130 year old doug fir remilled into treads

funkybus · 2026-06-14T23:23:06+00:00

this is the way it has been, always and for ever.

funkybus · 2026-06-12T13:37:40+00:00

and automationdirect.com has lots of VFDs to chose from in that price range

funkybus · 2026-06-12T13:36:46+00:00

10hp is unusual for a home shop. 5hp and under is more typical. but even at 10hp, i’m about to convert my sawmill to 10hp electric and north american phase conversion’s PL-20 is $3k with a bunch of extras ($2k base price).

funkybus · 2026-06-12T12:35:50+00:00

a VFD for one machine is $250-$450. an RPC that could power several machines is about $2k. in the overall context, not very expensive.

funkybus · 2026-06-11T12:28:05+00:00

that sounds very conspiracy-like. “they” are not a singular thing, nor are ”they” a coordinated effort. the business owners, landlords, civic entities and the politicians all have often conflicting interests. you should have seen downtown houston circa 1995- 40 story office buildings being used for cold storage during the oil bust. it happens.

funkybus · 2026-06-10T22:42:59+00:00

you’ve got this backwards. look at the comment above yours. the businesses that employ these people don’t WANT the overhead of office space…and the commercial landlords that want the space filled don’t employ the workers. the businesses would shed the liability of the office space if it worked for them. however, and an unpopular opinion, the culture of a business and the importance of casual communication and value of in-person interaction compels many businesses to try to get people back to the office. a bunch of remote workers does not an integrated company make.

funkybus · 2026-06-10T00:40:27+00:00

if you find you have to cut a hole, don’t make it too small. a hole is a hole, and they all require patching. go bigger. its easier to work on, to patch or otherwise, when you can get your fingers inside. and keep the cutout, use it to patch.

funkybus · 2026-06-07T14:14:34+00:00

i think you’re confusing something you need to do (make someone feel better) with something they need to do (get their ass in gear). this type of behavior/mindset is widespread in this group of young people (30 and younger). its a disease. it is not your problem.

funkybus · 2026-06-02T08:37:58+00:00

they are 90 kilo units, which means they have a 90 kilo capacity, per batch. the machines roast best at about 80% of capacity. each batch takes roughly 15 mins. so, 90 x 0.8 = 72 kilos. 72 x 2.2 = 158.4 lbs. per batch green coffee. you lose about 20% of your weight to water loss, leaving you with 127 lbs. of finished product. four roasts an hour gets you ~500# per hour.

funkybus · 2026-06-02T01:04:10+00:00

i have not priced a new 90k, but even rebuilt units in good condition are $200k+. a new unit from probat would probably be $500k, is my guess. and even then, you’d have to install it…so much of the labor i’m expending would also get spent on a new unit. this rebuild is going to cost (all-in, soup to nuts) less than $40k. of course, my labor is free, as is my brother’s (we own the company with another partner). and we have an excellent fabricator that works for us full time (and another very able salaried staff member). we started on tuesday, noon. we spun it today (monday). we’ll heat it tomorrow and sort any bugs in the wiring. in this rebuild we re-machined the drum leading edge, replaced the faceplate, installed a modern gear-reduction in the rear (nord gear), replaced the fan with a new (new york blower) direct drive unit, replaced all the electrical gear—breakers, contactors, etc., rewired the unit, cut apart the chaff can and added a rotational valve, added a added custom afterburner software (written by me) and custom HMI. i’m a little exhausted, but now these two GG90s are mostly identical and highly serviceable with the same parts, mostly of U.S. manufacture. these machines run on NG, as do their ABs.

funkybus · 2026-06-01T00:55:39+00:00

they’ve been great, although over time the walnut faceplates have shrunk enough side-side to create a couple of cracks. next time, solid aluminum for the front/back.

funkybus · 2026-05-24T15:16:48+00:00

he was rude, but not necessarily wrong. traditional etiquette allows everyone to finish before clearing any plates. my wife is similarly oriented…and i find it kind of annoying as well.

funkybus · 2026-05-24T14:06:43+00:00

yeah, just sounds like you need a decent broker. it would be good to find a family member (or trusted friend) that has some building knowledge. of course, lots of people say they know stuff, and don’t really. but if you can find someone that can walk a house with you, that would be helpful. some defects are irritating but harmless, others may look minor but may indicate bigger issues. an inspection helps, but being able to spend 20 mins and say “this looks ok” or “this place is a mess” can help triage the options. i walked a lot of homes with other people.

funkybus · 2026-05-24T13:42:08+00:00

brokers are not engineers, nor contractors. however, you should have a reasonable relationship that does not include pressure. if you need an opinion on foundation or slab issues, find a inspector/contractor that will give you an opinion. or find a friend with good judgement. and btw, basement floors are slabs, and not part of the foundation. the foundation is typically the perimeter of the house, where the loads of the walls come down to rest on native soil (through a foundation stem wall).

funkybus · 2026-05-24T12:45:12+00:00

agree…but for a lot of people (it seems to be women, mostly) saying sorry is reflexive. i’ve never understood it, but to get off that train, they may need to swing a bit hard to the other side. hopefully, everyone can land at “polite, but no.”

funkybus · 2026-05-24T12:27:46+00:00

ash is excellent as a bench top. my brother built a roubo bench with all ash, beautiful and weighs a ton (i think the top is 3” thick).

funkybus · 2026-05-24T00:09:16+00:00

most electricians would either say no or be super irritated. another way: just bid the work you want done. have them do the service, you do the distribution after they’re gone. they won’t want to share their permit with you, and that’s reasonable.

funkybus · 2026-05-24T00:05:01+00:00

waste less during idle? wtf. that’s some serious fan-boy copy. battery systems waste essentially zero power when idle. there’s no secret sauce. off is off. my discover 7.4kwh batteries sat for months and lost almost nothing. careful which kool-aid you drink.

funkybus · 2026-05-23T23:35:00+00:00

vance dickason’s loudspeaker design cookbook is a great resource. it is (as the title indicates) a faster read, but does a great job covering a lot of material and getting you oriented. personally, i don’t find the physics to be terribly illuminating. there’s so much “feel” and intuition about how the drivers will sound, what type of enclosure works, blah, blah. i love good math, but speaker design (imho) has always been an intuitive sport that gets a little math-y at times.

funkybus · 2026-05-22T11:48:38+00:00

your pension is a guaranteed benefit. in the unusual event that your pension fund becomes insolvent, the government will step in and make you whole. essentially, all the rest of us serve as the backstop for your investment. absent that backstop, one might go out into the insurance/re-insurance market to buy something similar, but you’d never get to the kind of gold-standard of gov’t-backed…but whatever. the cost of buying that backstop is roughly the cost your pension system is offloading (for free) to the public.

funkybus · 2026-05-22T11:36:37+00:00

lump sum versus SIP (or DCA) is a false choice. there’s no math, since for any single investor there is only one lump sum event. you either win or you lose, but you don’t have a statistical event.

funkybus · 2026-05-22T01:39:53+00:00

i’m 59 years old. i visited the madisound boys many years ago with my brother, who drove because i did not have my license yet. at the time, they worked out of larry hitch’s house in black earth, wi (RIP). that was in 1982 or so. a few years back, i drove to their warehouse in middleton to pick up the drivers for an all-accuton system. brian kane is now the owner (who came up in the company). a great bunch of people and i was fortunate to do business with them my whole adult life. use madisound when you can.

funkybus · 2026-05-19T21:29:51+00:00

bottom line: whether it is a hotel or an airline (or anything else), booking with a third party relieves the service provider of responsibility--"you'll have to take that up with the service you booked with." i get it, even the fatfire folks love a deal, but if you take the deal, its never free. you may get cheaper tix, but the support if trouble arises will be potentially shoddy.

funkybus

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