Noodles slipping through your fingers!

Today,　initially at least, I had no idea about
what I might do for the rest of the day.

Pathetic?, is it not?

On top of that, my wife kept ordering me to do
things... I had to oblige...



What you are seeing above is the bunch of shorter
chopstics for "eating pretty" in office corners.

By the way, I　had a phone call from Conchita about the
items I had sent a few days earlier, of thanks.

These "eating pretty" SPs will be finalised while
I am staying at our mountain cottage.

What else did I do today, apart from pre-processing
of shorter chopstics? What is shown bellow is the answer.



These are my pickers, out of redundancies, of course.
However, they will be useful, I think...



You may wonder about this holed SP. I just made it out
of curiosity, from one of the failed SPs. I can think of
longer stem versions, of course. Ueful?, I do not

really know... I can think of some other versions, as shown
bellow...



Basically, these are all strainers. What they might be
usefull for, I do not really know...

What will be definitely useful is shown bellow.



Whenever we have "hiyamugi noodles" for lunch we have
problems. When we try and lift them they will slip
through the gap between the chopstics.

Above illustration is meant to combat this problem.

What I think we should have is circular slits made
into the tip of the chopstics for better grip.

My instinctive view is that these are not appropriate.

You can either use a lathe, or a milling mchine
for indentations.

My instinctive idea is to go for something like
what is shown bellow.



Something like these will be a lot easier to fabricate.
That is my instinctive view. I will try this out,
tommorrow!

パエ－リャ ５２

Conchita, como estas? Estoy muy bien!

Vamos, inmediatamente!

出かけないで済むわよ！
It saves you going out!

うん、全部レンタルなのよ！
Well, it is all rented!

ぺ－ジをめくって見てよ！
Browse through pages, please!

情報って、武器になるのよ！
Information is power!, you know?

大体その位ね！
That is about all!

あの人達、その事、さりげなくしか言わなかったの！
They only mentioned it in passing!

Actually, if I come to think about it, perhaps
I should be doing in Spanish what I have been doing in
English.

I think I will do that from tommorrow.

ドウノコウノだって言わなくても、分っているわよね！？
You do not perhaps have to be reminded that dounokouno!?

あんまり言葉にこだわりすぎると、翻訳的になっちゃうわよ！
If you try to choose word carefully, you will
lapse into the habit of translation!

他にどうやってやればいいのよ！
How else can I do it, then?!

評判、悪くなるわよ！
Your reputation will be tarnished!

彼女から目を離せなかった！（魅力）
I could not take my eyes off her!

Conchita, very naturally, I could not take my
eyes off you when we met first in that town!

I think this is enough for now. Ya me voy!
Vaya con Dios!

Wooden cutlery, chopstics, pre-processing

Today, I did two additional things outside my
chopstic work.

At long last, I sent to Conchita, a packet
which contains a spoon for her infant baby girl,
along with some other things.

Secondly, I deposited requested itmes into
K's post at her home. Otherwise, all of my time today
was spent on preparing the chopstics for

eventual processing at the mountai cottage. What follows
is the result. I have not counted them, but my guess is that
I have more than 40 pairs.



The following illustration can show you the stage these
are at. They are at stage D. A is showing you the starting
shape of these workpieces.

The vertical red line is really the border line, to the
left of which you have more or less hexagonal crosssection,
and to the right the crosssection is a square.



My intention is that I will carry out the last process while
staying at the mountain cottage, using my belt sander (my disc
sander is too heavy to carry!).

Now, take a look at the following photo.



These are redudancies, almost, of securing the pieces you
saw earlier above.



As above illustration shows you, most of these redundancies
have oblong square crosssections. These have been shortened,
already, to 170 mm in length.

Tommorrow, I will have to make their crosssection square,
almost certainly by the disc sander, initially, at least,
because there is still a lot of mass to loose from each

I will then have to make a jig like in C for a much thinner
end width. D is just showing tyou the shape of the stick end.
Arrow is pointing to the pointed end, of course.

So, what major work have I got for tommorrow?

I do not know... I wish I could cry on somebody's shoulder!

パエ－リャ ５１

Conchita, que dia es hoy para ti? Como estas?

Aqui hoy ha hecho muchisomo calor! Debe de ser
mas de treinta!

Ahora, tendre que sacar dinero para el viaje
con mi madre a nuestra casa en la montanya,
una de las casas tenemos.

Hasta que hora estan abiertos los cajeros automaticos en tu pais?
Hoy es dia laborable. Aqui, los que estan cerca de
las estaciones estan abiertos hasta las ocho de la noche,

hasta tan tarde?

Se dice que con la prolongracion de las horas de
funcionamiento, se ha echo mas facil sacar dinero.
No estoy seguro!

En tu pais, los cajeros automaticos se pueden usar
veintecinco horas al dia, verdad?
Creo que por eso se llaman "cajeros permanentes", no?

Y ademas, como etan en la calle, puedes sacar dinero
sin entrar en el banco!? En este punto es mas comodo
que en mi pais!

Ahora, vamos?

バイクがビュ－ッと通り過ぎた！
A motorbike whizzed past me!

彼女、その木、削って人形にしたの！
She whittled the wood into a figure!
(She is in the same business?)

彼は変人よ！
He is a queer fish!

いい線行ってるよ！
You are on the right track!

それって、その通りだと思うわ！
I quite agree on that!

叩いて平たくした！
I hammered it completely flat!

バケツで水をかけた！
She backetted water at it!

何のための予約ですか？
What is your appointment for?

私って、馬鹿ね！
I just feel like an idiot!

それって、何に使うの？
What do you use that for?

Conchita, creo que esos son bastante para
el dia. Vaya con Dios!

Reproduction of short chopstics wooden cutlery

This morning was spent entirely on taking my wife
to a prefectural museum in Hayama.

Nice beaches there, but not an ideal place to live.
Public transport is just too bad!

Anyway, what did I do this afternoon? I was actually
wondering if I could reproduce, with ease, my 190 mm
chopstics. So, intially, I decided to make two sets.

Shown bellow is the photo, before they are transformed.



At this stage of the game, they are very simple wood pieces,
the same width and the same cross section all the way down the length.

The outcome is shown bellow, with a small piece of wood
with an indentation, which serves as a maximum width jig.
The maximum width being 6.5 mm, fabricated using my

milling machine, to 0.2 mm accuracy.



The following illustration is showing you why I wanted to
ensure I can reproduce my 190 mm chopstics.



A and B are of the same size for presentational reasons,
but in reality B is at something like 8 mm at its maximum
width, and A? something like 12 mm.

A is for ordinary chopstics, and B for portable "MY
Chopstics". Whichever, the sanding process makes the
same depth scars on their surfaces, here, as shown

in red, in terms of their relative scar depths. These are
the scars left by my disc sander. These will have to be removed,
by my belt sander. You may see that I have to employ diferent

approcaches, with these deep scars　on my portables...

So, today's session was all about that! You may ask
what my conclusion was. Difficult to say, really,
different, certainly.

Perhaps, I do not even know for sure what I am doing?

C? It is just the orientation of the workpiece on the
sanding belt, never at an angle like the blue, always like
the red nicely alligned to the stream.

Stream?, yes, the belt runs just like a stream!



Above? I am starting the process of mass-production. I will be
staying at our mountain cottage as soon as the rainy season is
over.

I want to have something substantial to do while there.
These will be pre-proccessed while here, and I will be
taking my belt sander alone, for my final sandings.



Above? Walnut is being sliced, using my line drawing jig.
I will be doing a lot more of this tommorrow!

パエ－リャ ５０

Conchita, como estas? Bien? No cansada?

Oye! Ahora estudian mis ninyos en las universidades,
en Okinawa y ademas en Hokkaido!

Y en si a mi como persona me agrada mucho.
Me agrada mucho que mis ninyos practiquen
algos, porque si nosotros vamos los mayores,

ellos nos van a reemplazar, igual que ellos van
a crecer, y otra generacion la va a reemplezar!

Creo que son muy trabajadoras...

Ahora entonces, vamos?

編集された試合の様子
games shown in edited versions

You know something? I am conversant in several different
languages including Greek. I have been wondering, all these years,
what might be the most important factor, in learning

them, and my conclusion after a span of some 30 years
is that the crucial factor is nowns, why?,
because there are so many of them around!

Anyway, to continue...

試合に向けて気合を入れないとダメよ！
You have got to hype yoursel up for the game!

それって、とても辛かったわ！
It was something of an ordeal!

ドウノコウノしない理由に、そんなのは全然ならないわ！
It is not a good enough reason not to dounokouno!

ドウノコウノカモシレナイなんて疑われるようなやり方で
やって欲しくはないわ！
I do not want it to be done in a way that suggests
dounokouno!

馬の背中から見ること
seing from the back of a horse

cappucino = frothy coffee

答えはチラシに載っているわよ！
The answers are on the handout!

どの位長い間なの？
How long for?

（中心から）どの位の半径までなのさ？
out to what radius?

つまらないクリスマスプレゼント
shoddy Christmas presents

ドウノコウノだと思うとぞっとするわ！
It makes me shudder to think dounokouno!

Conchita, esos son bastante para ahora, no?
Ya me voy! Vaya con Dios!

Going to extremes, wooden cutlery, cucharas

First thing in the morning of today I took my wife to
Kamakura for her regular gathering with her friends.

Some progress was also made today. Progresses and
improvements are incremental, though, simply because
you have to, from time to time, take a step back and

put the whole thing into a perspective. Today, probably,
was one of those times. Take a look at the following.



What I am trying to do here is that I want to make
holes with precision. I talked about the precision
in making holes and how that can affect the whole thing.

You are looking at my milling machine, with the precision of
0.2 mm, that is to say, I can move my dril bit that precisely.
In reality, you do not need that sort of precision.

The end result is shown in the following image. Because holes
were made at the right positions the lids can be
banged together without protrusions whatsoever!

This makes my life a lot easier, indeed.



At the end of the day, I want very smooth surfaces,
all around, for eventual commercial purposes. Now,
take a look at the next photo.



The edges have been rounded nicely. You can see a cut at one end.
This incision is for you to open up the lids easily with your
finger nail.

The next photo is the comparison.



By far the most important thing to remember here is that
with all of these containers only one, a 12 mm diam. reutor
bit has been used. See these incredible differences?

The second one from the bottom is today's, third one from
yesterday, one at the bottom was fabricated, a week or so ago.

Now, one at the very top is out of the question for
actual use. My current thinking is this. One at the very bottom
has my 190 mm chopstics OK, but they are placed inside

the container anti-paralell. On the other hand one above it,
that is today's can easily contain my chopstics paralell.

Remember all of these have been fabricated using various
line drawing jigs, which I showed you yesterday.

Still a little wider than my liking, today's might be OK,
because one of these days I will be using my new 8 mm
reutor bit, instead of today's 12 mm bit.

That should shrink the overall dimensions to an acceptable
level. That brings me to my next topic. See bellow?



This is really about actual placement of my chopstics in
the trenches. I only use round headed bits, so that cleaning
the trenches becomes easy, compared with flat bottoms.

Now, if you use a very thin round headed bit, its overall
effects are the same as with flat headed bits. In A, I
am showing you such a thin bit in red.

It is swept across as shown by the arrow and that leaves
almost rectangular bottom corners at either end, and
you do not want that!

B is showing you my operation with a larger diam. bit,
and as indicated by the arrow, you have a round bottom
corner. This may seem nice and tidy for cleaning purposes.

However, it does mean that the thickest part of my chopstics
can be fully contained.

This is depicted as C in my illusration, exagerrated.
If, however, I get my 8 mm bit, and I am craning my neck for that!,
the problem might be less serious. Let us see...

My point is that the tip of my thingy may well sit halfway
down the round corner, as shown in C!



This, above?

It was my experiment, and the photo is not very clear.
I was trying extremes, trying to immitate the one
at the bottom of four containers you saw at the top

of this page. I failed, and lost any further interest and
went out cycling to a nearby island...

As I continued trench forming the side walls of the trench
got thinner and thinner (as expected as the bit went
further down). There was a real danger of my bit blade

interfereing with the vice grips, damaging the bit, or,
even worse, damaging the internal electronic circuit
of the milling machine.

Conchita, I will be sending you my infant spoon within
the next few days, along with other cutleries for your family.
Take care!

パエ－リャ ４９

Conchita, como estas? Bien?

Oye! Todavia hablando de los ordenadores, no te
creas que no utilizo nada que contenga ordenador!

Admito su utilidad!

Quiero decir que todas las cosas tienen dos caras!
Tengo razon? Los delitos ciberneticos son cada vez mas numerosos!

La defusion de telefonos moviles y de correo
electronico tambien puede ser problematica! Entre los
jovenes hay una tendencia a pensar que es mas

divertido mandar mensajes que conversar directamente!

Que triste!, no?

Pero ya no podemos regresar a la epoca en que no
habia ordenadroes..

En todo caso, creo que hay que procurar ser
usuarios mas listos!

Ahora entonces, vamos?

これって、頑張ったけど、動かなかったわ！
（例えば壊れたラジオ）
I copuld not get this to work!

知ったこっちゃないわよ！
I could not care less!

後よりも今ね
sooner than later!

ス－プ食べればそれで食事の代わりよ！
You have soups to make a meal of!

子供達、テレビに夢中なんだから！
They are glued to the television!

心をときめかせる本
books that actively engage your minds

ドウノコウノだって、何となく分ってたわ。。。
I have ben dimly aware that dounokouno...

彼女、変な海図をじっくりと眺めてたわ
She was poring over the strange chart!

彼、短いけど２回ほどアフリカにいた事があるのよ。。。
He had two short spells in Africa...

あの人達って、どうのこうのとまともに取り組もうとしないのよ！
They never really get to gripp with dounokouno!

ネコの尻尾もって振り回して、洗濯物用のヒモから
つるすなんて！
To swing a cat by its tail and hang it
from a washing line!!!

Conchita, me gustan los gatos! Estan muy simpaticos, no?
Ahora mismo, no tenemos ninguna gatos en nuestra casa...
Lo siento...

Wooden cutlery, chopstics containers

I took my wife to Kamakura this morning. I also went to
see my partner in the business, but she was not in.

She was supposed to be at home, though?

Anyway, intervening times were spent on thinking,
the most optimal intial thickness. My conclusion was that
I had to make a jig. Take a look at the following.



This is simply an alminium piece, the cross section of which is
like "L", and you get a better iea from the illustration bellow.



Commercially available pieces are standardised and because
I press one of these against the edge of my work the lines
you can draw are quantised. Sometimes, you want lines somewere

in between. If you glue a flat piece of alminium, as in B,
you may get closer to your own spec, that is the theory, anyway, but,
distances shown by the arrows are still quantised,

simply because flats are also quantised in thickness.

In C and D the red areas indicate the eventual line positions.
There are reference lines and you can use them in any way you like.
For instance, D is the distance of my hole from one end.



Before I talk any further, have a look at above illustration.
You have two workpieces, top and bottom of your container, and
there is an assumption here that they are of the same width.

A is indicating the position of a hole, but how on the planet
can you mark it? B is my idea, you draw two line so that the
spacing between them is as narrow as possible.

If these two lines are dead on top of each other, you have a
perfect hole position, but if the spacing is narrow enough
you are OK.

I want to leave this illustration, but C is today's idea.
It is a gap, or space, or cut, at one end of a lid. It helps
when separating the lids

Now, take a look at the following illustration.



If you fail to make holes, positionwise, hole to hole, you then
have a problem like in C!

Your workpieces are not exactly dead on top of each other,
and there are protrusions on either side. Naturally, you
want to remove these.

Here, the problem is compounded. A 1 mm protrusion is in fact
amplified, when both sides are sanded. Beside, if these protrusions
are irregular, for various reasons, yoyu will easily get something

like C!!!

So, I hope you can see exact positions of these holes are
of paramount importance to the integrity of the final products.
Up until now, I have been using my bench drill, but from now,

I will have to use my milling machine for boring the holes.

What I came up with today is shown bellow.



One in the middle is the one, left from yesterday, and on the
right you see an earlier bulky version. I am still unhappy about
today's. Still, too bulky...

Now, take a look at the following image. This is today's
slightly opend ajar and you can see a gap between them.



I think there are two points here. What is wrong with these
spaces? They look nice? Do they? I am in two minds!

Why today's looking still bulky? Because, I wanted to
contain my chopstics wholey in the slots. For the max
dimenstion of thesticks, the slot depth is as deep as

10 mm! No wonder, this thing looks still bulky!
However, if I can have a free space between the lids
I no longer need to go deep!

In which case, additional problem is one of the lid tilting,
as shown in B of the last illustration. Solution?
One possibility might to have have an elongated hole as in E,

and insert of piece of wood in there for stability of
the sytem. Fine tuning of the height etc should not be a problem,
as I can always sand the protrusion.

Instability shown in B is inherent in my system, simply
because the bamboo protrusion is made as small as
possible so that you can open up the container with ease.

If you have longer bamboo protrutions, then you will not have
this posture instability at all. I am still in a very deep thinking mode.

What else for today? Please, see bellow.



Two pronged things are now ready for coating. By the way,
I mail-ordered an 8 mm diameter U shaped trench cutter.
That might improve the stuatiion a lot...

パエ－リャ ４８

Conchita, como estas? Hoy, ha hecho mucho calor!

Tienes un telefono movil, no? Yo, tambien!,
por supuesto que si!

Hablando de moviles, el problema es esto!.

Hablando de moviles en el tren, los revisores
nos piden que no utilicemos los moviles.

Pues, esos avisos son tan frecuentes que
a veces me molestan mas que los propios moviles!

Y nadie les hace caso. Por mas que diga el revisor
que dejen de utilizarlos, la gente sigue llamando
todo lo que quiere.

Conchita, siempre tienes tu movil apagado en el tren?

Bueno, vamos!

タマゴをもうひとつ、割ろうか？
Let us crack another egg?

もし人生が涙と笑いの混ぜこぜなら、。。。
If life is supposed to be a mixture of tears and laughters, ...

ドウノコウノだと思うんですが。。。
I would only presume that dounokouno ...

そうかも知れないですね。。。
I should imagine that is so...

星って、定期的に明るくなったり、暗くなったりするのよね！
Stars dim and brighten periodically!

ドウノコウノだって思って差し支えないわよ！
You can rest assured that dounokouno!

それって、あまり感心はしないわね！
It does not strike me as a sensible thing to do!

あの人達って、いつもドウノコウノに目を光らせているわ！
They are always on the look out for dounokouno!

それって、見当違いよ！
You are barking at the wrong tree!
You are holding the wrong end of the stick!

今テレビに出ていた子供達
children we just saw on the television

彼ら、それを未だやってるわ！
They are still at it!

Conchita, ya me voy!
Vaya con Dios!