Lyman's Tenor

This ukulele was finished in May of 2009 and gifted to a special little man not soon after. It has a Sitka Spruce top, reclaimed 'Mahogany' back/sides/neck, Rosewood fingerboard/bridge and is strung up with Worth strings in a Low-G tuning. It is a joy to play and was an adventure to build. Hopefully it will inspire and sing for years to come.

The third image is a colleague and friend of mine taking it for a spin, ultimately giving it a seal of approval.

Scratch Paper

'4 minutes 33 seconds' Scratch #002

Pinhole Photography

Before I even begin to tell of what and why I took these photos, I must explain how. This is an Abelson Scope Works Cuboid Multi-Aspect Ratio Pinhole camera. This amazing compact camera was designed, engineered, machined, assembled and shipped by Matt Abelson of Boylston Massachusetts and is simply put a piece of art. I am one of twelve fortunate individuals, including himself, to have one of these cameras. Please take the time to watch this video were Matt shows how he builds cameras in his home shop and view some of his photos posted to his flickr page. Hopefully I can do his camera justice...

'The Falls of Chagrin' Jan2010

'Ice in Chagrin Falls 01' Jan2010
'Ice in Chagrin Falls 01' Jan2010

These were taken in Chagrin Falls Ohio with the Cuboid using 120 format Kodak T-Max 400 black and white film. Exposure times range from ~5 seconds for the first two photos and ~45 seconds for the third photo. The film was developed at DODD camera and scanned at 2400dpi on an Epson Perfection 4490 Photo scanner. And yes, a little Photoshop...

View more of Mikes photos at his Flickr site.

Scratch Paper

'Crazy Eyes' Scratch #001

Count it! The first installation of hopefully many titled 'Scratch Paper'. A documentation of the thoughts and doodles that go unseen and unnoticed. Maybe there is a reason for this...

Emergency Off

I really missed the safety off button we had on the table saws in school. You know the large paddles, sometime painted red, that you could hit with just about any part of your body to power down the machine trying to kill you. It was a mixture of pure laziness and accidental safety every time I turned that something off. Either way it was convenient and I missed it.

So I recreated an emergency off button for our office shop. All our tools are plugged into this 'ancient' wall mounted surge protector and it seemed fitting to start with that. I sanded down a PVC pipe to act as a lever for to turn off the power and a couple through holes to reactivate the power after the disaster has been narrowly escaped. Notice I used a bunch of zip ties and a dowel to keep it level, never leave home with zip ties and dowel... It was a pain to put up, I really hope no one takes it down.

It serves as the safety break for all the tools powered through this power strip. Including our shop ventilation.

Final Conclusion: It works!