We’re planning a bit of an elaborate house sign at the front of our driveway. I’ve done two design sketches which are shown below.

So my question is, which one do we build? Whichever gets the most votes is the one we build!(facebook, email or in the comments below)

Not much variation in the theme (sea creatures) but I will take your preferences into consideration when creating the final abomination such as; should it feature more eyeballs, or fewer eyeballs? More squamous and batrachian creatures or fewer? More amorphous, or more defined?

We’ll be doing a 3D printer demo at the Arts Building in Gibsons tonight.

(next to the Gibsons library here is a map).

The meet-up is social with some show and tell. There will also be the supplies to make some draw-bots and have some races.

“Army of Evil Robots” have their new print head so will be bringing their 3D printer, and hopefully Dan will bring the new robot arm he is working on. It has some neat unique features.

Finally getting some shop time in this weekend after spending every spare moment of the past couple of weeks prepping the garden for the growing season. Projects seem to be piling up faster than we can finish them. It’s been a busy winter with work and reno’s but spring brings longer, warmer days and more time spent on fun workshop projects.

Progress on the Workshop window and door lintels is happening slowly.

Last summer I found this stick while walking on the beach and thought if I made it into a wizard staff it might give me magical powers. So now, not only am I an Evil Robot Overlord, but I am also a Powerful Wizard. Fear me. I’m not sure what the wood is but it has really cool purple streaked colouring. The patterns are woodburned into it and the letters at the top, although appear in the photo to read “BM” perhaps for “Bowel Movement” or “Bad Manners”, are actually 6 Norse Runes encircling the top that read “Thrash” which is a lot cooler than bowel movement.

Several years ago Derek and I started vacationing on the beautiful Sunshine Coast and fell in love with Roberts Creek. Last year in March we finally made the move and rented a cabin by the beach for a few months while we waited for the right home to come on the market. We found our house in summer and moved in September 1st. The past few months have been non-stop renos, yard work and getting the workshop built but we’re finally settled!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVP43AQTJ00

TL;DR: It works, try it.

I finished off the furnace with another couple of pounds of refractory cement, and let it dry for a couple of days, then fired it slowly over a few hours to burn out the rest of the water. Things looked solid, so the next step was to try and cast something. Of course, my first thought was to “forge” some currency, and the results are below:

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Yet another busy afternoon; I mixed up some perlite/refractory and started building out a furnace for aluminum casting. Things are going pretty well so far. The 4:1 perlite to refractory mix seems to work OK, although I am sticking closer to 3:1 right now. My refractory cement already has some aggregate in it, so it’s a bit intolerant of the big chunks of perlite. I wish I could add some soap to the mix to make the perlite wet out better.

Finally started to brew again after a hiatus of several years (due to time constraints, not by choice).

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This time around I am brewing a 7-ish percent IPA, using ESB and Caravienne malts, and a ludicrous amount of hops. I hope the 1.120 starting gravity will balance out the massive IBU.

Just switched to a more “standard” heated bed, and a JHead to replace my long suffering makergear extruder.

I cannot believe it has been nearly two years since I built this printer!