No rest for the wicked…

Ya know what?  I’m going to take today off and just lie around and watch movies.  Heck, I work 6.5 days out of 7 and 12 out of 24 hours, so I deserve the day off.  When I was practicing law full time and doing Ming pretty much full time I was putting in close to seventy hour plus weeks, so this is a cakewalk.   Yup, I’m just going to lay around like a lazy slug today and re-charge my batteries.  Yup, that’s what I’m gonna do, take Sunday off and be a slug.

But first maybe I’ll just head down to the shop for a few minutes and work an a few Pugs.  That’ll be that much less I have to do tomorrow.  Yeah, an hour should do it, and then I can be a lazy slug.  I’m glad I thought of that as I’ll enjoy my leisure time so much more knowing that I have accomplished something today.

And maybe while I’m in the shop I’ll work on the new Bullets project.  I’m running behind on that and I do have a teaser up on the site, so I really should get going.  So, I guess I’ll handle that while I’m in the shop.  I’ll be that much more ahead.

Oh, yeah, and while I’m down there I’ll work on filling some nodes on a few bamboo tampers that really need to go out.  Introducing bamboo in a significant way is way, way behind and there are couple of special orders that need to go out first.

And then there’s a Flux in Caneel I wanted to carve to match an incredible one that I just did in Bali.  And speaking of Caneel I need to make one in the new Dragonfly shape that is firmly pictured in my head.  I need that tamp to send to a buddy of mine in honor of his newborn son.  If I don’t get cracking on that the kid will be in grade school before it arrives.  Other Caneel tamps need to go to friends in New York and Virginia.

And all of that is not to mention that fact that since screwing around with getting motors working in my shop it is in such disarray that even I get jittery when I take a good look around.  I really should spend at least a few hours beginning to get organized. But heck, I can’t do that as I have thirty or so special orders carved and sitting in plastic tubs waiting to be sanded.  But first I’ve got to experiment more with stains so that I can get Hiras out of the shop and ready for shipping.  But first I need to get that new belt/disk sander set up, the one that has been sitting on the basement landing for the past two years.  The wife will shoot me if I don’t get that into the shop. Oh man, now that I think about it this is all just the tip of the iceberg.  There’s just so much to do and so little time.

All things considered, the real question is why I’m sitting here writing when I really need to be getting my butt down to the shop and putting my nose to the grindstone.  That way I can lie back like a lazy slug this evening watching movies.  I won’t even spend half the evening answering emails.  Nope, I’ll just spend the whole danged evening watching movies.  Yup, that’s what I’ll do.

Yeah, right.  

 

Beating the system.

If nothing else, my undergraduate degree in psychology (with an emphasis on industrial and organizational behavior) prepared me for a very frustrating reality of life.  We were taught a systemic approach where the core principle is that when you bring change it can have profound effects that are unanticipated and unforeseen far removed from the  original change.  It’s like shaking one limb on a tree causing the rest of the tree to tremble, maybe causing an apple to fall off on the far side of the tree.

So, when I had to replace my buffing motor this past week it should have been no surprise to me that it would not be as simple a proposition that it would seem.  Sure, it should have been a matter of unbolting one motor from my workbench and bolting on another, but when it comes down to actually performing the task certain realities set in.  Some motors run in different directions.  Arbors that are needed for the new motor, and not generally available in the Atlanta area, become frozen to the spindles.  With one seemingly simple change the factors that can negatively impact the change increase geometrically.  As one problem is solved the solution only leads to a new problem.  This went on for four days where I spent most of my time trying to break the chain of failures.  My work wasn’t getting done, orders weren’t going out, new pieces weren’t being made, and I wasn’t really interested in making excuses to my customers even though they are the greatest in the world.

So, finally, I put all of the washing machine motors aside, got into the car and went up to Lowes to see what I could do to get things squared away.  I was about ready to pull my hair out, so money wasn’t an issue.  At this point I was losing good money on a daily basis as business is exceptional and the loss is far greater than it would be during a slower period.  As  it is I get up every morning only to realize that there aren’t enough hours in the day, and that’s with working 12 hour days six days a week.  So, I walked into Lowes a defeated man willing to pay top dollar for a fix.

As it turns out the folks at Lowes were kind to me even in my weakened state.  The one variable speed grinder was a dual spindle (something that I’ve never had) and was the last one.  They sold me the floor model for 65% off.  I paid a whopping $50!  Problem solved?  Heck no it wasn’t solved!  Where my old single spindle motor could hang the buff off the edge of the bench, I now had two spindles.  This required a whole re-orientation of the motor to get both spindles in workable positions.  

So, to solve this latest problem I then built a special shelf attached to the edge of my bench that would hang the motor out with both spindles of use.  The problem seemingly solved I sat down to buff.  The first problem was immediately apparent.  I had moved my work station out from underneath the lighting.  I have four halogen dual light fixtures at each work station, in addition to my chandelier, and I found myself sitting in a relatively low light area.  It was also a place where there was no place to place my task lighting fixture or my buffs and buffing compounds.  But what was worse was that it placed the motor and buffs at a much higher level.  After ten years of buffing you get used to holding your work in a certain way and at a certain level to the spinning buff or sanding disk.  The muscles in your upper body even become attuned to that level, a sort of built-in memory.  Changing that at this point isn’t an option, and, there was no way to raise or lower the platform.  My chair could be raised or lowered, but not enough.  I even considered shortening the legs of my wood shop stool to bring me down to the buffer.

Without going into any more detail the next two or three attempts at solving my problem were dismal failures each leading to their own set of new problems.  With each problem solved new problems continued to rear their head.  It was like one of those bad dreams where you need to dial a phone number really badly but keep screwing it up.  Then, six days lafter this all began, I stepped outside the envelope and found my solution.  Thanks heavens.  I had orders for fifteen tampers that needed to go out on Friday, and it happened without a hitch. And now, on this Saturday morning I’m about to head down to the shop to carve some tampers.  Problem is that it just occurred to me that the disk sander that I use to do rough shaping won’t fit on the spindles of the new motor.  So, here I go again setting up a new motor for shaping, hoping the one motor that I have left (in a box somewhere) can be put into service without a hitch, ASAP.

Yeah.  Right.

Farewell my friend.

Ten years is a long time to spend together.  A bond forms in that time as countless hours are spent side-by-side, often pondering the mysteries of the universe, working together to create art.  So much goes unsaid, and by necessity.

And for all of that tireless work all that was required from me was a little support.  I look back now and think that had I been less diligent my good friend Delco may have departed much sooner.  I remember well the day that we met.

It was a spring afternoon.  I was driving to work, on back country roads, when I spied a card table out by the road covered with washing machine motors.  I have to admit that this wasn’t the first time that I had passed the roadside display, but on that particular day I stopped and knocked on the door.  An older gentleman with a kind face opened the door and I inquired about purchasing one of the motors.  He chuckled and pointing to the road he said “you don’t want one of those, come with me.”  I followed him through his farmhouse and deep down into his dungeon-like basement.

I couldn’t believe my eyes.  I stood there stunned, befuddled and speechless, which is quite an accomplishment considering my profession.  Before me were hundreds of washing machine motors stacked neatly on shelves, lined up like soldiers, ready for action.  I began to look for signs that I might be dreaming, but I was wide awake.  As I looked to the gentleman standing beside me who was beaming with pride, one single word escaped my mouth, almost in a whisper. “Why?”

My new friend let out a laugh while slapping his knee and said “I knew you were going to ask that, I love to see people’s expression.”  Kindly old gentleman or not, at this point I started gauging the necessity and logistics of a quick exit while looking for crawl spaces while sniffing for hints of lime and decaying bodies.  To be standing there on that balmy spring day in this now very suspicious gentleman’s basement amongst hundreds of electric motors, and his knee-slapping yucks, I found my self transformed into what might have become an episode of The Twilight Zone.  My inner voice became that of Rod Serling, and all of sudden I realized that Mr. Motor standing beside me looked way too much like Vincent Price for comfort.

Fortunately, before my Lorenzian instinctual impulse to flee could kick in, he let me off the hook by adding “Well, I collect them.  I’m a retired electrician”.  Okay, that was much better. The hairs on the back of my neck had even started to flatten, but I was still cautious.  He went on to say “Yeah, I’ve been collecting them for forty years and I’m moving to Florida, so my wife said I had to get rid of them.”  Allrighty then, I could understand that.  All of a sudden we had some common ground, ones well known to every married man.  It was a shared experience that mercifully served as a bedrock in reality.  It was a case of the wife complaining because we have “too much stuff.”  I gave the old geezer a knowing nod, having been there myself, and more than once.  As I looked to rehabilitated friend I found that while he did look a lot like Vincent Price it wasn’t the macabre version, but more the gourmet cook Vincent, one preparing a nice chocolate soufflé for a TV audience of bored housewives.  My personal safety now assured, my focus shifted to trying to recall how much cash I had in my wallet.

It turned out to be a measly eleven bucks.  Drat. Time was running short as I had to meet a client, and as it turned out this guy was leaving to head to Florida in the morning to have his son handle the packing and move after his departure.  I wouldn’t be able to get back in time with more cash, and this guy didn’t look like he took VISA, so I hoped eleven dollars would buy me at least one motor.  I opened my wallet and took out the cash and asked him what it would buy.  He told me that I could take as many motors as I wanted, and that all things considered, I’d be doing him a favor.  With that he led me over to a shelf and told me that those particular ones were the best.  They weren’t necessarily the newest ones, and I’d have to oil them once in a while through the ports with the springy lids, but that they didn’t make them like that any more. I took his word for it.  If anyone would know this guy surely would.  I chose six motors from the lot.  I didn’t want to be a pig about it.  I paid him the paltry sum of eleven dollars ($1.83 a motor), thanked him and wished him luck with his move, and went on my way.  As I drove away I noticed that high voltage power lines, the ones with the big towers, ran right by his house That gave me puase to wonder.

So, as I built Ming-Kahuna over the past ten years, I started out using one motor for buffing and grinding. I was an old Delco ¼ horse 1725 rpm with decidedly Art Deco lines, one with an external spring lidded cup for oiling.  Over the years Delco and I spent countless hours buffing thousands of pieces bringing life to my art.  And, as I’ve said, all that he required in return was a little support in the form an occasional pull from a tin of motor oil, to quench his thirst.  Sure, he had shown his age in the past six months requiring me to get his rpm’s up to speed with an assist from my hand, but to be candid, I’m not as quick as I used to be either.  Then yesterday, as I was putting the final buff on the Cumberland top cap of a Pug, Delco began to scream, belching thick acrid smoke, then,  his wheel finally coming to a stop.  I gave him a quick rest, tried him again, and with the same result.  Having no choice I pulled the plug flat-lining Delco, fading to black.

So, this weekend I will reach into my box of motors and choose another.  He may have Delco written on his name plate, but he will never truly replace my old friend.  Of course, the “new” one is a two speed motor, and Delco was only a one speed, so maybe change is good?  We shall see, but Delco will be missed.

Farewell my friend.