Chaudywogbaaga

I’ve been picking back up on my blacksmithing. I made something resembling a spoon (it’s a little too flat) and a big ugly knife. I couldn’t get the spoon to form a cup on the cone of my anvil so it’s now a shoe horn and a back scratcher.

I’m particularly happy with the knife because before I was not able to hammer the metal at all. I have a bucket of broken lathe tools that are all high carbon steel and my old set up couldn’t heat them enough to get them to hammer out. The new forge I made gets much hotter and the metal is more workable. As it was I wasn’t worried about how it looked, I was just happy it wasn’t a square block of steel anymore.

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I finally got the go ahead to get started on my self employment! I’ve been having trouble managing my time though. I’ve been using all the different tools, to do lists, mind maps etc. But they take time to keep up too. I get the feeling that they’re hurting me more than helping while I’m sitting in front of my computer lamenting that I’m getting nothing done. I’m pretty sure I would be more lost without them though. My main problem is that I don’t know what is going to become profitable the fastest, so I don’t where my main thrust of effort should be.

I have a requirement to complete 20 hours of training on starting and running a business (which is a good thing) so I’ve been looking to get that all scheduled but all the really good classes started in February or are an hour+ drive from here. I may be taking that drive. This part is easy, I need to schedule as much as I can as soon as I can.

I have to get a DBA and an EIN. I’m trying to get an old dumptruck running, registered, inspected and insured which I’m thinking is going to cost more than the truck itself. I’m hoping it’s a good investment and doesn’t keep costing money. Its a gamble that it will cost me less money in the short run so that I can get started and then upgrade down the line. The truck itself is beautiful and so iconic! It would be great for branding. It’s an old fire truck that my friend put a dump bed on and he calls me the mad scientist! He’s more of a Maker than I am. I’m calling the dump truck “Pa” because it’s old and it’s what we called my great grandfather and he was a fireman.

While I’m wrestling with this dump truck, I’m going to have to try selling metalwork. I love doing metalwork, but I’ve never sold any of my work before so I don’t know how much I can get for it. I have been working on my equipment so I do have more ability than I did before. My friend who’s selling me the dump truck had an old 200 (or 300 maybe) lb anvil sitting in his garage that he didn’t want. That was a major score for my ability to blacksmith. It rings very nicely, I hope the neighbors don’t mind. Once my workshop is finished, the sound won’t project as far.

My other projects for revenue streams are not as quick or clear cut. They mostly involve programming, and I usually don’t have a lot of time for them. I’ve scheduled time on Thursdays and Fridays to do this kind of work but so far I’ve been working on Pa and metalwork.

Last week I got to fire up the furnace that I made. I just melted some aluminum scrap into ingots but it was still fun. Most people start with melting aluminum, believe it or not, this was the first time I had ever tried it. It was very easy compared to melting copper. I’ve been working on three new cups that I want to cast. I’m thinking of making two of them aluminum and then enameling them (which I don’t know how to do yet) and the other out of copper and then enameling it also.

Actually I started much earlier in the day with a wood fire in the furnace and just kept feeding it all day to warm it up slowly and drive off any moisture. Then later on, I dumped the ashes out and started the furnace up on propane. It was when I started up the propane I realized that the garbage can I used was made of galvanized steel. Galvanized is a big no no for these temps and for welding since it gives off zinc gas that can give you metal fume fever. I’ll be wearing a respirator while using this one (which I should wear anyway).

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My old furnace is getting a bit worn from being exposed to the elements all the time (it’s too big to move indoors easily). I will be fixing it up but I wanted to try a different form factor first. In addition, I wanted to make something with a smaller internal volume to see how much faster I could get it up to temperature. I also got an old metal mailbox that I’m making into a forge like one I saw on TV one time. That’s more of a side project.

Hit the “More” for pictures.

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Well I still haven’t gotten to start anything. That’s frustrating, but there is a good reason for it. New York State has a program called “Self Employment Assistance” where if they think you will not be able to get a job in your career path, they will allow you to start a business while drawing on unemployment insurance. When I first saw the plan, I was excited. Then I saw the requirements and thought I’d never get in. Then they sent me a letter saying that I qualified! Now I’m formally applying and seeing if I can get in.

The catch is, I can’t do anything until I’m formally accepted. I can’t buy any equipment. I can’t start anything to get ready. So I have to wait.

If I don’t get accepted then this is all a waste of time while I pull unemployment. Ah well that’s government for you. . .

Jay Leno rebuilding a steam engine with a 3D printer!

Well, maybe it could if it was cheaper. I won’t be able to afford this stuff until it drops an order of magnitude in price. Still, a lot of the talk about 3d printers was that people could set up a store that you would bring your item to be reproduced and then have it printed. Say, that doesn’t sound like a bad idea.

I was particularly impressed that the printer can make a whole machine in place with no assembly.

Link: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/36218

I am truly a bit unnerved by this. Although I have frequently been told that ideas are cheap and that all that matters is getting things done before someone else does them, it keeps bashing me on the head! Why am I ranting about this? Ideas. Have you ever had a great idea? Did you ever find yourself frustrated that someone else seemed to wholesale copy your idea even though you’ve never met the person and they couldn’t have possibly been reading through your notebook of ideas?

It happens to me all the time. . . And it was frustrating, now it’s getting frightening!

More than a decade ago, I made a little card game out of a standard deck of cards. I always thought that it would be neat to commercialize it and make make the cards unique as a stand alone game. It was kind of a medieval risk without a board. You built castles, got land and fought battles. All with a standard deck of cards.

I called it. . . Dominion.

Now I find out that there is a game with the same name and concept and it started to be developed about the same time! About a decade ago! The similarities are unnerving to me. I’m not saying that someone stole my idea. The designer, Donald X. Vaccarino is not someone I know and it’s very highly improbable that he has ever heard of me.

If you don’t believe me follow the link for more!

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This is a great video of what can be done with EPS and sand casting. Great stuff! I’m pretty sure that most people think that this kind of thing is not possible to do. Now I just need a CNC machine for foam. . . I’m glad I’ve been saving those scanner and printer parts!

Now I just need time to do it.

One of the things that has been difficult for me in my experiment is trying to explain what I’m doing. I can do it with a long dissertation but I’ve avoided giving that dissertation because each time I want to give a simple understandable answer. Now to be honest, I’m not known for my simple pithy answers. I’m more of the rambling, fill the space of a room with my explanations. The reason it bothers me to give my usual when asked about employment is that people don’t think you have a good plan if you can’t explain it in a phrase or even a single word. Usually a job is a single word. “Butcher.” “Baker.” “Candlestick Maker.” It’s important to be able to do so for personal branding.

So what am I doing? More after the link.

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PC World reported that cell phone manufacturers are going to universal micro USB chargers. Something that Make magazine has been advocating for some time now.

In an industry that is dominated by a lot of proprietary engineering solutions, this is a breath of fresh air. One company that is unlikely to jump on this bandwagon is Apple. They unfortunately subscribe to the idea that nonstandard equipment will engender customer loyalty. I like Apple’s computers, but I can’t imagine why they have the goofy connectors they use on the iPods and and iPhone. It’s that kind of non-standard equipment that makes Apple’s products both a blessing of simplicity and a curse of non-conformity.

In the end all the proprietary connectors and chargers only add to the junk that people accumulate. They add to the confusion that many have with technology. I give a big thumbs up to this move!