Ladies and gentlemen – because I don’t have a “xylophone problem,” and I can really stop any time I want – I’m building a little whole-note, bi-directional keyboard in C for the hood of the van.
The lowest key will actually stick out near-vertically from the hood, with two identical keyboards of 9 notes each spreading away on either side of it. Mounting it’s going to be … fun.
Meanwhile, I got a little overzealous while tuning one of the F keys tonight. I was deepening gouges in the bottom that I had made earlier with the cutting blade mounted on the circular saw, and dug right through …
… to the other side.
Because I am powerful simian. With opposable thumbs. And power tools.
Back from Maker Faire, and there are a million little things to do for our next gig.
We’re going to roll in the Topanga Days Parade on Memorial Day.
Topanga Canyon is a blend of old-school hippie culture and celebrity ranches with long driveways, a beautiful curving road up from the ocean to the San Fernando Valley. Every year, there’s a music festival (this year it’s been headlined by Ziggy Marley, Maria McKee and Canned Heat, which should give you some idea).
Anyway, we applied and were accepted as one of the 50 vehicles in the parade (largely old fire engines and hot rods, so I’m told, but there should be a few floats too)
We’re driving in what’s traditionally the Santa Claus spot in the lineup – the very last.
Between now and then, we’re making mallets to replace the dozens of splintered casualties left by the pummeling of hundreds of kids and aggressive adults at MakerFaire.
I ordered four dozen 3/8ths-inch fiberglass dowels to serve as new sticks (at right). Only one problem: They’re so rigid, heavy and dense that they actually deaden the sound when playing. Instead of a nice “PLONNNNGGGGGG” you get a leaden “THUNGK.”
Fifty bucks down the drain, and now we have to repair the sticks we have left, and battle-harden them … Continue reading
I fell in love with these things while scrounging through the scrap bins at Industrial Metal Supply.
They’re the sawn-off leavings of enormous logs of aluminum, some of which had been many feet long and up to 12 inches thick.
They sound fantastic. And they look pretty graphic against the green of the van, in nice contrast to the rectangular-keyed xylophones … Continue reading
Here’s video of alienrobot and me mounting Keyboard 2 which is the lower-octave and rear-most of the two keyboards I built for the passenger side of the van:
And here’s what Keyboard 1 looked like as friend Steve Finkel and I mounted it on the driver’s side … Continue reading
Like a drunk tiptoeing into his AA meeting with actual quitting on his mind, I’m finally ready to quit breaking taps – and pay attention to all the solid advice I’ve been getting along the way.
Tonight, I took it all in hand and put it to work on my one surviving 6mm tapping tool – and the dozen-plus very serious holes I had left to tap:
The machinist recommended I countersink the holes and use cutting fluid … But I had a long way to go – the last 8 holes in the stringers for Keyboard 3, plus the remaining three very deep holes in Keyboard 1′s crosspiece – each of them through a thick, 3-layer sandwich of aluminum.
Keyboard 1 is more than 7 and 2 1/2 octaves long – running from A to high D#.
All that metal is pretty heavy, and the weight actually bows the stringers that carry the keys across it, so I’m building in a crosspiece for support. It will run vertically between the top rail and bottom rail, and all four stringers will screw down to it for support.
I lay out the keys then I tighten the frame at the corners along the bottom … Continue reading
All the geek opinion and doomsaying in the world can’t beat a crusty old Chicano machinist in a crusty old machine shop.
After Googling and dialing all over Hollywood, Los Feliz and Glendale in search of an EDM-equipped shop, I phoned a local machine shop and described my twomistakes.
So I bring it in. Within an hour and a half, I get a call saying “It’s all set.” They drilled in with a carbide bit (probably a better one than I used, and used an extractor on one broken tap, and a punch on the other – and now the holes are cleared.
The guy even took pity on me and told me the secret: countersink the holes from now on before tapping them – and use some cutting oil.
Done. I’ll be attacking that just as soon as the best little hardware store in Silver Lake restocks their 6mm Irwin thread taps. The ones that I seem to keep steadily depleting.
My plans for a productive evening of xylophone-building thus foiled, I turned to slapping together the rest of the frame-mounting hardware.
Unfortunately, the Hollaender company turned out a couple of SpeedRail parts with nasty burrs inside that kept them from sliding onto the 2-inch aluminum tubing that we’re using for xylophone frames.
I tried grinding out the lip on both sides of the mount …
But no luck. The collar still wouldn’t slide on over the tubing … Continue reading
In machining – as in lovemaking and war – if it hurts, you’re not doing it right.
I seem to keep making the same damn mistake. alienrobot did a great job of tapping most of the mounting holes in Keyboard 1 using just the little 4-inch tap handle that came with the set.
Then I got all clever, applied excessive leverage and snapped a tap off in a hole by using too much leverage. It came out with a pair of pliers … but then I did it again.
And I just did it again tonight. Here’s what it looks like from the back.
Opinions on the CrashSpace forum ranged from “A high-end machine shop will need to use EDM to burn the tap out of there” to “Yep, you’re fully fucked.”
Guess I’ll go look up a machinist. And hope I’m not fully fucked.
Because I am powerful simian. With opposable thumbs. And power tools. 
