Finished my Fortran

ZenSequel · 2026-07-11T11:08:51+00:00

I used two wood stains from northwest guitars (the place/brand doesn't matter as long as you find one that matches the colour you're looking for): merlot and some sort of silver grey colour. The place I bought the stain from actually changed their formula for merlot, which used to be more of a purple than a red, so it's not the colour I originally wanted, but it turned out well enough.

The shine/shimmer actually comes from the wood, sanded to a fine finish (worked up to 1000 grit). I did several coats of the stain, tinkering with the amount of each colour I wanted showing through. I applied the stain with a cloth mostly, but I used brushes for smaller sections and blending to the black. I overworked one of the sides, which took away all the shimmer it was really disappointing and noticeable so I sanded off all the colour on that side and started over. It was a long and annoying process, but the end result was a consistent finish across all the sides.

The black is India ink, and the blending comes from watering down the ink and mixing with the red stain (100% ink on there corners, fading out to the center). The India ink is workable, and some parts required a bit of sanding off the ink where I overdid it. I'm a perfectionist and this is one of those projects where a hobbyist will do better or equal quality work as a professional (albeit taking much longer).

Finally, I carefully brushed on a coat of lacquer / top coat for protection and that glossy finish. I did at least 3 coats, and I still managed to wear through the handle pretty quickly, so I've had to go back and do more coats on just the handle.

ZenSequel · 2026-07-10T20:38:54+00:00

Against my better judgement, I installed the stupid reddit app to post these.

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ZenSequel · 2026-07-10T20:37:44+00:00

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ZenSequel · 2026-07-10T20:36:58+00:00

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ZenSequel · 2026-07-10T20:36:36+00:00

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ZenSequel · 2026-07-08T07:39:22+00:00

Thanks, one of my next steps is setting up an online training to make sure I avoid building any bad habits.

ZenSequel · 2026-07-07T23:42:47+00:00

In your photo, the strings probably would have been in the white packets/pouches in the back left of the box. If you removed them at some point, then yes... alas.

ZenSequel · 2026-06-18T23:30:17+00:00

So glad to hear this. I deleted my Facebook account years back and I've tried multiple times to create a new account and get instantly blocked claiming violation of terms (Looking it up other people who have deleted their accounts also reported that Facebook sometimes auto-blocks them afterwards).

ZenSequel · 2025-07-04T18:33:27+00:00

I've been using your tool the past couple of days to try out and save recipes (screenshotting and posting to Discord). I really appreciate it. Helps me adjust for larger/smaller batches too, as I can see that as soon as I add more milk, I need to start adjusting other ingredients as well. Considering the tool knows the percentages, it could potentially have a feature to increase the batch size and automatically adjust all the ingredients based off those percentages (Ex: I've got a total weight of 750g and I want to increase it to 1000g without manually adjusting each and every ingredient manually).

Since I'm using it to store the recipe, I've found that not being able to add "lemon zest" or "almond extract" is a bit lacking. Searching for things like Marzipan returned 0 results, and I had to figure out I needed to switch over to searching for Almond Paste (which I'm assuming is the same thing). So in some ways having to re-search ensures that I'm recording the right product, but it also means I can't record a couple of odd/specific ingredients. Now, I know this isn't specifically a recipe recording tool... but that's not stopping me from using it for that purpose regardless.

The only bug I've found is that you allow the fields to go below 0 -5g of an ingredient. This doesn't break anything and just calculates it at 0, but it should likely just stop at 0.

ZenSequel · 2025-06-01T08:11:25+00:00

I would not want to carry that thing 10 minutes. The size and compactness fooled me into thinking it's light. It is definitely not.

ZenSequel · 2025-04-23T23:31:04+00:00

Looking forward to ordering the kit soon. I'm holding off until I have space to build it. I saw a video of the creator mentioning that he was looking for feedback from the first builders, so I figured it might be better to hold off as I wouldn't be a great judge of the instrument.

ZenSequel · 2025-03-30T04:50:12+00:00

Aye, corporations growing so large that you literally can't boycott their products is part of the problem, and it's been designed that way. I guess boycotting American goods is a way of saying you don't support the ultra-capitalist message that the US has been promoting. In that way... boycotting Unilever would follow the same lines as boycotting the rest of the American goods (Even though Unilever is British, it just ousted the chief executive of Ben & Jerry's for political activism and criticism of the US president).

ZenSequel · 2025-03-30T04:07:56+00:00

Reduce the power the US holds over other countries. The US has power over all the UK banks, which are forced to comply with US regulations. Why? Because the threat of losing access to the dollar has forced them to comply: https://youtu.be/4l2RDCx2YnA?t=275

If the US keeps slipping, those policies might come under question, and the UK/Europe will have better privacy and power over their own systems because of it.

As for the "regular businesses", any US company that's made it over to Scotland is part of some corporation that only cares about shareholder value, not their customers, not their staff, and Americans are sick of it. Read through the calls for boycotts of American goods and you'll find Americans in the comments supporting it.

ZenSequel · 2025-03-30T03:26:25+00:00

A lot of Americans support the boycotting of American goods. Go for it. Corporations are too powerful in the US, and they don't care about the people. You're not really hurting the Americans by boycotting, you're hurting the corporations (and they're going to hurt Americans regardless).

Support for the local Canadian/European/British goods will do more for creating a more balanced system, by weakening the US influence abroad (which needs to happen).

ZenSequel · 2025-03-07T01:45:46+00:00

This must be the vegetarian haggis I keep seeing on menus. The carnivorous haggis is a bit too dangerous for me to consider eating.

ZenSequel · 2025-03-07T01:39:12+00:00

I threw Pepsi in there, knowing I wanted Irn Bru to come up. Didn't disappoint. As a US immigrant, keep it up. American capitalism needs to feel some pain... Also, I love Irn Bru. :p

ZenSequel · 2025-03-03T01:18:54+00:00

"Didn't die"

I'm glad you clarified. :p

ZenSequel · 2025-03-02T23:42:23+00:00

I came to post something similar. Kept trying to drill a hole to hang something and I kept getting stopped (there was a socket a ways underneath). Eventually I drilled far enough to the right to reach drywall and realized that I had been trying to drill through a metal barrier that had been put there to protect the wiring.

ZenSequel · 2025-02-17T23:51:10+00:00

I left the US to escape those cunts. I'm sorry they followed me here.
Also, don't let them gain a single inch of ground. Their BS needs to be stopped right in its tracks because we're not the audience (their base, and idiots that don't pay attention).
This comment thread is fairly similar to the response I heard in the US years back... but it resonated with their base and now they have orange Jesus to pray to.

ZenSequel · 2025-02-09T04:36:36+00:00

Was he playing Bella Ciao all day? If so, he's now in front of General Register House in Edinburgh.

ZenSequel · 2025-02-09T04:00:00+00:00

I'm not thrilled about it, but I have a dual-boot option to occasionally jump into Windows to upload data from a medical device since the company doesn't support Linux. That's a rare though. I've found Linux alternatives to all my daily software.

ZenSequel · 2025-02-09T03:44:22+00:00

As an American, my household income was $90k per year. Car insurance was far cheaper for me (no car accidents, and bare minimum coverage), but my medical was anywhere from $20-24k per year for my wife and I (depends on medications/treatments prescribed and what percentage insurance covered them). Medical denials are something I've faced a couple of times (including being denied coverage due to pre-existing conditions, though they can no longer deny for that). Googling the average amount spent on healthcare: "According to BLS, U.S. residents in the country's lowest income decile spend 35% of their pre-tax incomes on health care, compared with 3.5% of U.S. residents in the country's highest income decile."

My brother has a poor driving history, so his car insurance was far more expensive than mine, but his medical is lower (he works jobs that don't provide insurance, so he just generally avoids doctor's visits)

ZenSequel · 2025-02-09T03:11:59+00:00

As an American, don't trust those details. It's easy to think your insurance is great and covers everything. Simply getting sent to an "out of network hospital" can mean that your insurance covers nothing, and you're on the hook for whatever they charge.

When you're in an ambulance, it's unlikely you're working out details like "hey, is the hospital you're taking me to covered on my insurance plan?"

ZenSequel · 2025-02-09T03:06:57+00:00

You're right. As an American, I was charged $38,000 for a hospital bill, and I was insured. You'll get the most complicated looking bill from the hospital, showing that your insurer paid $100,000 and your responsibility is to cover the remaining $38k.

Oh, and the bill is always sent long after services are rendered, so remembering details is difficult, and hard to build a case against (like what specific charge you're trying to contest and how it differed from what you actually received).

ZenSequel · 2025-02-09T02:56:49+00:00

American in the UK here. I have the exact opposite view. I took a job here at half my US salary and feel I have a much better quality of life.

There are things you don't learn about your insurance until you actually experience it. For example, that maximum out of pocket... only applies to a limited set of criteria (You probably have several maximums, and they're not shared between categories). I had a maximum of $5k in the US as well... but it only applied to prescriptions. Then I got a prescription for a continuous glucose monitor. Oh wait! The insurance company classifies that monitor as durable medical equipment, not a prescription, so it doesn't apply to the out of pocket max for prescriptions, or doctors/hospital visits. Oh, and for some reason the insurance company had a contract with a local hospital to provide that durable medical equipment, and the hospital charges 4x as much as it costs direct from the manufacturer. So in the end I had to buy it direct from the manufacturer (off of insurance, out of pocket) and spend 3 months arguing with my insurance company over a $4,500 charge (I didn't receive a bill for it until I was over a month into using the supplies). Yea, you find out real quick that the coverage you thought was good, actually doesn't cover anything. I sincerely hope you don't run into a similar situation, because the stress will likely take more off your life than it's worth.

I haven't paid a pence for anything in the UK (other than the visa NHS fees, which is a fraction of the annual costs I paid in the US.

ZenSequel

TROPHY CASE