fly by

The milwaukee air & water show is this weekend so the air teams have spent the entire day doing maneuvers outside my studio. I was able to snap some pics of some of the early stuff and I just missed getting some pics of the thunderbirds. They came in really close, but I missed the opportunity. I was too busy making some pizza cutter parts on my Taig lathe.

I used to love air planes when I was a kid. I remember going to an air show when I was very young. I was just mesmerized by the scale of the planes. I recall taking pictures of the planes with my 110 film camera in sections because I couldn't fit the whole thing in the frame. After I had them developed I would overlap them to line them up and put them in a picture album. I saw the thunderbirds at that show and just knew I wanted to be a pilot after that. I used to memorize the names and specifications of the planes. I had two older cousins (one went to West Point and the other the Air Force Academy) who I think had a big part in this influence. Nonetheless, I'm still amazed by the act of flight and the technology associated. I still think it would be great to fly a jet, but now I think I'd rather build one.

As I was machining parts on the Taig, I realized that my seating position was uncomfortable. I was seating to high and couldn't get in over the lathe. I decided that I needed to drop the lathe below my bench top and make a place for it to tuck away (almost like a jewelers catch tray). So I cut up some angle that one of the ceramics professors gave me and made a pull out tray that the lathe can sit on. It works great! I just need to finish the drawers in this bench, but need to finish the pizza cutters before I do that.