Timepiece Ticks

MY, my, how time do fly!  ‘Mus’ be cause I’ve been busy!

I got th’ idea that I needed a lower work surface than my bench, which is just ideal for most of what I do.  But it’s too tall to allow me to work DOWN into a fuselage, especially once th’ landin’ gear is on.

So, using some chipboard BFF had left over from a project she did, and some, as yet un-used trim wood and various bits an pieces from th’ scrap pile, I set out t’ build a table.

That was 2 weeks ago!  At 1st I was havin’ a ball, cuttin’ an’ hackin’, sawdust flyin’ everywhere, progress bein’ made.  But I soon ran into a wall; th’ ol’ one-armed thing again.  When y’ can’t HOLD somethin’ and drive a big, heavy-duty DeWalt saw at th’ same time, things get… difficult.  ‘And RISKY, too.  An’ th’ LAST thing I need is a power-tool accident, an’ while I’m here alone at that!

I quit an’ went back to it several times.  ‘Screwed it up, fixed th’ screwup, goofed and fixed that way more than just enough.  By now this thing was gettin’ t’ be an Albatross ’round my neck.  Th’ ol’ thing about, “when you’re up to your neck in aligators…”

But as of yesterday, th’ thing is DONE!  ‘Not real WELL done, mind you, but use-able, which was th’ objective all along.  BFF’s got some casters I’ll stick on it and I’ll prob’ly add a bunch o’ wood glue to tighten it up; but f’ now, that albatross is off my neck an’ I can very handily “work down” into th’ fuselage.

The OTHER big deal this week… requires a bit o’ “preamble”.  I’m a member of RC Universe ( http://www.rcuniverse.com ) and of RC Groups     (http://www.rcgroups.com ) and for years have jus’ “lurked”, as it’s called.  I finally, in “Lefty” had somethin’ to actually POST, an honest t’ Harry THREAD o’ my own!  So I did.

One o’ th’ guys saw my thread an’ noticed I was doin’ it one-handed and sent my a link to a thing he’d found somewhere on th’ web called a “Wobblestick”.  And, t’ make a long story short, he and a machinist friend conspired, make that “collaborated’, sounds nicer, to set me up w/one.

Th’ li’l “Gizmo”, as I call it, has one function, to enable me to FLY ONE-HANDED!  Now how’s THAT for a gift?!  Yep, GIFT; neither one of ‘em would take a cent!  And they even threw in adapters for my simulator’s radio!   Now I don’t have to wait thru my whole re-hab process ’til I can fly!  Can we all say, “WONDERFUL”, boys an’ girls?  I can’t come up w/enough superlatives to express what this means to me.

I wasted no time mountin’ th’ Gizmo on my DX-7, and it’s a near-perfect fit.  I’ll have t’ fly sittin’ down as th’ Gizmo gets in th’ way of a strap; but sittin’ down is one o’ th’ things I do best, an’ we DO own a lawn chair.

The ONE hassle I’ve run into is w/my computer; it won’t run my sim program.  I’ll need to upgrade my video card in order to get th’ visuals.  What a bummer!  But I’ve got more time that I have good sense; it’ll happen when it’s time t’ happen.

Meanwhile, here’s some pix; one of th’ Gizmo on my DX-7, an’ a pair of th’ table project.  See what I hath wrought!