Holy Schneikes - No Sunday Thread??? OK, Here's One For August 6, 2023

It's hard to imagine -- I've been up for over an hour and haven't yet visited TFF. And now that I have, I find there's no Sunday thread. WTH?

So, here it is. The first Sunday in August. My daughter's family left yesterday for a week in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic. I haven't yet heard from them about the trip, so I'll just carry on today with Sunday as usual.

Church first, then some guitar playing, reading, baseball watching and some outdoor exercise (weather permitting). I'm happy to report that I'm getting back into running, and each day's 5K is just a little stronger and faster. I've already seen my resting heart rate come down and my sleeping is even better than before! Ah, the benefits of healthy activities!

See you guys around the stage. Have a great week!

Good morning, friends.

Been a bit absent lately. Busy with lawyer stuff and also enrolled in two university programs (Politics and Music Production). Also, I’ve been finishing and recording some songs.

The first one will be released tomorrow, a very simple acoustic song in kind of a country-blues structure that I initially wrote as a test for an online music production course. I am much more of an electric player, but had hurt my left thumb and couldn’t bend well so switched to the acoustic and decided to sing, since I couldn’t do my usual electric blues stuff. Anyway, I wrote it, so it’ll be out.

How are you guys doing?

we had a rather pleasant week, with some down right cooler evenings than is usual for this time of year. I've been taking advantage of that to get outside 3x daily for my 'walks'. If you call walking up and down the length of 5 houses a walk. Still, considering that I had surgery less than 8 weeks ago, it's progress. I saw a doctor on Thursday who referred me to outpatient PT and I'm cleared to drive. As much as I'd like to go crazy with pent up desire, I've been uncharacteristically showing restraint. Still on hip surgery protocols as far as bending over for the time being. Pain isn't bad although the right knee seems to be going through some changes of geometry due to the leg being shorter than before, new surfaces are being abraded and not accepting their fate without letting me know of their displeasure. A lot has to do with how tired I am, it's worse late in the evening. All the more important to keep up the walking and rebuild my endurance.

As such with the hip protocols, sitting with guitar in lap and especially trying to lean forward to read music or watch video is not happening right now. Patience is being tested. I'd rather play later than try to play now and cause delays in healing. I have too much physical work that needs doing to set back my progress.

Saw this week that the Old Farmer's Almanac is calling for a cold and snowy winter this year. I want to be ready for it.

Happy Sunday! Me and the Mrs. just finished spreading a yard of mulch in the garden. We have two more to go, but I have a really busy week so I'm not pushing myself today. Got some Amazon review to do today, including a set of Erinie Ball Slinky flat-wound strings. I'm surprised that, in playing guitar for 52 years, I don't think I've ever used a set before. Next week I'm all over the state (lucky for me Connecticut is rather small) doing some fun stuff. Tuesday is a day-long session working on the state's strategic plan for educational technology, followed by my association's Summer Leadership Institute and training a charter school governing board on Friday. It's all fun stuff! Have a great week, everyone!

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Originally Posted by S. Cane

Good morning, friends.

Been a bit absent lately. Busy with lawyer stuff and also enrolled in two university programs (Politics and Music Production). Also, I’ve been finishing and recording some songs.

The first one will be released tomorrow, a very simple acoustic song in kind of a country-blues structure that I initially wrote as a test for an online music production course. I am much more of an electric player, but had hurt my left thumb and couldn’t bend well so switched to the acoustic and decided to sing, since I couldn’t do my usual electric blues stuff. Anyway, I wrote it, so it’ll be out.

How are you guys doing?

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Good to see you back, S. We've had some new folks show up, so the place is heating up a bit. Hope you stick around for a while.

Wow a really busy week. Tuesday gig, Wed sound gig for local band outside.....Thursday night sound gig forthe nighthawks and it was fantastic... then friday band gig....got home at 1.30 am....had to get up at 5 to go setup for peach festival....3 acoustic acts and a duo with tracks and a sax....then my band with a horn section added and 2 guitars a harp drummer and me. At the end I was spent. Chugged 3 Gatorade and 2 bottles of water before I could even start teardown. Today cut grass cleaned the pool went shopping and am now just finally resting. And still have a day job too. Whew

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Originally Posted by FrankJohnson

Wow a really busy week. Tuesday gig, Wed sound gig for local band outside.....Thursday night sound gig forthe nighthawks and it was fantastic... then friday band gig....got home at 1.30 am....had to get up at 5 to go setup for peach festival....3 acoustic acts and a duo with tracks and a sax....then my band with a horn section added and 2 guitars a harp drummer and me. At the end I was spent. Chugged 3 Gatorade and 2 bottles of water before I could even start teardown. Today cut grass cleaned the pool went shopping and am now just finally resting. And still have a day job too. Whew

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Good to see your smiling face here as well, Kenny! You too, Sergio!

Oh I stop in a lot nick. I just do t post too much anymore.

Took the weekend off from gigs. The intention was to learn the new to me Helix LT. While not new to modelers, it is a new format for me. Well there are only perfect intentions. Spent most the weekend resting, taking care of the pets and thinking. Actually I spent most the time on the phone talking with my best friends (hours of conversations).

Got the Helix hooked up to the computer today and learning the architecture. Once I am comfortable with it, the Mesa and Hartke are heading out.

Nothing spells "FUN" like two outdoor shows in a weekend in August. Packed up Saturday, up at 4AM to go fishing Sunday, off the water by 11AM and then off to the Sunday show. Same place TeleBob and I played at a bit ago. Good crowds for both shows. Actually pulled the Tele out for the second show. Gosh they are so nice in live setting.

Sunday morning I was at the lake at 5:30 AM and there were no other boats out. Even until late morning we only saw two or three boats. Weird, but what the hey, fishing was good. Mixed bag of largemouth and smallmouth.

Chuck

Busy week!

Hit 700 miles on my 1000 mile Summer Bicycle Ride.

Ordered a Weber 12A150T 12" AlNiCo speaker for the Princeton. The Cannabis Rex sounds good, but the low end farts out a bit more than I'd like. Turning the bass down helps a bit, but then it starts to sound a bit thin and sqwauky.

Woodshedding for an upcoming gig on the 12th.

Just cut and tuned 9 pieces of electrical conduit to the "Sacred Solfeggio Healing Frequencies" for a wind chime project I'm working on. Fascinating project.
I have had to develop tuning methods and learn so many new things in order to make these, and it's pretty cool.
The hardest part is weeding through all the bullshit people write about "how to" make these tubes.

Keeping busy!

Curious why you used conduit? I've built a few wind chimes in the past, (no I didn't tune them, although I did grind a little off some to make them play nice with the others!) I used brass, more resonant than copper, not as fragile as glass. A friend used leaf springs cut down to size, unique sound!
I'm pretty sure there was no healing properties, unless you sat under them while having a few!

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Originally Posted by Bill Moore

Curious why you used conduit? I've built a few wind chimes in the past, (no I didn't tune them, although I did grind a little off some to make them play nice with the others!) I used brass, more resonant than copper, not as fragile as glass. A friend used leaf springs cut down to size, unique sound!
I'm pretty sure there was no healing properties, unless you sat under them while having a few!

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Let me start by saying, I know nothing of these healing frequencies or what the benefits may be. I love a good project though, and the research required to do this right caught my interest.

I'm making these for a friend who practices sound healing and I figured if sound healing is really going to work, you're going to need the right pitches in the right octaves to get it done. The 9 Solfeggio sacred frequencies are very specific.

I used electrical conduit EMT pipe because I knew the tubes would be fairly long conduit comes in 10 ft lengths. This makes tuning adjustments less critical than it would be with shorter tubes. Also, conduit stands up to weather very well.

The lowest frequency I needed to create is 174Hz which required a 1" tube that is about 40 1/4" in length. Many of the so-called experts offer these tubes in much shorter lengths, read "higher octaves of the desired frequencies," because it's easier to handle them, less expensive to make them, and in general easier to hang them. But because of the nature of the Solfeggio healing frequencies, the exact frequencies cannot be interpreted in such a manner. 174Hz cannot be anything else, even if it's a direct octave to that pitch. The next octave up from 174Hz is 348Hz, clearly not the specified healing frequency. It's the 174Hz frequency that matters, not the relative octaves.

Using the tube ID, OD and wall thickness, I was able to determine the approximate lengths necessary to achieve Solfeggio frequencies.

Knowing there would be some fine tuning involved, I cut each tube longer than it needed to be so the pitch would intentionally be flat to allow for fine tuning. You can cut them shorter, but if you’re too short, you can’t add material back. You’d have to start with a whole new tube.

Then I tested the cut tube and wrote down that frequency. I then divided the desired frequency number by the actual frequency number and extrapolate the percentage number that needed to be cut from the tube to get it exactly at 174Hz.

The tubes get warm when you cut/grind them and ring sharp when they are warm. Then the frequency drops as they cool. Can't rush the process.

So now I have 9 tubes that are just slightly flat from the frequencies I want to end up with. I will now re-test each tube and grind the ends, one at a time, letting them cool between tests, and repeat until each one is at the proper pitch. This can take several hours.

It is important to note that the tubes seem to ring best when the hanging holes are drilled at one of the harmonic nodes of each tube.

Locating the best hanging point/node is accomplished by measuring the tube length and multiplying it by .224 to calculate the distance from the end of the tube to the hanging holes.

In this case the holes on a 40 1/4" tube will be at 9.016" from the top. When strung from this point, the tube will ring loud and clearly. Drilling all the holes randomly about 3/4" from the top, like some of the so-called experts suggest, will yield a set of tubes that ring poorly without sustain or richness in sound. They will be muted.

Lastly, the chimes/tubes sound best when the striker hits them at the center point of their length. Therefore a circular chime set, using a central striker disk, requires that tubes be hung in such a manner that the hanging striker plate hits them all in the middle of their length. This will yield the most robust tone from all of the tubes.

Example: 40 ¼” tube sounds best when struck at the 20 1/8” point.

A 26” tube will sound best when struck at the 13” point/mark. And so on…

I am also working hard at coming up with hanging wires that fit inside the tubes allowing them to be hung with the string touching the side of the tube. Any contact with the tube will contaminate or deaden the sound. I’m trying to develop a small “W” shaped wire that goes inside the tube and the outer arms of the “W” catch the hanging holes. The string attaches to the center point of the “W”. This shape prevents the hanging wire from moving back and forth inside the tube while preventing the hanging string from touching the inside as well. Perfecting the installation is where I hung up right now. But I’ll get it!

Anyway, this is way more than I ever thought I'd learn about building custom wind chimes. But when I take on a project, I like to do things right. I'm sure that other more experienced people will have plenty of helpful info to add.

That really is a project!
For tubes that long, you'll need some substantial wire!
Maybe not a "W", but a "V" in a straight wire to fasten the cable to the tube, prebend the "V" and the stop the distance needed, and after inserting through all, bend the other stop, and cut off excess?

....then it becomes a "W"

Been a while since I've joined the Sunday thread, and it's already Wednesday.

Weekends are hectic--a whole week of chores and to-do lists are crammed into 1.5 days.

I've been super busy, journalist for our local news outlet. I haven't had a job that I loved this much since I was a young business journalist. I'm getting a lot of community recognition for my work, and it's incredibly satisfying to get the cudos from folks of all walks. I'm humbled when people tell me, "I really enjoy your writing. I read you every day." To think that they take a few minutes out of their lives to pay attention to what I'm writing--amazing. Sure, they read my work in order to stay informed about the city, but they also single out my columns, which range from opinion to storytelling.

It's also been nice to see how our public and school officials really care about our community. I've come to appreciate our police department even more. Not only do they have to battle the meth industry here, they have to battle public perception. And nobody wants to talk, so when someone gets killed or we have an armed robbery, police have an even harder job of getting arrests.

Most nights, I'm able to cram in a few minutes of guitar playing time, but not for long periods. However, I value those minutes more than ever. Lately, I've mostly played my AmPro II Strat (it is a stellar instrument no matter what folks say about the current "American instruments) and my Les Paul Traditional.

And I've discovered something else: when you're busy busy busy, GAS disappears.

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Originally Posted by Tele-Bob

....then it becomes a "W"

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Suspend with braided stainless cable as small as you feel comfortable. .018" is popular for controline models. You may want to go bigger for safety. Go to a local hobby shop and buy some brass tubing that the cable will fit easily, but neatly into. Cut the tubing to a length you need to create an eye. Anneal the brass tubing with your torch and then slip the cable through it and bend. It will bend like buttah and protect the cable. It will also create a suspending mechanism with low friction which will reduce damping ( aka, increase sustain.)

This is how we did the leadouts on our controline planes back in the day.

During tuning, if you cut a tube too short and it's sharp, just weld some material back on. :)