Timasomo 2024: Week 1 Updates

I am back in town and my graphics card fried! So today I replaced my graphics card

honestly that feels like a timasomo project in and of itself 😂

anyway I am very low energy rn recovering from surgery so the chances of me participating are a bit low I think, but I'll see how I feel in a few days, I've been looking forward to doing this project during timasomo for a few months now so I want to at least start something by the end of October!

Blacksmithing 𝑻𝑰𝑴𝑨𝑺𝑶𝑴𝑶 2024 hath begun!

Plan this month is to blacksmith three things:

1. Pumpkin(s) for my lovely wife.
2. Ghost(s) for my amazing wife.
3. Legs for the plastic vampire lawn flamingos we have.

To begin, get set up with your anvil, forge (spring was a different idea and not used), and tools at the ready.
Start with the pumpkins, get forge hot, get metal hot, and try it out with just a fat peen hammer. Make some progress, but be unhappy with the speed and results.
Break out the guillotine and try again. Find the results are much better, but is perhaps not the right tool for the job and/or too many heats necessary during attempt and end up tearing the work. Try again, move faster, get same result.

Time for a new approach. We're going to make a fuller/fullering jig out of some steel plate I have lying around. base will be welded to a nub of 1" square bar to fit inside the hardy hole, have two uprights to hold the fullers, which will be bolted in place, but allowed to pivot to create a set of jaws to reduce the work's diameter. Mark length, somewhat centerline, and roundabout where you want the holes to be. Use a center punch to mark where to drill and keep your bit from wandering when you start. The drill, baby drill! I wanted the furthest hole to be over an inch, but my knee mill is still in Texas (and would have made this job much easier) and the power drills I have just were not up to the task of opening it up more than the one inch it is at present. Ever tried to drill a 1 inch hole in 1/2 inch steel plate? It sucks.
Slice the plate in half generally along the centerline, then clean up the surfaces with a grinder. Doesn't have to be perfect, you're hitting this to hit something else and it'll wear in with time. Last step of the day was to cut a notch in the bottom jaw to clear the plate it'll be mounted to and cut clearance in the upper jaw so it can swing upward to open.

Next week I'll finish the fuller mount, make any adjustments necessary, and give it a shot hopefully turning out pumpkins by the dozen. Then onto the ghost and most likely need to either mount a vise and the fabrication that'll involve or build a mount for my leg vise...

I didn't participate last year and hesitated to participate this year because I am uncertain whether deadlines (even informal ones) help or hurt me, but let's try it! Worst case, I'll just silently stop posting and pretend it never happened.

I've been working on an addon keypad for the Steam Deck for a couple of months now, which is Technically Not Allowed, but my goal is to get a fully-usable prototype built by the end of the month. I have a working PCB with some microscope-and-a-steady-hand bodges and I'm waiting for one to show up with the real fixes; I expect that to be the last PCB revision. Electronically, it's fairly simple - it's just a weird-shaped USB keyboard, and the mechanical keyboard community has done a lot to make those easy to build. (This also means it's automatically compatible with any game that can use keyboard input.)

The case shown in that image is a redesign (of a very broken FreeCAD model) that I've done over this past week. It's a two-part shell that screws together from the back and then clips over the Deck, covering the left touchpad but leaving space for the other controls to poke through. I'll be putting extension buttons for the stock buttons that would be too far down in a hole to comfortably reach.

I have not tried printing the buttons yet; I expect them to need some iteration. That's probably what I'll be doing over the next week.

Life happened - partner doesn't have a PA, he's been sick and I literally just hurt my back today. Hoping to still participate. I just need to find my knitting bag. I'm tempted to find a random set of needles and loose yarn but I'll fret more about what to make than I will just work on it.

For my DIY server rack / upgrade:

Technically not much has happened. Just picked up some new furniture pads for the wardrobe because the ones I got earlier are too big.

We have another project - creating wood stands for Halloween tombstones going in the front yard, so they can be supported by being covered in rocks instead of using stakes which we always have problems with.

Whatever leftover wood we have from that will be used to help stabilize the bottom of the wardrobe. Might try to stabilize the shelves too if we have enough and I feel ambitious.

It's worth stating that I have zero experience with wood. We have everything down in theory, bought clamps, a miter box, waterproofing for the wood, etc. it's just a new experience!

One thing I haven't looked into yet is how to secure this thing to the wall (eventually). Not really any earthquakes here, but once we get Ethernet running to it, I don't want that to take place of support and get yanked should it fall over. Open to advice on that - I've heard of hooks for shelving but haven't looked into it. I need significant space behind it, though.

Oh my god, ya'll. This book nook shit is HARD. I am both annotating the instructions (dubious in places), and keeping a tally of all the pieces I have broken (5 so far) and giving angel wings to them in the instructions. I have never before done any sort of miniature building so this is completely new to me. It is both satisfying and feels like an enormous task. I have one little part of it finished, and I'm so proud of myself, but I also keep fucking up so it's rough lol.

I'm looking forward to seeing where I get with the project in this next week. It's been what I do at the end of my night for a half hour to an hour or when I get to a good stopping place. So a little stressful but ultimately relaxing? It's fun...?