aerinea_faerie

My daughter was at her great-aunt's on Saturday, allowing Chris and I to work on the Wimshurst machine. Chris was going to be boring out some holes in the cut-down staircase balusters so the fiberglass axles would have somewhere to sit. There was only one problem; his drill bit set didn't have a bit of the right diameter to make the holes. We needed to go out to get a new bit.

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We were able to acquire most of the parts for the Wimshurst, but there are still a few little fiddly bits we need to finish assembling it. Once I find them, I will be very happy indeed.

Despite not having everything, I have spent the last two days working on it to the best of my ability. I have spent a lot of time with my new friends the miter box and the hacksaw. I have almost everything that needs cutting cut to appropriate lengths, but ran out of brass rod and I still need to cut the brass tube. I have fabricated my Leyden jars, but I'm thinking about redoing the foil on them. I think I can make them look better. I also have painted up the base before taking the time to fabricate it.

Chris has been taking pictures. He decided that me going outside wearing safety goggles on my forehead and carrying a hacksaw was a little scary, but this needed to be recorded. He's also been doing the soldering so far and has decided that we're going to need a torch to finish the job. I agree.

This has been costing a lot more money than Jake von Slatt had mentioned, but he probably figured that anyone with a subscription to Make: likely already had all of the tools and some of the parts just laying around. We didn't, and some of these tools were a little expensive, but they'll be useful. I doubt this will be my only project that requires lots of cutting and welding.

I've already been frustrated by parts of this project, but it feels good to accomplish parts of it. I'm enjoying myself.

Ever since I saw it at Steam Powered, I have coveted Jake von Slatt's Wimshurst machine. Recently, the issue of Make: with the directions and parts arrived. Starting yesterday, I started collecting parts. We now have most of them; we're just needing a few more fiddly bits to make electrodes with, some very specific screws, and a whole lot of washers. Oh, and the polycarbonate for the discs, but we know what we'll be doing about that. Possibly on Wednesday, more likely on Thursday, we'll be going to Tap Plastics and getting the polycarbonate. The rest of it is just the two of us finding everything else. Chris will likely be going to a hardware store on his lunch break to get screws and washers, I will be looking for the lamp parts.

We have discovered that I am not to talk to salespeople about projects. I confuse them. I can ask for specific parts, but when they ask me what it is for, I need to clam up. Chris has an easier time talking with people. Granted, Eco Dave was able to understand the project just fine, but Chris found him first.

I'm glad we're finally making this thing.

We got our first issue of Make: magazine today. It is the Spy Tech issue, as it seems that the one with the machine I am interested in building isn't ready yet. On the other hand, this one does have instructions on how to turn a Fischer-Price toy Chatter Telephone into something that you can really call people on. Now it's just an issue of my husband and I starting to get the tools we need to start building things.