Semi-OT: Retro?

Hell Mark,

Cool. When I was a kid I build most of my homebrew projects in wooden enclosures, with considerable effort to make it pretty. Bought all kinds of varnishes, lacquers, fine grit sand paper and so on. Now when I need a piece of unique lab gear I use a metal box and (only if I feel like it) paint it British racing green or something pretty.

Maybe we should mind wood more. While always keeping an eye on fire safety, of course. Wood became kind of expensive lately, unless you'd do the manly thing, take out a permit, put the truck in 4WD and the chain saw in the back and look for "the" tree in the forest.

Regards, Joerg

[snip]

Brings to mind a thing I've been pondering... what's the thermal resistance of 3/4" plywood ?:-)

...Jim Thompson

-- | James E.Thompson, P.E. | mens | | Analog Innovations, Inc. | et | | Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus | | Phoenix, Arizona Voice:(480)460-2350 | | | E-mail Address at Website Fax:(480)460-2142 | Brass Rat | |

| 1962 | Make Cinco de Mayo a Day Without a Gringo

Well the R value is about 0.94 for 3/4" ...

And if you want to do the math to convert...

?method=4&dsid=2222&dekey=R-value&curtab=2222_1&sbid=lc03a&linktext=R-value

Cheers

Yeah, me too. Sad, ain't it?

I get all kinds of excellent specimens of wood at yard/estate sale, usually disguised as furniture nobody'd have in their homes.

I'm fairly sure nothing in a tower (much less keyboard or mouse) gets near the flash point of wood, but then overcapacity cooling systems are the rage anyway, so WTF? Also there's EMI, but screenwire's cheap. ;>)

I'm leaning toward the Sangaku style because I'm a minimalist at heart. Now, where'd I put those little bitty chisels... whoops, maybe better take this to a woodworking group.

Mark L. Fergerson

Hello Mark,

That's probably the best source, and the stuff sure is cured long enough.

Well, usually nothing reaches really high temps. But when something does go wrong it could. Like those recent MB capacitors. I had stuff leave black scorch marks on aluminum where the paint had burned off.

The upside is that the big box stores carry an amazing assortment of machines for wood work. Quite cheap, compared to the ones for metal working.

Regards, Joerg

I'm less than 50 feet from a protected forest. :(

--
Service to my country? Been there, Done that, and I\'ve got my DD214 to
prove it.
Member of DAV #85.

Michael A. Terrell
Central Florida

It could be a good excuse to build that hobby CNC toy.! ;-)

--
Service to my country? Been there, Done that, and I\'ve got my DD214 to
prove it.
Member of DAV #85.

Michael A. Terrell
Central Florida

You need a fair amount of patience and floor space if you are going cut down your own tree, saw it up into planks and leave it to season for a couple of years. Unseasoned (green) timber isn't exactly dimensionally stable and shrinks to some tune as it loses water. You can get it kiln-dried if you hae the right contacts, bbut it would detract from the do-it-yourself image.

--
Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

What's in it?

--
 Thanks,
    - Win

Trees ? ;-)

Graham

You can make a home solar heated kiln for next to nothing, but sawing planks and planing true is an entirely different story. The old artisans knew how to work *with* wood and some of the joints, such as mortis and tenon, deliberately employed woods of different degrees of cure so that the resulting shrinkage resulted in an incredibly secure joint. The same techniques were employed in post and beam construction, and these structures easily have a 500 year lifespan. I would say forget the wood and go do-it-yourself plastic. This is another art with an old and glorious history of ingenuity going back 400 years. Or maybe fire up an enclosure from ceramic....

That's not right- should read "the resulting shrinkage resulted in an incredibly secure joint as a resultant."

Its part of the protected "Florida Greenbelt", a strip of land that was to be used to cut a canal across the state of Florida after they built the facilities at Cape Canaveral. Now, its not allowed to be used for anything other than bicycle and nature trails. We are not even allowed to maintain a fire break. :(

At least the last couple years hurricanes thinned out the lousy water oaks and soft pines. They all fell away from the property and are decomposing into mulch which, given time will reduce the fire risk.

--
Service to my country? Been there, Done that, and I\'ve got my DD214 to
prove it.
Member of DAV #85.

Michael A. Terrell
Central Florida

Ya think so? ;-)

--
Service to my country? Been there, Done that, and I\'ve got my DD214 to
prove it.
Member of DAV #85.

Michael A. Terrell
Central Florida

That whole state down there is an unholy ecological disaster area. There has been aggressive legislation over the past 15 years or so to radically change the landscape to fix it.

Don't drink the water when you're in Florida, all the well water is drawn from relatively shallow underground streams formed in limestone and the pollution is extreme. I watched one PBS special where divers photographed a well pipe entering one underground stream not feet away from a discarded 50-gallon drum of unknown toxicity. The place is a mess.

Hello Bill,

Not really, unless you want to build large scale furniture. For little enclosures you can take small chunks of wood. As a kiln I use an old European composter after having discovered that composting doesn't work well in our part of California. Out here, before worms and enzymes can do their job it's all bone dry. This composter is a black bin with air holes top and bottom. Ok, right now I only use it for mundane jobs such as drying wood clippings from the yard so I can start the barbeque faster. But it sure dries stuff quickly.

I have built really nice gear and user interface parts from beech wood. Still have some of it. Someone was just about ready to chuck it into the wood stove when a friend intervened. "No! Not these!" I am still thankful that he was generous and gave me a few of the pieces.

You can even make pretty stuff out of regular good old plywood. I'd have to retake this photo for better focus but these are some quick lab prototypes:

Regards, Joerg

Have you seen this documentary?

One of the projects completed is a set of horse-drawn sled runners made from a tree with a natural bend just the perfect shape for the runners.

You can get some decent pieces of hardwood out of damaged pallets, as well. I knew a man that restored antique "Hoosier" cabinets and he was quite good at finding just the right grain to replace a missing piece on a cabinet. he had a small planer to clean up the rough cut surface, and as he pointed out, most of the pallets were kiln dried, and several years old so he didn't have to worry about the stability of the oak he salvaged.

--
Service to my country? Been there, Done that, and I\'ve got my DD214 to
prove it.
Member of DAV #85.

Michael A. Terrell
Central Florida

Forest fires are a bigger problem at the moment. Some major highways are shut down, and a number of homes have burnt. Some neighborhoods are under mandatory evacuation orders as well.

--
Service to my country? Been there, Done that, and I\'ve got my DD214 to
prove it.
Member of DAV #85.

Michael A. Terrell
Central Florida