Scattered Thoughts . . .

L ittle by little, I've been working on building a custom homebuilt, non-commercial spectroheliograph for solar astronomy.  A spectroheliograph is a scientific instrument used for imaging/graphing the sun in one specific wavelength at a time.  It is not an instrument for visual observations though.  It is used to capture any single wavelength between 400-700nm at a very narrow 3 angstroms (0.3nm) in graphical waveform.  Then specialized software is used to transpose that waveform into an image.   This particular spectroheliograph was designed by Christian Buil in France.  He kept this particular design small and relatively simple for do-it-yourself amateur astronomers such as myself.  I believe he also has spectroheliograph designs that are research-grade and costing tens of thousands of dollars.  I opted for the dirt-cheap do-it-yourself and a-little-more-difficult route to build what is considered a beginner spectroheliograph.  It is still a scientific instrument but, in order to

Note:  Kenzie will not receive this Christmas gift for another week  (New Years Day)  so, if you should happen to be reading this blog before then, please say absolutely nothing to Kenzie about this gift.  We would like this to be a surprise for her! I 've been busy the past few weeks designing and building a new dollhouse addition for Kenzie.  A few years ago, I designed and built a dollhouse townhouse for her and, over the years, we've added to the interior furniture and the number of dolls for the townhouse.  We've even added window boxes, shrubbery and a tree in subsequent Christmases.   This year, Kenzie asked for some food for the dollhouse.  She wanted only food, presumably to put on her kitchen table and countertops.  She circled a number of items in one of my dollhouse catalogs so I purchased these items for her townhouse.  I still felt like her gift should be more than just a bit of food for her dollhouse, so... Since Kenzie enjoys cooking and baking, I decided to

I 've been saying for years that I want to make a bench for our mudroom.  It would be nice to be able to sit to put on our shoes and boots rather than have to balance on one foot.  After my recent ankle re-injury (and months-long recovery...  it is still recovering) and now a knee injury (yes, I'm old after  physically abusing my body for decades), this bench project was moved to the front burner.  Both Sheila and I are tired of the physical balancing act as we attempt to put shoes on at the door. Another reason it was time for this bench project is because lumber is scarce and the little bit of lumber that can be found is a bit pricey.  This has put all the larger home improvement projects in a holding pattern for now.  I was thinking that I had enough scrap lumber lying around to build a pretty nice bench so it was time for this "little" project.  On the positive side, this project would also allow me to put a dent in the scrap lumber inventory I have lying around!

Sheila now has a completed new home office! I've been working on the room and building a desk over the past two or three weeks.  The long wall of the room had significant water damage so fixing that was my first task.  My plan has been to remove half of that wall, install a beam, and open it up to a desk area of all windows that juts out into our yard. Until now, I hadn't repaired any of the water damage so that was the top priority.  The need for a home office presented itself so the wall needed to be repaired at least temporarily.   I spackled the damaged wall...  three coats...  then two coats of paint...  then trimmed out the windows which were never trimmed when installed (windows were installed by the previous homeowner many years ago)...  added some crown molding...  then started working on the desk. If you've been following this blog, then you know that we had originally ordered a desk online.  A few days after placing the order, we were notified that the desk was b

I had a busy day today cutting up lumber to make our butcher block countertops for the outdoor kitchen.  It was like a typical Monday today though. First, I couldn't get the table saw adjusted correctly.  Then, when I finally got the saw adjusted well enough, I had problems with the lumber.  As I ripped the lumber it was binding the saw and then bending into crazy shapes after it was ripped to rough size.  I then needed another two passes in the saw to get them to manageable pieces of lumber.   Then, I whacked my head again...   then again...  at that point, I went inside to retrieve my bump hat.  I think I whacked my head another ten times while wearing the bump hat!  It was one of those days.  (I have a headache again this evening.) I managed to get the countertops assembled, cut to size and they are now set in place on top of the cabinets.  For now, they are simply clamped down to the cabinets.   I still have a lot of sanding to do before I can stain and f

I had a few hours each day over the past two days to make some progress on our outdoor kitchen project.  My health was poor for a few days up until yesterday so work on the outdoor kitchen came to a standstill last week.   After recovering from usual health problems (related to mast cell disease) and a couple of days of my TBI seriously bothering me again...  headaches, tingling and not thinking clearly...  I was able to go over my design of these cabinets.  I sketched some ideas...  did the math for dimensions...  sketched a bit more... did the math again...  and then did the math once more before cutting each piece.  I then began making all the cuts necessary to form all the parts yesterday afternoon.  On the positive side, all my math was correct which resulted in all the parts fitting together perfectly. Here are the six legs for the cabinet base frame.  I inserted leveling feet into the bottom of each leg so I can keep this big "L shaped" base cabinet level... B