Numbers

As I have written, I am reading Cryptonomicon, by Neal Stephenson. I have no idea whether or not the author understands the concepts he is writing about, but that doesn't matter - he is good at conveying concepts like the "Knapsack problem" and other math/algorithm problems. Reading these stories got me to thinking about simple problems I face, such as making non-round bowls on my CNC. I have been using a so-called bowl and tray bit that leaves a rounded fillet between the two planes of the sidewalls and the bottom of the vessel. The depth of these items has been limited by the length of the bit shank. A customer asked for a deep box for her wedding anniversary and I thought I might not be able to make the box as deep as she wanted. While I was selecting a bit in my tool path software I noticed that the diameter of the bowl and tray bit was 1-1/4". That struck me as an odd number. Why not an inch or a inch and a half? Then the lightbulb went off - that is the smallest size bit that will allow the collet nut on the router to clear the sides of a cut out shape without interfering. I broke out my dial caliper and checked - sure enough the nut that holds the bit in the router is just under 1-1/4" when measured at its greatest width. Jackpot! So now I can mill right up to the point where the router body itself hits the work. Hurray for math!

That discovery led me to figure out a way to engrave an inscription in the bottom of the box - make the text small enough to fit in a rectangle that left clearance for the nose of the router and buda bing etc.

That was a test - I have not done any v-carving in years so I wanted to make sure I hadn't lost my mojo. That quote required 13,500 lines of code - glad there is an algorithm for that.

Speaking of "slice of life" I was looking for a chunk of wood in one of my many sheds and found a nondescript lump - it was covered with the dust of ages and as soon as I made the first cut on the bandsaw I realized it was black walnut. I sliced and diced and ran the pieces through the planer - ta da:

But as always, I am really here to talk about the weather. We haven't had rain for a while but there were some distant thunder storms tonight. 

There was some cloud-to-cloud lightning off to the north and I managed to get a picture of it.

Which reminded me of my favorite classical themed cartoon, Fantasia, specifically the segment that features the forth movement of Beethoven's 6th symphony, the Pastoral.

Viddy me some Ludwig van.

Almond Bread

All this talk about food and microwaves got me hungry. But being me I branched out on another idea.

A couple of years ago a friend gave me a microwave oven that she thought was broken. It wasn't but so it goes. I buried it in a mound in the backyard as a decoy for anyone using metal detectors to find my buried treasure (editor's note - there is no buried treasure, but no one need know that). Over time the soil eroded and there it was - white goods (as they call appliances at the salvage yard) poking up through the dirt. So I dug it out and dragged it into the tractor shed.

While reading various trade magazines I kept coming across some interesting patterns burned into wood, to wit:

I thought that was kind of cool - has kind of an Asian vibe to it, and it's done with electricity, and one of the preferred sources for power is a used high voltage transformer from a microwave oven. Hmm, I have one of those. 

So I started doing some research and what do you know - now fractal wood burning is being banned by various groups due to people getting electrocuted during the process. That's not good. I mean it's a nice design and all, but is it worth dying for? Not to this old lumberjack.

A wiser approach would be to use software to generate fractals and Mandelbrot sets and Julia sets and all of the other, many variations on that theme.

Alice set set to Beethoven - trippy, man!

Anyway, I ended up taking the microwave to the scrap yard, got four cents a pound for it (what's that, a dollar or two?) and decided to stick with tried and true old-time woodworking using my 3D modeling software and my CNC:

The old ways are still the best ways, eh?

Who else could I link to based on the title of this post?