May 24, 2014
I’ve been poking around the internet looking for information on amas, aka outrigger (usually 1 on one side.)
Here’s what I understand so far:
1. Amas on one side of an outrigger have two basic functions. 1. to provide supportive buoyancy when the ama enters the water. When the canoe leans on that side, the ama keeps it from tipping or rolling over. 2. The second function of an ama is to provide a counterbalance to tipping on the side that doesn’t have an ama. A theoretical ama that has no mass would work in one direction only.
I’ve seen some discussion of adding weight to amas but nothing conclusive.
An ama in the water should be designed so as not to create significant drag that would slow down the canoe or cause it to turn. Outrigger canoes with amas can be longer and narrower even longer and narrower than surf skis. Outrigger canoes are usually about 25% faster than kayaks.
The outrigger ‘arms’ that hold the ama are usually one fore and one aft of the paddler. I’ve seen mention of single arm amas, but none that seem practical. There’s a lot of leverage on an ama.
My concern about placement of the arms is I still want to use a double bladed kayak paddle which is used differently than are the single blade outrigger paddle.
A typical kayak paddle float is 3” x 18” x 8” (NRS), displaces about .25 cubic feet, or more useful: 7.07 liters so it has a buoyancy of 7.07 liters (minus the weight of the float...which is minimal).
This is a special temporary outrigger device. If you remember practicing with a paddle float you should remember doing it a bit wrong, submerging the float. Once a float is submerged, the upward force does not increase, so a firmly attached float that is submerged can travel 180 degrees.
This is the submarine problem. Inventors would add more and more ballast until they reach neutral buoyancy, once neutral buoyancy is reached, the submerged object could sink or rise to just about any level in the water. Water being incompressible makes a submarine different from a lighter than air balloon which does reach a level based on buoyancy, pressure, etc.. and then will tend to stay there.
What used to happen to early submarine experimenters is that once submerged the vessel would just sink right to the bottom. Modern subs tweak buoyancy and have dive planes. If a sub reaches particular depth, if it levels off, it looses its up and down momentum and so is better able to keep a particular depth. I don’t claim expertise on this. My point is that once an outrigger or paddle float is submerged its usefulness is severely diminished.
Where we get this wrong (usually when we are about 15 years old and male) is when we try to push a ball down into the water. It seems to get harder and harder so we gain a false understanding that pushing it deeper will be even harder. It isn’t. Before we find this out, the ball has slipped through our hands popped out of the water and smashed us in the face. We are then reluctant to repeat the experiment.
All of this is why many discussions of amas say that an ama should be able to support the displacement of the whole craft (the weight)
Do not design and paddle an ama based on this article, it is far from complete. Frankly, I’m surprised how all the information on this subject seems so disconnected. This is a result of three factors. 1. An ama means many different things, I get sites that discuss 60 foot trimarans, and 23 foot outriggers and hollowed out traditional Polynesian craft. 2. The web seems to be fragmenting, where the challenge used to be finding the right terms to query, increasingly what comes up in google is uniformed discussion, chitchat, a discussion among experts or one that started a long time ago. (More and more problems I have with my Apple computer that I search for solutions instead brings up complete and utter nonsense. Apparently fewer and fewer people who actually know anything post in Apple’s Support blogs. (I can’t figure which Apple password to use, so I stopped bothering. See my comments about wireless Magic Mouse batteries above).
Why am I posting this? First of all, why I’ve been thinking about amas: I have a 20’ kayak that is 18” wide that I’ve found to be a bit too tippy. I like paddling solo, miles off the coast, so this vessel seems too dangerous. (No complaints) If I can add an ama, I get to tinker (which I enjoy) and I should wind up with a hybrid (bastard) kayak that is even more stable than my wider 23” kayak. It’s worth giving it a go.
The reason I’m posting this is that I considered making a very small ama that would keep me from rolling. This would work but not in the range of situations it should or I might assume it would.
I am still not sure of how much buoyancy I need. I do intend to make one, make it using foam (if there’s a breach a foam filled ama will still float, a waterlogged one won’t).
Amas also work another way. The design and the angle of the keel make their first effect like that of a kayak paddle brace. They skim the water providing enough upward force to stop the roll.
Another facet of this idea is that amas become increasingly buoyant the deeper they are submerged. This doesn’t contradict what I’ve written above. As more volume of the ama is submerged more water is displaced, so more buoyancy is achieved.
A well designed ama should provide enough ‘skim’ to minimize the drag of a hull moving through the water. It should be long, often 3/4 the length of the outrigger canoe. Hull speed applies here--long and narrow is a more efficient hull than short and wide. Finally they are tall so they progressively submerge only to the depth needed to proved the amount of buoyant force needed for the particular situation.
Finally, if submerged or nearly submerged, they should be able to buoyantly support the entire weight of the craft and the paddler. This keeps the canoe from rolling completely over. In catamarans, especially racing boats, this allows them to ride up on one hull without it sinking in and rolling over.
I’ll add updates when I have some results.
Note: I apologize for not posting more photographs, videos, drawings, etc…. This is inexcusable for a professional photographer. My only excuse is that no one seems to be reading, or even to have noticed, this blog. So, I guess it doesn’t matter.
Saturday, May 24, 2014
Tuesday, March 18, 2014
DIY Perfect binding Notebooks
I filled up my first DIY notebook. On March 1, I started using my second DIY notebook. I just love these notebooks. I made the lines fainter, by making them thinner and dotted. I also added a copyright line--but don't let that stop you from making one for yourself.
Something about them suits me just right. They're cheap, have plenty of room (200 pages 35 lines each); that and my new cheap Pilot Plumix calligraphy pen. Look them up. A $12 fountain pen with a calligraphy nib, Down strokes are wide, side strokes are narrow. It's not like making wedding invitations. I just wanted to try the nib out, it's cheap enough, and I don't think Pilot can make a scratchy fountain pen nib. I wasn't wrong.
What I like is that the calligraphy nib seems to make my writing a little neater and easier to read (maybe--I might be wrong, typing up my writing seems kind of slow). And when I recently looked at some of Charles Dickens' writing, he cut his feather pen to a similar nib. Now at last I can write like Charles Dickens even if I'm a long way from writing like Charles Dickens.
I'm also sure his fingers were as ink smudged as mine. Before you stop using cartridges and just fill up the barrel with Bulletproof (permanent) Noodler's--make sure you've filled any holes and use an O-ring.
If anyone is at all interested... I'll be happy to post some images, post a 200 page blank document of just page numbers.... and possibly a video on how to make one of these notebooks. Happy to share.
It's March 18 and I'm 80 pages into the new notebook. There is a fetishistic aspect to writing. A new pen, a new notebook, some little thing and a writer writes. Consider I've spent my afternoon writing on a computer. I'm either busy or just don't know when to shut up. I'll do that now.
Something about them suits me just right. They're cheap, have plenty of room (200 pages 35 lines each); that and my new cheap Pilot Plumix calligraphy pen. Look them up. A $12 fountain pen with a calligraphy nib, Down strokes are wide, side strokes are narrow. It's not like making wedding invitations. I just wanted to try the nib out, it's cheap enough, and I don't think Pilot can make a scratchy fountain pen nib. I wasn't wrong.
What I like is that the calligraphy nib seems to make my writing a little neater and easier to read (maybe--I might be wrong, typing up my writing seems kind of slow). And when I recently looked at some of Charles Dickens' writing, he cut his feather pen to a similar nib. Now at last I can write like Charles Dickens even if I'm a long way from writing like Charles Dickens.
I'm also sure his fingers were as ink smudged as mine. Before you stop using cartridges and just fill up the barrel with Bulletproof (permanent) Noodler's--make sure you've filled any holes and use an O-ring.
If anyone is at all interested... I'll be happy to post some images, post a 200 page blank document of just page numbers.... and possibly a video on how to make one of these notebooks. Happy to share.
It's March 18 and I'm 80 pages into the new notebook. There is a fetishistic aspect to writing. A new pen, a new notebook, some little thing and a writer writes. Consider I've spent my afternoon writing on a computer. I'm either busy or just don't know when to shut up. I'll do that now.
Next Generation Science Stardards grumbling....
I'm doing a weekend Professional Development series of courses to learn how to create lessons using the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). I'm always a little grumpy with anything like this. It's part of my process. I get annoyed, and then I say I'm not going to let this beat me, so I dig in and work harder until I get results. What I would (cynically) say my method really is is this:
1. We're given some set of theories, requirements, whatever....
2. As I learn about them I see the shortcomings, flaws, nonsense....
but because I'm supposed to come up with something. . . .
3. I figure out how to make something good out of it, I translate what I've learned and what's been proven to work into something that fits the catch-phrases of the set of theories....
Everybody should be happy.
I make lessons, and then students stare at their cell phones, eat Cheetos (they buy in the official school student store, all day long) and 11th graders sit and do nothing until asked about it then they say, "I don't have a pencil."
Bottom line: No theory, new school reform, iPad, or giving away pencils is going to teach anything to any student who isn't committed to learning and who is allowed to attend school to stare at a cell phone, eat junk food in class, sleep....
(I figure with this blog posting I could be fired, so let it all hang out.)
I've been in a lot of schools. There are schools where students are not allowed to cuss at anyone, have their cell phones out, etc... these students are happy and learning. Nearby there are other schools, same demographics (I am arguing that these are district and school failures, nothing else) where no one is allowed to go any farther than to ask politely (they can F-bomb you back- with ZERO repercussions) to put the phone away. If they don't, too bad. These students are not happy and many if not most students in these schools are not learning much of anything.
Critique Number One. This was an e-mail, that I would never send: There's no point, it wouldn't be understood.
Is there anywhere examples of actual lessons designed using the NGSS methods that we are currently working with? When I look online for lessons based on the ‘new thing’ the ‘big reform,’ including NGSS and Common Core, what I find is a lot of chatter about what it will do, how it will do it—it’s endless, but no lessons.
I have to conclude that this is all basically a shell game. Clicking on links within the NGSS site results in endless circles all saying the same things, and leading right back to the pages I started on.
Links exist to connect, links that run in a circle are by nature useless and false. They appear to do something, but if they just lead in a circle, they are doing nothing. Rhetorical tautologies prove nothing, lead nowhere. In education the trick is not to run around the same tree but to run around three trees before you are sent back to run around the first tree. (Wikipedia: Consequently, the statement conveys no useful information regardless of its length or complexity making it unfalsifiable. It is a way of formulating a description such that it masquerades as an explanation when the real reason for the phenomena cannot be independently derived.) As I fill out the forms we are given to design our NGSS lessons and units, they don’t seem helpful so much as simply busy work. I’m at the stage with one lesson where I’ve got a lot of blank spaces that have three basic purposes:
1. to re-apply the old cliches, “The 5 E’s”,
2. to do my actual lesson planning and
3. I don’t knows. I’m not sure what should go in these. The lesson planning boxes seem to require what lesson plans have always required: What will I do, what will students do, what resources do they need, and what will success look like. The rest just seems like window dressing. It’s like last year when they gave us all 150 page books on teaching English and the only real change is they changed a half dozen acronyms.
(There should be a 4th item. The important things in NGSS that there seems to be no slot in the form to place them.) I know I’m missing something. The people who make these things are not evil, malicious or clueless. Still I can never get past the feeling someone is putting something over on me.
(During my teacher training we were told to use a website to design our lessons, we were carefully instructed on the basics, with a promise that the website did so much more…. This was 8 years ago. I was so annoyed with how poorly it worked, taking forever to do anything, frequently crashing, that I designed a FileMaker Pro database to do the same thing. Took me less than an hour. I made another data base, loaded in all the relevant science standards. After a couple of hours this ‘amazing tool’ that probably cost a lot of money, was superseded. Even if you’ve never made a database, you could learn how in about two hours and then in another two hours…..
We are repeatedly being oversold on the completely unremarkable.
I do like the basic ideas behind Common Core and NGSS, deeper thinking, working collaboratively, organizing learning not around a list of facts but around broader concepts and ideas. The execution however is overly complicated, recursive and vague. I wouldn’t mind this so much, if it weren’t such a hassle to work with. (We’re supposed to enter the information from the book or website into our lesson planning documents. The website and the pdf versions don’t copy and paste very well. A single paragraph takes up a whole page, sometimes it’s (well here’s an example:
HS (Hard Return)-(Hard Return) ESS2(Hard Return)-(Hard Return)2.(Hard Return) Analyze…. (text is also broken up, but not as badly)
This is just one of the items
“HS-ESS2-2. Analyze Geoscience data to make the claim that one change to Earth’s surface can create feedbacks that cause changes to other Earth systems.”
This item by the way is different from “ESS2.A Earth Materials and Systems”
Can you see how difficult this can be to work with?
I burned out. Mostly I write this stuff, bury in a journal, that in turn is buried on my hard drive, and I move on. It’s easy to take this stuff apart, but it’s also a waste of time.
I did send this the National Association of Science Teachers web page that is about a book: What I've seen in the 40 page pdf preview of Translating the NGSS, this is simply more of the same 'talking about' but nothing concrete and applicable, like an actual lesson plan, or unit plan. The NGSS materials I've been given has a whole book that endlessly repeats the same theory and concepts multiple times. Another book, another PD, powerpoint, etc.... that 'talks about' is of no use to anyone. I'd like to see an actual set of lesson plans, unit and course plan, that could actually be taught. There's some good in the NGSS, but it seems everyone connected to it is burying it in chatter. End of this message.
No one else has commented on the book, so I doubt anyone has read the page, or if they have they’ve just shrugged and moved on.
How I like to design a lesson:
I like to use empirical examples of lessons actual teachers use with real students. Any of us can look at ten examples of something and then be able to begin creating our own. Orson Welles and his creative group watched Stagecoach, a western 42 times and then went on to make Citizen Kane--definitely not a western.
The other way I work is to think about how I learned something, or how a body of knowledge and skills are organized and then build up from there. It’s a fun process and I’ve come up with some good presentations and good projects.
(I won’t claim to be anything like a great teacher. I think my instructional design is top notch, but in the classroom….? I think I do well with students already willing to learn. Those against learning, I don’t seem to have convinced.) I have the chutzpah to write and post this stuff because 1. no one seems to have noticed my blog so it’s harmless, so far and 2. I have made great stuff, helped students make great stuff. I’ll post some of the water rockets, hot air balloons, my right hand rule of Earth in space, and much more…
I was on a roll. Why get hanged for one sheep when I could get hanged for two? So I posted this: California Science Teachers Association (CSTA) website. CSTA was good enough to let me teach a few workshops at their annual conventions.
The last item on the list of NGSS implementation is "development of curriculum materials, assessment development." No where is there mention of teaching students.
How long are we going to continue doing this in education (and going along with it)? If what you propose is possible, practical and better--clearly discussing theory and teaching theory to teachers before anyone makes a single lesson is backwards. It hasn't succeeded in the past, isn't likely to succeed now or ever. With the sole exception of Quantum Physics, theory has always followed practical implementation. Always. (See Nassim Nicholas Taleb, I think Antifragile, though it might be in Fooled by Randomness.) The alternative is 1500 years of Aristotelian theory of gravity while the obvious reality was ignored. If a great science teacher taught a group of students and those students learned a lot, made great imaginative projects and amazing labs; and these results were compared with a committee generated pile of theory, 'awareness phase,' 'focus groups' yada-yada-yada with absolutely no implementation; the committee stuff would prevail.
Why? Because that is the way we continue to do things. Obviously there's great science education out there, but we spend endless amounts of time, effort, money with this well meaning overly complicated stuff. There's a lot in NGSS that I like; the implementation so far is so bizarrely overcomplicated I'm wondering if this isn't an elaborate ruse. It’s more a very weird puzzle than a set of instructions.
I would like to suggest that no one be allowed to spend another minute of teachers’ time until they’ve taught real students with real lessons and documented the results. It’s not like it’s hard to find students who wouldn’t benefit from more learning experiences. I'm curious, is this just cranky nonsense? Or are a lot of us annoyed by how this is being done? End (I’ve tweaked it a bit here and there, but left enough grammatical mistakes to keep it’s sense of …. ranting). OK. Now all I have to do is wait….to be fired. What absolutely amazes me is how we go along with this stuff. I am really interested in finding out if I’m just a crank. This is either the emperor’s new clothes, or I’m just a grumpy old man. I think Richard Feynman would agree with me; clearly I’m following his lead. I also think that my science knowledge, ability to learn new things and apply them to lessons, extend my learning into new areas, create original and unique inventions; supports my position as a legitimate source of criticism. What also seems to be the case is that people in education management and ‘team players,’ disagree. I think these things keep happening this way because we are all intimidated into believing that these committees, consultants, ‘experts’ know more than we do. I don’t think they do, in fact I don’t think they know much of anything. What they do know is how to work the system, network and promote themselves. No one in education gets very far being clearly more intelligent then his or her boss. An important part of becoming a teacher is sitting in endless meetings pretending to be interested in shear nonsense.
What more do I need to do to make my case?
One thing would be to share some of my teaching here. I’ll post some of my projects soon. One of our soda bottle rockets was recently clocked at 178 mph.
1. We're given some set of theories, requirements, whatever....
2. As I learn about them I see the shortcomings, flaws, nonsense....
but because I'm supposed to come up with something. . . .
3. I figure out how to make something good out of it, I translate what I've learned and what's been proven to work into something that fits the catch-phrases of the set of theories....
Everybody should be happy.
I make lessons, and then students stare at their cell phones, eat Cheetos (they buy in the official school student store, all day long) and 11th graders sit and do nothing until asked about it then they say, "I don't have a pencil."
Bottom line: No theory, new school reform, iPad, or giving away pencils is going to teach anything to any student who isn't committed to learning and who is allowed to attend school to stare at a cell phone, eat junk food in class, sleep....
(I figure with this blog posting I could be fired, so let it all hang out.)
I've been in a lot of schools. There are schools where students are not allowed to cuss at anyone, have their cell phones out, etc... these students are happy and learning. Nearby there are other schools, same demographics (I am arguing that these are district and school failures, nothing else) where no one is allowed to go any farther than to ask politely (they can F-bomb you back- with ZERO repercussions) to put the phone away. If they don't, too bad. These students are not happy and many if not most students in these schools are not learning much of anything.
Critique Number One. This was an e-mail, that I would never send: There's no point, it wouldn't be understood.
Is there anywhere examples of actual lessons designed using the NGSS methods that we are currently working with? When I look online for lessons based on the ‘new thing’ the ‘big reform,’ including NGSS and Common Core, what I find is a lot of chatter about what it will do, how it will do it—it’s endless, but no lessons.
I have to conclude that this is all basically a shell game. Clicking on links within the NGSS site results in endless circles all saying the same things, and leading right back to the pages I started on.
Links exist to connect, links that run in a circle are by nature useless and false. They appear to do something, but if they just lead in a circle, they are doing nothing. Rhetorical tautologies prove nothing, lead nowhere. In education the trick is not to run around the same tree but to run around three trees before you are sent back to run around the first tree. (Wikipedia: Consequently, the statement conveys no useful information regardless of its length or complexity making it unfalsifiable. It is a way of formulating a description such that it masquerades as an explanation when the real reason for the phenomena cannot be independently derived.) As I fill out the forms we are given to design our NGSS lessons and units, they don’t seem helpful so much as simply busy work. I’m at the stage with one lesson where I’ve got a lot of blank spaces that have three basic purposes:
1. to re-apply the old cliches, “The 5 E’s”,
2. to do my actual lesson planning and
3. I don’t knows. I’m not sure what should go in these. The lesson planning boxes seem to require what lesson plans have always required: What will I do, what will students do, what resources do they need, and what will success look like. The rest just seems like window dressing. It’s like last year when they gave us all 150 page books on teaching English and the only real change is they changed a half dozen acronyms.
(There should be a 4th item. The important things in NGSS that there seems to be no slot in the form to place them.) I know I’m missing something. The people who make these things are not evil, malicious or clueless. Still I can never get past the feeling someone is putting something over on me.
(During my teacher training we were told to use a website to design our lessons, we were carefully instructed on the basics, with a promise that the website did so much more…. This was 8 years ago. I was so annoyed with how poorly it worked, taking forever to do anything, frequently crashing, that I designed a FileMaker Pro database to do the same thing. Took me less than an hour. I made another data base, loaded in all the relevant science standards. After a couple of hours this ‘amazing tool’ that probably cost a lot of money, was superseded. Even if you’ve never made a database, you could learn how in about two hours and then in another two hours…..
We are repeatedly being oversold on the completely unremarkable.
I do like the basic ideas behind Common Core and NGSS, deeper thinking, working collaboratively, organizing learning not around a list of facts but around broader concepts and ideas. The execution however is overly complicated, recursive and vague. I wouldn’t mind this so much, if it weren’t such a hassle to work with. (We’re supposed to enter the information from the book or website into our lesson planning documents. The website and the pdf versions don’t copy and paste very well. A single paragraph takes up a whole page, sometimes it’s (well here’s an example:
HS (Hard Return)-(Hard Return) ESS2(Hard Return)-(Hard Return)2.(Hard Return) Analyze…. (text is also broken up, but not as badly)
This is just one of the items
“HS-ESS2-2. Analyze Geoscience data to make the claim that one change to Earth’s surface can create feedbacks that cause changes to other Earth systems.”
This item by the way is different from “ESS2.A Earth Materials and Systems”
Can you see how difficult this can be to work with?
I burned out. Mostly I write this stuff, bury in a journal, that in turn is buried on my hard drive, and I move on. It’s easy to take this stuff apart, but it’s also a waste of time.
I did send this the National Association of Science Teachers web page that is about a book: What I've seen in the 40 page pdf preview of Translating the NGSS, this is simply more of the same 'talking about' but nothing concrete and applicable, like an actual lesson plan, or unit plan. The NGSS materials I've been given has a whole book that endlessly repeats the same theory and concepts multiple times. Another book, another PD, powerpoint, etc.... that 'talks about' is of no use to anyone. I'd like to see an actual set of lesson plans, unit and course plan, that could actually be taught. There's some good in the NGSS, but it seems everyone connected to it is burying it in chatter. End of this message.
No one else has commented on the book, so I doubt anyone has read the page, or if they have they’ve just shrugged and moved on.
How I like to design a lesson:
I like to use empirical examples of lessons actual teachers use with real students. Any of us can look at ten examples of something and then be able to begin creating our own. Orson Welles and his creative group watched Stagecoach, a western 42 times and then went on to make Citizen Kane--definitely not a western.
The other way I work is to think about how I learned something, or how a body of knowledge and skills are organized and then build up from there. It’s a fun process and I’ve come up with some good presentations and good projects.
(I won’t claim to be anything like a great teacher. I think my instructional design is top notch, but in the classroom….? I think I do well with students already willing to learn. Those against learning, I don’t seem to have convinced.) I have the chutzpah to write and post this stuff because 1. no one seems to have noticed my blog so it’s harmless, so far and 2. I have made great stuff, helped students make great stuff. I’ll post some of the water rockets, hot air balloons, my right hand rule of Earth in space, and much more…
I was on a roll. Why get hanged for one sheep when I could get hanged for two? So I posted this: California Science Teachers Association (CSTA) website. CSTA was good enough to let me teach a few workshops at their annual conventions.
The last item on the list of NGSS implementation is "development of curriculum materials, assessment development." No where is there mention of teaching students.
How long are we going to continue doing this in education (and going along with it)? If what you propose is possible, practical and better--clearly discussing theory and teaching theory to teachers before anyone makes a single lesson is backwards. It hasn't succeeded in the past, isn't likely to succeed now or ever. With the sole exception of Quantum Physics, theory has always followed practical implementation. Always. (See Nassim Nicholas Taleb, I think Antifragile, though it might be in Fooled by Randomness.) The alternative is 1500 years of Aristotelian theory of gravity while the obvious reality was ignored. If a great science teacher taught a group of students and those students learned a lot, made great imaginative projects and amazing labs; and these results were compared with a committee generated pile of theory, 'awareness phase,' 'focus groups' yada-yada-yada with absolutely no implementation; the committee stuff would prevail.
Why? Because that is the way we continue to do things. Obviously there's great science education out there, but we spend endless amounts of time, effort, money with this well meaning overly complicated stuff. There's a lot in NGSS that I like; the implementation so far is so bizarrely overcomplicated I'm wondering if this isn't an elaborate ruse. It’s more a very weird puzzle than a set of instructions.
I would like to suggest that no one be allowed to spend another minute of teachers’ time until they’ve taught real students with real lessons and documented the results. It’s not like it’s hard to find students who wouldn’t benefit from more learning experiences. I'm curious, is this just cranky nonsense? Or are a lot of us annoyed by how this is being done? End (I’ve tweaked it a bit here and there, but left enough grammatical mistakes to keep it’s sense of …. ranting). OK. Now all I have to do is wait….to be fired. What absolutely amazes me is how we go along with this stuff. I am really interested in finding out if I’m just a crank. This is either the emperor’s new clothes, or I’m just a grumpy old man. I think Richard Feynman would agree with me; clearly I’m following his lead. I also think that my science knowledge, ability to learn new things and apply them to lessons, extend my learning into new areas, create original and unique inventions; supports my position as a legitimate source of criticism. What also seems to be the case is that people in education management and ‘team players,’ disagree. I think these things keep happening this way because we are all intimidated into believing that these committees, consultants, ‘experts’ know more than we do. I don’t think they do, in fact I don’t think they know much of anything. What they do know is how to work the system, network and promote themselves. No one in education gets very far being clearly more intelligent then his or her boss. An important part of becoming a teacher is sitting in endless meetings pretending to be interested in shear nonsense.
What more do I need to do to make my case?
One thing would be to share some of my teaching here. I’ll post some of my projects soon. One of our soda bottle rockets was recently clocked at 178 mph.
Friday, February 28, 2014
Apple Wireless Mouse (and Support Blog) Problems. I've got a solution for one.
My Apple Wireless Mouse was turning on and off. I first thought it might be some kind of radio interference. Instead of guessing I Googled. The top hits were for the Apple Support Blog--where the world's wealthiest company, the world's most advanced technology company relies on self-selected users to solve the technical problems it's phone operators cannot.
The blog was helpful but only in that it focused my attention on the battery connection. The highest rated advice was well meaning nonsense, batteries had to be just the right size..... or they won't work.
There's that much variation between AA batteries that the spring loaded battery holders won't work?
Suspiciously the advice recommends buying rechargeable batteries from the Apple Store--they're 'just the right size.'
All this reminds me of Wozniak in college with his TV frequency interference box in his pocket. (Read Woz's autobiography it's honest and interesting.) He would flip the switch and make the TV picture go crazy. Someone would try fiddling with the rabbit ear antenna, and he'd turn off the interference.
He worked this to the point that a guy was standing next to the TV with one foot in the air. If he put down that foot, Woz flipped the switch.....
Maybe the battery size thing is like this.
The other helpful thing in these postings is that tapping the Wireless Mouse on the table top would cause the problem. I tried this and yes, it absolutely caused the problem.
I doubt there's any significant variation in AA batteries worldwide that could cause such a problem, but a perennial problem of ALL battery connections is corrosion between the battery terminals and the device.
I once bought a used Minolta Spot Meter that was attacking erratically, I got if for 1/4 of the cost of a new one. I took it home, cleaned up the contacts with a pencil eraser and used it for the next fifteen years. I'm sure it's still good.
So I tried the pencil eraser on the Wireless Mouse. I also used it on the Eneloop rechargeable batteries I use in my mouse. Surprisingly the problem got much worse. That was surprising. I just had this happen with my car, where the electrical system goes completely dead. Tapping on the battery connectors immediately solves the problem. (You then need to clean them, but usually you can drive home, drive for a week after just a tap.)
There are better ways to clean battery contacts. I happened to have some alcohol based hand sanitizer, so using a Q-tip I cleaned up the contacts. It's been working 100% for the past week.
The best place for this information is on the Apple Support Blog. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to log in on this site in a couple of years. I'm really annoyed with how Apple handles IDs and Passwords. After a few years of hassles I've finally got iTunes and iTunes App Store sorted, but whatever gets me into the Apple Support blog... I don't have enough time to bother with. Let the guys with one foot in the air have their moment in the sun.
So use alcohol and a Q-tip rub the contacts on the mouse, and if you use rechargeables clean the contacts on these as well.
One thing you don't want to do is use sandpaper or scrape these surfaces. I used to do this, because it works when you're soldering (or sweating copper plumbing pipes). It damages the surface of the contact exposing unplated metal to oxidation (corrosion).
Something else that will help is, after cleaning, to use electrical contact grease. This seals the area from air eliminating oxidation. It seems a little weird to slather the surface of an electrical contact with non-conducting grease, but the grease doesn't keep the metals from contact, they push the grease out of the way, make the contact. Anywhere they are not touching is sealed from the air.
I hope this helps.
The blog was helpful but only in that it focused my attention on the battery connection. The highest rated advice was well meaning nonsense, batteries had to be just the right size..... or they won't work.
There's that much variation between AA batteries that the spring loaded battery holders won't work?
Suspiciously the advice recommends buying rechargeable batteries from the Apple Store--they're 'just the right size.'
All this reminds me of Wozniak in college with his TV frequency interference box in his pocket. (Read Woz's autobiography it's honest and interesting.) He would flip the switch and make the TV picture go crazy. Someone would try fiddling with the rabbit ear antenna, and he'd turn off the interference.
He worked this to the point that a guy was standing next to the TV with one foot in the air. If he put down that foot, Woz flipped the switch.....
Maybe the battery size thing is like this.
The other helpful thing in these postings is that tapping the Wireless Mouse on the table top would cause the problem. I tried this and yes, it absolutely caused the problem.
I doubt there's any significant variation in AA batteries worldwide that could cause such a problem, but a perennial problem of ALL battery connections is corrosion between the battery terminals and the device.
I once bought a used Minolta Spot Meter that was attacking erratically, I got if for 1/4 of the cost of a new one. I took it home, cleaned up the contacts with a pencil eraser and used it for the next fifteen years. I'm sure it's still good.
So I tried the pencil eraser on the Wireless Mouse. I also used it on the Eneloop rechargeable batteries I use in my mouse. Surprisingly the problem got much worse. That was surprising. I just had this happen with my car, where the electrical system goes completely dead. Tapping on the battery connectors immediately solves the problem. (You then need to clean them, but usually you can drive home, drive for a week after just a tap.)
There are better ways to clean battery contacts. I happened to have some alcohol based hand sanitizer, so using a Q-tip I cleaned up the contacts. It's been working 100% for the past week.
The best place for this information is on the Apple Support Blog. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to log in on this site in a couple of years. I'm really annoyed with how Apple handles IDs and Passwords. After a few years of hassles I've finally got iTunes and iTunes App Store sorted, but whatever gets me into the Apple Support blog... I don't have enough time to bother with. Let the guys with one foot in the air have their moment in the sun.
So use alcohol and a Q-tip rub the contacts on the mouse, and if you use rechargeables clean the contacts on these as well.
One thing you don't want to do is use sandpaper or scrape these surfaces. I used to do this, because it works when you're soldering (or sweating copper plumbing pipes). It damages the surface of the contact exposing unplated metal to oxidation (corrosion).
Something else that will help is, after cleaning, to use electrical contact grease. This seals the area from air eliminating oxidation. It seems a little weird to slather the surface of an electrical contact with non-conducting grease, but the grease doesn't keep the metals from contact, they push the grease out of the way, make the contact. Anywhere they are not touching is sealed from the air.
I hope this helps.
Wednesday, February 12, 2014
Vimeo doesn't work, Flash won't play outside the browsers, Adobe Flash Player doesn't work--does anyone care??
For many months, perhaps as long as a year Vimeo videos won't play in Firefox on my MacBook Pro running OS 10.9. Full disclosure: I have flashblocker on, anything I can find to block pop-ups.
flv videos I download from YouTube don't play even though I've downloaded the Flash Player. It says there's something wrong.
I used to have a plug-in in FireFox that allowed me to convert them, but that disappeared somewhere between the near-weekly FireFox upgrades, perhaps between versions 207 and 1286.
I recently tried to download a converter and got that nasty Israeli change you default search and randomly pop up advertising. It was more like "Here's another company you should despise and have nothing to do with because they are part of what is a scam."
So I spent an hour sorting that out and forgot about finding a translator for flash.
Perhaps you've also had the same problem, perhaps you've found a solution. Or perhaps you think I'm an idiot, Apple is the new AT&T/KGB, and even I have to consider that you might be completely correct .
Here's what the typical Vimeo video looks like after I've clicked on all the buttons:
Neat, huh. I see this a lot. I interpret it as a reminder that I'm probably wasting time and really didn't need to see whatever it was. In fact I screen captured this image in the last fifteen minutes and can't at the moment remember what the article was about. I know it was from the WIRED magazine site.
Here's the message I would have sent to WIRED if Disqus(t) would have remembered the name and password I'd entered at their site, used once---and then it never worked again..... Again another roundabout way to remind I should spend my time in better ways.
"This is a Vimeo video, Vimeo doesn't seem to work at all anymore on my MacBook with OS X 10.9--hasn't worked in months. Then again for more than a year Disqus won't let me sign in--so you'll never know this. Because none of this has changed I must be part of a small insignificant minority, and it doesn't matter. Oh, well. "
I probably shouldn't be so snarky. My apologies.
I like rejecting stuff that doesn't work. I hope someone is paying attention somewhere (but there's probably no one).
I sent back a Logitech camera today. It didn't work, the instructions were inadequate, but two things clinched the send-this-junk-back decision:
First after reading numerous Support blogs, and receiving a couple of e-mails from a Logitech tech, I finally learned there was an indicator light on the camera. All the other lights were mentioned in the information, and they were all lit up; but two days in and about twenty contacts later I came across the first mention of an indicator light on the camera. Obviously I had seen no light on the camera; there being one that didn't light up would've been useful information an hour or two into troubleshooting the problem. "Yup. There's your problem, right there...."
My attitude, if it doesn't work an hour out of the box--there's probably more serious problems I won't learn about until it's too late to return. Send it back.
The other clincher was this:
"Please note, if we do not hear back from you within a week, we will assume your request has been completely addressed and your case will be set as "solved". (italics are mine) At that moment Logitech will send you a short survey that will be based upon the customer service you received during this email interaction.
Question 1 will evaluate your overall satisfaction with our email interaction, and how good you believe we have been assisting you with this concern (10 being the highest)"
The second part means that the big corporation is going to ask in the survey how good this tech has done, not how good (or rotten) their product is.
If Logitech logic were to be used in a hospital, than a patient left outside, in the basement, or in a dumpster or who'd died in the room....could be assumed to be 'cured' because they stopped buzzing the nurses' station.
They won't hear back from me within a week because I repackaged their dingus and sent it back to Amazon. So I guess my issue is 'solved.' I'm so happy my need and frustration were so deftly taken care of. (Amazon Returns works and that solves a lot of this nonsense.)
Anyway, I'm trying not to be a crank. (Though I'm dying to lay out all my video and USB connectors, take a photo and then list all the times in the last two weeks one of them failed to work (ALL Apple video adapters after three months) or the correct one that wasn't in my bag (or may not exist). I've got at least ten different connectors in my computer bag.
To the techie-nerd speculation that I am indeed an idiot? Well clearly I am if I've spent thousands of dollars on computer gear, carry around a mess of cables and they only do 3/4 of what I need them to do--and they usually don't do what I need them to do when I've got a room full of unruly students. Yup, I've been had.
My son had a BMW that was really trick, and it had run-flat tires. I thought this meant you could still drive on them if they were flat. What it actually seems to mean is that they go flat every other month and cost a $1000 each to replace.
The way I see it, is if they were good tires in the first place (like the Michelins on my old Honda) than there'd be no issue about running flat because they'd last 100,000 miles and need replacing because one them them was loosing air and they were starting to break down internally. $600 for 4 tires and 100,000 miles, or $2000 for 2 tires and 1000 miles?
So nothing more on connectors. For now....
I guess as regards to high tech and fancy tires, see my last posting about making your own notebook. When has the beta version of anything worked 100 percent?
I'm on page 110 of the journal and it works great. Cost? About $2. (Costco paper 5000 sheets $35), so that's about 70 cents for 100 sheets. Toner? hot glue? a manila folder?
flv videos I download from YouTube don't play even though I've downloaded the Flash Player. It says there's something wrong.
I used to have a plug-in in FireFox that allowed me to convert them, but that disappeared somewhere between the near-weekly FireFox upgrades, perhaps between versions 207 and 1286.
I recently tried to download a converter and got that nasty Israeli change you default search and randomly pop up advertising. It was more like "Here's another company you should despise and have nothing to do with because they are part of what is a scam."
So I spent an hour sorting that out and forgot about finding a translator for flash.
Perhaps you've also had the same problem, perhaps you've found a solution. Or perhaps you think I'm an idiot, Apple is the new AT&T/KGB, and even I have to consider that you might be completely correct .
Here's what the typical Vimeo video looks like after I've clicked on all the buttons:
Here's the message I would have sent to WIRED if Disqus(t) would have remembered the name and password I'd entered at their site, used once---and then it never worked again..... Again another roundabout way to remind I should spend my time in better ways.
I probably shouldn't be so snarky. My apologies.
I like rejecting stuff that doesn't work. I hope someone is paying attention somewhere (but there's probably no one).
I sent back a Logitech camera today. It didn't work, the instructions were inadequate, but two things clinched the send-this-junk-back decision:
First after reading numerous Support blogs, and receiving a couple of e-mails from a Logitech tech, I finally learned there was an indicator light on the camera. All the other lights were mentioned in the information, and they were all lit up; but two days in and about twenty contacts later I came across the first mention of an indicator light on the camera. Obviously I had seen no light on the camera; there being one that didn't light up would've been useful information an hour or two into troubleshooting the problem. "Yup. There's your problem, right there...."
My attitude, if it doesn't work an hour out of the box--there's probably more serious problems I won't learn about until it's too late to return. Send it back.
The other clincher was this:
"Please note, if we do not hear back from you within a week, we will assume your request has been completely addressed and your case will be set as "solved". (italics are mine) At that moment Logitech will send you a short survey that will be based upon the customer service you received during this email interaction.
Question 1 will evaluate your overall satisfaction with our email interaction, and how good you believe we have been assisting you with this concern (10 being the highest)"
The second part means that the big corporation is going to ask in the survey how good this tech has done, not how good (or rotten) their product is.
If Logitech logic were to be used in a hospital, than a patient left outside, in the basement, or in a dumpster or who'd died in the room....could be assumed to be 'cured' because they stopped buzzing the nurses' station.
They won't hear back from me within a week because I repackaged their dingus and sent it back to Amazon. So I guess my issue is 'solved.' I'm so happy my need and frustration were so deftly taken care of. (Amazon Returns works and that solves a lot of this nonsense.)
Anyway, I'm trying not to be a crank. (Though I'm dying to lay out all my video and USB connectors, take a photo and then list all the times in the last two weeks one of them failed to work (ALL Apple video adapters after three months) or the correct one that wasn't in my bag (or may not exist). I've got at least ten different connectors in my computer bag.
To the techie-nerd speculation that I am indeed an idiot? Well clearly I am if I've spent thousands of dollars on computer gear, carry around a mess of cables and they only do 3/4 of what I need them to do--and they usually don't do what I need them to do when I've got a room full of unruly students. Yup, I've been had.
My son had a BMW that was really trick, and it had run-flat tires. I thought this meant you could still drive on them if they were flat. What it actually seems to mean is that they go flat every other month and cost a $1000 each to replace.
The way I see it, is if they were good tires in the first place (like the Michelins on my old Honda) than there'd be no issue about running flat because they'd last 100,000 miles and need replacing because one them them was loosing air and they were starting to break down internally. $600 for 4 tires and 100,000 miles, or $2000 for 2 tires and 1000 miles?
So nothing more on connectors. For now....
I guess as regards to high tech and fancy tires, see my last posting about making your own notebook. When has the beta version of anything worked 100 percent?
I'm on page 110 of the journal and it works great. Cost? About $2. (Costco paper 5000 sheets $35), so that's about 70 cents for 100 sheets. Toner? hot glue? a manila folder?
Monday, January 20, 2014
Notebook: DIY Perfect Binding, line numbers and page numbers
 |
| Sample pages with floating Table of Contents that also works as a book mark. |
I usually write either on the computer or in a standard composition book. What I've found is that blank page composition books are either expensive or unobtainable. When you spend more than $1 for a notebook, you're paying for not having to write on thick annoying blue lines.
I like the grids, college ruled... but if you're like me you've noticed that most notebooks seem to have really fat dark blue lines....
I've also begun numbering the pages, 1-100 from the front, (right side facing pages only); then I flip the notebook over and number them 101-200 on the remaining pages. It's like having two notebooks, with two covers. Writing will be right side up on the right, and upside down on the left. If I add an additional note on the facing page, it doesn't interfere when I'm coming back through.
I don't like spiral notebooks. I've got a Moleskin, cost me nearly $20--I'm afraid to use it.
Being a Maker and a problem solver I wondered if 1. I could figure out how to make my own notebooks, 2. Number the pages using software, 3. make my own ideal line spacing.
I'm quite satisfied with my results. A4 (letter sized) paper, so it's standard, perfect binding using heat patch material for clothes and hot glue stick (which is probably the most valuable contribution of this particular project). The line spacing is still up in the air, open to change. Page and line numbering system I made are, I think wicked cool.
I would like to share this, add it to the blog, but it would be a 100 or 200 page PDF. Readers might not like my line spacing, or they might want and 80 (160) page notebook....
Here goes. I created a simple database in FileMaker Pro for the page numbering.
There are 100 records number 1-100--in the upper right corner.
Each record is the size of two pages. At the bottom of the second page is 101-200 in the lower left corner--upside down---so print "Two Sided" makes the first page, #1 on the face and #200 on the back.
Two Fields:
Number, (type 'number'): Auto Enter Serial number
Backside Number (type: 'calculation'): = 201–Numbers
That's all it takes. Probably can do this in Open Office.
Here's a sample page from a screen capture of the Illustrator file:
Page number is Helvetica Neue Light 18 point,
lines are .5 pt, gray (40% black) .2131" (5.4 mm) apart
I would prefer a faint blue line, but my cleanest printer is a Brother Black only.
The smaller line is .09 high. I use this to space lines. (A reasonable criticism is that this second line is unnecessary. A regularly rule page should work just as well. And I should work on my penmanship....)
Squint and look at the line numbers. I've numbered every 5th line Optima 8 pt.
Why it's different from the page number....No good reason. They're almost completely invisible unless you're looking for them.
What I then would do is to flip through a full notebook and make a quick Table of Contents. In about 150 pages of writing I'd usually come up with a maximum of 20-30 topics, that I thought I might want to find at a later date.
Giving a topic a notebook name (usually a date), a page number (or range) and line numbers, within 5 line numbers is not a big deal considering I probably have 30 notebooks from the past 8 years.
I find I'll write either on my word processor journal, personal or school (work) or in a hand written notebook. Being able to organize the information and entries, can be useful. (I also see how many times I've spent an hour complaining about minor annoyances like USB cables.... which helps me skip the subject the next time Apple comes out with a new one....).
I've also made a FileMaker Pro database for my notebooks, it lists a title, again usually the date range, description (blue, red....) and a few key topics.
I'm fiddling around with writing stories, bits and pieces are scattered all over the place. This database keeps characters, events, writing fragments all sorted.
OK: Binding.
I've watched at least two dozen how to make your own notebook YouTube videos and DIY Makers pages. They're all neat, thank you.
There are two basic binding methods I considered, stitching--which is a traditional method, and Perfect Binding, which is really quite simple-you basically clamp all the pages together, roughen the spine edges of the paper with sandpaper and then smear it with glue.
I chose Perfect Binding, because I could simply use the A4 (letter sized) 8.5 x 11" laser printer paper I buy 10 reams at a time from Costco. It's not the best paper for writing on with a fountain pen, but it doesn't yellow, and works good enough. If I stitched then the edges of the pages would be uneven and need trimming--too much work (and paper cuts).
I made a simple clamp with two pieces of 1.5 x 1.5" wood. Hot glue spreads and sticks to the wood, so what I've figured out is to add a slip of paper on each side of the stack of pages. This then becomes part of the finished notebook.
Roughing up the edges is very important. I half made one without this step and it started coming apart. Use very rough sand paper. I've scored it with a utility knife, and even dragged a rasp (about grit 5 if it was sand paper) to roughen up the spine edge of the clamped notebook.
Next I dribble hot glue back and forth across the pages and spread it out a bit with a wide tongue depressor. At this point, you are done. The pages will hold together quite well.
The next step I usually do is to take a manilla file folder; score and fold it at the size of the notebook. Using a clothes iron, Wool setting, I iron on a layer of Heat-N-Bond. You could skip the Heat-N-Bond. This flattens out the hot glue layer. Heat-N-Bond has a backing sheet that you now peel off.
Take your notebook out of the clamp, trim up the two folded slips that protected the clamp (but leave them). Put the notebook into the manilla file folder, back into the clamp and apply the heated iron to the outside of the folder. This makes an OK, but not great cover. (My goal is to find a nice leather cover with pockets I can slip the manilla covers into.... )
I've used this for log books that had been kept in 3-ring binders. It makes them more compact and more archival (plastic, and especially vinyl office supplies turn to sticky goo after a few years).
I'll attach some more photos.
e-mail me if you'd like a pdf of my parts. There will be essentially two files, the front and back pages and the page numbers. You might want numbered blank pages, or a different line spacing.
An open question is could these notebooks be used as a Patent Notebook or official Science Notebook? Maybe. I don't think there's any magic to sewn patent notebooks that sell for $25. Anyone with an extra blank notebook, could with some effort, and motivation (a billion dollars?) take apart and modify one of these. A homemade perfect bound notebook like mine, would be very easy to fake, it's already non-standard. Of course forensic science will always know more than the criminally minded.
Always interested in what you think, your solutions and ideas.
And of course, Moleskin and the other commercial notebook makers--don't hesitate to contact me... I believe these are the notebooks Archimedes and Abraham Lincoln used when they were young men in Paris.... Of course Archie used a grid pattern....
Saturday, January 18, 2014
Kayak: Flush Deck Fittings
These are the best, strongest, most hassle free deck fittings ever.
(There seems to have been some interest in this so I'll try to improve it. 12 March 2016)
Dan Maroske came up with a method to make flush deck fittings for a kayak by using wire and tubing coated in releasing solution and then slipping on 1/2" fiberglass sleeve. It's a great idea.
I believe I've improved on his method. All the video I've shot so far is awful (In one of them I went fitting to fitting and popped out the mold material--spectacular--except none of it in the frame).
My primary contribution is that I used hot glue sticks for the mold, wrapping them several times with Teflon plumbing tape to keep them from getting stuck after the epoxy has set. Since then I've also used lithium grease as an additonal mold release.
Glue sticks being solid do not kink when you bend them. They are flexible and stretchy. When pulling them out stretching, even a little bit, decreases the diameter.
The link below connects to the least bad video. If you're interested in making flush deck fittings, it'll be interesting-otherwise not.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEidfGG5vGQ&feature=youtu.be
My variation solves a couple of problems.
Problem #1 Kinking. Other method:Using tubing packed with wire. The bend is a tight 1" (25mm) diameter. Hollow tubing will kink, this is why Dan Maroske packed his tubes with wire.
By using mini hot glue gun sticks, which are flexible and solid--they not only do not kink, but they make a nice smooth bend. (Full size glue sticks will also work, but their diameter is much larger than you'll need.)
Releasing from the mold: Epoxy does stick to glue sticks. (My epoxy skills are not great, I've often had problems with releasing wax and solutions.) My work around is to wrap two layers of Teflon plumbing seal tape around the glue sticks. There is some adhesion to the epoxy, but it is only to the surface of the top layer of tape. Three layers would probably be even better. This tape is fairly cheap (Harbor Freight), and the glue sticks are still usable--both in your glue gun and as molds. The glue sticks will still retain a lot of the Teflon tape, so you won't have to re-wrap three layers. What you are after is when you pull on the glue stick after the epoxy sets, you want it to slide between the layers of tape. The issue is the mechanical hold of the surface area of your mold against the now solid surface going around a 180 degree bend.
Cutting board with some 'molds' inserted into the holes.
Problem #2 making the loop. I use cheap plastic cutting boards as a base. I drill a 3/8" hole 1 inch apart in the cutting board. Epoxy will stick to the boards, so I coat these with releasing agent (lithium grease). I've got some delrin plastic (poor man's Teflon sheet) that should work even better. (The cheap plastic cutting board material isn't nearly as slick as delrin or teflon, but it's close and about 1/10th the price--I use it for a lot of things that need to slide).
After I've prepared (wrapped) a handful of sticks, I slide on the 1/2" fiberglass sleeve. When I have the sleeve on a stick, I loosely wrap the (roll) end of the fiberglass tape with blue masking tape. This accomplishes two things. (Fiberglass sleeve can be a bit of a chore opening up the end. I use a pencil. When you're using it for several pieces all the same diameter, once you've got the sleeve over the mold, wrap blue tape once around and then cut through the middle of the tape.)
1. It keeps it from unraveling and
2. It keeps the sleeve open to slide onto the next glue stick mold.
Wrap the tape, then slide the sleeve off the mold a bit and cut in the middle of the tape. This leaves two taped ends.
Next I just bend them, poke them into the holes in the cutting board and epoxy them. You want to saturate the fiberglass sleeve. Bubbles may appear, use a heat gun to make your epoxy more viscous.
It's best to put on a second layer of epoxy. Tiny holes can remain after only one coating.
After it sets, pop them out of the cutting board. Leave the mold in.
The deck of your kayak should be completely fiberglassed. You don't want to apply a layer of glass over the fittings. You can add more coats of epoxy and varnish, I make little plugs for the holds so the holes don't fill up.
Preparing the deck of your kayak:
I usually drill 7/16 or 1/2 in holes in the deck and then insert the fitting from the inside. You want a gap for thickened epoxy to bond the fitting to the deck. For the extreme bow and stern ends--that I can't reach from the inside. I've drilled larger holes and fed the fittings from the outside. I've also loosely taped them to a stick and reached in from the inside.
When they're all installed, mix up some thickened epoxy, pull them up slightly. Make sure they're coated all the way round. You already know how to do this.
When the epoxy has set: Next step is to remove the mold material,
Tools to have are a sharp knife and needle nose pliers. Some combination of cutting around the masking tape, the protruding sleeve and pulling on the glue stick with the pliers.
The great thing about the glue sticks is that when they are stretched they become narrower, this loosens them up inside the fittings. I find if I pull and wiggle on each side they will soon become loose.
When they pull out they slowly move and then pop!
Trim anything sticking above the deck, and sand smooth.
Some Teflon tape may be left inside, but it won't show and it won't interfere with inserting line. I've easily pushed through cut but unwicked (frayed) line that is almost as big as the hole. The inside of the fittings using this method are usually very smooth.
There's always something else, but this and my video (the images here are screen captures) should give you all you'll need to know. I will never try to screw a loop to a deck of a kayak again.
For a commercially made kayak that doesn't have a wood core, a fiberglass epoxy 'plate' 2 inches by 1 inch, buttered up with thickened epoxy and inserted from the inside might be a good place to start.
Let me know what you think. Especially after you give it a try. (I got a lot of poopooing about this from guys who clearly hadn't tried it. Maybe I wasn't clear enough.)
Just rediscovered these two videos. Drilling holes, setting up the molds and mixing epoxy. Only interesting if you're going to make these fittings.
Maroske Nettles Deck Fittings.m4v
Maroske Nettles Deck Fittings TWO
I'd like to do a strength test someday, but not on my kayak. I'm betting the line breaks before the fitting does.
Update: One of my fittings had a slight leak. Nearly impossible to tell exactly where. A light coating of epoxy dripped into the hole, then smeared around and cleaned out with a piece of line took care of the problem.
Has anyone else tried this method? What was your experience?
I always boast that I can learn or figure out 85% of just about anything--which is why I don't skydive. It's also why your thoughts, skills, experience are needed. Thanks. See you on the ocean.
(There seems to have been some interest in this so I'll try to improve it. 12 March 2016)
Dan Maroske came up with a method to make flush deck fittings for a kayak by using wire and tubing coated in releasing solution and then slipping on 1/2" fiberglass sleeve. It's a great idea.
I believe I've improved on his method. All the video I've shot so far is awful (In one of them I went fitting to fitting and popped out the mold material--spectacular--except none of it in the frame).
My primary contribution is that I used hot glue sticks for the mold, wrapping them several times with Teflon plumbing tape to keep them from getting stuck after the epoxy has set. Since then I've also used lithium grease as an additonal mold release.
Glue sticks being solid do not kink when you bend them. They are flexible and stretchy. When pulling them out stretching, even a little bit, decreases the diameter.
The link below connects to the least bad video. If you're interested in making flush deck fittings, it'll be interesting-otherwise not.
My variation solves a couple of problems.
Problem #1 Kinking. Other method:Using tubing packed with wire. The bend is a tight 1" (25mm) diameter. Hollow tubing will kink, this is why Dan Maroske packed his tubes with wire.
By using mini hot glue gun sticks, which are flexible and solid--they not only do not kink, but they make a nice smooth bend. (Full size glue sticks will also work, but their diameter is much larger than you'll need.)
Releasing from the mold: Epoxy does stick to glue sticks. (My epoxy skills are not great, I've often had problems with releasing wax and solutions.) My work around is to wrap two layers of Teflon plumbing seal tape around the glue sticks. There is some adhesion to the epoxy, but it is only to the surface of the top layer of tape. Three layers would probably be even better. This tape is fairly cheap (Harbor Freight), and the glue sticks are still usable--both in your glue gun and as molds. The glue sticks will still retain a lot of the Teflon tape, so you won't have to re-wrap three layers. What you are after is when you pull on the glue stick after the epoxy sets, you want it to slide between the layers of tape. The issue is the mechanical hold of the surface area of your mold against the now solid surface going around a 180 degree bend.
Cutting board with some 'molds' inserted into the holes.Problem #2 making the loop. I use cheap plastic cutting boards as a base. I drill a 3/8" hole 1 inch apart in the cutting board. Epoxy will stick to the boards, so I coat these with releasing agent (lithium grease). I've got some delrin plastic (poor man's Teflon sheet) that should work even better. (The cheap plastic cutting board material isn't nearly as slick as delrin or teflon, but it's close and about 1/10th the price--I use it for a lot of things that need to slide).
After I've prepared (wrapped) a handful of sticks, I slide on the 1/2" fiberglass sleeve. When I have the sleeve on a stick, I loosely wrap the (roll) end of the fiberglass tape with blue masking tape. This accomplishes two things. (Fiberglass sleeve can be a bit of a chore opening up the end. I use a pencil. When you're using it for several pieces all the same diameter, once you've got the sleeve over the mold, wrap blue tape once around and then cut through the middle of the tape.)
1. It keeps it from unraveling and
2. It keeps the sleeve open to slide onto the next glue stick mold.
Wrap the tape, then slide the sleeve off the mold a bit and cut in the middle of the tape. This leaves two taped ends.
It's best to put on a second layer of epoxy. Tiny holes can remain after only one coating.
The deck of your kayak should be completely fiberglassed. You don't want to apply a layer of glass over the fittings. You can add more coats of epoxy and varnish, I make little plugs for the holds so the holes don't fill up.
Preparing the deck of your kayak:
I usually drill 7/16 or 1/2 in holes in the deck and then insert the fitting from the inside. You want a gap for thickened epoxy to bond the fitting to the deck. For the extreme bow and stern ends--that I can't reach from the inside. I've drilled larger holes and fed the fittings from the outside. I've also loosely taped them to a stick and reached in from the inside.
When they're all installed, mix up some thickened epoxy, pull them up slightly. Make sure they're coated all the way round. You already know how to do this.
When the epoxy has set: Next step is to remove the mold material,
Tools to have are a sharp knife and needle nose pliers. Some combination of cutting around the masking tape, the protruding sleeve and pulling on the glue stick with the pliers.
The great thing about the glue sticks is that when they are stretched they become narrower, this loosens them up inside the fittings. I find if I pull and wiggle on each side they will soon become loose.
When they pull out they slowly move and then pop!
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| This particular fitting I use for the rudder deployment lines. I'm testing it for strength. Next I'll sand it flush with the deck. |
Trim anything sticking above the deck, and sand smooth.
Some Teflon tape may be left inside, but it won't show and it won't interfere with inserting line. I've easily pushed through cut but unwicked (frayed) line that is almost as big as the hole. The inside of the fittings using this method are usually very smooth.
There's always something else, but this and my video (the images here are screen captures) should give you all you'll need to know. I will never try to screw a loop to a deck of a kayak again.
For a commercially made kayak that doesn't have a wood core, a fiberglass epoxy 'plate' 2 inches by 1 inch, buttered up with thickened epoxy and inserted from the inside might be a good place to start.
I'd like to do a strength test someday, but not on my kayak. I'm betting the line breaks before the fitting does.
Update: One of my fittings had a slight leak. Nearly impossible to tell exactly where. A light coating of epoxy dripped into the hole, then smeared around and cleaned out with a piece of line took care of the problem.
Has anyone else tried this method? What was your experience?
I always boast that I can learn or figure out 85% of just about anything--which is why I don't skydive. It's also why your thoughts, skills, experience are needed. Thanks. See you on the ocean.
Thursday, January 16, 2014
Wednesday, January 1, 2014
Kayak: Electric Pump Whale SUPERSUB Submersible Auto Pump650 gph
Quick note:
I've installed a Whale Supersub Auto Pump 650 gph following the basic guidelines of Mark in CKF and Gnarlydog.
The wireless remote set-up works flawlessly. I can turn the pump on from inside my house. It's in the back hatch of my kayak, there seem to be no signal issues.
I've installed a Whale Supersub Auto Pump 650 gph following the basic guidelines of Mark in CKF and Gnarlydog.
My battery box is almost exactly the same as Gnarlydog's but on top is a wireless receiver/relay unit (AGT 12V Waterproof Wireless Remote Control DC Universal 2-Channel Output)
At this point, YES to the remote Control, but MAYBE NO for the pump.
The wireless remote set-up works flawlessly. I can turn the pump on from inside my house. It's in the back hatch of my kayak, there seem to be no signal issues.
Also as the unit is rated for 5 amps 12 VDC, it's enough to run the pump. The pump has an automatic sensor feature that I don't use.
The pump seems to have a priming problem. It appears that an air bubble gets trapped in the strumbox, propeller area and it just spins pumping nothing. Sometimes it takes a full minute before it starts pumping.
I'll post photos and video and I'll contact Whale about the problem. There's a small air bleeder fitting on the strumbox, it's clear, but it may have some issue.
Many if not most self-rescues for a kayaker results in water sloshing around the cockpit--destabilizing the craft with the standard method of bailing being the stick-pump. This has long concerned me. First is the reason why you flipped in the first place, rough seas? but now second, you have water sloshing around further destabilizing your 'yak, but now you have to use the hands you need on your paddle to operate the stick pump.
For a few years I thought a foot pump was the answer. I designed and installed a footbrace, with a Guzzler pump in the middle and I added hinged peddles for the rudder and kite surfing foot hold downs.
Another 'fix' I installed is a carbon fiber wrapped wood post on a thin piece of plywood, hotglued to the bottom of the hull. On the post I place weightlifting weights. Yesterday I paddled with 22 extra pounds. After I landed I reduced the weight to only 10 pounds, 5 fore and 5 in the aft hatch and that seemed more than enough. This is in a Guillemot Mystery, 20' long and about 18" wide--very tippy boat. The weights are like training wheels.
More later.
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