Happy Birthday NASA! 64 Years old Today

On this day in 1958 President Dwight Eisenhower signed the National Aeronautics and Space Act. Cape Canaveral was the home of the Joint Long Range Proving Ground. That's the group my uncle worked for and they would be folded into NASA to become the launch center complex for all of NASA's major missions.

The Carina Nebula one of the first images from the James Webb telescope. My brother worked on the cooling system for the telescope. We have a couple generations now that have been directly involved with NASA and its missions.

Cartoon Wednesday

 

We are on for Reaper Con 2022

Ready to Roll
Lani always ready for a Jeep trip

My wife and I are going to take the plunge and make our first major trip since 2019. We had planned on going to Reaper Con 2021 but Lani was in the last stages of her cancer and we didn't want to be away from her at the time. But we are on this year.

As I have, longer than I care count, I have organized the vendor hall. I was truly over whelmed by how quickly it sold out this year. That's a big deal for any convention as it provides a good chunk of the up front money necessary for running the show. I think we have a pretty darn good line up of vendors for the show this year:

DGS Games

Board & Brew Gaming

Jakob Janssen Studios

Bombshell Miniatures

Fragging Unicorn Games

Stokes Design Studios

Warlord Games

MidKnight Heroes

UNIT3D Art & Gaming

Blue Gear Games

Pocket Jack Comics

North Texas 3D Print

RPGDungeons

Southpaw Crafts

Scale 75

Kwana Minis

Portsmouth Miniatures

Galladoria Games

BrushMx Machinations

Talon Games

Swordfish Islands

Moonlit Minis

Mini Master Werks

Discover Games

Elflandea

Frog God Games

Texas Wargaming LLC

And of course Reaper Miniatures

I'm sure they will be happy to take your money...bring a lot of money and take home some serious loot.

For the Master Series Paint Open Competition will also feature a number of manufacturer awards (you can find full details on the Reaper Miniatures Forum for these):

Bombshell Miniatures - Golden Maelee Award

Warlord Games/Trenchworx (co-sponsorship) two contests; Historical - Open (non Warlord/Trenchworx miniatures) and Historical Exclusive - Warlord/Trenchworx miniatures only

Talon Games - Cav Miniatures

DGS Games - Freeblades miniatures

MidKnight Heros - Chibi miniatures open to all Chibi miniatures regardless of the maker

Moonlit Minis - Moonlit Minis

Looks like we have some extra judging to do this year.

Cartoon Wednesday

 

We saw a guy about a dog (clock)

Well, okay, maybe not a dog (we still have three) but we did see a guy about some clocks. We ran up to

Loveland to see George and his brother Bob about a clock. George is a well known auctioneer and has amassed quite the personal collection of "stuff" some pretty amazing stuff. In the end we walked out with 8 clocks and a stained glass lamp (a real one not a reproduction, not a Tiffany though).

I haven't delved into the specifics on this one yet but it is an Ansonia Calendar Regulator wall clock.

This is a porcelain Gilbert clock, the "Romance" model. Needs a new pendulum and the metal back plat is missing, that might be tough to come up with but I'll try. The mechanism looks to have been serviced within the last 20 years and at first glance (without taking it apart) the work looks pretty good.

Another porcelain clock. I think this is a Gilbert but I'm not sure yet. I haven't found any identifying markings at this point.

This is a New Haven "Liffey" clock circa 1882. It has an Elbe pendulum which allows fine adjustment to just how fast or slow the clock runs. Someone applied a finish to it at some point or it has a lot of was build up so there is definitely a lot of restoration work to come on the case.

An Ingraham clock, the case needs a little love and I haven't looked at the inside yet. I think the pendulum is missing.

This is a neat find, although not the best example, of an advertising wall clock. Its by Baird and I doubt that I'll be able to find out much about it. I'm not sure it runs but we will find out. 

This is definitely a Gilbert! Don't know which model yet but looking forward to the research.

The one clock not picture is an Ansonia "Bee" which is a small 3" one day clock (you have to wind it everyday). Not sure of the date of manufacture it was patented in 1878 but they made these up through the 1930s. It also came with the shipping tin (ours is blue) which is in pretty good shape, better than a lot of the ones I have seen. The little clock is in fabulous shape, a few scratches on the back and that's about it. Bright and shiny!

I'll have to get a picture of the stained glass lamp but its very pretty and very, very heavy.

Outbuilding construction - OmniWall is up

I finished getting all the Omniwall units up and have kind of thrown the organizational bits up on them. I sure this will change as soon as we get tools into place.  Now I need to get the exhaust fan into place up in the south loft. I'm going to add a dust filtration unit between the joists towards this end as well. This will be on top of a modified single stage collector (for the larger tools with 4" ports) and a hacked together dust vac to handle the little chores and smaller tools.

These are 16" Omniwall Panels, currently stocked with paper towel holders, screw driver, wrench and plier racks. Have to figure out how to get the gouges on these. I have some larger magnetic pads that can go on these but I'm hoping that one of the racks will hold them. Just haven't had time to experiment with them yet.

So the northeast corner with the shelf unit in place and the blinding light from the skylight coming in.

You can see all four panels here (barely).

And the southeast corner. Its a lot brighter with the lights on!

Outbuilding Construction - Insulation and Paneling done

To much going on this summer. I have managed to get up all the insulation and the plywood paneling. Looking pretty good at this point. There are a couple of places that could be better but in the end it is a work shop not a showroom. The part that bugs me the most is that over the south door and the north window I had to run the grain horizontally instead of vertically to make the most efficient use of the plywood that I had on hand. Such is life.

Looking to the Southeast. If you look close you can see the horizontal grain above the 6' doors. I have moved the Omniwall panels to, more or less, where they will be going on the east wall.

Now looking to the northwest towards the west door (which will be the main access as soon as I get a gate built). You can see the gradual accumulation of tools already! The Omniwall on the west wall went up as soon as I had that wall insulated and paneled. There is an baseboard vent in that north wall, right behind my black tool cases.

And now to the southwest, including a look at my table saw in the stowed position and the future location for all most of our wood in that corner.

And, finally, to the northeast. I already have one of the Onmiwall units (the shelf) installed in the corner. That bright light is coming in from the skylight. The east wall will be the main tool run with both lathes and a workbench running along it.

Cartoon Wednesday

 

Cartoon Wednesday (Late...again)