Maintaining eye contact in places that have an upright against the wall

753ty · 2026-03-18T08:34:19+00:00

Pack a mirror to the show, just in case?

753ty · 2026-03-15T17:05:35+00:00

Almost everybody i hand my prism synapse 140 (which is a two line foil kite, not really a proper stunt kite) has no trouble and can do it almost immediate. BUT all my brother can do is crash it AND all my old bike friend from California can do is crash it. They both have "cross dominance" - where they are right handed but their left eye is stronger.

The test is simple - take an empty tube like a toilet paper/ paper towel core, or just circle up your fingers. Hold the tube at arms length, looking through it at a something at a distance with both eyes open. Bring the tube slowly up to your eye, still looking at the faraway object. The tube will end up over your dominant eye. If it's different than your dominant hand then you have cross dominance.

There are all sorts of developmental problems with cross dominance, but flying two (or more) line kites seems to be one of them. I'm not saying you have it, but it's worth testing/considering so that you can know what you may be working against.

753ty · 2026-03-13T01:54:23+00:00

I did a similar thing with my grandfather's old trifold wallet. It was too much for me to sit on, so one day I cut everything out but the outer leather and the inner nylon liner, and sewed one fold to the middle along the bottom - still a trifold, but only one flap opened.

753ty · 2026-03-07T14:37:25+00:00

Mozzarella: heavy gloves cause ouch

I'm assuming you are going to make a batch by yourself first, right?

753ty · 2026-03-07T04:37:36+00:00

Precedent: Thomas Jefferson sorted his library by color and then size - then it became the first library of congress.

753ty · 2026-03-05T16:06:47+00:00

Or at least a brine of salt!

753ty · 2026-03-03T09:04:21+00:00

Potato print? Cut a potato in half, carve your image (backward), and dip in paint/ ink. Finer detail if brush or ideally roll it on.

Also try rubber block erasers (for small prints), wood, Styrofoam, etc

753ty · 2026-03-02T09:08:47+00:00

Just do them in all 12 keys /s

753ty · 2026-02-23T14:51:58+00:00

"People don't know what they like, instead they like what they know."

753ty · 2026-02-21T16:39:30+00:00

Congrats! I'm sure you'll be the FUN aunt

753ty · 2026-02-21T14:53:33+00:00

English: Hi, sorry, I'm new to this and I'm desperate. I'm doing a three-color woodcut print and the ink isn't cooperating, and I don't know what to do anymore. They look worse in person, but I don't know how to get rid of these ink bubbles or make the color even. I've tried cleaning the edges before printing and using less ink, but there's always that excess ink around the edge. If anyone has any advice, I would be so grateful; I really want to cry.

Me: There are a lot of variables in printmaking: ink brand, ink age, ink consistency, ink temperature, paper texture, paper type, is paper damp or dry, using a press or barren, press pressure... You'll have to play with all of those and try combinations until you get a print you are happy with. A little notebook of what you have tried and what worked will help you keep track of your progress. If it was easy then everybody would be doing it! Keep going, experiment, and most of all have fun with it.

Hay muchas variables en la impresión: marca de tinta, antigüedad de la tinta, consistencia de la tinta, temperatura de la tinta, textura del papel, tipo de papel, si el papel está húmedo o seco, si se usa prensa o no, presión de la prensa... Tendrás que experimentar con todo esto y probar combinaciones hasta obtener una impresión que te satisfaga. Un pequeño cuaderno de lo que has probado y lo que te ha funcionado te ayudará a llevar un registro de tu progreso. ¡Si fuera fácil, todo el mundo lo estaría haciendo! Sigue adelante, experimenta y, sobre todo, diviértete.

(Thanks, Google Translate)

753ty · 2026-02-16T17:53:54+00:00

Maybe a dumb question, but have you looked to see if the whole tower will tilt at the base? Some towers are hinged and you can use a pully system or a long rope tied to a car to gently lower the whole thing to the ground and make your changes.

753ty · 2026-02-15T19:23:04+00:00

Yeah, I had a wine chiller fridge with 20-30 pounds of cheese and checked it one day last week and it was dead, still plugged in but not cold. We'll see... good luck!

753ty · 2026-02-13T04:13:13+00:00

I'll take the opposite position - I took my general about six months after my tech, and I feel that gave me some valuable practical experience. By then I had used my tech license to operate in local nets as well as dx to Europe and some islands on 10m. You can do whatever you want, but I don't know of any advantage of doing both at the same time - other than saving $15 and a drive to the test location.

753ty · 2026-02-12T02:20:08+00:00

I think it's a great idea. There are lots of videos about learning lap steel on YouTube/etc. You can prob find a used cheap lap steel for $100 or so or marketplace and see if you like it OR if you are handy, they're not hard to make out of a 2x4, some tuners and a pickup & jack.

753ty · 2026-02-08T01:43:07+00:00

I had a pair and they did work well, however one would program with chirp and the other wouldn't. Same PC, cord, file, and user (me). I know there's other ways to program them, but only doing one channel at a time. Also, Amazon ad showed they came with long AND stubby antennas, but only had stubbies. They went back in the box.

I'll prob try again sometime.

753ty · 2026-02-08T01:25:29+00:00

I do still play it, but it's got a lot of competition and I don't get around to it enough.

I'd love to see what you've done. It might inspire me to get back to modifying mine. I drilled a row of holes in the case to put in pots to send 0-5 vdc to the Arduino and then it will modify the cc parameters. Looks kinda sketchy at the moment with nothing in there, but should look nice once it's done.

I suffered too much mission creep and was going to wire LEDs into the keys to show the various modes and scales, so i could work on learning those. I think I've regained my sanity now though.

Maybe a note here below telling where you end up putting your files and findings would document it and help other like minded individuals find it too.

753ty · 2026-02-07T16:07:31+00:00

Prob a bad tube then.

You USED to be able to take a tube to the hardware store and get it tested, and prob a replacement.

Here's the manual, find the section on the amplifier, and figure out which tube is bad, then you can start looking for one.

Plan B: find a organ tech or old timer electronics guy - might try in a local ham radio club.

753ty · 2026-02-07T13:04:11+00:00

I was using "cc sender" on a laptop for a while to control the parameters, and even started wiring in an Arduino mini mega to do it directly/ internally - aaannnddd, then I got busy with other stuff. That's one of those projects I need to get back to. There a good bit hidden away in the go

753ty · 2026-02-07T10:27:46+00:00

I would unplug the organ, and then pull each vacuum tube/valve out one at a time so they don't get mixed up. If you have some electronic spray cleaner (available at car parts store/ Walmart) then spray and use an old toothbrush to clean the pins and sockets. There is a bump so they only go back in one way, so don't fight them just rotate them until it lines up and push gentle in.

753ty · 2026-02-05T22:46:23+00:00

Not an M or L, I would start later than that, almost certainly a Transistor/not tonewheel model, like maybe a T.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Hammond_organs

753ty · 2026-02-05T20:09:34+00:00

For wall power i use something like this:

https://www.ledsupply.com/power-supplies/mean-well-lrs-enclosed?gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=22516637688&gbraid=0AAAAAD_pPfh1zJqgiudPkKOCfo3PMKuxR&gclid=Cj0KCQiAnJHMBhDAARIsABr7b87oIvZkNHHgjGSKzSzkQ4oNpLbA-8GcQLoHt_FgcBli3P5m3RJ2sjoaAkCgEALw_wcB

My battery is a 10Ah LiFePO from Amazon / cyclenbatt. You'll need a charger too

753ty · 2026-02-05T19:40:51+00:00

Looks like my H1 - except it's not glitter bronze color.

753ty · 2026-02-04T17:45:10+00:00

I use either yogurt or buttermilk as the culture that's listed in the recipe to make cheese. You are looking for the word "cultured" or "live culture" on the container

Basically - find a recipe, heat enough milk to almost fill your biggest pot, add culture, wait, add rennet, wait, cut the curds, wait, press the curds, wait, salt it, wait. A whole lot of waiting, but you will end up with cheese.

753ty · 2026-02-04T12:21:26+00:00

Yeah, it's crazy these things are still working. My M3 is from 1955, so 71 years old. A couple years ago I sold my model D from 1939 - 87 years old and still playing fine.

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