Leg Vise (of sorts)

While The Fuzz makes no claims as to his joinery, he does find himself involved in various projects at times.  And many of these involve wood working.  He has learned through experience that having the piece in question firmly secured goes a long way toward making the job more successful and enjoyable.

And so the other day he decided to add a leg vise to his workbench.

In researching this project, he discovered that one aspect of a real leg vise is a way to keep the jaws alined vertically parallel to each other.

It seems that there are a number of ways to achieve this.

Here we see a couple of ways this can be done.

On the left there are a multitude of holes with a pin to adjust for the thickness of the work piece.

On the right we see a set of 2 screws linked by a chain and sprocket system to keep thing lined up.

But in his research, The Fuzz had happened upon a post where a guy had used an alternate, much less complex method to achieve this.
It seems that in his research this guy misread another post, and developed an alternative system of his own.
(The fact that he had been drinking a bit of beer could have contributed to this!)
Anyway, rather than using a complicated arrangement, he simply used a spacer at the foot (3), corresponding to the size of the work piece.  He further refined this by utilizing a tapered spacer - thus making the whole thing adjustable as well!
Great idea, and definitely compatible with The Fuzz's style.

Naturally, The Fuzz had his own way of doing things.
Because of the offset of the leg (1)...

He thought it best to mount the "jaw" at a corresponding angle.

This block (2) is only temporary for test purposes and will be replaced with some tapered pieces later.
He hit the Home Improvement Store for some threaded rod, nuts and a couple of pieces of pipe.

Holes were then drilled through the "vise" and a corresponding spot on the leg of the workbench - being careful to keep everything lined up and level. 

The pipes were threaded into these holes...

And a nut welded to the one in the leg.

The Fuzz had driven a piece of a hex shaped socket* on the other end of the threaded rod foolishly thinking it would hold...

Of course it didn't once it was screwed down and pressure applied.

So he ended up welding that one as well.

He finished up by carving out a hardwood handle to fit over the hex shaped end.

If this thing seems to be just a little bit tilted, that's because it is.

But this was intentional in order to allow for a slightly wider jaw.  This slight angle shouldn't have any affect on the griping power of the thing.

*This was like one of those old sparkplug wrenches...

Kinda  like this one.

 

Things What Goes Up

The Fuzz may be a long way from his Home in the Woods these days, but Topsail Island is still part of The Old North State.

And even if some yankees might want to dispute the matter North Carolina is...

"First in Flight"

It even says so on our tags!

And those two Yankee Boys went to a lot of trouble just to get here so they could work on their little project.

And while Topsail is not Kitty Hawk, there are still plenty of things flying around out here.

Like these guys.

And they are good at it.

But just off the northern end of the island are the Marines at Camp Lejeune.

And they are pretty good at this flying stuff too.

You see their choppers all the time.

Sometimes you can even get a look at these odd fellows.

The V-22 Osprey.

In fact there's all kinda stuff up there these days.

A few days ago around sunset,  The Fuzz's Sweetie called him to the window.

What now?

Looks like flying can be a bit simpler than what the Marines were doing.

Kinda looks like fun!

And then he flew off into the sunset.

See...

The Fuzz did manage to sneek in a pix of the sunset after all!

And then a couple of mornings ago, whilst Our Fuzz was out for his morning...

This strange thing.

There was a guy out there flying this Drone...

...First one The Fuzz has ever seen.

Looks like high tech has hit the beach.

 Well be that as it may...

The Fuzz still likes to watch these guys.

They make it look so easy.

A Long Shot

The other day, The Fuzz and His Sweetie took a drive up to the other end of the Island*.

Whilst she did a bit of sketching near area "A", The Fuzz ("B") had a walk a bit farther out along the inlet and around the end.

The tide was pretty low already, and still running out through the New River Inlet.

With his binoculars The Fuzz could see across over toward Sneads Ferry pretty well.  And he saw this cool boat.  It just looked like a nice little picture.

So he figured he'd give it a shot and maxed out the lens...

And ended up with this.

Still a bit hard to make it out.

But The Fuzz is not one to give up once he is obsessed with something.

Now it was time for some applied Photoshop.

Now we have this.

And while he was playing around...

Let's go for Artsy !

Just a bit of fun here.

*Satellite view via Google

Wow

The Fuzz saw this on BBC.

Einstein's gravitational waves 'seen' from black holes

 

"... the detection [of gravitational waves] was one of the most important developments in science since the discovery of the Higgs particle, and on a par with the determination of the structure of DNA." 

" ...ripples in the fabric of space and time..."

Pretty cool.

The Fuzz thinks we don't know the half of it.

Big Tree

Well, it's been a while again.

So what's the Old Fuzz been up to?

Well, he & His Sweetie took a trip over toward the State Capital.  There are kinfolk in the area that were willing to put them up for a few days.

One of the days they went in to the Big City itself.

The Fuzz got a shot of this street artist by a parking lot.

And this is what she was trying to capture on paper.

This thing covered the whole side of the building, which was huge itself.

At first The Fuzz thought it was just a huge tree - impressive enough.  But then he backed off a bit and realized the thing was moving!

Maybe you can see it here better.

Wow.

Showering

With the Family growing, it was time for another Baby Sower.  The Fuzz isn't sure why, but lately the Guys have been brought into these things.  But, it is an excuse to get the family and friends together.  And of course there was food and drinks.

One of the activities was to decorate up these "Onezies".

Here's a look at the collection.

The Fuzz has had a bit of experience, and is sure these things will come in handy.
Modern technology is amazing sometimes.

With Skype, this became an International Baby Shower!
Here's a look at the presents being opened.
Now we'll just have to wait to meet our newest family member.

Up There

It's up there somewhere.

Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center

After the stop in Charlottesville, we headed to northern Virginia to the home of the 2nd Son and his New Bride.

We were within a few miles of The Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center- part of the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum.

The Fuzz had already been to the museum in Washington.  But that place is only so big, and there is a lot more here.

Like the Enola Gay.

This B29 has the dubious distinction of having dropped the first A-Bomb on Japan in the 2nd World War.

Both The Fuzz's Sweetie and that Not So Young Daughter enjoyed the Space exhibit.

Which included a real Space Shuttle.

It's kinda hard to imagine that this thing is now "retired" and all.

But then, so is The Fuzz.

Another "retiree" is this Blackbird (SR 71) spy plane.

As you can see, this thing is still hard to get a clear picture of!

Phonia And the Cure

"Phonia" That's what The Fuzz has had to deal with these last few days.  "Phonia" is when you have issues with your (in this case) Land Line.

There have been some difficulties with this lately, mostly static, or occasionally it would just quit.  In the past these were seemingly resolved by use of a hair dryer, and screwing around with the wires in the "Box".

Here in the Woods, where we can't get a signal for our cell, the land line is by Cable,  We won't mention the Mega Corporation.  Mostly it works fine, if a bit strange at times.  But for some reason, which The Fuzz doesn't understand, The wires run from the modem (near phone #1) to a box over 30ft away, mounted near the electrical stuff.  Then 30ft back along the same cable, to phone #1.  From this box there is a relatively short line to phone #2 in another room.

A few days ago, actually the same day as The Fuzz had his misfortune on the stairs, this arrangement quit again.  It was just one of those days.  With painful difficulty, he tried the previous fixes, but to no avail.  In fact there was a new symptom.  No matter how much he screwed with the wires, he got the signal of a phone off the hook.  This was just not true.

But this was a new clue.  The wheels began to turn, click, click, click, in his head.  Could this mean there was a short somewhere?  By testing a number of combinations, he concluded that the wires running back from that troublesome box to phone #1 were the culprits.  But by then it was dark, he was too busted up to fool with it.  He did figure out that by disconnecting the bad wires, he could get one phone to work, thus satisfying the Young Daughter and her boyfriend.  This was all fine and well, but the problem remained.

After a few days of this, The Fuzz was finally up to the challenge and headed into town once more to that Home Improvement Store.  There he purchased some phone wire to replace the bad one.

Here you can see where the line comes from the modem and gets sent to the "Box" outside, and also where it is supposed to return to phone #1.  Note the flaky wires leading out to the "box".  It was the wires from the "box" to phone #1 giving the trouble.  But of course they all ran together.

The Fuzz had toyed with the idea of just running another line beside this one.  It would have been the easy way.  But it wouldn't have been the Cowboy Way!

So he pulled out the old stuff and replaced it with this brand new telephone wire.

Here's a look at these pretty new wires outside in that "Box".

And a look at the pitiful old stuff beside the new.

Happily everything is back to working fine now.
As for The Fuzz himself, he is on the mend and even managed to get the yard cut yesterday.