Summer update

Just a quick note to say that as you can see by the photo the glider is progessing and we hope tp be able to fly it before the school holidays are over. On a musical theme (which is what this blog is suppssed to be about!) the dulcimer is coming along too and I will post some photos of that soon!

Summer break

Well it’s mid summer, the folk club is having abreak till September and my next booked open mic isn’t till October. So a break from music for a bit and time to spend with my family. I have a cunning plan to keep my 15 year old son off of the computer ,I’ve just bought a 2 metre wingspan radio controlled model glider/sail plane kit , it will be good to spend some quality father /son time building and learning how to fly it! I notice that people are fixing phones and cameras to their models and uploading their aerial movies to youtube, I guess I’ll have to risk taking my ipod for a flight!
Here’s one I found taken on the hill we hope to fly our from, who needs to charter a helicopter to make films like these? Ok not very summery but a good movie!

Testing my clock

My home made clock-next I have to add buttons so I can set the time then maybe chimes,not ugly electronic one but a relay connected to a little hammer striking a wind chime style tube would sound nice!

PENdulum test (BIC actually)

Here's a short video of my testing my pendulum system out, it's running a little fast so I need make the pendulum longer and the only way to accommodate t in that case is to raise the top and the coil up higher. I've already mover the opto sensor to the back and have a little pin in the back of the pendulum interrupting the beam. Even though the stanley knife bade fulcrum should be pretty well friction free bcz the coils magnetism has to jump a bit of a gap it's not so efficient and those 60 pulses a second are going to eat the batteries! Maybe a solar panel on top?

Video of me playing at Gary's club

About time I posted a video of myself playing here, I played at Gary's Club at the weekend, I think it went well. Anyway here's a couple of videos so you can make up your own mind!
Note I'm playing the Les Pew through the "new" amp and the rotary speaker, the copper gardening tags I found in a hardware shop have made much improved rotating speaker contacts! I wrote the songs too.

Bird's nest wiring!

Something that seems fairly simple in theory doesn't always work out like that in practice. It's certainly put my eye sight to the test! Though the bird's nest lay out is easier to trace than it looks you could hardly call it neat! (Dare I admit wiring is my trade?) Bcz the minute LEDs are small and are easy to destroy by over heating with the iron I decided to only wire one wire to each pin there is still the wiring for the seconds LEDs to be added but as these are larger I should be able to link them daisy chain style to keep down the bulk of the wiring! Oh-and I must order the IC's or it won't be doing anything!

Time - warp. (sorry that's the best I could come up with!)

Inspired by Time Hunkin's web site I thought I'd build a clock (also it makes a change to make something totally non musical)
It will have 132 LEDs _ and five cmos counters fanned out in a star shape in the center.
The outer ring will have yellow LEDs indicating the seconds- middle ring red for minutes and the inner rectangular green LEDS for the hour hands.
Yes a CNC machine would have made a better job of drilling those holes! Think of it as art! I will get them a little better as I glue them it place then fill any gaps.
it won't have a pcb of any kind all will have to be point to point hand wired! I must be mad! I want it to keep time via a pendulum with optical sensor and might add hourly chimes later.

The dulcimer is coming along, the side bending was a little bit of a struggle as I used a large soldering iron to steam them! No they don't want to stay in exactly the right curvature but are now bend easily into place.
I'm held up now as I need to put in an order for glue and might as well buy the finger board etc though my regular luthier suppliers in the UK don't seem to offer anything dulcimer sized!