Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Snowboard getting ready to progress.. a lot soon

I hope at least! :D

I cut the edges and did a much better this time around. Though as usual I screwed mine up and my friend's remains perfect. Here is hers :


and I'd try to cut the ribs for making the snowboard profile molds.. and failed miserably so I found a cabinet guy with a cnc router to cut me some.. so here they are still sitting on the router:


from there I went on to put together the molds and was going to put some thin wood on top but decided it would be easier to throw on some metal I had laying around.. I just need to glue the metal down and they will be all done. One is 156 and the other is 143.


Then I gave the bases a nice wash which will be followed by a degrease and then I'll tack on the edges with some super glue.


I have mostly everything now to get them done! just need some fittings for the vacuum and a 1/2" router and bit which is in the mail!

Thursday, October 8, 2009

Small snowboard update


My inserts came in the mail! the tops are magnetic so I toss on some steel powder and can see exactly where they are to drill out :D

Hopefully in a week or two I should be getting a lot more done

Friday, September 11, 2009

Snowboard progress.. edges done!

Well basically.. just have to tweak them a tiny bit (loudly with a hammer) and cut them to the right length so they come together correctly.. I messed this up a tiny tiny bit last time :|. I'm gonna cut and leave extra material and go from there..!

Bending the rails of my board:


Both edges of mine finished:


Mine and my friends done :D!:



...

Thursday, September 10, 2009

Most companies used to not give me the time of day...

When you inquire to companies about commercial materials and process they tend to not even bother to respond if you're e-mailing from your ol' private e-mail.. and even then some really want to talk to you on the phone.. or fax stuff..

Soooooo to get responses and samples from companies for my snowboard project ( for now at least ) and well I buy stuff also!
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I have a businessey sounding website with a few e-mails. I put up a simple page that says coming soon with the name and some graphics. Then I have an 800 number that e-mails me the voicemail and faxes I get..

Here is a semi-typical e-mail I get.. and you can see what kinda stuff is going on in my head kinda.. :

"Yes it is possible for us to coat 52100 material. The main consideration
when working with 52100 is the last tempering temperature. The lowest
temperature at which we can coat is 575F. Can these components
handle this temperature? Regarding the attached sketch you sent me it
is not clear how we would hold the part during the coating process. Can
you please give me a phone number that I can use to contact you for
further discussion?"

Thursday, September 3, 2009

Snowboard...s! coming along :D

So I got a package today :D with the two bases I sent off! and they're perfect as can be. One for me and one for my friend. They actually looked like they were the same length and I thought the guy had screwed up and sent me two of the sizes for me :\ but then I put them down and saw that everything was good :D!


Off to the side is my new vacuum pump.. that's actually old but it was only 50 bucks :D

Sunday, August 16, 2009

The snowboard project.. starts over.. D:

Well I've decided to re-start on my snowboard as the p-tex (the base) was cut pretty badly at least I thought. So instead of finding out how a slightly uneven board rides I've decided to start over and not even bother cutting it myself this time. So here is mine in all its computerized glory as I'm sending the design off so I can have it cut.. perfectly! for me.




I decided to glue on the edges anyways since I won't be able to use them for the new one:



and this is why I decided to start over :





Eh ya little things kinda I guess.. but not really to me and I don't want to end up making something that's shitty..

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

and so

and so

This is life..
Something that cannot ever be described as unfair because it in itself cannot be fair..
A game of chance that you can never win or lose, you can only ever claim to have been unsuccessful or successful at it..
And at its most basic level the sole purpose is to procreate..
A situation where you're in charge but never in control

Sunday, July 5, 2009

flickr

Skams now has a flickr :D!
see it here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/skammeh/ not that I've really taken any new pictures. I should have some new pics up sometime soon since I have a better idea of how to take some IR pics..

Thursday, June 25, 2009

I'm a dork :D but I thought this would be fun :D


I was driving down from Mt. Wilson in the LA forest :o

Tuesday, June 9, 2009

Got a new camera :o

So I was a bit bored lately and started looking at infrared photography again and stumbled upon a converted camera for $100 bucks or so shipped from China. Which is a damn good deal some company wanted $300 just to convert an old camera of mine
It shoots pictures at 680nm which is near infrared so they come out ruby red before I go into photoshop and mess with them.. Protip: make sure photoshops colors match your monitor/windows so you don't spend time tweaking colors only for them to be different out of photoshop :(


Anyways I headed up to LA96C since I've always wanted to head up to an old Nike site and figured it would be an interesting place to take some pictures. I'd like to get more blue in the pictures.. will have to mess around with it more to get something I like more.




Monday, May 11, 2009

computer blues :(

Well a lovely power outage followed by a power surge has put my computer out of order for now :\.. It's fairly boring without a computer to entertain me and help me kill time so I've been striving to get out since I don't have much to do at home. Eh well I'm watching Things We Lost in the Fire right now and really liking it.. really worth checking out..

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Snowboard update #4

So I got a few things done:
I finished bending the edges which took a bit of time to get done but wasn't that bad.. I just bent them by hand with some leather gloves, but now I've decided I want magnetraction so I still have some more bending to do.


Cut the excess of the edges


and started to polish the edges which is a hell of a pain D:

Sunday, March 1, 2009

Random pics of the day

I didn't make this but got a kick outta it :D go sperm go ! get that egg!

:o

Saturday, February 14, 2009

Just a few places I've made it to in my car

Thought it would be kinda neat just wish there was a better tool to use for it
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Snowboard update #3

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So I have one side of the edges done basically and now this is the other side that I've set into place with some clamps. It will get left like this for a few days to let the metal relax into position so it will form up nicer and leave me less to bend.

Saturday, January 31, 2009

Snowboard update #2

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Cut my gold p-tex (the base of the board that's on the snow) to shape today :o now comes the fun part of bending the metal rails to fit it.

Friday, January 30, 2009

Snowboard update #1

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Cut out the template for the core, just needs some more sanding around the edges. Also got my p-tex (the plastic on the bottom of the board) that's gold with gold flakes :D and the metal for the edges.

Sunday, January 25, 2009

A trip to Tehachapi that didn't go as planned

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It's about 100miles away so it took me a bit more then an hour to get there. Not much of a view or much to see on the way there really until I got up there. Anyways my reason for driving up there was to get some honeycomb material to use to build a snowboard (see post below) and it was cheaper to drive up there and get it rather than shipping it.. cause it wassss 4'x8'. So I get up there and have them cut it down a bit since it wont even fit in my car. The wind was blowing and the honeycomb will crack if you bend it so I had to keep walking back behind my car with it to get away from the wind as a gust would come :\. I finally get it in my car and I had asked the guy that sold my the honeycomb how much the glider rides cost since I saw a few signs as I got to the airport, and he told me which building to goto to see about it.

So I head up to what looks like a two story house with some antennas which seemed a little strange to me. Inside a find a paper about the rides/flights that they offer which range from $90 - $140. Since I figure I'll only be doing this once I splurge and pick the $140 which is labeled as - the best. I pay for it and the lady tells me the pilot should be along in 10 minutes so I grab an orange juice since I hadn't eaten and wander around looking at the posters. My pilot Paul shows up and we head off and un-tie the plane and push it off onto the runway. I jump in the cockpit and Paul tells me about the controls and indicators and what not to touch.

Which is a two levers on each side of me.. one opens the canopy and one jettisons the canopy so ya didn't want to touch either one of those. So Paul goes through and checks the whole plane and the controls and the tow plane pilot hooks up the tow line and Paul jumps in. He tells me if I have the feeling to grab onto anything grab onto my harness instead of something horrible like one of the fun levers. So the tow plane starts going and jerks us a bit and soon enough were off the ground and going in circles to reach 9000' (and we were at 4000'). We reach altitude and Paul tells me to pull the release handle for the line and I'm busy taking pictures so it takes me a minute and he was wondering why there was such a long pause. We turn hard the right and the tow plane to the left to get us away from each other and off we go gliding around. Paul flies for just a little while before he lets me fly it just straight and level and then he demonstrates a turn. Which wasn't gradual at all and smooshed me into my seat a bit but was damn fun :D. So we do a few turns together and I get to do one on my own and Paul genuinely sounds surprised that I pulled it off nicely which made me feel good :D.
We cruise around a little bit longer doing about 60mph and then start getting ready to land so I get off the controls completely and we gather up some speed. We're doing about 90mph or so now and circling around the airport getting lower and lower and now he's got us lined up for the landing. I'm having a great time but thinking shouldn't I be at least a little bit scared here? We glide above the tiny 10' or so wide runway before the wheels touch down and slow down until the plane tilts over to one side and we stop :D. We get out and put the plane back and I thank Paul and head back homeeeee.

Been feeling the need to build something

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Here is the start :o
a template for a snowboard on some wood that will be my template for making my own snowboard :D. The red looking stuff is nomex honeycomb : Photobucket which is light and strong but not so flexible which worries me a bit but we shall see how it turns out.. I will update as I progress