^ Handles installed on the reel assembly

^ Camera enclosure mounted on the bottom of the parallel linkage

^ Brooxe hanger showing how kite string winds around the “mushrooms” in the top member of the parallel linkage

A little finish sanding, and we should be ready for a test flight. We’re using an 8 square foot Sutton Flow Form kite. Hopefully, the rig won’t be too heavy. At worst, we’ll upgrade to a 16 square foot kite.

^ Here’s the reel assembly put together with the hardware and knobs. Notice the knobs give you two options, slow, with torque, or fast without torque. It’s in effect a two-speed winch.

^ Here’s the start of the parallel linkage pendulum that will hang below the kite. The kite string will actually be wrapped around the top piece to seize it in place a few feet in front of the kite. The pendulum effect will stabilize the camera as the kite hunts in the wind. We’re still working on how to adjust the camera position, which is why the bottom runs out of frame. The cool thing about the parallel linkage is that no matter the angle of the kite string, the top and bottom members will stay parallel to keep the camera pointed down the string, which is by definition down towards the sailboat. My ME302 class in college “Synthesis of Mechanisms” is really kicking in on this project!

Notice the slots in the horizontal members, these let the vertical members pivot forward and backward, depending on the angle of the kite string. Also, we optimized the length of the pendulum to fit in our luggage.

We’ve got to finish designing and fabricating the camera mount and the handles on the top of the frame, but we can certainly see the finish line. I’m planning on using a marine varnish to seal both assemblies from the elements. Once we use these (we’re not even ready to go fly a kite yet), I can see the potential for all kinds of improvements, which will probably cause another round of design and fabrication to come up with 2.0.

The project is still mostly from scrap, which is nice. My girlfriend is still dilligently trying to find a waterproof enclosure for one of our cameras, or a camera for our waterproof enclosure. The nice thing is that the enclosures have that threaded hole in the bottom to mount it to our parallel linkage assembly.

I’m pretty excited about this project (not that that’s any different from any other project I start). I think I’ll feel a lot better about a quality mechanical movement vs. a quartz piece of plastic. I’m hoping the pendulum will look a bit more authentic too.

I’ve been getting some questions from my better half about how the dining room set is coming along. The answer is that I’m still in the “design phase”, and I need smaller projects like this that I can finish to make me feel like I’m still making progress. My new job as a sailing instructor is really getting in the way of my woodworking. Plus, I’m emotionally exhausted after a day on the water, keeping the students from accidentally jibing the boat. As a result, I’m not getting out to the shop after dinner. I’m also trying to keep the power tool noise down after business hours for the sake of the neighbors’ sanity. OK, not much progress on this blog to report, but I thought I’d keep it updated.

UPDATE: I sent the e-mail to Klockit.com right before I started writing this blog entry. I just got a response from them, so I’m pretty darn happy with their customer service! They said the appropriate winding key comes with the kit, and I needed a way to oil the movement. They just happen to have that oiling kit on sale. Feature that…

Then I made what are called Brooxes Hangups. They use friction to keep the camera rig attached to the kite string. Keep in mind this is 100 pound test, so it’s not exactly your standard kite string. I made it out of Starboard, “marine lumber”. It works just like wood, only the sawdust isn’t biodegradable. It’s basically UHMWP (aka cutting board).

We’re still tweaking some design issues, but I think we’re moving right along. Next step is to fabricate the parallel linkage to keep the camera pointing down the string. That may make my hangups obsolete (wouldn’t that be nice), but at least I had something to do while I had some brightwork curing.

There’s no way I can invest any time or wood on a movement that is that questionable. I looked into mechanical movements, but they’re out of our price range. As a result, I’m having to rethink the wedding present situation entirely. I’ve gone through my Stickley catalog and have some ideas (i.e. picture frames, mirrors, coat racks, etc.). It looks like I’m going to have to invoke the one year rule. I really wanted something to be able to put on the gift table. Sigh…

I do really want to build this project. I think it’ll look phenomenal with our other furnishings. I’m going to save up for one of these from Klockit.com:

NOTE: For you sailors out there, that’s a Sparkman & Stephens designed Catalina 38 from the early 80’s.

The interesting part of the whole situation is that I only had about two days in my sailing instructor schedule before we leave to build one, and one of those days was yesterday. We decided it would be almost as easy to build two, so I ran out into my shop yesterday morning after my cup of coffee and started working on a rig from this site:

http://robroy.dyndns.info/KAP/KiteReels/Stratospool/details.html

By the time he got over to my place, I was already knee-deep in the hoopla. Here’s a series of photos showing the progress. I’ll explain what each part is underneath:

^The two round pieces are part of the spool that will hold 1000 feet of 100 pound test line. The other two are part of the frame that you can rest against your thigh (hence the saddle) and using your body weight, resist the drag of the kite.

^Closeup of the bridle joint we used to attach the frame backbone to the saddle.

^Dry fit of frame.

^Frame sanded and all edges eased.

^Yo-yo profile of spool sides after routing.

^Spool sides (notice reel handle built in). There will actually be two handles on the reel, one inside the circle, and one on the jutting part. This in effect gives you a two-speed reel, one to take up more line quickly, the other to give you more leverage.

^Views of the brake cam lever. You grab either end and squeeze, which causes brake pads to engage between the frame and the spool. I made these tapers on the jointer by setting the starting point on the outfeed table, just past the high point of the cutter arc and sliding the work across as usual. It took several passes, but the end result was a very controlled, safe, smooth taper. I really impressed my buddy with that little trick.

^Frame assembled showing the brake lever. The pins glued into the frame act as guides for the brake lever and keep it aligned with the frame.

^Spool drum rough cut. We glued these up early in the morning, hoping they’d be cured by late afternoon.

Spool loosely assembled after sanding.

^Entire rig showing how it all comes together. A strong, ergonomic handle will be mounted on the right end, sticking up.

So that’s where we are after one day. We’re still working on hardware (i.e. handles that rotate, axles, etc.). I’m going to use the spool parts as templates to make the other set after gluing up another blank wide enough. Sometimes I’m amazed what my girlfriend puts up with.

I hope you’ve enjoyed my newest foray into madness. Part of me feels like I should go build a treehouse now and read “Dangerous Book for Boys” again. If this actually works, we’re going to have some pretty kicka$$ pics/video of ourselves sailing in the Caribbean. We’re always looking for our next Christmas card photo. We’ve already got a waterproof enclosure for our older digital camera (the one I’m allowed to take out into the shop). I also think it’s important to note that I used almost all scrap from the shop to build these. Wish me luck…

I have to admit that I’m flying by the seat of my pants here. Because the staves and tops don’t line up, there’s very little to work with. I’m just hoping the end result is somewhat acceptable. Once the glue dries, I’m going to try to use a band clamp to hold it long enough to glue it together.

It’s been at least a day since I started a new project/blog. My buddy Eric always says that projects are meant to be started, not necessarily finished. We go wine tasting in this rather industrial winery in Alameda, CA (we’re actually members). In their wine tasting loft is a very cute wine rack made out of wine staves. I’m at least as interested in their rack as their wine (far be it from me to pass up a nice rack). While waiting for other stuff to dry (that always gets me in trouble), I decided to whip out the sides of the wine rack. Unfortunately, this involved metal, so I fired up the disc grinder and cut out some sections of barrel hoop. I’m sure this irritated the neighbors to no end, but that’s the price I’m willing to pay for my art.

It was very problematic to find staves that mated with each other, since all my staves are loose in another barrel. If anyone else (including me) wants to make one of these, I highly recommend starting with a whole barrel and marking things while it’s still assembled. My sides are a bit loosey-goosey, but I didn’t feel like going the 1024 possible combinations of stave arrangement. I drilled the hoops and screwed it all together. It’s really easy for the hoop to get off track. I also tried to keep the groove for the top/bottom lined up. As I said, it’s almost impossible to do it once it’s been disassembled.

The top and bottom shelves are the top and bottom of the wine barrel, so I glued them up (they were falling apart) and I will trim them to be the same width as the sides. The intermediate”shelves” are wine staves cut to the length as the top/bottom.

I forgot to mention that I’m not treating this wood in any way. I want that antique barrel look. Since our barrels had been sitting out in a field for who knows how long, all I did was quick-sand to 80 grit to get the crud off. Some meduallary ray flake from the oak is showing, some stains from the other hoop locations, some sunburn, etc. This will eventually sit where the Ikea wine rack was for what seemed like an eternity. Our clock project may sit on top when both are finished.

I finally had a day to work on our stuff. With a little urging from my girlfriend to finish the fumed table sitting in our dining room, I bit the bullet and gave it a good shellacing. This was my first time using shellac. It’s pretty difficult to work with, as it dries fast and leave a build-up. I cut the Zinser Amber in half with denatured alcohol, and grabbed a beer for myself (I thought it only fair), and went to town on it. It gave it a nice, rich look. When that dried, I busted out all of my dark gel stains and did a test swatch on the underside of the top. I really liked the authentic, antique look that General Finishes “Antique Walnut” gave it, so I gave the whole thing one coat. I’m pretty satisfied with the look. The gel stain gave it a very rick, old look. I’ll wait for the gel to polymerize and then put three coats of Arm-R-Seal Satin on it. When that’s done, some dark brown furniture wax. After that, it’s ready for large salad bowls and trivets. Trivets, hmmm…

I’m resisting the urge to load it up into the truck and run over to Craftsman Home in Berkeley for a comparison to the real thing. I think this blog is done. Thanks for watching.

I’m going to have to seriously resist building the accompanying piece, the Limber Fern Stand #244:

I then set out to find faces. I found www.clockprints.com, but wasn’t totally satisfied, and ordering the right size was problematic. I figured I could engrave my own clock face with the Dremel tool, so I drew this up in AutoCAD:

The blue circle nominally describes the sweep of the hands I ordered from Rockler. The quartz movement has a pendulum and is AA battery powered. I’ll be making the face bookmatched by resawing some QSWO thin enough for the movement shaft to poke through. I found an article in FWW about making the face first, then building the clock around it, which I thought was a good idea.

I will also put a picture frame hanger on the back, just in case we want to hang it. I’m planning on making a wine stave wine rack, but all of my barrel ends are concave from sitting out in the sun, so I thought this might look good either on top of it, or just above it. Our mantle has a large nautical chart above it, so ironically, I don’t think the mantel clock will fit on our mantle.

They’re getting married the second week of November, so I’ve got to hurry, unless I want to invoke the one-year rule…