Oh my, there will be plenty of exciting new woods on the next batch!

 

[Capt' Brian]

Ahoy. Well I'm done for the night.

I got all 4 of the Destroyer dna's built, they're off in the corner with drying glue. Tomorrow I would hope to finish the last few mods and by Thursday I can start final prep & finish work.

It's kind of a bugger having only one good eye atm, slows things down somewhat, especially when trying to solder all those wires and components into little bitty compartments. But as blurry as it is, it still helps in giving me depth perception so it isn't all bad.

I can't say for sure when next pre-ordering will start, but I will try to get it open by the weekend or shortly after.

Desk caddies shipped out today and I have no more pending orders for them so I can concentrate on getting the batch done and out the door. Arrrr!

 

[aidreon]

Good morning Crew!
Wow the thread was a bit slow lately, but it's now full speed ahead! So happy to see the thread so lively, and so good to read from you these last few days Cappy, you sound all excited about things, and sure have great news for wood lovers

Have the best day ever everyone

 

[Waho]

Good afternoon crew!

I'll say it again, I don't think I've ever been as excited for a mod as I am for this one! And with all the new wood options it's definitely a great time to be a RSM crew member

 

[Capt' Brian]

Ahoy!

Well, t'was a good damn day today, got everything done that I wanted to do.

All the mods are now built, the last few have glue drying off in the corner and tomorrow I will proceed with the finishing touches of finish. I'm still hoping to ship by the weekend or Monday.

I also have 52 new pieces of panel wood from 11 different species to post on the website for the next batch, gotta get that done pretty soon.

Something else I've also been wanting to do is some research on how to properly setup a studio picture box to get the right kind of illumination for taking mod and other wood pics. Just using the flash on the camera washes out the color and it's hard to get the right tone. I'll search on the web for some simple construction designs that I might be able to manage in my limited time & budget.

I can't help but to feel that better pictures might facilitate shopping on the website. The current pics of mods make them look a lot less colorful than they really are.

Anyway, yup, tomorrow I go through all the mods, double check that I haven't messed anything up or missed any flaws and apply the final coat of finish before they ship.

 

[fright88]

Great news Cappy I can't wait to see the pre shippment pics!!

 

[Capt' Brian]

Good grief, I had an appointment today to get my eyes checked again, I didn't know they were going to dilate the bad eye. So here I sit with one eye totally blurry. Glad I got the assembly done yesterday so if I just get that last coat of finish on them by tonight it won't be a totally lost day...... this getting old ..... sucks....

Where are all the amazing high tech toys we were supposed to have by now? Transporters, personal hover craft, android helpers and shuttles to the moon colony? Someone has been dropping the ball I think! I would settle for a true 3D holographic TV though ..

Have a great day, arrr

 

[aidreon]

Ah, I'm not the only one who feels like the 3D screen we have now are...hmmmm...a joke?
Jeez, get some rest Cappy, relax, the batch can wait one more day

 

[RiverNut]

yeah I don't get how people age gracefully...there's not a damn thing graceful about it. And speaking of technology, what about cloning? I wouldn't mind starting over and trying this again . Maybe tweek my genes a little too so I can be taller this time lol

 

[aidreon]

Being tall sucks... Try to spend 12 hours in a plane when you're tall, say goodbye to your knees

 

[Capt' Brian]

Yes! I want a clone, fresh off the assembly line! Maybe not so handsome though, it's such a hassle when the girls chase you all the time, know what I mean?

Oh wait, that was a daydream I was having, never mind .....

 

[Waho]

I'd definitely accept being a few inches taller on a second go around.

My girlfriends younger brother is a full foot taller than me at 6' 9". Makes me feel like a dwarf

 

[supertrunker]

If i cloned myself - i could leave myself my money in my will! Cool!

T

 

[Capt' Brian]

Ahoy!

I'm gonna knock off for the day, kinda wish I could have gotten more done but ah well.

I was inspecting the mods and realized I had not yet filled the atty connector insides with glue (this prevents the connector insulator seal from being squashed and eventually shorting out the connector) so I had to fill them all and put them aside to dry. Tomorrow will be the day they get finish on them I guess, but Monday still looks good for shipping.

Also spent some time making a new storage box for all the new panel wood I have. It needs to be stored standing on end so air can get at all the sides to prevent warping while in storage.

I also spent a couple hours making a picture box using a U-Tube video I found for instruction. It came out very well and I used it for taking pictures of all the new panel wood today. Here's the video in case you've ever needed something like that for selling items on e-bay or whatnot.



Later all, arrr

 

[RiverNut]

shipping Monday!