Hello. I’ve notice that my page gets more viewers per day in the late month or so than it did for quite sometime. I’d like to know how you all are finding me. Please leave a comment.
My efforts on the project have been severely hampered do to me taking a new job. I’m the Program Manager of a small project and it consumes me. I spent about a year looking for sponsors and have just about run out of ideas. I have two leads right now that I will post one if they provide some hope.
Thanks.
A bunch off stuff has gotten I the way of building lately. Hockey playoffs for both boys, mill trouble. Etc. but the fun thing is that I decided to get current again so I can take the boys flying this summer. I had to get my BFR and a club checkout which took 5 hrs of flying to complete. I finished today with a nice flight to Longmont CO. Now I can take passengers.
Hi. I posted a video last night on my tool post upgrade. I shot a lot of video clips. It bogged down my laptop to the point where it will take a while to create the whole build video. I'll be doing it in a series.
I'll be on a work trip this week. So not much progress will be made.
As mentioned earlier, I took on two side projects. In one I'm making a lazy Susan for a friend who lost his house in a forrest fire last year. It will be 3' in diameter and made of walnut. I'll post a video. I'm also making a rocket motor for a boy who's working on a science fair project. Both of my boys are in a hockey tourny this weekend as well. So about 10 games to attend. Lots happening. AND. I've been struggling with iMovie to make the video on my lathe accessory. Over 45 clips to merge. I think it's too much for the CPU/RAM combo I have. That video or multiples will be out soon too.
This week the youtube channel seems to have settled down to about one new subscriber a day. The videos are getting a few views a day too. I put out the machinist jack video today. I also made projess on the next project accessory for the lathe. I had to wait to get my mill fixed as the motor stopped working. I picked up the motor from the shop on Wed and it works!! That will be the next video. I also bought some wood for a project for a friend. All that plus some hockey this weekend and the Super Bowl has gotten in the way of sanding the diaphragm. I'll push that next week.
This week youtube slowed down a bit but still I got some new subscribers, posted a new video and it got some views and most importantly I finally saw some earnings. Not much. I think I'm up to 20 cents. Woo hoo. Well, gotta start some where. I got diaphragm 6 out of the jig, cut off the loose tails and started sanding. It looks pretty good but is not down to size yet. In an attempt to get ahead of the game for my weekly video for next week I made a machinist's jack in the shop on Sunday. It turned out ok but I will remake the bolt to eliminate the slop in it. It should only take an hour as I now know how to do it. After that I can work on the diaphragm all week. I should have enough material on that to make next weeks video.
It was fun this week watching the views climb on my new channel. I got over 1100 views. Wow. I added a new video on Tuesday it's doing alright. I discovered that the weekend is a big time for YouTube. I got over 500 views on one video last weekend. I had 53 subscribers too. It's been fun. Hopefully it will continue to climb. I'm at a hockey tournament with Sam this weekend so no shop work. I'll have my whole life to spend in the shop but only a few shorts seasons to watch my boy skate.
Well, the release of my videos went pretty well. Two exciting things happened. First, Eric Lindbergh, grandson of Charles and Anne, found my post on Facebook and shared it with is 6700 followers. Wow. Also, my heated paint cabinet design was mostly copied from one I saw on YouTube by John Hiesz. I posted a comment on his video and included my video. He responded and liked it and shared it with his channel. That made it the most popular video this week. Yay.
I've been working a lot in the shop this week. I got the last layer on diaphragm 6 tonight. So I can pull it off tomorrow and begin to figure out how to cut the finger joint in it.
Wed night I began to configure the mill for the rotary table when I discovered that the T nuts I had didn't fit. So I had to make some thurs night. They turned out good. Made a video about it too.
Lastly, I spent the rest of tonight working on the tool post topper on the mill. I did some difficult radial cutting with the rotary table. Then, with the part about two thirds complete the mill started to make that grinding sound again. Couldn't get it to stop so I quit for the night. Hopefully I can get it working again this weekend. Ugh.
I finally got the videos I wanted uploaded and tricked out to go public. I've posted five videos today. One is an intro to the channel and the others are things I've done I the shop. If you search for a channel on YouTube using "The Sirius Project" you should find three channels by that name as if today. Mine was the second and only one with a picture of a plane. Pete and I are I the pict too. So, check it out and let me know what you think. Like, subscribe and comment.
Thanks.
Hi folks. I've been working on a few videos lately. It has taken a bit longer than I thought because I've had to do some matenance on both the mill and lathe. I also have found a bit of a bottleneck in the process, moving the raw video off to dropbox. I expect to get a lot done over the holiday break. Stay tuned.
Hi folks. I spent a lot of time prepping for launching my YouTube channel. I've had some videos on it for a year but I've essentially been using it as a storage spot for the video I expected to be accessed from the site. I've decided with some good advice to try to flip that around. Use my YouTube channel to drive views of the website. So, I shot an intro video last weekend and edited it up. I want to film a few shorts on two shop projects I've done already so that when I publish the intro there is at least two other videos for people to go see right away. Hopefully that will get folks to subscribe. So keep an eye out. I will tell everyone I can when I publish. Hopefully over this weekend.
I got the chance to speak about the project at the Longmant chapter of EAA last night. It was a good turnout on a cold evening. Many folks asked questions about many topics to include the history of Lindbergh's trip, my construction techniques, and schedule. They seemed very enthused about it and many offered to put me in contact with some prominent aviation people that they knew. It was certainly a fun evening for me and hopefully I will get to meet even more fellow aviators.
Well I made some trays for the mill. They go around the vice and are to keep my tools from rolling off the table when I mill and the chips out of the T slots. The other good news is that my next batch of wood was shipped today.
Hi. Just a quick update. I've been working with my new tools to both learn how to use them and to make some accessories for use with them.
Here I'm tapping all the holes in this mini pallet. It will be used to hold small parts for the mill.
Finally got the power hooked up to my mill and lathe. I then made my first chips. I made a brass "nut buddy". It is bolted to a wrench and used to loosen a tool that is in the mill collet. Check out the Facebook page for some Picts.
Parting off the brass nut buddy.
Well, I've spent a year searching Criags list for a mill and a lathe. I found them both at the same time about 3 weeks ago. I brought them home the following weekend and this weekend I cleaned all the tooling. I will be bringing in an electrician next week in order to run the 220 to power the machines. Then I can turn 'em on!! Can't wait. With these in the shop, I can build the small metal parts that I can afford more material for. I'll keep building the wood parts as I can swing the price for wood. Picts of the machines are in the Facebook page.
In case you are not following the Denver lady, Amelia Rose Earhart, on her reenactment flight around the world, you should checkout her website. flywithamelia.org. She has one more flight to go to complete her trip. I'm so jealous!! Someday I hope to go and post my photos.
HI. I just realized that I haven't updated this blog in too long. I've got a few excuses, but they really don't cut it. I created a Facebook page for the project and made quite a few posts there vs. here. We went on vacation too so that drove a bit of a break in the project too. I am in need of more wood right now and am awaiting my next order to arrive. I ran out prior to completing Diaphragm #6. I'm about 2 layers short.
I'm still searching for someone to help me with creating a pitch I can give to a corporate sponsor. Specifically, I'm wanting some advice on how to "value" the advertising that the project would provide to a sponsor.. Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks and I'll do a better job of posting here in the future.
Hi folks, I thought I would post an update since it's been a little while. I stopped work for a weekend or so to build my wife a closet shelving unit for our master bedroom. I posted a few pictures on my facebook page of the shelving unit. It's complete and installed now so back to the plane. Thanks for keeping up with me.
I'm writing from Fairbanks, AK tonight. I took a week off to take Pete to visit the University of Alaska in Fairbanks. He thinks he might want to go to school here. I think it will be hard for him to help me in the shop if he does. But, if that is where he ends up I'm fine with it I guess. So, no shop notes this week, but I did get a little done before we left. Almost done with #6.
