Category: making stuff

Starting from Rust

You might remember a little while ago that Vincent and I built him a bike out of, well, out of a bike. It was a lot of fun!

I’ve wanted to have a guest bike for a while so that when people — let’s say, Malcolm Craig — come to visit, we don’t have to drive into town. It’s stupid to drive there. We have a beautiful bike path and bikes run on lunch instead of gasoline. But, of course, bikes are expensive.

But not if you start rummaging. I was given this beauty a month ago or so. It had vines growing through it. Let’s look at some of the highlights, shall we?

Novara Rustpile

The first things to note: the rat trap is not connected to the frame at the top of the seat tube. That’s because the rack has two holes and the frame, one. When I got it, it was attached by a twist tie.

Also, note the 26″ wheels (that’s mountain bike size) with the drop handlebars.

Brakes at their worst.

Hey! Check out those brake shoes! The one on the left there is from a V brake. You know, the kind that works. The one on the right is the correct kind, from a cantalever brake. You know, the kind that doesn’t. In case you’re unfamiliar with these things: this is a cantalever brake.

This used to be a chain.

I think the rust on here is pretty beautiful. Unfortunately, it prevents the chain from bending.

The Heaviest Bike in the Universe.

This fiesta de crap is donating brakes and maybe the bars and shifters. I wanted to chop and flip the Novara’s bars into bullhorn bars, but I can’t seem to combine the brake levers I’ve got with those bars — the original levers will only work on caliper brakes, not cantilever or V — so I might go with the straight bars. I’m torn, though, because of the bar-end shifters on the Novara. I really wanted to have a single bar-end shifter. So I dunno.

Your bike a splode.

So everything comes apart. Notice the evaporated daylight. I can’t find my 5mm hex wrench now.

Monkeys!

That Lady I Like So Much took this pic of me dismantling. I’m trying to get the stupid fucking bars out of the stupid fucking stem. Why did anyone ever think that threading handlebars through was a good idea?

Those tires are total crap and dry-rotted to boot. They’re getting replaced with Bontrager Road Warriors.

I don’t have a picture of it, but not one bolt on the left side of the bike matched its counterpart on the right. One of them was, in fact, a drywall screw.

I’ve been steel brusing off the rust, which has been easier than expected. Once the majority of the rust is off, I’ll take the paint off with some methylene chloride (maybe the nastiest chemical ever created for non-military purposes) and repaint it a deep blue. If this frame were better (and without dents) I’d spray it dark blue, with a black fade underneath to give the paint some depth, then again with a clear gloss. But that’s not for this frame.

(Continued when I’ve got more bike building time.)

Rollin’ Rollin’ Rollin’

Vincent and Joshua clean a chain

Vincent and I spent last Saturday building him a bike.

Originally, the bike was a $20 yard sale Mongoose, purchased on Martha’s Vineyard and mostly left outside since, that I’d taken apart to see all the parts that I was usually afraid to take apart. Then Vincent needed a bike. So back together it went!

Running cables on Vincent’s new bike.

He bought a new saddle (the old one was eaten by mice) and new cables (eaten by rust) and some paint for the front fork (which would eventually be eaten by rust) and we set about assembling the thing. We had a ball.

Vincent is so badass!

I also haven’t taken pics of my bike, so here are some pics of that, too. It’s a Trek 6500 with Bontrager Road Warrior road slicks, some cheapo aero bars and an adjustable stem. I’d like to put more of a front mudguard on it and figure out a way to tighten the front suspension up some more.

Joshua’s bike.

The handlebars are hard to understand. Here’s a detail:

Joshua’s handlebars.

The difference in speed with the aero bars is really interesting. Not only do I get to duck out of the wind, but it feels like I can push really hard on the pedals. Someday soon I’ll get a computer and see how much of that it imaginary.

(Thanks to Carrie, who took the pics with me in them!)

Spacecraft from Mechaton

You’re going *where?*

 

A few weeks back, Emily, Vincent and I got together to battle in the space over Tarkut. At issue was a communications satellite held by Emily’s Rasili Empire. Through it, any one of us could command the communications of the entire planet for propaganda purposes. Vincent made a big threat early on: “I’m gonna keep you from getting that satellite no matter what.” I took that to heart. I also realized that I wasn’t going to be able to fight off both of them, cuz they were both going to be gunning for me. So I started my setup with one guy out front to make Vincent think I was going to be fighting for the satellite, which got him good and committed. I placed the rest of my guys behind him. The look on both of our faces is Vincent going “Holy shit, how am I gonna pull this out?” and me thinking, “Have I just made a terrible strategic error?

Vincent didn’t pull it out. I didn’t win, but I got close, and in the Campaign rules, that counts for something. Next game, Vincent’s gotta be gunning for Emily again. I may find myself an ally. We’ll see.

In any event, I had three new models for this game. Here they are.

shuttle.jpg

The Shuttle. This came up from a remote launch point in the desert outside Tarkut. It was supplied by our mysterious benefactor.

spacecraft.jpg

The deep space craft. We hijacked this old piece of shit and use it to haul mecha around orbit.

shuttleandartillery.jpg

The only purpose-built space mecha among the Paktali. It was on artillery duty.

So there they are. We’re planning up another battle for the near future. Keep yourself appraised of actual events in the ongoing Battle of Tarkut here, or read scandalous propaganda over at Anyway.

Kenneth Hite Gives Props

Honestly, I’m not sure what this is, but I know it’s a bitter Japanese fruit of some sort.

Kenneth Hite, respected RPG reviewer, author, designer, and editor just gave me some big props over on his livejournal, the Prince of Cairo.

Says Kenneth:

… like The Mountain Witch, this book is a triumph of Joshua Newman’s design, which somehow manages to combine occasional bold-face, sidebar/footnotes, and ragged-right margins into a clean, evocative look that is appropriately “Japanese” without being Orientalist or fey.

What’s particularly nice about this is that one of my design goals was to explicitly avoid  Orientalist, Legend of Five Rings stereotypes and draw from my love of actual Japanese art.

Lots of this:

Shibui

and a little bit of this:

Wabi

And Kenneth was nice enough to notice.

Thanks, Kenneth!

The Beauty of Tools

New knife magnet with my favorite kitchen tools.
Carrie and I just set up a knife magnet in our kitchen. I put all my knives up there and it was just really beautiful. Each of these knives has a little story.
From left to right:
  • A Bunmei tako-hiki, a wedding present.
  • On of my grandfather’s Sabatiers, which he gave to my dad. I’ve got another one that needs work that’s not here.
  • A $10 Chinese cleaver. This one didn’t have a story until I started making dinner tonight. See below.
  • My Mac Superior santoku. This was a housewarming present from my friend Jeff, who’d damaged a knife of mine in college, like 9 years ago. It was really touching. Also, it’s a bitchin’ knife. It’s great for making many teeny tiny slices of garlic or mushrooms.
  • The other of my grandfather’s Sabatiers. Note the nicks in the spine. That’s because my grampa used to whang it through mutton bones with a hammer. They know how to make a knife over at Sabatier.
So, the picture below. I was making cannelini con polpetti (“little octopuses”. We usually make this with squid and call it “squiddybeans” but with octopus, we were calling it “pussybeans”) tonight and I didn’t want to use all of them. So I decided to chop off a hunk to defrost for dinner. See how there are two cuts? The first one, the blade kind of twisted in my hand. I also noticed that it wasn’t where I expected the strike to be. Then I remembered that sensei often tells me that I turn my hips too far. I lined myself up like he’s always telling me to, and…
Kiai!

The Hr.Ms. Mercurius

Hr.Ms. Mercurius in Lego

Above is the Hr.Ms. Mercurius, a (completely fictional, though named after an actual) 17th c. Dutch sailing vessel. Judd saw some earlier prototypes, but honestly the other ones are really primitive in comparison. They lacked a mizzenmast (the most sternward mast) over the poop deck* and were overall much clumsier in appearance.

I realize that the sails don’t make a lot of sense just yet; some of them put others in their lee. Some pictures I’ve been looking at seem to imply that that’s OK. I don’t know. I suspect that talking to actual sailors might help. Fortunately, I know some. Maybe next time I’m at home.

You’ll note there’s really nowhere to put crew markers. My original intent was to have them be little markers you move around the ship physically, but I think that it’s a pipe dream that would require bigger ships, which would require more table space. More likely, there will be a Lego plate with dots on them: yellow dots represent Sailors, red dots represent Marines, maybe black dots represent Cannon. Maybe you have a dot with a big hat and a fancy coat that represents the captain.

Check out this very interesting article on shipboard combat. It supports the offense/defense comments I made in the last post, too.

*Hee hee hee!

Spione to Music

Swedish Rhapsody

The Conet Project is a really creepy collection of number stations, which they’ll be happy to explain to you. I was sufficiently charmed by their sinister strangeness — enhanced by the use of music boxes and toy pianos — that I made a piece of music to go with one of them, Swedish Rhapsody. Give it a listen. It’s part of a larger music project I’m doing in my noisy basement studio. Some of it’s noise, some of it’s trancy music.

Here’s the first track good enough to show around the neighborhood, Mädchen, Endut.

Let’s get Vin Diesel Down Below the Fold, Shall We?

ptimanyaGroup.jpg

We’re just about ready to get rockin’ on the first ever Mechaton campaign. It takes place in the Republic of Tarkut, just after the Democratically Elected Peoples’ Government That Was Totally Democratic has collapsed. Into the power vacuum come three factions. I’m playing the Paktaliya, a group of guerrillas of an ethnic minority called the Mukun. We’re tired of being pushed around by everybody and we have some nonsense legend about how “we” pushed out the iniquitous Red Circle a thousand years ago, who we think Emily’s faction, the Rasili Empire, resemble. Vincent’s sort of taken the Battle for Algiers route; his people are the people of Tarkut who have a network more than a capital. They’re the real government of the people of this country.

Here’s my army as it now stands. Continue reading “Let’s get Vin Diesel Down Below the Fold, Shall We?”

We’re not actually getting married at the crack of Mount Doom.

Sharp-eyed L-Dopan Jeff noticed that the ring in the picture below is really the One Ring. It’s true! I didn’t have any photos of our rings handy, and I liked the little joke.

But now the secret’s out! So here are our actual rings. Carrie and I made these of red gold. She made hers and I made mine, symbolically each bringing our distinctiveness to the relationship.

It’s hard to see in this picture, but they’re proportionate to our sizes. That means her whole ring fits inside my ring. Maybe that means I could eat her in one bite?

rings.jpg