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The problem seemed so simple.
I had a working web site, made with Dreamweaver. I had a working blog, made with WordPress. I wanted the blog to replace my Home page, with back-and-forth links to other pages. Seamlessly. Apple makes the feat trivial in iWeb. Should be trivial here, too. Right?
I have a degree in Computer Systems, but it’s been 30 years since I’ve done any serious coding, and I’ve never used HTML or PHP. I wasn’t sure my brain could still work that way. (I especially thought this as I slowly submerged in widgets, style sheets, templates, and tags, desperately surfing from link to link in search of enlightenment.
It took days, but I see the light at the end of tunnel now, and things seem to work well enough that I’m ready to go public. (Of course, that’s when they’ll break…)
Now maybe I can go back to woodworking again!
Well, I’ve been learning Dreamweaver and building my site for five days now. It’s up and running, and I think the structure’s OK. There are still capabilities I want to add, as soon as I learn how to create them. But for now I’m going to back off on new features and work on adding content.
Of course, I’d like to find some time to do some woodworking, too! There are a couple projects waiting in the shop, as well as unpacking from the weekend’s Woodturning class. But (and it’s been a great disappointment to me), even if I leave all the tools and materials laid out carefully on the benches, the elves never show up to either do the work or clean the shop. That falls to the proprietor.
This was the winning top from the 2010 contest, spinning more than 27 minutes!
It was mid-point in the May meeting at Silicon Valley Woodturners when the Unlimited Long-Spin top competition was called. Four men stepped up to the plate (a 100% improvement over last year). As the rest of the members cleared a space, we set up our tops to compete.
Two men had built special tables—glass-topped with leveling legs, so they could get flat, level surfaces upon which to compete (a level playing field, if you will). I and the last contestant used dinner plates, resting upside down on a countertop. (The bottoms of many plates are slightly dished in, creating shallow bowls. Since they curve up in all directions from the center, they don’t have to sit level. The top will move to the lowest point as it spins).
Stopwatch ready, our Program Chairman called “Go!”, and we launched our tops. Then there was a raffle, I grabbed a snack and chatted with friends, and we all turned to look as the first top fell at around 8 minutes. This was a top by a new member who hadn’t competed before, and it’s balance wasn’t quite right. Some of us contributed some tips and ideas to try for next year.
Around 12 minutes in, the second top dropped. This one’s owner had been plagued by bad luck this year, damaging his first top and blowing up his second during the turning phase. With just hours to go before the contest, he’d turned the competing top at 3 that afternoon, and hadn’t had much time to balance it.
Now it was just Gary and me. We’ve both won several times. We share many design preferences, but have different approaches to balancing (the heart of long-spin top making).
At 20 minutes, both tops wobbled a bit, but the balancing efforts we’d put in let them spin on. Around 22 minutes, Gary’s top wobbled dramatically, then finally fell. Now I was alone.
The club record was 23 minutes 30 seconds, a time I was confident I could beat. I breathed a sigh of relief when it passed with the top still spinning.
Finally, at 27 minutes and 36 seconds, the top wobbled enough to touch the plate and the contest was over. For this year.
Launching a top in 2009
The first Wednesday in May is Top Night at my club, Silicon Valley Woodturners. (That’s spinning tops, not box tops or table tops.) There are numerous contests during the evening, but the one I prepare for is the Unlimited Class Longest Spin contest.
It’s simple. You build a top. You spin it any way you can—with string, power drills, one guy even tried a router (but only once!). You see how long it runs.
When I joined the the club, a winning spin was 4-1/2 minutes. Doesn’t seem so hard. But the bar’s risen over the years. I won last year with a 21-minute spin (a bit short of our club record: 23-1/2 minutes). That’s getting intimidating. Only two people entered the contest. So three of us gave a talk last month on how to build a long-spin top (I’ll post an article on it shortly) in hopes of attracting more contestants.
Anyway, tonight’s the night. My top is a 6” steel ring, surrounding an oak stem and supported on an MDF web. The upper surface is a 4-way book-match of cherry veneer on 1/8” plywood, and the tip is a 5/16” ball bearing. I’ll launch it with a string, and I’ve been working out my arm muscles in the gym this month in preparation. When I built the top, it spun about 20 minutes—a very good starting point. But the winning is in the balancing. A week of effort, off and on, has balanced it well enough to give me two 26-minute spins. I’m hoping that’s good enough.
