B-17 Liberty Belle

Earlier this week one of my co-workers handed me an article from the Oregonian It showed a picture much like the one on the left (only better and without me in it) and I instantly knew I had to do this.

Durring WW2 12,732 B-17 aircraft were made, today there are only 14 left that can still fly and one of those was going to be in Hillsboro this weekend. Being the airplane nut that I am, I couldn't let the opportunity to fly in one of these beautiful aircraft pass me by.

The 74' long B-17 Liberty Belle was a ton of fun to fly in. We spent approximately half an hour in the air which was plenty of time to tour the aircraft and enjoy the view of the area from the gunner positions and the cockpit.

The Liberty Belle is a restored B-17 maintained by the Liberty Foundation and has a very interesting history (http://www.libertyfoundation.org/index.html) Sold for scrap, bought by Pratt and Whitney, and partially destroyed in a tornado before being wonderfully restored this plane has had quite the post war history.

poor persons cnc

Well I started working on the controller for the mini cnc mill. Still have a lot of work to do. The DB-25 connector need to be put back and all its little wires re-soldered, everything tied down, and everything needs to be thoroughly checked out before I try it under power but it is starting to look like something. :)

poor person's CNC

Well, I have another project now. Something I have been wanting to tinker around with for some time. A co-worker gave me a mini 3 axis CNC mill made out of common hardware store parts. Kinda cool but with a few small problems.

One: it doesn't work. Ok.. it DID work at one point in history but never very well I am told.

Two: It needs a lot of electrical work. A fair amount of the soldering work needs to be redone and some of the wiring fixed.

Three: I need software. This will probably be the least of my problems but it is also another obstacle.

So, there are obstacles to overcome but hey, that is why I got the thing. I like messing around with this sort of thing and I think it will be a fun project. I am still thinking about getting another 'real' CNC mill at some point but for now I have a new toy :)


This is the "ACK!" (well that is what I am calling it now because that was the noise that came out of my mouth when I saw it the first time) pile of wiring that I get to fix up. almost everything is there but I have a shopping list of supplies I need to obtain from the local electrical supply shop before I can tackle it.

Basically the 'hardware' side of the mill consists of hardware store aluminum rails with all-thread lead screws (20 TPI it looks like) and 3 DC stepper motors for X,Y, and Z axis. The spindle uses any sort of Dremel-like rotary tool. The electronic side of things is a controller box (shown in less than box-ey form above) and connected by parallel port to a computer. I just got it today so I haven't had time to study the design thoroughly but I am sure I will become well acquainted with it soon.

Vegas Revolution

Whilst I was out bouncing around the walls of a hollowed out 727 last September we had one extra surprise for our trip. The Travel Channel was out filming for their new series recently aired "Vegas Revolution". It is a series about all the things you can do in Vegas besides gamble. Trust me, you can find just about anything there. The episode they were filming for that day was aptly named "Adrenalin" and featured fun things like indoor skydiving, race car driving, the Stratosphere, and us, Zero G. I remember signing a waiver (as did everyone else) so they could show us on tv, and they followed us around a great deal on our trip.

After Zero G ended I totally forgot about the Travel Channel episode until I was walking down the factory where I work and someone stopped me and said they had seen me on tv.

Travel Channel, Vegas Revolution: Adrenalin. Go watch. :)

OMG Snow (part 2)

Weeeeee!

Well *someone* is having fun in the snow :)

RAWR evil snowflakes! *chomp*

OMG Snow!!11!

uh huh... So apparently this is blizzard season now. Everyone is freaking out because of the *gasp* ~.130" of snow and currently above freezing temps. Better keep your eyes glued to the news! Don't want to miss any of this here storm coverage. Yep. It be winter time.

Would be kinda nice to get some real snow though.

*update: weell we got some (points up to next post) weeeee*

It's Over!

57 Days of strike and back to work on Monday. Yay!

btw this is what I was working on last at the college (probably won't get much further now).
Oh well, it will still be waiting for me next time I get free time.