A Journey to forget

Trip to Fort Wayne, or how to describe a Cluster ¥€£#

Tuesday, December 17, we are booked via United departing Medford at 6pm, then through San Francisco and Chicago, bringing us into Fort Wayne at 8am, on Wednesday. This was a "red eye" trip, but we were anxious to see the kids.

Around noon, on Tuesday, I happened to log on to United.com to check the flight's status. All flights to SFO have been cancelled due to fog in the Rogue Valley. Promptly, we called the 800 United number and began a long, painful process of finding an alternative schedule. Yes. There is a United flight leaving from Eugene at 6am on Wednesday. Great. We could hot foot it to Eugene, stay the night with cousin Chris and David, and scoot out to the airport early in the morning.

Seats were available, but wait, what about the return to Eugene, instead of to Medford?  We had to be able to drive our car home. The 800 operator at United put us on hold while she conferred with others about the return dilemma. That's when we got disconnected.

Anne suggested we drive to the airport and talk one-on-one with a United human being. The line to the counter was quite long. A lot of other Medfordites had also just been misplaced. Anne waited in line, while I found a large marble stone which had been fashioned into a quiet area sitting spot. From the stone, I recalled 800 United. Drat's, the flight out of Eugene no longer had available seats.

By the time I received the depressing news about Eugene, Anne had progressed to the front of the service line. I thanked the 800 lady, hung up, and joined Anne. The agent at the counter was yawning from fatigue. They had been working a long, no break day due to all of the fogged out trips. None the less, we were greeted with a smile and, "How may I help you?" That was certainly a good start.

"Let's see now. The soonest, and nearest flight we can get you on will be flying out of Klamath Falls." All of the flights leaving Medford, assuming no more fog, were booked solid beyond December 20.  We told the agent, yes. Book us.

This is Tuesday evening. The flight from Klamath Falls (LMT) to Portland, Chicago, and Fort Wayne wasn't leaving until 6am, Thursday. We were given itinerary stubs and told to present them to United at LMT to exchange for boarding slips for our flights.

We left Medford at 2pm the next day for our hour and half drive over the mountains to Klamath Falls. Anne had booked a night for us at the Maverick Motel, on Main Street. We would rise early, drive to the airfield, and begin our real journey. First, however, we Google mapped our way to the terminal to exchange the schedule stubs for our boarding passes. Whoa. Nobody home. The next available assistance will be at 4:30am, tomorrow. Well, at least we now know how to get to the airport. Not a wasted trip.

Klamath Falls airport is home to Kingsley Air Force Base. Kingsley is a training base for F-18 pilots. Although United was a no-show this afternoon, the USAF is always good for putting on a presentation.

From the airport we drove to the city's visitor's center so we could pick up a city map. Anne was also eager to find out where the Kla-Mo-Ya Casino was located. The logic seemed to be: we haven't eaten dinner yet, and all casinos have restaurants. It was a 50mile round trip to Chilloquin, but the meatloaf and mashed potatoes were worth it. We were both tucked into bed with our books by 7pm Wednesday night.

We wanted to be at the airport by 4:30am, Thursday. Both of our phone alarms sounded together at 3:45am. This is a plus for travelers. The Klamath Falls airport has free parking, for a month. That should do us.

The two United  agents served two queues, one for PDX, and one for SFO. After an awfully lot of one-finger keyboard pecking, Anne had boarding passes for the Portland and Chicago legs. I had a pass for the Portland leg. At PDX, I needed to get my boarding pass for the Chicago leg. When we arrived in Chicago, we would both then need to front up to an American Airlines counter to pick up passes for the last leg of the trip to Fort Wayne. This was working ok. I had a window seat in 23F, and Anne was found in 27D for the long flight to Chicago.

At ORD, in Chicago, we had nearly two hours to hike the three terminals to the American Airlines gate our flight to Fort Wayne was to depart from. We both had very achy legs by the time we found the gate. We presented the United schedule stubs for the flight to the American agent. After a period of keyboard pecking, the agent conferred with his desk mate. They had found the passenger entry that had been made by the United agent in Medford two days ago, but our seating hadn't been confirmed. We were told there were no remaining seats on the plane. They couldn't rebook us, because it was United's responsibility. We needed to walk back one terminal until we found a United counter, and agent.

Luck was with us, we came upon a United customer service desk. There were no flights remaining from Chicago to Fort Wayne. "Where would we like to fly to instead?" After much cajoling we called Matt to ask which of the choices we had for Indiana cities was closer to drive to for him to pick us up. Indianapolis was the pick. That flight left in less than an hour, and we were booked.

The United agent recommended we take the shuttle to the C terminal, to save us from the long trek. The shuttle line was just across the corridor, but the wait may be as much as 15 minutes. I asked the shuttle attendant how long it would take us to walk the distance. He told us it was a 20 minute walk. So, we waited. The shuttle got us to the correct terminal and we hustled to the gate. We were late, but the doors were still open. The gate agent tried to scan our new boarding passes, but they wouldn't read. With his right hand, he just waved us through the doors. Apparently, this man had been through a bad day, too.

We were assigned seats 24C&D. The last seats, in the last row, but we aboard for the 35 minute puddle jump to Indianapolis. Matt was on the road, and he would meet us in a little under two hours.

Thursday had been a long day, but it wasn't over yet. We needed to stop at the Fort Wayne airport to pick up the bags which flew unattended on American from Chicago. It is against FAA regulations to have bags on a flight which are unassigned to a passenger, but that hadn't come up in any conversations with agents.

Fort Wayne International Airport baggage claim doesn't have an office which holds unclaimed baggage. We were told we had to go to the airline's ticket counter, where they could help us. The ticketing was just around the next corner.

There was Delta. There was United and Allegheny, but there was no American. I asked the agent at the Delta counter where we might find the bags which had come in on American. He asked us, "What was the name?" I thought the question odd, but I told him. "I think I saw a couple back there", he said. Within two minutes the agent was dragging our bags through his rear door.

It never would have dawned on me to inquire at the Delta desk for bags which came on an American flight, that had been non-booked by a United agent, whose planes weren't flying out of Medford two days earlier. We were happy to be reunited, and Anne was pleased I hadn't tried to explain to the Delta man how he had ended up with our luggage. As rigid as airport security is, I was surprised we weren't asked to show our claim tickets. I take that back. After the "cluster €£¥%" this trip had been, nothing about flying today surprises me.

Man, it was great to see Matt, and the family, and to be in the comfort and security of their wonderful home. This was going to be a joyful Christmas, after all.

Bottle Buddy

What to do with wine and beer bottles? Bottle Buddy can help turn them into collector glassware, suitable at least for the Man cave.

 

 

        

Start with some scrap wood, a length of ~3/4” o.d. pvc, wood screws, glass cutter, clamp, small strip of old inner tube, and some wood glue. A small turnbuckle may be useful, too.

The box measures ~14” long x ~5” wide x ~ 4” high. Blocks were added underneath to permit the clamp to slide beneath.

Center the holes for the pvc at: 1” from inside of back; ~2 ¼” apart; and ~5/8” above inside floor.

Drill holes with ~7/8” bit. This will prevent holes from binding the turning action of the pvc. Cut the pvc so a half inch extends from each end of the box.

Predrill all holes and use a countersink to keep screw heads flush. The left end is cut lower to prevent interference with long-neck bottles.

                                                                                                           

The glass cutter is mounted in a movable piece of wood. Drill a 1/8” hole in the center of the flat of the cutter’s handle. Drill a hole, ~3/8”, at 1” up on block of wood. Then drill a hole from the top center which just intersects the first hole. The second hole can be small enough for the head of a wood screw to slide through. Pre insert a wood screw into the hole of the cutter and remove it; to cut a thread pattern. Assemble the cutter in the hole. Leave a ~1/8” gap beneath the head of the screw and the flat of the cutter’s handle. This gap will permit up & down movement of the cutter head; needed to adapt to differences in bottle diameters.

A third, counter sinking hole is added to the block. This hole is used to insert a wood screw far enough for its end to protrude from the underside of the block. This added “pin” will help position the block before it is later clamped to the box.

On the rear of the cutter block screw, and glue, left and right side pieces of wood tight to the edges of the cutter handle. This is important in minimizing sideways wobbling of the head.

Cut a 1” wide x 6” long strip of stretchable rubber and fold it in half. Punch holes through the ends to allow the ends to be slipped over the rear of the cutter handle.  At the center fold, punch a small hole through which the end loop of a small turnbuckle, of “S” clip can be inserted.

With the rubber attached to the handle, clamp the cutter block to the top of the box. Where the block is clamped depends on how tall a glass is to be made. If a 12oz glass is desired, then use a measuring cup to fill the bottle with 12oz of water. Allow a ½” or more extra height, and mark the bottle.

Now where to clamp the cutter block is made easier.

With cutter block clamped in place, stretch the rubber to attach its turnbuckle, or S-clip to the top of the clamp.

 

The rubber strap is meant to add downward cutting pressure on the head and thus free both hands to carefully turn the bottle. The cutter head is lifted so a bottle can be inserted onto the pvc rails.

 

With the butt of the bottle pressed against the right hand end, gentle spin the bottle on the pvc rails towards the rear wall. As the bottle nears a full turn the etch line will come up from beneath. Continue turning until the etch lines meet, no further. If the cutter head is not easily etching the glass, tighten the lifting pressure with the turnbuckle. If the pvc rails do not spin freely, that is not a worry as the bottle will still rotate easily.

 

 

Etching the bottle is the first step. Next the etch needs to turn into a fracture line. The etched bottle can be immersed into a container of hot water, hold for 15 – 20 seconds, and then hold under cold tap water. A crisp snap may be heard, if not, repeat the hot then cold water. After one or more cycles, the top will part from the bottom without any tugging.

The next step is to make the rim of the new glass safe to drink from. An easy approach is to use a flat table sander fixed with an 80grit, or finer belt. Hold the lip to the moving belt, and with moderate pressure gently spin the glass back and forth. Inspect the lip. Continue sanding until the lip shows no clear glass and is uniformly dull in shade.

Next, use wet & dry sand paper of ~120 grit and work over the outer, inner, and top. This takes the edge from the lip. Continue with finer grip paper, if desired.

When satisfied, and washed, try to slip the new glasses onto the shelf in the kitchen. If you encounter a high degree of spousal rejection, as was said at the beginning, they can always be used in the Man cave.

 

 

This is a set of glasses cut from large ale bottles. The glasses were measured to hold a pint of ale. 

America's Southwest - 2013

I have been mentally preparing for my second competition at the Huntsman World Senior Games since last October. I have practiced my archery daily, and I have improved. Anne, too, is prepared for the doubles tennis games she will play with her partner, Judy. Over the many years they have played together at these contests, they have done well.

The first day’s drive towards St George, Utah, took us from Medford to Fallon, NV. Fallon is a small city on Hwy 50 southeast of the I-80 freeway and hustle and bustle of Reno. Fallon is a military town and is host to the Fallon Naval Air Station. This had been an eight hour day in our Freeway Cloud and both of us were ready for a break.

Fallon RV Park is at the northern fringe of the city, well presented, and convenient to the highway. The early evening sky was just beginning to darken as we registered and found our way to site 22. On previous trips to the SW we had stayed in Fallon. In a car, the time to reach Fallon is only about five hours and the busy home of the Naval Air Station breaks the trip to St George in half.

Reservations had been made to stay at the Willow Winds RV Park in Hurricane, UT. The Senior Games are held in and about St George, but unless one books an RV spot a half year early there are no spaces available within the city limits. The city of Hurricane, pronounced locally as Hurricun, is eight miles east of St George on I-15, and about ten miles south of exit 16 on UT-9. 

The Virgin River was the source of water for the cotton fields Brigham Young was going to develop in this western Land of Dixie. I-15 doesn’t faithfully follow the course of the Virgin River, but the early Latter Day Saints did. Nestled by the river and at the base of a large range of mesas to the south, the valley was a perfect place to form a new settlement. I don’t think the city’s name was any accident. The winds often blew stiffly and would rock the RV late into the night.

We pulled into Willow Winds on the fifth of October and we stayed until the seventeenth. Although we were a ways away from our sporting activities, the park was a good hub for us. All we needed to do was account for an extra half hour travel time in our schedules.

Anne and Judy were occupied with their matches on the same days I had my archery. Anne dropped me off at the archery field at around 0830 and then drove to Judy’s home in Sunriver, off Exit 2, west of St George. We arranged to have me recollected around 1630, after I had finished each long day of shooting.

Anne and Judy were defeated in a tie-breaker during their grab for bronze. Anne had played the last minutes of their match with a pulled calf muscle. She didn’t complain about her pain at the time, but I know if she had been able to work her court with a focused mind, they would have worn home metals.

I, with an honest outlook, saw no metal in my future on the field. Day one was organized for practice and setting sights for the 60, 50, and 40 yard ranges. St George lays at about 3,500 feet elevation. This is only 2,000 feet more that I have been shooting, in Medford. I noticed that my arrows were striking the target a few inches high. Two thousand feet isn’t much, but the lower air density can cause this effect. I shot several ends at each of the three range distances and established new sight settings.

Day two was spent in the southern Utah sun for eight hours. The field had 32 targets set up. Each target had four archers assigned. The four archers shot in pairs, an A line and a B line. The archers took five minute turns at hitting their assigned targets. After both lines have shot their six arrows, they all walk to the target to score the end and pull their arrows. As soon as all the archers have left the field, a whistle is blown and each archer shoots six more arrows. Thirty arrows are shot at each of the three target distances. When 60 yards is complete, the teams bring their target butts up to the 50 yard marker. At the new distance there is an end shot by each archer as practice. Thirty arrows are then shot before the target butts are pulled to the 40 yard line. I was dragging my quiver by the time Anne picked me up.

Day three on the range was greeted with winds of 20mph, gusting to 28mph. I, and most of the other archers, had never experienced shooting in these conditions. We mused about how no archer, excepting those who may have fallen subject to ancient military courts martial, would have been spending such a day shooting arrows. Needless, I didn’t shoot well this day. Miller Time seemed very slow to come and I was glad to have my year two of the Huntsman World Senior Games under my belt, along with the contents of a cold tinnie.

At this point neither of us had any scheduled expectations. Anne brought out her sewing machine and I read and putzed around the rest of the week. Patti Stanalonis was flying in with her softball team, from Albuquerque, on Sunday. We stayed through Wednesday so we could watch a few of the games her team played while on their way to a well-earned Bronze for this year’s work.

Glen Canyon Dam

Thursday morning we pulled out of Willow Winds and drove south and east towards Chinle, AZ. We planned to arrive at Cottonwood Campground at Canyon De Chelly (pronounced Shay) later in the day, set up a base, tour the canyon the next day, and drive the remainder of the way to Albuquerque on Saturday. We over shot our turn off and drove a few miles beyond before we could find an opportunity to turn our large RV and towed Honda CRV around. We asked directions to the campground from a Navajo street vender and quickly found our way to the park; the directions hadn’t been posted for the campground when coming from the Chinle direction.

There was no one manning the check-in booth when we arrived at Cottonwood. We selected site 41, paid our $14 daily fee and pulled in. Cottonwood has over ninety paved parking slots. Number 41 was large enough for us to pull directly into. The campground had few visitors the two days we were there. It is nicely kept with plenty of shade trees protecting the all-natural landscaping. The daily fee of $14 was pleasant, but no hookups came with it. The RV’s diesel generator powered the microwave for dinner preparation and saw us till the 2030 campground quiet hour when we had to turn it off, along with the TV.  

With over 17 million acres, the Navajo Nation encompasses the entire northeast quarter of the state of Arizona and spills over into New Mexico and Utah. Vast areas of pristine wilderness, majestic canyons, high mountain meadows, dry deserts, flatlands and blue skies characterize the land of the Navajo people.  

Canyon De Chelly is two vertical walled canyons carved some 800 feet into a high desert mesa of Arizona beginning a couple miles east of Chinle. The canyons spread out to form a Y-formation with the base anchored on the map at Chinle. There are two rim drives with pull-over lookouts offering spectacular vistas of the agriculturally worked base of the canyon; home for many of the area’s Navajo.

Each rim drive, one to the northeast and one to the southeast, has eight lookouts. From some of the lookouts one can park and then walk trails to the edge of the wall. On the far side, often quite high on the opposite cliff, one can see ruins of ancient wall dwellings occupied by the ancestors of the basin’s more modern timber framed citizens. History of human habitation within the canyon dates back to times BC.

The SE rim drive was the more convenient one from the Cottonwood Campground. In fact, it was on this rim where, the day before, we had used one of the lookout pull-overs to re-direct ourselves to the RV park. The lookouts were sprinkled along the rim drive over a distance of 14 miles. We took our time and checked out the views from each one. The most spectacular stop was at the last one where we were able to stand at the rim and look eye-to-eye with the top of Spider Rock.

We have all seen the TV commercial where a woman stands at the top of a spire, gleefully spinning around while waving at the abundance of sights to see when using her Visa card. The top Spider Rock is her stage. Believe me. She did not reach the top by ascending the nearly 800 feet of this sheer vertical and smoothly sided stone without rotorcraft assistance. A fantastic sight, the stone stands beside a shorter off-spring in the middle of the Canyon De Chelly basin. It is amazing to consider that the weathering process, which carved this beautiful canyon, had come to such a well-defined mass of erosive resistance when it came to this plug of stone.

Walking the gentle trail along the edge of the canyon at the Spider Rock lookout was the height of our visit to Canyon De Chelly. Most of the lookout parking lots had one or more vendors displaying their hand-crafted jewelry on blankets they had spread over the hoods of their cars, or pastels they had painted on small slabs of sandstone and placed neatly on the ground near the edge of the sidewalk. The paintings depicted traditional Navajo icons, or scenes remembering a feature of the canyon. Yes, we found some jewelry, and a painting that couldn’t be passed up.

We didn’t have time to also tour the northeastern rim lookouts. We were satisfied we had seen much of the best there was to see of the diverse canyon’s sights.

The next morning we were early to pull away from the campground. Our intent today is to reach our friends, Patti and ‘Stan’ Stanalonis, in Albuquerque by the middle of the afternoon. This leg of the trip was only a couple hundred miles and we weren’t in any great rush. I have learned that fuel economy is maximized with the Horizon diesel pusher when the 350hp Cummins’ rpm is kept at its ‘sweet spot’. For us, that was just shy of 1500 rpm, which happens when our speed was kept at 55 mph. This has been our cruising speed, back road or freeway.

Most of the off freeway travel through Nevada, Arizona, and New Mexico is over high desert plateau highways which have been carved straight as arrows between one mountain ridge to the next. The road’s gentle undulation creates opportunities for the 6-speed automatic transmission to shift into and out of a lower gear range. This, in turn, permits the Cummins a short window of higher revolution and destruction of our previously achieved miles per gallon records. On cruise control, and with a steering wheel gently gripped by a hand braced with softly contoured leather armrests, the miles drifted by at between 8 and 10mpg

There is, however, much to be desired about the outback’s highway construction. Many of these roads have been newly resurfaced. Some, however, as were the ones we found ourselves on this morning, must have been worked upon by a tribe of the Navajo who go by the name: Clan of the Road Painters. This clan’s vocation is to spread streaks of tar onto the highway and seal cracks which have formed due to the ever expanding and contracting substrate below the pavement. The result of this clan’s hard labor is hundreds of miles of brain numbing vibration interrupted by short respites of newly resurfaced roadway.

Albuquerque Central KOA Campground is immediately south of I-40 at the Juan Tabo exit. We were assigned to site 121 and in a few minutes were set up for a week’s stay.

Albuquerque’s roads are laid out on a rectangular grid. This architecture makes it a very convenient town to navigate. Juan Tabo runs north and south for several miles. Patti and Stan’s home is just 3.2miles north of the KOA, off Comanche Road. I abhor metropolitan traffic environments. I have to admit, however, the driving experience in Albuquerque is very non-threatening.

We have been friends for many years and we wouldn’t think of traveling in the SE without visiting Patti and Stan. Stan and I couldn’t have been in better hands. Anne and Patti mapped out excellent ideas for things for us to see and do while we visited the southeastern part of New Mexico.

Anne and I decided that since we may never again travel so close we should visit Carlsbad Caverns. A three day trip was mapped out that would take us to The Inn of the Mountain Gods at White’s City, a few miles outside of Ruidoso, NM. We would stay at the Inn following the day’s drive to Ruidoso. The next day we would drive to Carlsbad, spend the day visiting the caverns, and return to the Inn for a second night. The third day we would return to Albuquerque, via Alamogordo.

We met at Patti and Stan’s for breakfast and packed the back of Anne’s CRV for the journey. Stan drove the first leg south on I-25 which took us past Socorro, where one could turn off if he wanted to visit the National Radio Observatory VLA Telescope. Last year, when I caravanned in the Vanaroo with Dave, Joy, Chris, Jennifer, and the boys, we got to visit the very large array observatory. It was definitely impressive.

San Antonio is eleven miles south of Socorro and Stan turned eastward on Hwy 380. Four miles from San Antonio we came to a traffic stop. At 1100 there was going to be a missile launch from somewhere near Gallup and the missile was programmed to land in the White Sands desert. Hwy 380 takes one past the White Sands Missile Range and Trinity Site, which is home of the first explosion of an atomic bomb. Police officers dispatched from the White Sands’ base set up roadblocks for the routine missile reliability tests. The roadblocks leave deserted a 16 mile stretch of Hwy 380 for the flyover. The launch had been delayed half an hour so we got to visit with the officers and inspect the roadside desert flora.  Drats. None of us spotted the flyover.

Our only scheduled stop today was to be at the Smokey Bear Museum located in Capitan. It had been after a fire in the Capitan forests that a Ranger had found Smokey the Cub clinging low on a tree trunk. Smokey had suffered some small amount of injury during the blaze so the Ranger took him to a shelter for healing. Smokey was later flown to the Washington Zoo, in Washington D.C. It was while he lived at the zoo that Smokey Bear became the World’s icon in the effort to prevent man caused forest fires. Smokey lived to the age of 26 and was buried in a garden spot at the Capitan museum. This had been a fun and relaxing break in the day.

The city of Ruidoso is a few miles south of Capitan. The city is carved out of rolling hills which are part of the Mescalero Apache Tribe’s reservation. Ruidoso is a wintertime skier’s haven, hosted by 12,003 foot high Sierra Blanca Peak, and a year-round artisan village akin to that of Taos. The shops of Ruidoso were going to be must see for Anne and Patti.

The Inn of the Mountain Gods Resort and Casino is a few miles out of Ruidoso and close to a small town called White’s City. The very stately resort popped into sight suddenly when rounding a bend in the curvy mountain road. We were assigned close-by rooms on the 7^th floor. Each room had a balcony overlooking the mountainside golf course, an adjoining lake, and a distant view of Sierra Blanca Peak. After unpacking the ladies dismissed themselves for a quick checkout of the casino. Stan and I chose to share a couple of tinnies while resting ourselves in the sun warming his balcony. We shared work experience stories and enjoying the magnificent scenery. 

As dinner time rolled around we found ourselves at the casino’s buffet. The meal selection choices didn’t strike us as being as diverse as we had looked forward to. We were in agreement that this would be are last meal at that restaurant. A few slot machines needed to be tested on the way back to our rooms. We all enjoyed an early turn-in to ready us for a busy day tomorrow.

The drive to Carlsbad took us over more mountains and across more vast savannahs.  We passed through small roadside villages such as Hondo and Tinnie, which was my personal favorite; Roswell and Artesia are both large cities at crossroads with major New Mexico highways.

The name Roswell is synonymous with UFOs. An airborne object crashed on a ranch near Roswell, New Mexico, in June or July, 1947. Explanations of what took place are based on both official and unofficial communications. Although the crash is attributed, by the U.S. government, to a U.S. military surveillance balloon, the most famous explanation of what occurred is that the object was a spacecraft containing extraterrestrial life. Since the late 1970s, the Roswell incident has been the subject of much controversy and conspiracy theories.

Religion, politics, and Roswell are areas of conversation guaranteed to solicit audience participation. So it happened that many miles of this morning’s three hour drive to Carlsbad were swept away unnoticed, consumed with our own theories of what really may have happened near Roswell.

During the late 1800s Eddy County, New Mexico was largely know as cattle country.  In 1902, Carlsbad Caverns were discovered. How the caves were actually discovered is a bit disputed, but the most accepted story attributes the finding to Jim White. As the story goes, Mr. White was looking out over the rolling hillsides adjoining his share of Eddy County and he spotted smoke rising in the distance.  White set off to investigate the cause of the dark spire. When he arrived closer he could see that what appeared to have been smoke was actually a vast number of bats escaping a hole in the ground. The rest is history.

The caves, located in the Guadalupe Mountains, are now known as Carlsbad Caverns National Park. Jim White spent many years investigating the vast network of caves. He is attributed to naming most of the rooms in the caverns and to bringing the Carlsbad Caverns to national attention.

We arrived shortly after 1300. Guided tours for the day had ended but we could still do a self-tour of the Big Room. The Big Room is a natural limestone chamber which is almost 4,000 feet long, 625 feet wide, and 255 feet at the highest point. It is the third largest chamber in North America and ranks seventh in the world.

A little while ago, some 250 million years, the area surrounding Carlsbad Caverns National Park served as the coastline for an inland sea. Present in the sea was a plethora of marine life, whose remains formed a reef. In time, the sea had evaporated and the reef was buried under sediments.

The Park sits in a bed of limestone above groundwater level. During cavern development, however, the limestone bed was within the groundwater zone. Deep below the limestone are petroleum reserves (part of the Mid-Continent Oil Field). At a time near the end of the Cenozoic, hydrogen sulfide (H2S) began to seep upwards from the petroleum into the groundwater. The combination of hydrogen sulfide and oxygen from the water formed sulfuric acid: H2S + 2O2 → H2SO4. The sulfuric acid then continued upward, aggressively dissolving the limestone deposits to form caverns. The presence of gypsum, a byproduct of the reaction between sulfuric acid and limestone, is a confirmation of the occurrence of this process.

Once the acidic groundwater drained from the caverns, speleothems (where is John Mignone when you need him) began to be deposited within the cavern. During the last million years erosion processes occurring above ground created the natural entrance to the Carlsbad Caverns. Exposure to the surface has allowed for the influx of air into the cavern. Rainwater and snowmelt percolating downward into the ground picked up carbon dioxide. Once this water reached a cavern ceiling it precipitated and evaporated leaving behind a small calcium carbonate deposit. Growths from the roof downward formed through this process are known as stalactites. Additionally, water dripped onto the floor of the caverns contained carbonic acid and generate mineral deposits when it evaporated. Growths from the floor upward through this process are known as stalagmites. Different formations of speleothems include columns, soda straws, draperies, helictites, and popcorn. Changes in the ambient air temperature and rainfall affect the rate of growth of speleothems, as higher temperatures increase carbon dioxide production rates within the overlying soil. The color of speleothems is determined by trace amounts of different minerals in the formation.

Hold on there, Bob. That’s a little more geology than we really needed to know. The short version is that the Big Room consumed an hour and half of walking on well railed paths which took us past spectacular stony things cleverly highlighted in the, otherwise beyond just dark, cave.  The vastness of this cave network is unbelievable. The park contains additional networks of caverns White never knew existed. Many of those caverns are closed to public viewing and are reserved for scientific research only.

It was early evening by the time we returned to the Inn of the Mountain Gods for our last night’s stay. In the morning we were going to drive to Alamogordo on our way home to Albuquerque. We had worked hard while in the Caverns today and the beds were welcomed.  

Alamogordo is the gateway to White Sands Proving Grounds and home of the New Mexico Museum of Space History. Inside and outside of the museum is displayed the history of the World’s missile and rocket development. From Copernicus to John Glen and beyond: artifacts and descriptions of achievers in the rocket sciences from all corners of the globe are presented in this four story building.

As one sees when visiting places like the Smithsonian buildings in Washington, there is just too much to take in on one time-limited visit. The Museum of Space History is the same. Knowing such museums exist, and having had a glimpse of them, leaves one the opportunity to have reflections on the true greatness of man’s inventions; born out of both curiosity and survival.

Jack and Margie Mortley are very dear friends of Patti and Stan. Jack is the person I had bought the Triumph Stag from in 2006. Anne and I wanted to have an opportunity to visit with all of them together. Anne decided she would like to use the crock pot to prepare a chicken-chili dinner on Saturday and have them share it with us in the RV.

The meal and the evening were great successes. Jack and Margie also have a motorhome and they enjoyed looking ours over and sharing a few of their travel experiences. I asked Jack what special cars he still had in his barn and he told me of a classic Saab he wouldn’t mind selling me. We all pretty much agreed that the sale wouldn’t go through.

Patti and Stan had us over the next day for a brunch. Anne and Patti dashed off to visit a quilting outlet store at least that was their story. Later in the afternoon we were called and told they were having a wonderful time at the Route 66 Casino and that they would meet us later at a Nob Hill restaurant. That was ok. Stan and I had been watching NFL football and we were happy to let them buy us dinner with their winnings.

The restaurant on Nob Hill, in an original section of Albuquerque, is located on Central Avenue. Central is a section of the old Route 66 highway. A softball friend of Patti’s is a singer who was performing tonight with her band. We had a wonderful final meal together. But now it is time to return to the KOA and prepare for tomorrow’s early departure towards home.

We planned on a fairly short drive for our first day heading northwesterly back to Medford. I was only a couple hundred miles to Durango, CO. The initial miles took us through some very familiar territory. We exited I-25 at a city called Bernalillo, NM.

When I caravanned with Dave, Joy, Chris, Jennifer and the boys a year and half ago we had stayed at an RV park in Bernalillo. This park was alongside the Rio Grande river and if afforded us a great couple of days. Further along Hwy 550N, during that same trip, we had found a remote BLM trailhead parking area located several miles up a bumpy dirt road near the Zia and Jemez Pueblos. That, too, had been some great camping.

The highway beyond the Jemez Pueblo was new territory for both of us. It was an anxious drive for me today. All of the highways to this point were ones I had traveled alone, or with Anne, more than once in the last few years. Breaking new trails in a Vanaroo, or a sedan, is not too bothering. If you miss a critical junction, you just do a U-turn where convenient and correct your error. When you are piloting a 40 foot behemoth with an additional 12 feet of ride-along towed behind, U-turns are no longer an option.

Anne and I had carefully gone over the route to Durango. I circled critical intersections on the map and Anne faithfully kept an eye peeled for flags of change. The passage through Cuba, NM had been no sweat. The highway triangle associated with Bloomfield, Farmington, and Aztec was a bit of a worry. If you could magnify the road map way big, you may notice that at Bloomfield there is a very small jog to the right on Hwy 550N, before it goes on to Aztec.

We came to just one stop light in Bloomfield. This was at a very busy intersection, and one at which new concrete turn lanes were being built. The construction led to greater congestion than normal at this traffic light. We look carefully for signs that may suggest a route change, but we saw none. I crossed the highway when the light turned green.

We were instantly driving into a very residential section of Bloomfield. This was clearly no longer Hwy 550N. After a few blocks, and a lot of driver profanity, we found ourselves at a stop sign labeling the roadway to be Hwy 550N. Anne cleared traffic to the right, and I cleared to the left. When I pulled out there was a pickup on the right. This is when you can’t stop in the middle of the road and let the vehicle go by. This is when you gently pull into your lane confident the other driver sees you and that he knows where his break petal is located.

Option 1: There had never been a turn right for Hwy 550N sign at that stop light or, Option 2: The construction process had seen it removed.  Either way, we hadn’t found the residential section of Bloomfield to be that hot, and we had made it back on track safely. There were only a few dozen miles left before Durango, and the rest of the drive went well.

Durango, CO is located in a river canyon and is approached from high above via Hwy 550N. The road offers non-guard railed glimpses through shoulder foliage of the city nestled way below, while the pathway brings you in a swooping downhill, full engine brake drive around a continuously blind corner. The road then straightens out and flattens into a typical urban setting.

I had programmed the address to Alpen Rose RV Park into my batphone. The phones GPS guidance system has served us well. We didn’t question the directions we were getting from the phone until it led us down narrow; tree shrouded 12^th street and announced we had arrived. There was no RV campground anywhere near the city hall buildings on 12^th street. When I looked at the instructions I had given the phone, I discovered it had dropped the park’s street address and had just left Durango, CO.

The second time with the GPS was a charm. Alpen Rose is a beautiful RV park. We learned upon checking in that this was the last night the park would be open the rest of the year. We got all set up and had time to watch the sunset over the nearby cliffs. We drove downtown on Main Street to find a nice place for dinner.

Durango is a city of 18,000. It is home for a university and has a booming tourist trade during the summer. Nearby there are several notable ski slopes so there is good business during the winter months, as well. Parking spots were slim on the street this evening. We found one a block away from where we wanted to eat. Most of the shops were still open and they all looked fun to browse in. The restaurant was a busy Tex/Mex pub and we both enjoyed our choices.

Tomorrow we needed to cross Utah. The selected route would take us through Moab and up to I-70W. On I-70 we would drive to Richfield’s KOA campground, off Exit 40. Utah is famous for its rock monuments and we pulled over several times to take in these natural wonders. We would like to travel back to Moab, stay for a while, and try to consume some of its beautiful surroundings.

Back at the RV, I studied maps to see where we could drive tomorrow. Ely, NV looked good, but it wasn’t very far on our crossing of Nevada. We had stayed in Fallon on our trip south. There weren’t many options between the two towns. We decided to drive early to Ely, have a comfortable lunch and a nice break, and then trek on to Fallon.

There are a lot of mountains running north and south between Durango and Fallon. The Cummins diesel put in a good day’s work. From high desert plateaus covered with sage-like scrub, over snow shouldered passes reaching near 8,000 feet, back down to what looked like endless square miles of barren, untended mud flats, we took in a lot of wonderful north western America today.

The sun was approaching the highway as we drove US 50 west into Fallon.  We had passed a sign when we first joined Hwy 50 in eastern Nevada. The sign read: Highway 50, the loneliest highway in America. I think it can hold its head high. The RV has terrific automatic sun visors but there is a 4” gap between the windshield post on the side and the edge of the visor. The highway and the sun had aligned themselves such that I had to try to constantly dodge my head left and right to keep the sun out of the gap. This wasn’t the kind of conditions I wanted upon entering downtown Fallon. But, that’s what we got.

We cautiously passed through town and found the RV Park at the city’s northern fringe. They had the reservation Anne had called in yesterday, but the woman who had taken the data had miss-dated it and we were told it had been canceled. No worries, there were plenty of spaces available.

All RV teams form a natural routine of duties when setting up, and when taking down. We have started to find a comfortable grove. I went outside to connect power, cable, water, and sewer while Anne extended the sides and arranged chairs and the kitchen. When I came back inside, she asked me, “Was I ready for my beer?”  Yes, she is a fantastic traveling mate.

Tomorrow would take us across northern California and then into Oregon. Anne asked if I would like to drive into Fallon for dinner and a stop at the casino. I was pooped and declined. She would bring back some dinner for us. I would take a bit of time to rest and enjoy my tinnie.

Anne held the flashlight while I disconnected the CRV from the tow hitch. She got the keys and reported that there was no power in the battery. No problem. After the last time the battery had been zapped by something while we towed the CRV, we had bought a pair of 16 foot jumper cables.  The long cables would comfortably reach the rear batteries of the RV. Anne popped the hood and I showed her how the cables were connected. The car started right up.

Before she backed away, Anne said she noticed she had left the glove box open and her theory was that it may have drained the battery. Towing the CRV has caused a low battery twice, so far. I definitely need to talk to the Guaranty RV folks when we get home. There may be something amiss with the wiring package they had provided when they installed the car’s front towing hitch.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

How to make an Alpaca guitar

This Wednesday began early. The kids were up and I could feel Tucker bounding from spot to spot as his morning eagerness tested the sturdiness of the hilltop ranch house and rattled the spring box of my cozy twin bed.

Chris had met Bill and me at the bus depot in Lebanon, New Hampshire. Our longest delay in today's journey had been for two hours at the end, in Boston's Logan Airport. The next Dartmouth Coach would leave terminal C at 6:55pm. A Reuben sandwich, fries, and a $6.95 pint of IPA at the Ale and Eatery pacified my intolerance for idle waits.

Ernie appeared to be a well seasoned and mellowed coachman. His 40 foot behemoth MCI Dartmouth bus had no foes on the highways north towards our homes for the next few weeks in Barnard, Vermont. I had loaded a version of casino craps onto my iPad and I was soon to discover that for the combined graces of the craps game, the impenetrable view through the glazed windows onto the unlighted scenes outside, and my middle of the coach seat, I was kept non-witness to the hazards being presented as we were hurled through a severe northeastern blizzard on snow packed roads.

Sara had been sound asleep when we dropped Bill off at the Fan House, Sara's B&B in Barnard. For the first few minutes Sara thought we were guests scheduled to arrive at the weekend. Once fully alert, we had a nice, albeit short, visit.  Chris then forged his jeep over the snow and ice packed road to his half mile driveway, tucked into the hillside half way between Barnard and Bethel. It was a good feeling to be safely inside his generously wood-warmed front room.

We waited until late morning to leave for the short drive to Bethel. Over the years refuse from the kitchen garbage disposal had slowly built up a blockage in the cast steel sewage byways suspended beneath the sprawling ranch style home. A plumber's assistant, and his employer had been called in to locate, and destroy the hidden obstruction site.  Chris and I got to avoid the visit.

Chris has rented a couple thousand feet of street frontage space, which is soon to become the factory for Alpaca guitars. The building at 216 Main Street was last occupied by a grocery store. There is only one through street in Bethel, Vermont.  There are no stop signs on Main Street. A sidewalk separates the old store's aluminum clad wall, with two protruding windows, from the occasionally trafficked roadway. As Chris crunched the Jeep's wheels into the packed snow at the curb's edge he noticed that a snow blower had worked the street since his last visit. The aluminum siding and windows were blotched with the melt of recently hurled snow. 

 

My introduction to the inside of the new shops was visually toxic. I had no trouble picturing many ways I could help Chris get set up and running. Yesterday evening the city board approved a code variance which would permit Alpaca Guitar to manufacture within the city limits. There had been only one objection voiced by the audience of four and Chris had comfortably addressed her concerns. Up to this time, what Chris had done for improvements had been limited to furnishings which could be easily relocated should the council not approve his request.

Today our initial job is to build a wall to divide the entry area, which is going to serve as office, public reception and finished product display, from a larger space to be used for finished tooling and assembly. The finishing room will be noisy and interruptive to other business activities.

 

The Alpaca guitar will be molded, using plant derived epoxy resins and fabrics made from plant fibers. A lot of thought and research has gone into manufacturing a very eco-conscious musical instrument. The same spirit guided the design of the new wall.

Two by four studs were used for the framing of the wall. From that point on, it was all recycled. I held an image in my head about all of the magnificent multistoried red barns populating the fields and farm yards on the road from Chris' home to downtown Bethel. They aren't, however, all used for the betterment of livestock. Some are used to hide treasure troves of no longer needed or wanted building products. In one barn Chris found a dozen old double hung windows. In another, he found a stack of doors; some solid core, and some hollow core. We needed some of both kinds. Where the new wall didn't hold windows, it needed siding. A pile of 15 foot long edge trim planks was found on a refuse pile at a nearby sawmill.

 

In two day's time, we had the wall completed. All of the windows have scruffy, peeling white paint. The doors are battered a bit and trimmed to fit. The plank siding gives the wall a very colonial cabin motif. The wall will serve its design purposes: isolate the noise and small mess involved with the guitar's assembly, permit an easy public viewing of the building process, and portray the owner's personal interests in not wasting nature's resources.

 

The former grocer had large cooler. Outfitted with several self-closing glass doors, this room can be used as a quasi clean room where the Alpaca guitar molds can be laid up and vacuum cured. Precut fabric will be carted in from the finishing room and cured product will be carted back for final trimming and assembly. The room has two glass end doors which need to be removed and replaced with a set of wooden doors for cart access. Removing the old doors was quickly done.

 Once the room had been opened up, we moved three of the 4x8 tables Chris had made into the cooler. The tables sat well and there will be ample room to move about. We located where the vacuum pump could be located in the upstairs of the adjoining section of the old store. It is a short and direct run for vacuum lines to the layup room, and there will be little noise heard from the pump.

 Parts for the CNC machine were starting to dribble in via UPS. Now that we had three less tables to work around in the finishing room, we could dig out the plans and assemble the MDF plywood needed to construct the very large torsion table which would hold the CNC milling hardware.

The closest source for the MDF is Home Depot, in Lebanon. We spent the rest of the day driving there and back. Six of the large sheets were required. We were able to have them all cut to their largest single dimensions while at the store. This made handling the pieces much easier. A full sheet of 3/4" MDF weighs over 90 pounds. Chris also picked up a finishing nail gun and a gallon of Tightbond II wood glue. We would go through over 3 pints of glue on this single table. All of the cut pieces fit on the jeep's roof rack and we were back and unloaded just before the phone rang for dinner.

 The three sheets of 3/4" and three sheets of 1/2" MDF had to be further cut to exacting dimensions for the honey combed inside of the 5-1/2" thick table top. Chris, Bill and I set up a cutting assembly line. By the end of the day we were all coated in sawdust, but the icky part of the project was finished. Tomorrow Chris and I would put the 120 some pieces together. After dusting off and vacuuming the room, we all headed home.

 The CNC router's movable gantry mounts to the torsion top table. The computer controlled router moves left and right, and up and down. It does this in micro stepping movements controlled by chain driven servo motors. Because of the rapid changes in motion of the heavy router, the table cannot have any ability to rock. The gantry assembly requires a table width of 52", exactly. The length of the table is to be 126". This will permit the cutting of a 4x8' sheet of plywood.

 We built the table upside down, beginning from the 3/4" top layer. We took about a half hour gluing up a single course of the honey comb interior. We would then clamp it and set the timer for half an hour, the minimum clamp time for the Tightbond glue. There are seven courses of honey comb inside the table. The final task was to run a glue line on the top of the entire honey comb structure and then clamp on the two pieces of 1/2" MDF that form the bottom of the table top. 

I finished the day by mounting triangulation braces on the table to be used for the base. The base can't wiggle, either. Tomorrow the glue will be fully set and we can mount the top to the base. The torsion top weighs in at just under 400 pounds. It will take four of us to turn it right side up and to position it on the base.

 Chris's middle son, Elliot, is a budding construction engineer. Tonight Chris swayed Jennifer into letting Elliot skip school tomorrow so he could put his native talents to use while helping his dad assemble the gantry system. The gantry is a real life Lego-maniac’s dream come true.

Chris and I quickly cut out and assembled one more finishing table. Having moved three tables to the molding room, Chris felt he would need one more table in the finishing room. Bill came over just before lunch time. He and Chris got stuck into mounting rails on the torsion box for the gantry to roll on. Like a narrow gauge railroad, the gantry rails needed to be precisely parallel. The measurements came out perfectly.

The gantry holds the spindle, a router without handles, and it holds the servo-motors which will guide the gantry up and down the length of the table, the spindle back and forth across the gantry, and the spindle up and down on the gantry as it is traveling the length and width of the torsion table. The spindle itself is mounted on a miniature gantry gliding on rails mounted on top of the main gantry. The smaller gantry permits movement of the spindle across the table. But wait, on the side of the small gantry the spindle mounting block can move up and down on its own set of rails. As a result, the spindle's cutting bit can traverse the whole surface of a 4x8 foot plane and do it while moving up and down a 9" height. The X, Y and Z axis movement of the spindle in done with fine chains and sprockets which can control the bit's position to within 0.001mm, or 1 micro.

 The description just presented is to illustrate the complexity of this erector set. Because it needs to be constructed in a very a, b, c manner only one person can effectively be involved; the task is left to Chris. The assembly process has its own built-in agitators: holes for the bolts had been drilled at the factory at such a close tolerance they required each bolt to be screwed through the wood before it could then be screwed into the nut; the on-line instruction manual contained several typo errors, and the coup de grace was that the precut brackets for the spindle didn't fit the spindle motor size Chris had ordered.

While Chris labored on the CNC machine, I set up the upstairs vacuum pump, vacuum tank and 1/2" pvc vacuum lines to the mold room. I mounted the 1/2" pipe about 20" above the two curing tables. At 18" intervals, I cut the pipe and installed a T-junction, 10 of them altogether. On each T-junction I mounted a tube bib to connect to 1/8" i.d. vacuum hoses. Each vacuum tube can be opened, or closed, with a pinch clamp. The tube then connects to a polyvinyl bag holding a fresh mold. The vacuum process evacuates any laid up air trapped in the fabric.

Chris decoded the CNC computer and had the gantry gently moving about the torsion table in the X and Y axis directions. It may be a couple of days yet before the Z axis replacement pieces arrive. When they do, he will be able to calibrate the spindle, router, over its whole range of motion. On top of the torsion table will be a 4x 8 foot of 1/4" to 1/2" plywood, or MDF. This sheet will provide over shot protection for the torsion table top. When the scab sheet is attached, Chris will program the spindle to skim over the new layer and shave where needed to achieve a perfectly flat surface for the spindles reference.

Matt and Andrew were coming to the shop today to begin construction of the tote bags which go with each guitar. The bags are to be made out of organic cotton canvas. Chris has received the 67" long, 80 pound roll of canvas. The roll has been hoisted onto the rack behind the fabric cutting table.

 Each bag will use a piece of cotton that is 51" long and 14-1/2" wide. From the large off cuts of MDF, I laid out lines to run the skill saw down. Grooves about 1/4" deep will permit scissors to be guided accurately for the cuts.

 

Chris worked with Andrew on the most economical way to cut the large strips. Chris used one of Jennifer's sewing machines and quickly stitched the first bag and verified the Alpaca guitar fit snugly. The first time is a winner. Matt was given a quick lesson on machine stitching 101 and turned loose with the strips Andrew was making. Alpaca Guitar, Inc. has its first assembly line up and running.

Andrew felt the front area need some sparking up. He and Matt teamed up to achieve what may have seemed to them as the impossible. Matt cleaned the deck over the mold room, made mounts to hang the Wi-Fi and telephone equipment in the phone hallway, and worked atop the ladder and removed all of the display peg board which once surrounded the inside of the old grocery store. Andrew visited the hardware store and returned with a quart of brown paint to dress up the window trim. He foraged in the back recesses and came out with a gallon of white paint to be used on the walls. Things quickly began to take on a fresher look.

Chris has worked up programming which commands the CNC machine to carve out words. The spindle is still not mounted, so only the X and Y axis are functioning. In lieu of a spindle, Chris taped a pencil to the gantry. He taped paper to the top of the torsion table. Instead of a carved piece, Chris' result was a very accurately drawn banner, which read, "Chris"; a small step for mankind, but a huge leap for Alpaca Guitar. It was exciting to see the output of this complicated piece of equipment.

The Z-axis spindle brackets finally came in. Chris had gone to bed last night with a stuffed up head. He slept in and stayed home today. Bill joined me at the shop and together we muddled through this last part of the erector set. The final hook up will be left for Chris.

I visited the hardware store across the street and bought some 4" flexible dryer duct, a few angle junctions and some large straps. My next job was to run the ducting and hook up the CNC vacuum system. This task took the best part of a day. The final thing needed for the vacuum system was to install a ground strap from the metal duct to a nearby electrical spot. A huge amount of static voltage can build up on this system and if it is not well grounded, it could seriously shock, or worse, ruin the computer.

 

The CNC was finally working. Chris began experimenting with simple word etchings. He needed to spend time filtering through the many computer commands and options. While Chris learned the machine, I cutout, planed and laminated 2x4s into stock which he would use to make the several guitar forming mold plugs. Together, we created several boxes of sawdust, which would soon be used to cover the floor of Chris' chicken coop. No wasted wood here.

 

I did a lot of laminating. The learning curve on the machine was very steep and unforgiving. We will have watched the machine carve for four to five hours and then a Y axis sprocket would spin loose. This caused an erratic movement of the spindle ruining the work.

One day we planned to do no more carving until we resolved failing parts on the CNC. It turned out the sprockets and attached bearings had been made in China. Glue had been used to hold the sprockets to their bearings. Under load, the glue broke and the sprockets spun freely, causing no movement. We took the machine apart and used a punch to peen all of the sprockets. At the end of the day we were ready, and confident we had improved the machine.

 Over the next two days we carved a successful plug. What a good moment that was. The guitar's body had a shape. Now, we needed to turn attention to creating a plug for the soundboard, or top. I was back to laminating more wood while Chris prepared the programming.

 

The body plug was far from finished. The machine did two complete carves on the same block of wood. Each carving took a full day. The first carving created a rough cut. The rough cut took wide and deep passes over the block. This left a terraced appearance to the plug. The second carving session is called the finishing cut. This cut is at right angles to the rough one and removes all of the terraced steps. After the finishing cut is complete the plug is ready for hand work on the bench.

 It took several days of sanding to remove all of the residual imperfections on the plug. We needed to make sure I didn't over sand the bottom of the plug because its shape was critical to properly mate with an extension piece. To help avoid this problem we bought a couple of pieces of sheet metal and Chris set the program to just cut out the shape of the bottom of the plug. We then screwed the metal to the bottom of the plug. My mission was now to sand until I was hitting metal on all spots. The metal shape was then transferred to the extension piece and I got to do it all again.

A week and half later I was ready to apply lacquer to the assembled plug. The plug was made up of three separate layers. Each layer created a line which required multiple applications of wood putty. In the wait times while the CNC was cutting and while the later coats of lacquer were drying, I was kept busy with infrastructure jobs.

One sunny day I spent spray painting a new white cover on the weathered outside vinyl lath.  The building has seen a couple of decades since cosmetic attention has been paid to it. Another day I scraped and painted the eave. I installed a knob and lock on an inner door and found the pieces of a threefold door which I made into a one piece door. More scrubbing, and then some paint was applied to the inside of the front door. I refinished a bench on the sidewalk near the front door. The list of fix ups was long.

After each lacquer coat dried, I sanded imperfections and discovered new spots where spackle could be used. Finally, I had a plug that shined in all places; was smooth to the touch and ready for the next step.

 

Before a plug can be used to make a mold it has to have a mold release applied. In the old days, the mold release was commonly several coats of wax. Wax didn't generally adequately fill in small, micro blemishes, however, and its use has been replaced with polyvinyl alcohol (pva). Several coats of pva are sprayed onto the mold until a colored surface is obtained. Pva forms a barrier between the plug and the resin used to make the mold. No resin touches the plug. When cured, the mold and plug are then washed with water.

The secret to applying pva is to do so without creating runs or other spray blemishes. Since the pva becomes the plug, as the resin sees it, blemishes will show in the result. I had set up an outback spray table so pva could be applied without the need for venting. At the end of the day Chris applied a coat to the plug. We brought it inside for the night and went home.

At noon today Rebecca is going to pick me up at the office and drive me to Lebanon to catch the bus to Boston's Logan airport. I got up early and drove the boys to the bus stop, where we said quick goodbyes. That was sad. After breakfast I said goodbye to Jennifer, and Chris and I loaded bags into his jeep. I still had four hours I could use to help at the shop.

We discovered that the pva applied to the plug last night had run. I washed it down, dried it off, and got it ready for a series of re-sprays. I used a heat gun to speed the drying steps. We put on five coats of pva before we called it good. The end result was a satin-like surface. We both thought this would be more user friendly that a mirror finish. If it doesn't look and feel good, it can be changed on the next mold cast.

Rebecca pulled up outside on schedule. It was hard for me to say goodbye to Chris. We had spent six weeks, working each day, and I was leaving on the eve of the result. Chris is a great team leader and Alpaca Guitar Company will do well. I look forward to a return, with Anne, in our new coach to see how the production line is working. Go get 'em Chris.