Say there, what’s more fun than sitting around and practicing playing a musical instrument until you’re really good at it? Lots of things!

Here’s a random For Instance:
“Building a convenient rack for that musical instrument so that when you finally do decide to sit around and practice playing it for hours and hours, you can do so the teeeenseyest bit more easily!”

Talk about serendipity! I just did exactly that!

I recently purchased a pair of cheap knockoff QuickClamps, and as you see I have no compunctions about just welding things to them. That’s just how I roll. I’m a rebel, Dottie.

–The Plan–

This Thing:

A doodad I got from Spencer’s for about $5. It writes user-defined phrases by flashing a bar of LEDs when you spin it over your head at sweet rave parties. I can only guess at that the market niche this is intended to fill. Maybe “people who want to say idiotic things of up to 18 characters in length, but have unfortunately taken a vow of silence and live in an unlit cave?” Of course I bought one. Anyway the plan was that thing…

…Plus This Thing: A self-propelled plane which hangs from a string and circles like a turkey vulture. (I should note that I don’t actually own one of these, so I attempted to build one)

Equals:

A bitchin’ plane thing I can hang from the ceiling of my unlit cave that will display idiotic messages of up to 18 characters in length EVEN WHEN I’M NOT HOME!!

–The Actual Result –

(Thus far):

Yeah. The Spinny Planey thing works kinda, but the overall weight of the contraption leaves the actual rate of spin somewhat torpid. Certainly not nearly fast enough to make the text legible. SO! Back to the drawing board. I’m thinking that if I give up having the entire device at the end of a single cord, I could wire the battery pack outside the unit as a counterweight and have the pivot be at the natural balance point between them. Then of course it wouldn’t be able to hang from the ceiling without a pole, but I suppose I could live with that.

I perfected several methods of not making a lightbulb this week, figuratively speaking.
I have nothing I wish to share, so here’s Grozart.

family emergency; so here’s another old thing.

2 mini-projects today

The first, turning a cheapass ungrounded christmas tree foot-switch into a nifty Big Red Power Foot Switch for the welder

BEFORE!	AFTER!

The other, a creepy animation of the creepy Jäger Deer.

Good Day.