latest insights, wooden cutlery, chopstic cases

What was my day like today?

I am pleased with the outcome. No Kamakura business,
except that I took my wife to, by car, that is, to
a place, where, I think, she donated some of her

redundancies.I am not too sure, though...

In terms of my artistic activities!?, I should
perhaps start with the following image.



Can you see a single lid of a chopstic container, going
over and across two bulky containers? On of them is
opened up.

With the one that is going across what you are seeing is
the top profile, while one underneath on the left is twice
one single side profile, as the whole lot is coupled together.

The issue here is this, and bacause you cannot see

the side profile of the overlay it may not sound too convincing.
Let me try, though. With the overlay, the trench width is
exactly the same, at 12 mm.

However, I found that the trench depth was much shallower
than the bulky ones, and yet enough, just about enough
for my 6 mm chopstics! This was a relevation!

So, what I did today was to stay with the same 12 mm
router bit, but went down in the trench thickness.
What follows is the outcome.



You are looking at the side profile of both today's and
yesterday's bulky thing (of course, which side constitutes
side and top is a matter of argument!).

Can you see how slim today's is? Trench width is the same at 12 mm.
What follows is an image where today's was opened up.



By far the most important discovery of today is that by calculating
the relative occupancies involved, in taking up space,
volume, and bottom thickness I can get away with much

slimer containers. For instance, today's overall thickness was
9 mm, so I decided that I should leave 2mm for the bottom thickness.
That should give me 7 mm, just enough for my max. diam. at

6 mm of the chopstics. They are (almost completely) contained
in the trench. OK, I should have started with 10 mm, and that
is for tommorrow and beyond.

Now, take a look at the following.




The one on the left is the 12 mm router bit. Immediatly to the
right is my 12 mm ruby sander (abraser) and at the right is
shown my much smaller rugby ball shaped ruby sander.

My simplistic view until yesterday was that forming neat
trenches can be best done if I used the same diamter for
the router bit and the sander. Alas!, they do not have

8 mm spherical (diamond or ruby) sanders on the market!
My heart was sinking down, slowly and slowly. Because,
what I had in mind was to obtain an 8 mm router bit.

See this?

I am going to get one from this company, then trench width will become
much narrower, and the whole thing becoming much slimmer!

So, what about the rugby ball? My discovery today is that
even rugby ball can achieve what I want, i.e., removing
scars left by the router bit.

On top of that!, I also made the bit rotation to a minimum.
Amazingly, or, perhaps not so amazingly, burns were not
formed at the ends of the trench!

With walnuts it does not matter, when they are coated, as
they become brown, anyway.



Above is just showing you just how the rest of my time was
used. These are "difficult to make gaps" things. I lost only
one of these due to the difficulty in forming gaps!

An achievement, is it not!

パエ－リャ ４７

Conchita, que te pasa? Como estas?

Que estas haciendo alla? Leyendo unos libros?,
comiendo tu cena con tu hija?

Muchas gracias a la fotografia de tu hija.
Esta muy bien! y ella aparece muy simpatica,
y ademas muy bonita!

Quisiera ir a tu pais! Pero, treinta horas por
el avion! Es un poco demasiado, no? Y, ademas,
yo no podria vivir sin mis cigarrillos por tantas

horas!

No hay problemas con el viaje, verdad? Mi mujer y yo,
estamos listos para ir al Oceano Pacifico Sur!
Me dejieron que ellas tambien estan listas con nuestra viaje!

Bueno, vamos!

これって、プログラムの半分しか来てないのよ！
This is still only halfway through the programme!

そのお金はもうすぐ手に入るわよ！
That money is forthcoming soon!

この計算機って、バッテリ－で動くのよ！
This calculator works off a battery!

この雑音、屋内配線から来てると思うわ！
This noise must be coming down the mains lead!

彼って、テレサと背中合わせだったのよ！
He was back to back with Teresa!

決着のつかない（ダラダラとした）戦いなんか、ごめんよ！
I do not want to be drawn into a running battle!

今は、何もしないでね！
Do not do anything at the moment!

OK, you may say this is too simple and obvious.
It probably was to me as well, then. However,
the point is this. Can you say this spontaneously?

彼ら、今日、南アフリカに出かけるのよ！
hey are off to South Africa today!

彼女が何て言うか、聞いてみようよ！
Let us hear what she has to say!

Conchita, esto es bastante para hoy!
Vaya con Dios!

Chopstics containers, wooden cutlery

Mi mujer esta en Tokio ahora mismo and there was
no Kamakura business.

I must be going mad!, I must be! Take a look at the
following photo.



This image is showing you, side by side, two prototype
containers. The brown one contains 175 mm and very
thin chopstics for eating pretty in quiet office

corners. Shown right bellow is the thing.



OK, these were purpose built for eating pretty and therefore
need very small containers. My contentions was this.

If you are out in a restaurant out in town with your own
"My chopstics" you may well be in a battle field for what
you want to secure, perhaps in the presence of your colleagues.

So, I increased the mamimum dimension from 4 mm to 6 mm and
the length also increaed from 175 mm to 190 mm.

Nevertheless, the larger one, containing 6 mm maximum (at the holding end) chopstics looks so much inflated, volumewise!



There are still half a dozen issues to be looked at,
before mass production gets under way. Take a look at this.



B refers to the coincidental agreement of the diameters of
the two bits I use. Rooter bit is for forming trenches and
ruby bit for cleaning up the mess left by the rooter bit.

My problem is this. They are both 12 mm diameter bits.
Why the hell do you need them for 6 mm max. chopstics!
This is madness #1! They can be much narrower!

Madness #2 is the depth of the trenches. Realistically,
I only need 8 mm deep trenches, plus the bottom thickness of,
perhaps 3 mm.

Taking a pair of chopstics we are talking about approx.
22 mm. What you have seen are at 28 mm!

Now, A in the illustration is talking about the
precision in making holes. Frankly, you cannot be precise.
The end result, with the pegs inserted in counterpart

holes, may well be that members of the container are
at angles, as shown. The reason is shown in the following
illustaration.



If the holes are made offset from the centre line (
and there is not such line intrinsic in the system!)
what happens is shown as A in the earlier illustration.

However, this is not a very serious problem, because I
can sand off protrusions fairly easily.

More of a problem is the positioning of the holes
along the length. My solution to this problem was to elongate
one of the holes, as shown in A.

Naturally, there are other minor issue, but I do not go into
those. Suffice to show you the following image.



This is to do with doing the outer surface of the
container. You must close both lids with pegs like these, and
then rough out the edges, then smoothe out them further.

This is because, at the end of the day, both lids must
stick completely together, no part sticking out!
The only way to ensure that kind of integrity is

to work with the whole pieces together at the
sanding stages! So, folks, you now know the
nitty-gritty of things!

パエ－リャ ４６

Conchita, como estas?

Hoy, ha hecho lluvia, no demasiado y ahora mismo
no la hace.

Que estas haciendo? Escuchando a la musica?

A mi me parece que todo el mundo depende demasiado de los
ordenadores! Y, no entienden nada de como funcionan
por dentro! Yo lo entiendo!

La television? Esa es otra cuestion! Un television, si
se estropea, lo unico que pasara es que no podras ver
los programas.

Pero, la averia de un ordenador puede causar
unos efectos muy graves y muchas veces imprevisibles!

Ahora entonces, vamos!

何言っているのか、全然分らないわ！
You are not making yourself very clear!

そんなに全部覚えられる訳がないでしょう！
I cannot be expected to remember all those!

これ見てご覧よ！
Take a look at this!

See this? This was collected over 30 years ago and recorded for
posterity, and I still use it today! For instance,
I frequently use this particular expressin in my current

loggings on wooden cutlery! Amazing!

（ペアリングの話）
誰と一緒になるの？
Who are you supposed to be with?

つまり、何かを一緒にやるときの相手お話
Who is your partner?　と同じ事。。。

もっとやれるんじゃないの！
You are not giving enough!
（努力してないの意味）

窓の外、覗いてよ！
Take a look out of the window!

太陽がギラギラと照りつけているわ！
The sun is blazing down on us!

中継衛星から信号を転送する
to bounce signals off a relay satellite

これをよく見てよ！
Take a good look at this!
Take a close look atthis!

（世の中の）風向きを知らなきゃダメよ！
空気を読むのよ！　ＫＹ！
You must see the way the wind is blowing!

誰かが引っ込まなきゃね！
Somebody has to give!
これって、　ｉｎ　をつけたくなるんですが、

このままで正解です！　まあ、　つけても、
You will be understood, though...

変ね、あなたがそんな事、言うなんて！
(It is) funny you should say that!

Conchita, esto es bastante para hoy!
Ya me voy!

wooden cutlery, my chopstics

Today, I had to take my wife to Kamakura.

On my way back I collected some composts from
a public facility for our plants. Immediately upon returning,
I had a visitor and that took up something like 30 minutes

of my time.

I will be going into "MY chopstics" business in some way and all
of the afternoon was spent on finding procedural matters.
Take a look at the following.



Can you see that there are holes at either end of the pieces?
Can you also see that chopsticks are placed anti-paralell?



Above is showing you the bottom of one of the lids. This is
nice and round. How you best form these was also one of the
issues for today.



With the above, can you see a dark patch, from the left, about
one third of the way towards the right? This, I will talk about
in relation to the illustration as shown bellow.

In any event, the top two photos are showing you I am almost
there, in terms of producing "My chopstics" containers.

There were discoveries, not expected. Hitherto, I have
been thinking of these containers being made as small as
possible.

From today's experience, these are probably the optimum,
in size, containers and the chopstics therein.

I am going all over the place, but let me tell you that
inner surfaces of the container are satin smooth. It so happened that
the side profile and the diamter of the rooter bit is

the same as the diameter of my ruby tip, which is spherical.

Why is this so important?, although it is coincidental.

When you have formed a ditch you will find that it is full
of scars. You must somehow remove them. I have a range of bits
for this kind of scars, but the only bit that fitted into

the ditch was this ruby spherical sander bit, and it does its job!
Just incredible, how smooth the inner surfaces become!

So, I am stuck with it, because I do not have any other
combination of rooter bits and spherical sander bits.

In a way, I am happy the way it is... After all my
chopstics are smaller in diameter at their holding ends.

I have means to erradicate the scars. Containers are not so
bulky and long... and nice and round, outside...

So, in order to go into full production, the only
remaining obstacle is the steps formed in the trench.



Please refer to the third image of today and A in the illustration.
These are talking about the same thing.

The fundamental problem is that my milling machine is not
capable of forming the trench in one go down the whole length of the
containers.

On top of that, you cannot just dig in your bit, in one go,
to the final depth you want. That will lead immediately
to overheating

So, my rooter bit will have to traverse about two thirds
of the length, each time increasing penetration depth. That is
how you do two thirds of the trench.

You can see by the vertical scale, how deep you are into
the trench, numerical, that is. Now, you may think and
I would have thought, too, that you go to the same depth with

the remaining one third!!!

It is not to be! Because, the whole end of the piece bends,
as illustrated in A! Conseuently, the whole thing suddenly
becomes one of dexterity and visual confirmation and

feeling the inner surface by your finger! It is a very messy
business, but then what else can I do?

B is showing you a typical result of going by the vertical scale.
You go deeper than what you really want! What follows is showing
you that going deeper, simply by the scale, may lead to

a tragedy



C and D are showing you another of procedual matters. Unless
you want to use magnets about the only way you can
make the containers to close bang on

would be to use short sicks, now shown here.

You have to create holes before you begin the whole process of
making the trenches! With today's prototype I tried to make
holes after the whole thing had been shaped, and I found

that there was not enough space, etc, etc! But, that is life, is it not?
You learn things from failures?

Bellow, yes, I wanted to take them to K's shop, but,
she did not respond to my phone call, so, perhaps, tommorrow?



You know something? Making things is not that easy!
No matter how small they are!

パエ－リャ ４５

Conchita, como estas?

Que estas haciendo ahora?
Cantando?, preparando la cena para tu familia?,
o escribiendo unas cartas?

Cuando estoy trabajando no me pasa nada por la cabeza!
Siemplemente estoy concentrado y no escucho tampoco
cuando me llaman o me gritan muchas veces.

Yo, fuera de mi cabanya, soy alegre, me gusta
conversar bastante!, pero en mi cabanya me transformo!

Entonces, me olvido de lo que esta a mi alrededor, y trato de hacer simplemente las cosas bien!

Ahora, vamos!

あなたの言っている事、よく分からないわ！
You are not making yourself clear enough!

言葉だけでコミュニケ－トする訳じゃないわよね！
Words are not the only things we use to communicate
with others!

彼ったら、眼鏡をはずしたり、またつけたりだったのよ！
He kept putting on and taking off his
glasses!

ドウノコウノ見に、ちょっと行ってくるわ！
I am just popping down to see dounokouno!

（次は電話に出て）
いるわよ！
Yes, I am here!

今日はどんな授業に出るの？
What classes are you going to be in today?

彼、午後は来ないわよ！
He will not be in this afternoon!

Conchita, bastante? Ya me voy!

My milling machine playing dead! wooden cutlery

Today?

Today was a mixture, really. First of all, I found this



These are mushrooms at the entrance area to my
workshop. They grew out of my saw dusts!

Then, I went on my bicyle to the shop N,
to hand over the chopstics container. She was
very pleased.

She told me that she was very shortly resigning
from the shop and look for another job elsewhere.

At the same time she wants to introduce me to yet
another shop, which newly opened in our area. In fact,
hers are already on display there!

I will see what this implies for me...

Also, she is very keen to get involved in my
chopstic conteiner business. We talked a little about
our strategy.

She is going to produce, essentially, cloth
wrappings, which will double as luncheon mats
(or, table cloths), which, then, will have
a slot to insert my container.

That means, I no longer need to use magnets and instead,
do something like what folows.

Again, I will see what might come out of all this
.

Only yesterday I was talking about making gaps with
my little forks. I tried my idea and it did not work!
Vibration at the top was so violent, and I had to

introduce improviesed jig pieces, as shown bellow!



Although the following image relates to my container
fabrication the machine used is the same. In the course of
trying to make gaps in my little forks a tragedy happened!

My milling machine stopped dead! My heart sunk very deeply.
Because, having the whole thing repaired costs a lot of money
and time!

It has to be done, though, if I am to go ahead with my
container business. So, I removed the motor, shown bellow.



This and the power unit together will have to be sent to Osaka
for repair work and they are extremely heavy for normal transport!

I naturally checked the fuse in the power unit and the dammn
fuse was OK with my tester, meaning that there was a fault somewhere
in the electronic circuit of the motor itself...


I was about to pack the motor and the power unit for
transport, but just in case, I switched on the whole system.

It came back alive!!! It had been simply playing dead!!!


I am now refelecting on the reason. My guess is that
it was due to a very sudden local overheating, somewehre...

Otherwise, the whole thing could not have come back alive.
So, not wanting to reoperate the thing, I turned my
attention to chopsticks. You see them bellow.



Top left is one prototype, down bottom is another
prototype, much smaller in the stem cross section.
Between them is a complete pair, somewehre between

the two extreme ends. I am torn in two minds, even, three, four
minds about the stem cross section.

The issue is this. My instinctive view is that
they should be thin, and yet the diameters of my tool
bits are limited...

On top of that, the whole thing should be as compact as possible.

One solution must be to have an intermediate bit.
However, I cannnot find one at the DIY shop I frequent.
I will have to try some netshops for one.

I have decided that the eventual length of my "My Chopstikcs"
will be 190 mm in length. Next issue was this. To date,
I have produced two containers, one given away today and the

other also to be given away, shortly.

Take a look at the following image and I will talk about
these, tommorrow, I think...



So much for today!

パエ－リャ ４４

Conchita, como estas?
Preparando la cena?

Hoy ha hecho mucho calor, y ahora mismo
hace viento, un poco.

Mi pais, creo yo, es un regalo de Dios!,

no solo por la diversidad de su gente
que aporta lo propio a nuestra cultura,
sino tambien por la diversidad de su geografia y

todos los encantos y recrusos naturales
que de ella se derivan!

Ahora, vamos!

よくある事よね！
(It is) one of those things!

これって、冗談じゃないわよ！
This is no joking matter!

言い逃れ出来ると思わないでよ！
Do not try to be clever with me!

ねえ、こんな話って（私の）退屈？
Am I boring you?

そんなに驚いた顔、しないでよ！
Do not look so scared!

Readers, for your attention, I normally
expand all the members, as above, excep
rare cases.

That is, I do not normally put above like
"Don't look so scared!", largely because
mine are targetted at novices!

何が変だと言うのよ！
What does not make sense!?

二つって、一緒なのよね！
Two things go together!

少し、考えてみたら！
Give yourelf time to think!

Conchita, ya me voy!
Bastante para ahora!

Tricky decisions, wooden cutlery, milling machine

Today being Friday I did not need to go to Kamakura.

Much of the day was spent on making all of the
pieces in the latest coating lot mat. What follows is only part of
today's output.

There are some 30 odd forks in addition, but they are
not shown. In fact, they were all given away to my wife.

I will describe bellow, what is involved in making
my pieces go mat.

Building up protective surfaces on my atefacts really
needs the full use of my drying beds, which are,
essentially, nail beds.

However, with the process for making them mat you
need a vacant space. Matting process is quick, and
by the time you coat (for matting) the last remaining pieces

you will notice that those treated for mat surfaces earlier
on in your coating have become dry! And, since I only go for
half of each area of one piece going mat, I will have to

coat the remaining halves quickly.

So, if you have a very large number of pieces to go mat,
and had they occupied the whole drying areas, then you must
make them ino two groups, for wanting some working spaces

on the drying beds. A nice point about matting process is that
becasue they go mat quite quickly you can remove those gone
mat from the drying beds and place new comers, in their stead!

That is a simplistic account of what goes on, but in reality,
all this takes a lot of time, simply because any one of the
pieces is bound to have a few leftover uncoated (for matting

purposes, that is) areas. and as a result they do not leave
the drying beds as qickly as you wish! So, all in all, today's
matting operation probably took up 6 hours of my time!

However, there are lulls, in between, after all they
need to dry, before I can do double, tripple coating
for matting effects. Take a look at the following photo.



Can you see that these are straight on one side and at the other
side they have curvatures!

Anyway, what I ended up with is the following.



See that they are, more or less, symmetrical? This is the
minimum requirement for subsquent operation, of making
gaps at the top. This is a rsisky business for a few

reasons. The worst fear here is that the gaps may not run
along the centre line of the stems! I will illustrate this
with what follows.



C is the point in case! Now, I create these gaps
using my milling machine and the angle of the vice grips
are perfectly parallel to the motion of the cutting

tool, which is along the X-axis. I have very carefully alligned
the vice orientation on the milling bed. Now, if you insert an
oddly shaped object in the vice grip you could easily end up

with something like C!

A is really showing you the normal procedure, of
vicing a rectangular piece, making the gap first,
then jigsawing the profile.

I very naturally thought of making the original pieces
rectangular by sanding...

I would have done that if the thickness of the pieces
were not enough. Today's pieces had more than enough
thickness, so I took risks in forming symmetrical

profiles, then gap making, then sanding for the side
profiles. Normally, if you do not have enough thickenss
in a case like this, stems are bound to snap!

And, you do not know on whose shouders you could cry!

Anyway, I will see the outcome, tommorrow!

パエ－リャ ４３

Conchita, como estas?

Hoy ha hecho mucho sol, y ademas hace mucho viento,
lo mismo que ayer! Todos los dias! Caramba!

Esto es al respecto de mi pais.

En varias ocasiones me han preguntado por el clima
de mi pais, si es frio or calido, si se distinguen las cuatro
estaciones como en Europa o no.

A esto yo casi siemple respondo, llena de orgullo, que
en mi pais se puede en un solo dia, si se quisiera,
pasar de las calidas costas (Okinawa!) banaydas por el mar,

al frio helado y la nieve casi perpetua (Hokkaido!),
para finalmente descender en la exuberante y calurosa selva.

Bueono, vamos?

そういう事なのよ！
That is all there is to it!

準備って、いつ始まるの？
Preparation will start when?

坂の傾斜
steepness of the slope

カ－ブ（道路の）のきつさ
sharpness of the bend

１秒の百分の１まで同じだわ！（レ－スの事）
It is a time identical to 100th of a second!

１９２０年頃には既に
as long ago as 1920!
Please note that this is not as long ago as in 1920!

どうのこうのっていう、名前、知ってる？
How does the name ofdounokouno strike you?

お年寄りのご婦人には口答え出来ないわ！
（何を言われるか、判らない！）
You cannot contradict an old lady!

彼女、ポックリ死ぬかもよ！
Who knows! She might drop dead!

いつも否定的に考える女の子
a girl who always thinks negatively

気分はどうなの？
How are you feelng?

何時間にも思えたほど　（副詞句）
for what seemed hours!

理系の成績をもっと良くしなきゃダメよ！
You need good science marks!

そういう（嫌な）言い方、しないでよ！
Do not fake that tone with me!

分ってもらえなかった！
I just could not get through!

Bastante para hoy, no?, Conchita.
Ya me voy! Vaya con Dios!