Miscellany

I found a couple of old preliminary design sketches some months back when I was looking for something else in the computer room. I’d forgotten about this note pad. Some years ago, I was jazzed about the notion of getting back into engine-powered model airplanes (U-Control). I drew some sketches. I’m not very good at freehand mechanical drawing, but it seems this is almost a lost art form.

I can’t resist looking at almost any mechanical drawing to see how it works. So I scanned these. Click the images for full-size views.

The engine here is a Fox .45 with variable throttle (actually for radio control). It sits out in the garage gathering dust, as it has for 30 years. The reason for the sketch was to design engine mounts and housing of the right size to mount the engine inside a built-up 3-D fuselage - instead of mounting externally on a solid balsa and plywood slab fuselage. The chances of this project actually being completed is slim but I have to admit it still sounds like fun.

The model sketch shows the horizontal stabilizers ridiculously close to the trailing edge of the wings. This is not the loss of perspective and judgment it seems: in stunt and “combat” models, this foreshortened design gives incredible climb and dive response - and a hair trigger sensitivity.

We’ve expanded our Nording pipe collection some since our last post on this topic. All are great smokers, but we have our favorites even among these. You can click each image for larger files.

We’re also partial to Bjarne “Poker” style pipes. We added a couple of these, the smooth and sandblast, pictured below — above the one pet Dunhill in our collection. They are both real pleasures to smoke, and often get the honors of the first smoke of the day. The Dunhill was one of our earliest purchases and remains one of the best smokers of all.

In the top photo it looks like it’s time to clean the stems again. Nordings all come with hard rubber stems, which tend to collect grime faster than acrylic stems. After trying a variety of things, the best method we’ve found is the old-fashioned hand scrub brush and a little dish detergent. After washing, the stem then has a dried-out dull grayish appearance. We used to use olive oil as is often recommended on the hard rubber, but switched to ordinary hand lotion. It’s less oily, absorbs completely and doesn’t smell like pan frying.

2008 Tobacco Blend

Alex’s No. 1 mix has changed little over the last year and a half. I shared my blend with my good friend Al M. and he ordered his own. Al mistakenly cut the proportion of HS-3 from 32 ounces to 16, and we found that to be an excellent blend also. I am currently smoking a “half and half” mixture (24 oz. HS-3, everything else the same as 2006). We order tobaccos from the excellent Pipes and Cigars website. The returns still are not in - all three are excellent smokes. When you can change the proportion of the largest ingredient by that much, I think that speaks well for a winning blend!

I thought I better post this now because I’m on another losing streak. I’ve been stuck in the 45.0-46.5% “wins” plateau for months, but briefly set a new record.

4/17/2008: It took me all this time to get back to the old record. You can see it took a number of additinal games, too.

6/7/08: Incremental gains. A new record, hard-won by a very small margin!

6/11/08: The audacity of hope. Chance of busting 47%: slim. Chance of backsliding: do the numbers.

6/14/08: The audacity of hope. I did it.

Welcome to the new WordPress edition of Miscellany. We will be converting existing content of this small department over to the WordPress format as time permits.