I passed.
Blog
-
Lordy, but I am tired.
So, as you may guess, it’s the post nights rambling post. I don’t actually have that much to ramble about; I’m waiting to find out if I’ve passed my course. Which should happen some point in the next few days. If not then I can resubmit my dissertation, which is hopefully not going to be necessary, but not entirely a diaster. I’ve just checked and my exam board meets today. Oh holy sh*t. Of course being sleep deprived is the best way to deal with a stressful day.
I’ve sorted rejoining a nursing agency, paid for the service and repair of my watch (which has apparently had the quartz polished, the winder replaced, the hands relumed, and has been serviced), watched some MASH and had a tasty breakfast.
The rest of the day is to be spent considering the possibility of tidying, but probably failing to actually do it. Indeed, I’ve hit the wall of tiredness which suggests that I’m going to get pretty much nothing else done for the rest of the day.
Tomorrow is a different day; being the day when I intend to attach the light to the ceiling in the hall (and reattach the smoke alarm to the ceiling). I also would like to attach the phone to the wall, especially since a nice soul on the vintage radio forum has supplied me with a circuit diagram of the correct way to attach it to a modern network. Which means I can also attach it to the internet-phone adaptor. I’m thinking that before we leave I should pick up a REN booster, because then the two ‘period’ phones could run off the one internet-phone gidget, which would be quite cool. And, thanks to careful configuration, it rings like a UK phone. Which should throw anyone when we land up in Nova Scotia.
As a side point, we’re going to be heading over to the states at some point – and Kathryn’s mom asked me to bring over the Raspberry Pi. I’m not sure what software to chuck on it to demonstrate it though. Having XBMC doesn’t hugely help, because it’s configured for UK stuff and really, I think she’s interested in it as an educational device, not a media server/player. So that bears some thinking about. Ideally I should get another class 10 SD card to take, too. But I’ll probably just back-up the one I’ve got and dump something else on it.
Finally, for those of you who are interested; Dead Bug Jumping S02E04 is out! (Also on itunes).
-
Some progress, at least.
So, I’m on nights again (woo). Tonight being the first in a series of three exciting nights, and my return to work after being off sick for a day (plus being sick for a day of my days off. feh)*. So today has, as prescribed by my usual planning, been largely a day of rest. I’ve dinked on the internet (but not read my google reader, that’s vitally important, otherwise I have nothing to read on my breaks). I’ve watched MASH and yesterday’s episode of Rachel Maddow.
I also noted that one of the forms for Nova Scotia that had been sent from my Uni had gone to the wrong place. It’s not clear on the form (well, it is, but it could be much clearer; the address printed very clearly on the form is not where it’s meant to go). I sent a nice little e-mail, and got a nice little e-mail back saying it’s sorted and they’ve sent a second copy, this time to the address in the prose on the form. I have to say, much as I’m looking forward to going to Canada, I’m going to miss the effect of the Campaign for Clear English (or whatever they’re called) and their Crystal Mark on forms. UK forms actually seem much clearer. They’re still hideous, but they seem worlds more advanced than the ones I’ve seen from the US’s IRS and from both BC and NS’s nursing colleges. Whether the rest of Canada sports forms as well laid out as the UKs, or whether they match the US’s IRS forms is something that I’m forced to ponder. But anyhow, that means that I think all the paper work required is there or en-route. Which is quite exciting.
Then, I decided that I would tackle the three small jobs that I could get done without too much effort:
– Fitting the new reflector on my bike – having smashed the old one against our gate post (I’d be sad, but it was a modern knock off that I wasn’t very fond of), I’d ordered a ‘new’ one from e-bay. I’ve fitted it and it looks much more in keeping with the bike. Yay. Let’s hope I don’t smash it.
– Repairing the clothes airer, again. Our friends lent/gave us a clothes airer when we moved house, it appears to have a significant design flaw, in so far as it has the same width plastic prongs supporting it as our much, much smaller one. Thus so far 3 of the four prongs have broken. Well, the fourth has broken but it’s still holding together. I’d already repaired two and have been waiting for the other two to fail. The third one snapping in such away that that side was flopping about like a wet fish mean that for the last few days I’ve been disinclined to hang anything heavy on it, and unwilling to move it. I knocked up two more of my linkages (which are, essentially, a piece of 14mm tube with a slit in and one end crushed, with a hole through the crushed end. This is slipped over the tubing of the airer, held on with a hose clip and then replaces the plastic end of the tube) and fitted one. I’ll fit the other one when it breaks properly. The thing has now, probably, wasted more of my time and money than it’d cost to replace it, but I’m loathed to replace it when we’re planning to move soon. Also, any new one will probably be just as badly designed and implemented, so why pay when I can fix the one we’ve got with scrap.
– Put up the light and smoke alarm in the hall. I didn’t get to this. My cut off for stopping work was 3pm, and 3pm rolled up and I stopped and had my shower. Feh. I wish I had, because it’d bring the hall way that few millimeters closer to finished.
I also went to tweak our thermostat, thinking that you could set both time, and temperature. You can’t. The intention was to wind it down to only being 16°C (60°F) during the times when only one of us is likely to be home, on the basis we can then just either heat the office Kathryn’s in, or the lounge if she’s working down here or upstairs.
Unfortunately, it’s not nearly as advanced as I thought it was. It can only do one temperature, which is a bit crap. So I’ve wound it down to 17°C (62°F) as a compromise (it was on 19°C / 66°F). This is because our last gas bill was a bit of a stinker. Granted it covered several months, all of which have been pretty cold, and our usage does appear to still have been way less than a comparable house, but still. Cheaper would be nice.
And now, I’m going to laze for 45 minutes before cooking dinner…
* Incidentally, who knew they’d stopped selling ‘Kaolin and Morphine’… The look on the pharmacist’s face was classic when I took in our old bottle and asked if they had any to replace it. Oh, ah, actually they haven’t stopped selling it, contrary to our local pharmacist’s statement. Possibly it’s just because our local pharmacy dispenses methadone, but then, one would think they’d just know not to flog lots of K&M to those who got methadone…? Feh. Okay, well, next time I’m passing Boots I’ll have to get some to keep in stock.
-
For informational purposes
Just in case anyone has one kicking around, and for future reference. The axles that I’m interested in are on volvo 240s of the following flavours:
1976-79 240 with B21 and any transmission: 3.91:1 type 1030
1980 240’s with B21A/F and M45/6: 3.91:1 type 1030
1980 240’s with B21F and A/BW55: 3.73:1 type 1030
1981 240’s with B21F non-MPG: 3.73:1 type 1030
1981-82 240’s with B21F-MPG and AW55/70: 3.91:1 type 1030(Courtesy of: here)
-
Fleshing out the bones
So, News:
The Seager Brother’s piano is now in tune. Ish. Close enough for jazz, as they say. Apparently it’s a little flat, but it – our tuner reckons – has always been a little flat. Or at least, sufficiently always as to not be a good idea to change her. And whilst yesterday I said I didn’t recall whether previous tuners had mentioned it (the poor beast was last tuned at least 6 years ago – and by my mum’s piano tuner), I do faintly recall her mentioning it.
The hammer, which we thought went missing when @aminorjourney was giving it a thorough work out (and was definitely not the first hammer to break in it) apparently didn’t. I thought, honestly was convinced that Nikki and I had checked out all the notes, and that they’d been working. Apparently not. Apparently it went missing at some point before that. At any rate, our illustrious tuner will be returning with a spare hammer and, most excitingly, a music stand. I’ve had this piano about 31 years, and at no point has it had a music stand. It came with the broken remnants of one, and we’d always bull-dog clip the music to it, and when I was practicing longer pieces, my dad would sit next to me to flip the pages (and remind me to actually practice). Eventually, we got my dad’s piano, which was in substantially better condition (but ended up being difficult to make keep tune, because it was wood framed and the wood had dried out), and ‘my’ piano went to live in the garage*. It’s been submerged in 3 foot of water (the flood waters reached approximately a metre deep in my mum’s house, which would have been lapping at the base of the keyboard), ferried around in the back of a transit having been (wo)man handled into the back of a truck off a forklift. If you can abuse it in some way, it’s been abused in that way.
The previous owners took a power-sander to one end. I mean, really. A power sander on a 1891 piano.
*shudder*
Incidentally, that looks to me like July 1891 Jubilee. I got quite excited for a second by the concept that it might have been for the Austro-Hungarian jubilee exhibition. I mean, that would be pretty nifty, but July’s too late. That was in May. The only Jubilee I know of in 1891 is Punch magazine, and what they’d be doing with a Piano from a small piano maker I don’t know, so I can’t imagine an obvious connection there. I’ve always been intrigued, though, by that marking.
Anyhow, she now sounds like a piano. I’m sure professional musicians would be sadly disappointed in what I consider adequately in tune. But I am satisfied that she sounds like a piano.
Sufficiently so that I spent some time attacking the ivories**. First Tom Lehrer, because I need some inspiration. Then some ‘Joy of Piano’ simplified fluff – but what was pleasing about that was that despite my keyboard ineptitude, something akin to music did come out at several points. It was, at least, not totally unrecognisable. I had some idea that it was (a) music and (b) a chunk of the New World Symphony.
Which was enormously gratifying. Sufficiently so that despite my achy fingers, I shall endeavour to continue this ‘practicing’ m’larkey up.
In other news. Rebecca. *sigh*.
What to do with a problem like Rebecca.
No, seriously. Taking a step back and reducing the panic to a more manageable level, because staring a massive bill in the face (and weeping) is what I’ve been trying to contend with. What I have to remember, and tend to forget, because I’m ridiculously impatient, is that I don’t need her back on the road right now. Yes, I want her back on the road. Yes, I do. Because I like driving my beloved minor. It’s that simple.
But that is not actually a requirement. We/I am not without transport. I have Molly to get around the city on, and Chester for longer trips. Kathryn, despite the train’s many failings*** take Chester only on Sundays when the train service moves from overpriced bucket of crap to unusable bucket of crap (with a free side of insultingly overpriced).
So. Stepping back, let’s look at the big picture.
The big picture is the Warp 9″ motor going in once we’re in Canada; until then we’re going to keep using the 1275 with a fast-road-cam. This engine is marginal on the standard Morris/Wolsey/Riley diff. Those diffs were mated with, and were considered just-strong-enough for 83ft/lb torque and 55bhp (more or less; the rated output of a 1.5l B series engine), the engine in Rebecca should give about 75ft/lb and 70bhp. So theoretically, if I drive ‘like a nun’, it should hold together. And I don’t tend to thrash her wildly anymore, because I’m not in that much of a hurry to get anywhere.
However, putting in a standard diff with the 9″ Warp motor is going to be hysterically metal shaving inducing. That dinky little electric motor (which I can’t lift) provides 152ft/lbs of torque and 82Hp. That will turn the standard diff into powdered metal quicker’n I can get the car off the ramps. So that’s a big fat no.
But what has been flagged up to me is that Volvo 240s do a very nice limited slip differential, which comes in a range of ratios (an insanely large range of ratios) and are built like battleships. They’re unpopular only insofar as no-one ever needs to replace them (apart from the guys who use them to build hot-rods and thrash them mercilessly).
I’ve let the Capri axle I was looking at go, because it’s apparently an English diff, not an Atlas one, and that would have been a touch marginal on the torque/strength side. I suspect my dad’s Escort, which ate diffs, probably had the English Diff, judging by the comments from the rallying crowd. (If anyone ever sees SBH392R****, I’ve got some nice pics of her, although I imagine she’s scrap by now. Easily recognisable, said ‘FOFD’ on the boot, thanks to Ford’s awesome quality control).
Anyway, meandering somewhat.
So, the question is, do I try and pick up a Volvo 240 axle (complete with axle etc), get it shortened (apparently you can get it shortened to minor lengths without trimming the half shafts, which is excellent news), and mounts made, and a special prop shaft… now.
Or do I spend 70-80 quid on a second hand diff of unknown provenance, and throw it in, and just see how I get on for the time being, and do the Volvo axle later.
I’m tempted by getting her on the road, but really that’s a waste of money that I don’t have spare.
Mmm.
Needs more thought, I feel.
Incidentally, the place I rang about Volvo parts don’t think they have a 240 axle in, at the moment…
* I’m often stunned at how tolerant my parents were of me. Things I had that were of no use at all throughout my childhood included massive chunks of CTL Mini computers, A manual telephone exchange operator’s desk, a spare piano (in case, what, the other one rolled off or joined the circus?), and eventually a rusted out heap of a Morris Minor… more on that momentarily.
** I’d say ‘tickling’, but it was more like a masacre. I’d no idea how rusty I’d got. Then there are the terribly amusing pauses as I stare at the music and try and work out which note that is meant to be, and whether I’m playing it.
*** And believe me, there are many and manifold ones.
**** It’s funny how that plate has stuck in my head. I can’t remember the numbers off my mum’s Fiat 126 – that was HNK…Y, and the other cars my parents had never stuck with me. But the Fofd, that was bought because my mum was pregnant with me, and that old Austin A40 wasn’t big enough (also was rusting away – indeed the front wing was made, partially, out of wood, I’m told).
-
Sometimes I imagine that Rebecca hates me
So, I know, in my heart of hearts that my car is not a person. I know she is no more a person than the piano stool, and the personality I imbue her with is merely a reflection of myself and the miriad mechanical parts of which she is made, and some distillation of the many and various people who’ve worked on her over her many years on this Earth (and their standards of quality, and what is ‘good enough’).
I know this.
I know this because I am not insane, and am only a moderately foolish person.
I know that when I feel that broken down vehicles are sad, or lonely, that again is a reflection of my own emotions rather than something that is inherent in them.
But still, after the vast amount of money sunk into Rebecca, the fact she’s fairly thoroughly broken again, and that having had discussions with various (more experienced) sorts than me have led me to the conclusion that it’s not worth replacing the differential that was in the car, because the engine has sufficient umph that it will probably eat it for breakfast. Which’d be 450 quid drainwards. And even if it didn’t, the 150lb/ft / 82Hp Warp 9″ motor sat in the garage and awaiting fitting will not merely eat the riley differential for breakfast, it will devour it, its kin (including distant and far-flung relations) and then set fire to the family home before going on a merry diff destroying rampage.
So instead, I’m contemplating other rear-axle options.
Which is sad, I liked the fact that apart from the engine and front brakes, my minor would remain essentially minor. But I don’t think that spending a fortune on a new diff to have it turned into freshly ground steel is a terribly wise plan.
Thoughts at the moment are:
– Ford Escort / Capri diff – this has the advantage of there being bolt-on kits available, and also of only needing the half-shafts modifying to fit the Morris Minor’s wheel’s PCD. Also – I’ve been offered one for £100 plus shipping, which has only covered 65k miles… I’m taking this as ‘not bad’. I’d need new (custom) handbrake cables, flexible brake pipes, and a new prop shaft made up, and a mounting kit, but that should be about it. The mounting kit is off-the-shelf, and spares are plentiful because people use the Escort diff for rallying…
– Volvo 240 Diff – this was suggested by Jonny Smith who’s doing the awesome flux capacitor – which was once my Enfield*. The 240 axle would need shortening, but would be insanely tough. It also would mean the minor would be disk braked all round… which is excessive! The cost saving of buying a 240 diff and axle would probably be lost in shortening it and making up mounts, because there’s no 240 axle fitting kit.
I’m currently talking to someone about a Capri diff, for which they want 100 quid for it – it’s from a car that only covered 65k miles, but it’s an English, not an Atlas differential. Apparently the Atlas diff is the stronger variant… And I need to perhaps ring a few places to work out how much the 240 diff might be to convert.
And then, well, we’ll see.
But still, sometimes I think that she hates me!
* I wish to point out that it was the owner prior to my mum that put the Rover grille on the Enfield, not us!
-
Oh, so that’s where the metal came from… Ah. Oh.
So, I’ve just sat down. I’ve sat down because my body has informed me in no uncertain terms that if I do not sit down it will put me down. Actually, I’m not wholly convinced sitting is enough to settle its desire for rest. See, I came off nights on Friday morning, and had a nice chilled out day. I slept for an entire two hours, before getting up (thankfully, Kathryn generously tidied the house up, because it was a tip, and we had the chimney sweep coming).
The Sweep came and swept, and left, and then we went out for lunch, and for a few errands, then came back and I’m a bit vague on the next block of time, but I think mainly I dinked on the internet, while Kathryn worked on her (awesome) blog. Yesterday I got up early and painted the house, then stayed up ’til 2230 putting the second coat on.
Today I thought I’d do some restful stuff on the car. Heh.
First, of course, came the job of getting the car into a position where I could, actually, work on it. She’d been parked in the garage hard-up against one of the walls, but having sold the motorbike, theoretically I could park her more or less in the middle. Only… the garage was full of crap. And filthy. So I spent two and a half hours this morning sorting out rubbish, tidying, sweeping. It’s still a tip, it’s still barely organised at all, but there’s a fair amount more space, and much less rubbish. Indeed, with some shuffling in and out I managed to get the Minor at a jaunty angle and definitely far enough from the wall to allow me to start stripping out the rear axle…
I’d forgotten how hard a job working on the car can be. Whilst it’s not phenominally physical in most regards, I had to keep my arms raised above my head squashed into the slim space underneath the car, with the car on axle stands. Now theoretically, the car could go up quite high on axle stands, but my jack won’t take it high enough for that, so it’s only about 14″ off the ground. Which means I can just about fit between it and the floor. So I’ve spent from 1pm ’til 6pm, roughly, with my arms stretched out above my head reaching for and working on things in that position.
They hurt.
Well, my shoulders hurt.
I am not looking forward to work tomorrow. I’d also forgotten the deep, deep joy of bits of crap dropping on my head and in my eyes. But, through the joys of nitrile gloves and my (c)overalls, I actually am pretty much clean following a shower (concrete dust and oil in my hair, yay). Clean but sore.
On the minus side, there’s this:
It turns out it wasn’t a bearing that failed in the diff (which explains why the oil came out clean this time), it was teeth sheering off and being, presumably, ground down into fine, fine, gritty shards. I don’t quite get the sequence of events though:
– Progressively noiser (very slowly, took me ages to work out that it was actually getting noisier, and I wasn’t just getting oversensitive to the noise).
– Changed the oil: No change in noise level (but hideous sparkly grey oil came out)
– Drove to work and back – still very noisy, but no change then sudden vast increase in noise level (sounded attrocious), limped home…
– Drove around to back of house after sitting for a few months (not very noisy)
– Driven in and out to get into position for working on the car (quiet)Still, I’m waiting for a bit of amateur advice about whether replacing that component and the bearings will produce a reasonably salvageable diff, or whether it will permanently be very noisy and very sad. The crown wheel looked okay, as did the other gears, but that is ‘okay to my untutored eye’ not ‘okay to an engineer at Morris’. But whether a new pinion is available separately, and whether it’s even worth trying to change the pinion is a question I don’t have the answer to. Initial comments aren’t positive, though, which is a bit worrying.
Still, it came out, and there was only a small amount of swearing. I shall have to have a good clean out of the casing before fitting a new diff, although whether I should replace the bearings on the halfshaft is a question I’m still pondering. Rebecca was also surprisingly chipper, starting second try and although a little uneven, certainly not running perfectly, but since it’s about the third time she’s run at all in the last year, that’s not too bad.
Anyhow, so apart from the painful achy left shoulder, I think that’s gone surprisingly well :)
-
Post nights delight
So, whilst I was on my nights I came across this sign, which actually caused me near physical discomfort. It made parts of my brain really, really uncomfortable and I came away from it with that kind of flickering twitchyness that comes from something inherently wrong existing.
Yes, yes! Fear the kerning disaster. I just want to run over and *FIX* it. I’m guessing it ‘looked fine in word’. I blame this on my graphic-design-in-my-youth-to-20s/technical writing history. This is why we don’t use word people, because it’s a bucketload of shit*.
Thankfully, there were nice staff on shift to take my mind off the horror ;)
Also, Bristol decided to bless me with a gorgeous (if cold) day as I cycled home…
Today is my post-nights day off, and then tomorrow is the joy of painting. Hopefully I can get it all finished tomorrow, (if two coats are sufficient for both the ceiling and the walls), then Sunday I can put the light up… Tuesday, when Kathryn’s home, we could pop the phone on the wall – then it’ll be the shelves under the stairs after that. But finishing the major work in the hall means we can properly clean the house, apart from Kathryn’s office… which will be awesome
Nikki is suggesting she may be free for a bit on Sunday, which may mean that I finally find the time and energy to remove the diff from Rebecca, so she can get back on the road.
I also need to resist this. If we were staying here, that might actually be impossible. But I keep reminding myself that whist it falls into the category of ‘we could get it going for under 3k’, it would not fulfil the “could replace Chester for Kathryn’s work” requirement – which requires a top speed of at least 60 and a range of at least 40 miles. Also, as time goes on, the 3k requirement becomes a smaller and smaller value, because the amount we’d save by having an EV drops since we won’t be here as long to recoup the funds…
But a Reliant Rebel EV, that’s pretty cool. Not as cool as the DAF EV, but much better converted, looking at it. Mind, that’s not hard.
* Personal opinion, YMMV.
-
Painting queen
So, the last few days have been awash with exciting sand-paint-filling joy.
The original wallpaper – textured as it was:
covered, as usual, a multiple of sins.
I’d started filling it months (and months) ago – but had paused whilst I did my course. Returning to it and sanding it back revealed some more areas where the plaster was gently crumbly, so those were scraped out and filled.
Then it had a coat of basecoat, then more filler to just catch the few bits that still stood out. I could spend an endless amount of time trying to make our walls look completely smooth, but they are now ‘acceptable’. I’ve also fillered the joint between the two bits of picture rail that I put up, and caulked every last joint between ceiling and wall, and between walls and picture rails and door frames. I’ve still got some lamb’s tongue strips to put on around the frame when I finish fitting the door, but otherwise it’s going fairly well so far.
Despite it taking a little longer than expected, it’s now ready for top-coating:
And very, very white.
You can also see the jauntily unsquare frame and the door which is currently ‘hung’ (it gets it out of the way until I take it down and plane it a bit). I fear whatever I do – the frame is so far off square that it’s going to look a bit odd. I’m going to shave a bit off both sides of the door, mainly (obviously) at the bottom) and then we’ll see. I’d like to have a stained glass section in that door, but I don’t think it’s realistically worth the effort. It’s no-where near as dark in there as I thought it was. It has, however, had the odd effect of making the kitchen marginally warmer, and the rest of the downstairs much colder. Upstairs is also a bit chilly – I guess the heaters in the kitchen were gently heating the rest of the house. Also, it’s (weather wise) got colder, so perhaps we should just suck it up and wind the thermostat up a bit.
That’s pretty much been it in my little world. I’ve recorded the next Dead Bug Jumping podcast, so that will, in fact, be up on time. I’m trying to get a smidge ahead, so that holidays aren’t an issue… And our router crashed, which in some way deeply upset the Pi. The pi then died, and I had to dump the disk image back across again. This has culminated in me leaving the Viewsonic box in situ, and giving the Pi it’s own input. The idea being that the Viewsonic can be a backup. I’d like to replace the router, since that seems to be the source of some of our grief, but I’m not convinced it’s wholly worth it since it’s just more crap to move. Mind you, that didn’t stop me picking up more vinyl… :-/
-
Progress (apace)
So, today was definitely one of those days where progress was made. Indeed, between yesterday and today much progress in a forward direction has occurred. The Pi is now working (although it has had to be overclocked to get enough performance to play my 30 gig HD Blu-Ray rips), I now just need to knock up a case for the LCD. For some reason some of the shows haven’t quite been picked up right to the library – and some shows have some episodes missing for no apparent reason. The naming conventions are fairly reasonably adhered to, so I’m not quite sure what’s up with that.
Anyhow, it’s working. I need to work out how to turn on two audio interfaces simultaneously (or maybe get it a USB audio interface, apparently the standard one’s a bit sucky). See, when we’re watching TV, in general we listen to the audio through the TV, but when we listen to music, that’s through the amp. The amp does not sport an HDMI connection, because it’s a proper hi-fi amp, not a home-cinema amp. It’s one of my favourite purchases, actually, that amp. Because after years of crappy amplifiers, of using my family’s cast-off Technics to replace my very repaired Eagle amplifier (which I’ll grant was a very nice amp before it was repaired, twice), the modern Cambridge Audio amplifier and Gale speakers do sound gorgeous. And yes, after watching When Albums Ruled the World I am playing my parent’s copy of Sergent Pepper. Why do you ask. Uh, sorry, so the having audio output on both the HDMI and analogue audio outputs of the Pi would be handy. I don’t know how to persuade it to do that yet. I know people have persuaded it to do that though, so I need to look that up.
So that was a good start to yesterday. Today I actually used it as intended and watched a fine rip of Blackadder (the fourth) over breakfast. Then whilst I was working on the house (I’ll get to that) I used Airplay. This Pi business is ace, to be honest. Although my phone’s working far harder than it ever has before.
Then yesterday continued well, with a trip over to see the illustrious John. I took the opportunity to take the much maligned m-audio interface with me. This has been giving me grief again, or so I thought. It turned out I was wrong. It was a poor connection in the (brand new) Maplin 1/4″ jack plug – which was making the microphone into an aerial – and picking up all the hum that was available (which is quite a lot given that it’s surrounded by lots of computing stuff). This was exacerbated by the fact I appear to have gone insane. I am convinced that I’d been using it to capture audio from the record deck. Only either I am mad, or I something very odd was happening. Because it’s only got a mono input. Err, so, yes. Either we’ve been recording the difference between the two channels for records, or..err… perhaps I’m just misremembering. It’s so long since it worked (and tbh, the connector (it turns out) died so promptly when I started trying to record the show after John fixed the M-Audio interface last time), that I’ve forgotten what it was like to use it!
Anyhow, having traced the fault, which it turned out was nothing to do with either my craptastic soldering, or the (unfairly maligned) m-audio interface (problem is, it’s actually failed twice, and so now is highly suspect whenever anything goes wrong), we lopped the jack plug-and-socket off, and I soldered the XLR connector straight onto the mic. Which is probably what I should have done in the first place, but does mean that if the m-audio does fail again then I’ve no easy way to connect the mic to the Mac. So, all pray, eh. It was however, generally, a nice social day. Spent lots of time considering a bench multimeter – since it appears that I’m going to go doing stuff I’d sort of forgotten that I loved doing. I really do rather enjoy dinking with electronics. I’d obviously help if I was good at it, or actually could remember the stuff I was taught and learned as a kid, but eventually it’ll come back to me I’m sure.
Anyhow, today was similarly productive. Having cleaned the kitchen a bit, and done some washing up, I set to work on the house. I’ve sanded the filler in the hall way (it’s ready to paint now), and the plaster’s primed, and I’ve also spent a bit of time running a bead of caulking around the ceiling-wall joint (old-new plaster). I’ve cut and fitted the small piece of timber to replace the original bit that had warped and fallen down. I’ve hung the door in the hallway (after nearly two years with no door to our kitchen we now have an extremely ill fitting one). Unfortunately, it became (rapidly) apparent that the doorway to the kitchen is hilariously far from square. As in, ‘oh that’s a witty joke’. I mean, I know that having been built on a hill in the 1930s our house has only had a passing acquaintance with right angles. Indeed, one of the things I noticed when we first looked around was that I thought the stairs were not horizontal. They’re not. But the unsquareness of the doorways is… challenging. Now, before I hung it I took off the 1960s modernism which had been applied to one side (a layer of hardboard). Confusingly, all the doors in the house have a layer of hardboard on one side – I’d understand if both sides had been tormented in this way, but it is only the one side.
More oddly, it’s the side inside the rooms. So rather than walking into the house and being hit with modernist simplicity, it’s only when you’re inside the rooms. Except, because this door’s been moved and turned around, you would have been assaulted by a non-matching door when you walked into the house. So I attacked it, and attacked it…
And as expected, underneath lurked a perfectly good door. It could do with a little filling – if we were staying then I’d get them stripped and just leave them bare with their faults. As we’re not, they’ll get a light sand and fill, and then be painted.
I also cut and put up the missing section of picture rail.
The hall’s looking really rather a lot better now. Tomorrow I shall start actually painting the hall, which is quite exciting. I also need to mount our A-B payphone on the wall and knock up a cover for the fuse box. Then I need to find out how to wire it up – my dad did try once, having had a quick look at the ‘circuit’, but never quite got it right (you could dial/hear, but not speak, even when you’d paid the requisite number of pennies/six pence/shillings). ISTR there’s a newsgroup / forum for vintage phone fans, they may well know the correct way to connect it…
That will probably max out our line’s ring-capacity.
I’ve no idea what the ‘REN’ is for phones of this age, but ISTR that when we got up to 5 phones in my parents house the phones started auto-answering, because the ring-current required was so high, that attempting to ring them made the phone system think that the phone had been answered…
Heh.
Anyhow. So, tomorrow I start the painting festival. I also need to drop off my ‘new’ bag to be repaired. And I’ve been ripping music for the last… age, and I’m continuing to do so. I’ve now made it well into the DJ box (holds 300 CDs or so). I need to have a bit of a think about this, I need more sleeves, I think. I took the DVDs out of the other box, and put them into a DVD-specific DJ-case, so the other small DJ case should be empty. This means I can start the strip-down of the CDs (so we can keep the artwork and recycle/offer the boxes up on freecycle, saving us from transporting them to Canada). Whee. So, onwards we go.
