29
Jun 16

CHIP

The $9 computer kickstarter project finally arrived.
2016-06-28 20.33.20Granted, it’s been beaten to the punch by the raspberry pi zero, but out of the box it has some nice touches…

2016-06-28 20.34.11

It’s wider than the zero but a bit shorter. Female headers, so that’s a bit more robust and easier for breadboarding and the pinout is printed on the header (you can see that more readily below). 2016-06-28 20.34.37

Nice insulating back cover so that you don’t need a protective box for it on the bench from day one (wouldn’t recommend deploying it without a box of course, but the pi zero really needs some protection even on the bench).
2016-06-28 20.34.57I do like that touch of the pinouts on the header.
Haven’t had time to fire it up and play yet, but first out-of-the-box impressions aren’t bad…


26
Jun 16

More Horses and Glue

I managed, one or three boards at a time, to get the glue faces of the benchtop boards planed smoothish (from rough-sawn) over assorted weekday evenings in the hour or less that I had free. Hell, I even managed to paint the sawhorses out of sheer frustration (and to test the colours of the paint intended for the shed).

Then this weekend I finally got a sunday to work on the top (I was waiting for a full day because everyone says that with pine, plane it flat and glue it the same day or it’ll warp on you out of spite). Out came the boards… Continue reading →


26
Jun 16

Horses and glueups

There followed a few weeks of waiting and gathering up a few tools I didn’t have and was going to need (yes, I need a #7. For a given value of need. Oh come on, look at all that lovely cast iron…).
Then after that, once the moisture content was more or less stable in the wood, I hauled out the 2×3 lengths I had and knocked up some quick sawhorses because I was not about to plane an entire workbench on a workmate that did more dancing than I did at my wedding.

Nothing fancy, but so much damn nicer than planing on the workmate. Next up, planing the glue faces of the leg pieces.

Continue reading →