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.
