Step 2 (1/2)

So, my next task involved disassembly of the bar supports. First, I laid out the replacement pieces as you can see in the following picture. This is the naturals frame, upside down, with new wood clamped to old.

My next step was to take apart some of the old support frame. I removed the cross pieces, then detached the old rabbeted end piece from the decorative material above. I rabbeted the ends of the new cross pieces (by hand, thanks again mom for the X-Acto set last Christmas) and the new end piece, as seen in the following pictures. The first shows the end piece, and the second shows how it will fit on the end of the support frame on top of the base.

This last picture shows the two cross pieces in place, not cut to length.

At this point there has been a bit of a delay. I have been trying to find a good source of maple for the string support pins, which has been a challenge. I finally found a local planing mill that can cut some oak and maple to spec. They didn't get back to me with an estimate today (which irked me greatly; I'll have to call them again tomorrow), but they should be cutting me 180 1/4 X 1/2 inch pins (135 at 1 7/8 long, 45 at 3 3/8), plus pieces of oak for the base frame. I decided today that I will be abandoning the current split design, and using one larger central horizontal support for the base, instead of two that hook together. I will make the center legs out of 2 inch by 2 inch [fill in name of wood here] and the top frame will fit over it. This will make it only slightly harder to transport, but it should still fit through a door without too much trouble, especially with the floating bar supports. That means that to disassemble it I will have the natural and accidental bar support pieces, the main box, and the legs as separate parts. I drew a clumsy design in Paint to illustrate the new central leg support design, which will facilitate easy breakdown. I still need to decide whether to add sway stabilizers in place of the triangular pieces you see above around the legs. I am hoping this new design will help avoid the warping that happened in the current frame and is preventing it from fitting together flush.

My next step is to replace the left end of the naturals bar frame as I did the right. When I took them apart there were all sorts of nails and glue, nailed from both sides to make it really hard to disassemble. I am thinking I will use 1/4 or 3/8 inch hardwood pegs going through the structures instead of nails or screws. Please see the following clumsy visual reference. I'm not sure if this will lead to too much play in the joint; I'm still thinking about it.

After I get the bar support frame ready (as well as replace the front horizontal support of the accidentals frame) I will lay out all the bars to determine where the pins will go, mark the center lines for the pins, and mortise about 5/16 down into the horizontal support pieces. I will need to shave 1/32 from each side of the pins to match the old pins' thickness, but I like the idea of having a 1/4 inch mortised base to use for strength and stability. The old ones were just hand carved into about 3/16 inch cylinders and pounded into drilled holes, which has led many of them to snap off. Anyway, here's a picture of what the new pins will look like.

This will be more of a challenge than it seems, because I will be drilling, shaving, and mortising all 156 pins by hand. I have high hopes that the 1/4 inch mortise chisel I plan to get will be sharp and effective. If not, I will have to find a friend with a mortiser. The (lofty) goal is to set them all perfectly in place with no glue or fasteners and have them jiggle not a bit.

I plan to post another update once I have the bar frames completed. I hope to have the pins and base pieces back from the mill before Christmas.

Step 1

The first thing I decided to do was replace the horizontal bar supports. The three that need replacing are all approximately the same dimensions, but there is a 1/8" variation from one end to the other in two of them. I decided to just cut them all the same.

I had to decide which wood to use, and elected to just use red oak from the local big box home improvement store (Sorry, Home Depot, only parenthetical free advertising on this man's blog). This isn't a part of the instrument that will be visible and, well, I just wanted to get started as soon as possible. It took a long time to find a six-foot section of 1X4 without too much warping (they store 12-foot sections upright and don't rotate them, which just seems stupid to me, but I guess it saves a bunch of floor space). My neighbor has a portable table saw and let me come over and use it on his porch. One fun side benefit of trimming 1/8" off the 3/4" side (the 1 in the nominal 1X4) was ending up with a couple 1/16" by 6 foot slats, which I think will make very nice shingles or siding for a dollhouse project. Here's a photo of the three pieces, which I know will be super thrilling.

 This photo shows a closer look at the support posts, many of which have snapped off the bases. This view is from the accidental bar set, hence the gaps.

 Another view...

 ...and another. I am not the world's best photographer. Anyway, you can see in the above photo that I numbered all the posts (of which, surprisingly, only one was missing) so I can match them up later with the horizontal supports and see how high to mount the suspension cord.

 Here is a view of the far end posts of the accidental bar set. I elected not to remove any of these from the support, since they were still pretty solidly attached.

Many of the posts had to be encouraged to leave the horizontal support, but as the support was broken it had to be done. On the natural bar set there was one broken and one intact support, and the intact one was pretty badly warped so I need to replace both.

 Here is the accidental support. All the bars are turned over because I numbered them in pencil. You can see the heap of posts there also; I will need to make quite a few myself to replace broken or missing ones.

I laid out the keys on a blanket and then rolled them for storage. They will all need quite a bit of cleaning before they can be restrung and mounted.

Yep, tied them up with a nice square knot. The cord, incidentally, feels waxed or oiled and is in pretty good shape, but I had to cut it to get it off so it's unusable at this point.

Here is the natural bar set ready to work on. I finished the second set at about 1:30 this morning. Next up is making all the new posts, which I will initially do in hardwood. I think I will likely end up using modern metal ones in the end, since I would then be able to take the bars off without completely unstringing them. I'm not totally sure about it though, since the wood ones are sort of charming and most are still in good shape. Incidentally, the builder didn't glue any of the posts into the frame, they are just pounded in and held by friction. I could see plenty of places where he had to drill second holes because the initial hole didn't quite work, so I hope I have better luck planning my post locations.

More to come, probably not as soon as this one did.

One of those "What did I just get myself into" sorts of things

So, I just bought a marimba. I was looking for marimba mallets on KSL for kids and found a marimba listed instead that seemed to be in my price range. It is about 5 1/2 octaves (my current instrument is a 4-octave) and was (according to the seller) hand made in El Salvador 50 or so years ago out of Honduran mahogany. It has a lot of character, which is probably a good thing (the jury is still out on the carved pastoral scene on the front). The bars have a good sound and are mostly in tune.

Sounds great, right? Yep. The downside of the situation is that over the years it has gotten really beat up. Parts of the base are broken, string support posts are snapped or missing, and part of the frame is warped. Some previous owner committed several crimes against wood including wiring part of it together, using nails the size of which was incredibly wrong, tacking part of it together badly using brads, and gluing with no apparent knowledge of the existence of clamping technology. Here are some "before" pictures. I will post updates as I work on it.

This shows the whole pastoral scene on the front panel. The painted pieces were carved separately and attached. I'm hoping the wood under these pictures has been finished similar to the rest; I may remove them. What do you think, numerous potential commenters? Should I leave them or remove them?

This shows a close-up of the scene.

 You can see from this photo how the box and support pieces split in half. I am considering making the legs detachable for easier portability.

A close-up of the amazingly professional repair job using copper wire.

Splits like this are pretty common in the base/foundation.

You can see the terrible nailing job done here. You can't tell very well, but it was also glued.

The naturals or "white" keys. The rear horizontal piece has snapped. The bars are made of padouk, which is rosewood's slightly poorer cousin.

The accidentals or "black" keys. You can see hanging off the from string numerous string support posts, also of hardwood, many of which have snapped off and many others of which are merely out of the holes. The partial piece at the front of the keys is part of the horizontal support piece, part of which is missing.

A close-up of the lowest naturals. You can see the beautiful wood finish here, and see more of the hardwood posts. If you listen closely to your screen you will hear the thrilling low G resonating. This note sealed the deal for me. I'm not yet sure what it will sound like once it is repaired, but a higher A is matched pretty closely to A440 which means that it can be accompanied by a normally tuned piano, which was important for me. Some of the octave intervals are tuned a little off and the overtones/second resonance are not superbly tuned, but it was handmade so some variation is to be expected. Like I said, the instrument has character.

This is the only obviously damaged key, and the repair that makes me the most angry. The bar broke in half along the grain and was clumsily glued back together, without any apparent clamping or with an expanding glue. The note still sounds ok, but I will need to see if I can find a safe glue solvent that will dissolve it without harming the wood so I can do a better job. This is the lowest accidental, a G flat. Interestingly (at least to those familiar with modern manufactured instruments), the range goes from the piano equivalent of two G flats below middle C (the G below the low C on my current marimba) to the fourth B above middle C (almost a full octave above my current 4-octave). I think this would probably qualify as an almost-5.5-octave xylorimba, but I'm not sure. Also in this photo you see the knotted support string; I will be replacing this series of knots with a modern-style hooked tension spring arrangement.

 The resonators are of wood, which (as my limited research reveals) is pretty common for Latin American instruments. Apparently this is also hardwood. The resonators each have a little hole in the bottom, which would be covered with pig gut membrane to produce a characteristic buzzing effect. I will not be recovering the holes. There are not nearly enough resonators for all the bars, and I'm not yet sure how many would be typical for an instrument of this type. This is the biggest question I have about the project...it would be very time-consuming and difficult to handmake resonators of this type for all the keys, and I'm not sure whether substituting a different kind of resonator will be acceptable or not (PVC, for example, is a cheap but ugly substitute, and aluminum commercial resonators would look wrong).

This is a sort of put together view of the marimba. The wood pieces on the accidentals are resonator supports. Obviously the front and back halves will be joined without the huge gap you see in the picture.

There is a fundamental question I need to face with this project, which will make a lot of my choices more difficult. That is, do I try to stay as faithful to the original construction as possible in terms of materials and methods, which would preserve the charm of the folk instrument, or do I substitute materials and methods that will make the design more robust? Honduran mahogany is not likely to be cheap or easy to find, so visible pieces like the legs would look noticeably different if I use a different wood. I have no idea what finish was used (it has a waxy feel, but could be anything) so it may be hard to duplicate. I don't like the idea of stripping the whole thing and refinishing it. The wood string support posts will be time-intensive to carve (although not that difficult) and replacing them with modern metal supports with rubber insulators would make for a more robust construction, but it would change the look. Input from readers, again, is welcome, especially as regards the aesthetics of the project and more especially still from readers with any experience in this area.

This will be a labor of love for me. My first priority is to make it playable by replacing the bar supports and string support posts (with wood initially), then I will work on the foundation frame. At least for a while, I will have two marimbas so any of you who are percussionists will be able to come play duets. :)

If anybody has friends who you think have special knowledge in this area that may be of assistance, feel free to share the link to the project. I will try to post regular updates.

Bedtime Stories

I'm writing this down now because Clara was worried I would forget the story and she wants to hear it again. So, here goes.

Tonight I had read Clara a few books and was going to lay down with her and she said "Dad, will you tell me a story?" And I said, "but I just read you three books! How about some songs?" Then she said "well, not right now. How about just a little story?"

Then I said, "what would you want the story to be about?" and she replied, "A little girl and her father." And I said "well, all right." So here's the story I told her...

Once upon a time there was a little girl and her father lying in bed, and the little girl said, "Daddy, will you tell me a story?" And the dad said "but I just read you three stories! How about some songs?" And the girl said "well, not right now. How about just a little story?" And the dad said "what would you want the story to be about?" and the little girl said, "a little girl and her father." So the dad said "well, all right. Once upon a time there was a little girl and her father lying in bed, and the little girl said, 'Daddy, will you tell me a story?' And the dad said 'but I just read you three stories! How about some songs?' And the girl said 'well, not right now. How about just a little story?' And the dad said 'what would you want the story to be about?' and the little girl said, 'a little girl and her father.' So the dad said 'well, all right. Once upon a time there was a little girl and her father lying in bed, and the little girl said, "Daddy, will you tell me a story?" And the dad said "but I just read you three stories! How about some songs?" And the girl said "well, not right now. How about just a little story?" And the dad said "what would you want the story to be about?" and the little girl said, "a little girl and her father." So the dad said "well, all right. Once upon a time there was a little girl and her father lying in bed, and the little girl said, 'Daddy, will you tell me a story?' And the dad said 'but I just read you three stories! How about some songs?' And the girl said 'well, not right now. How about just a little story?' And the dad said 'what would you want the story to be about?' and the little girl said, 'a little girl and her father.' So the dad said 'well, all right. Once upon a time there was a little girl and her father lying in bed, and the little girl said, "Daddy, will you tell me a story?" And the dad said "but I just read you three stories! How about some songs?" And the girl said "well, not right now. How about just a little story?" And the dad said "what would you want the story to be about?" and the little girl said, "a little girl and her father." So the dad said "well, all right. Once upon a time there was a little girl and her father lying in bed, and the little girl said, 'Daddy, will you tell me a story?' And the dad said 'but I just read you three stories! How about some songs?' And the girl said 'well, not right now. How about just a little story?' And the dad said 'what would you want the story to be about?' and the little girl said, 'a little girl and her father.' So the dad said 'well, all right. Once upon a time there was a little girl and her father lying in bed, and the little girl said, "Daddy, will you tell me a story?" And the dad said "but I just read you three stories! How about some songs?" And the girl said "well, not right now. How about just a little story?" And the dad said "what would you want the story to be about?" and the little girl said, "a little girl and her father." So the dad said "well, all right. Once upon a time there was a little girl and her father lying in bed, and the little girl said, 'Daddy, will you tell me a story?' And the dad said 'but I just read you three stories! How about some songs?' And the girl said 'well, not right now. How about just a little story?' And the dad said 'what would you want the story to be about?' and the little girl said, 'a little girl and her father.' So the dad said 'well, all right. Once upon a time there was a little girl and her father lying in bed, and the little girl said, "Daddy, will you tell me a story?" And the dad said "but I just read you three stories! How about some songs?" And the girl said "well, not right now. How about just a little story?" And the dad said "what would you want the story to be about?" and the little girl said, "a little girl and her father." So the dad said "well, all right." And he did.' The end." The end.' The end." The end.' The end." The end.' The end."

The end.

First Year Stats

Although I started my first year at my new job in June of 2013, I finished orientation in August and started practicing independently at the beginning of September. So, I reached a year at the beginning of this month.

In my first year of practice I saw 1371 patients for annual preventive exams (of which 218 also had acute medical problems), saw 628 patients for medical problems only, inserted 94 Mirena IUDs (and supervised 2 other insertions), inserted 70 ParaGard IUDs, inserted 56 Nexplanon implants, and removed 48 implants. I also fitted 2 patients for diaphragms, not the most popular method these days.

I saw 2831 patients in total. Total number of no-shows, 923.

Not a bad year.

The First Greybeard Story

I made up this bedtime story a while back and I thought I would post it. It's not exactly a masterpiece, but with some work I think it would make a really cute children's book. So, here goes. Feed me back if you wish.

Greybeard Goes Swimming

In the middle of the forest, in a small hole in the tallest tree lived Greybeard, the oldest squirrel.

One day Greybeard said, "I'm getting old. I think it's time I learned to swim." So he left his hole and jumped from tree to tree, all the way to the big pond. He sat on a tree branch and looked down at the water. Then he picked an acorn and threw it down so it landed - splash! - next to a fish. The fish looked up.

"Hey, Mr. Fish," said Greybeard. "Can you teach me how to swim?"

"TEACH you to swim?!" responded the fish. "Why would I TEACH you to swim? It's as easy as breathing!" The fish shook his head and swam away with a flick of his tail. Greybeard picked another acorn and tossed it down into the pond - splash! - next to a frog. The frog looked up.

"Hey, Mr. Frog," said Greybeard. "Can you teach me to swim?"

"TEACH you to swim?!" replied the frog. "Why, it's as easy as kicking your feet, silly!" The frog laughed to himself and swam away with a few strong kicks of his feet. Greybeard picked another acorn.

Splash! the acorn landed next to a water bug. The bug was already looking up, floating on his back on top of the water. "Hey," he said lazily.

"Mr. Water Bug," said Greybeard, "can you teach me to swim?"

"Well..." said the water bug. He stroked his oars a few times. "Nah." He paddled away.

Greybeard picked one last acorn. Splash! it landed by a duck. The duck looked up.

"Hey, Mr. Duck," said Greybeard. "can you teach me to swim?"

"I guess so," responded the duck. "Jump down on my back."

Greybeard scampered down the tree trunk and climbed on the duck's back. The duck started to swim across the pond while Greybeard held on tight.

"I'm going to dive. Take a deep breath!" said the duck. Greybeard held his breath and the duck dove under the water. They went down, down, down. Greybeard looked around. He saw fish swimming, and frogs kicking. He looked up and saw water bugs paddling and the wavy blue sky. He looked down and saw plants and rocks and mud. Greybeard decided he had seen enough.

Greybeard let go of the duck and kicked his legs until he was back in the air. He kicked his legs until he was at the side of the pond. He shook the water out of his fur. "Well," he said, "I guess that's enough swimming for today."

THE END

I was thinking Greybeard could get into the water each time (try breathing underwater, kicking his legs and floating, for example) but I don't know if that would improve the story at all. Let me know what you think of the basic idea.

And just for fun, I will add: copyright Sept 2014, Jordan Johnsen

A Few Small Projects

Here are three projects I made that I haven't posted about yet.

The first is a rattle I made for Micah. I started it on a youth conference trip and finished it at home. It is made of basswood, which meant that it has already needed repairing twice. I'm not sure how much use he has gotten out of it, but it was fun to make. It makes a satisfying wood-clunky noise that I love.

The second is a puzzle box that I made for my cousin Michael. There is a spring-driven locking mechanism inside that makes it so that the letters have to be in the right order and all pushed down at once in order for the box to open. I will be posting my build notes on Instructables at some point with more photos. It was one of those things you make in a flurry while neglecting other things like presents for the people you actually live with.

The third is an accordion folder I made for my wife this past Valentine's day, which shows just what a classically romantic sort of man I am. Come to think of it, I've made a few homemade Valentine's Day gifts with super-elegant materials. I should put pictures of them in here sometime. Anyway, this is designed to hold cash envelopes and receipts for different budget categories. It is made of poster board covered with duct tape. You can't tell from this picture how nice the design is, but I promise it is well made and durable. All the hinge points are reinforced. This was my first real use of my X-Acto set I got for Christmas last year (thanks, Mom).

So, there you go.

Dream

So, I had a dream last night that want to share with you because I think it is significant and symbolic. The setting is a large building (a conference center? lots of glass windows). In front of it is a shallow, warm river divided by a winding stone pathway.

I was walking down the pathway and noticed two men standing together, debating a topic of some import. A small group was seated nearby, listening. I, too, stood nearby and listened to them, weighing their arguments carefully.

Gradually, more people arrived. Some were dressed in fancy clothing, walking down the pathway or along the grassy shore. Some were in swimming attire, walking or lounging in the warm water of the river.

As I looked, a man approached me. It was Kevin Bacon, shirtless, looking rather flabby - the years had not been kind. "I think I'd go for that book exchange," he said to me. We had previously agreed to exchange favorite books for the other's reading pleasure. Although intimidated by his social stature, I heartily agreed to have a book for him when next we met.

As soon as Kevin Bacon left, I realized - to my horror - that I didn't know if he liked fantasy novels. What would happen if I gave him a treasured novel which he then disliked? Would he judge me by my favorite book? I looked frantically around but could see him nowhere. I began walking quickly through the crowd, past white-gloved waiters carrying silver trays of drinks and hors d'ouvres.

A group of men representing a madman bent on world domination suddenly rushed into the crowd, shooting indiscriminately with dart guns which weren't exactly fatal, but stung somewhat. I ran into the conference center to the second level, sure I could find the bomb (that apparently existed) before it exploded. Darts sort of stung my back, but my clothing was thickish, so I was okay...but they were totally a big threat that I nobly ignored as I rushed into danger. As I ran, I noticed a black-suited enemy agent about to fire on an innocent, cowering office worker! A perfectly executed flying elbow to the back of his neck, and his dart pistol was mine, the worker bumbling out a shaky thank you as I ran on.

I ran down the stairs to the lower level. Following a cry from a basement room, I rushed in to see a woman struggling for her life! She stood by a window, her right arm above and behind her head, her elbow caught in the slats of a set of window blinds! I disentangled her from certain doom amid the relieved sobs of her family, and ran onward, certain that I would not get credit for the two lives I had saved (well, it probably rounded up to two) but that good was worth doing for its own sake.

I ran out of the building onto the wide front lawn by the long driveway. Seated under an awning I noted Mr. Bacon, lounging with a lady friend! He gave me a look as I ran up - you know, the self-satisfied one that says I may be past my prime, but my fame still buys me a cheap fling with a shallow woman whenever I want one - and I was about to ask him how he would feel about my loaning him a fantasy novel which is classified as young adult fiction but that, you know, adults can really get into. At that moment, a line of black suburbans came roaring onto the drive from the underground parking garage, no doubt filled with villainous henchmen!

I sighted carefully at the one conveniently dripping fuel and fired several darts, which made sparks as they hit the pavement and blew up the vehicle, causing a chain reaction that made me extra heroic.

Steven Seagal, who had been standing atop a nearby hill talking on his cell, motioned to me frantically. "Jordan, I need your help!" he said. "My dad is Italian and doesn't speak English and I need to know if he liked my latest movie!" I took the phone and said Steven vuole sapere se il suo ultimo film ti piace or something like that, and the man said Beh, non era il suo migliore or something, and I told Steven that his dad liked it okay, but it wasn't his best, and Mr. Seagal nodded knowingly because he knows he's only in it for the money and none of his films are any good.

So, that's it. Where is one who can interpret?! It's obviously significant and important, but some questions remain. Was there really a bomb after all? How did Kevin get so far out of shape, and would he like The Name of The Wind? Is that really my favorite book, or was I just giving him one I really like, but not my absolute favorite, just in case he is secretly mocking me and pretending we are friends?

Son Study (Part 1?)

In preparation for Isaac's upcoming baptism, I decided to read through Gospel Principles together. We read a little each night on my phone, lying on his bed. It has been a good experience so far, and I feel like the decision was an inspired one.

Last night Aaron expressed his envy at not having special reading time of his own. I decided that, beginning tonight, we would read through the children's scripture stories in the same manner.

So, after we passed through the excited reaction, we started with the Old Testament. The first story is "Before the Old Testament," which recounts the council in heaven and ensuing conflict of ideas. I didn't really think much of it during the reading (having heard the story countless times before), but after we finished my little boy piped up with some questions.

"When he wasn't chosen, why was Lucifer angry? Why didn't he just say 'okay' and follow Jesus?"

So, we discussed how Lucifer wanted glory and attention for himself and this made him angry at not being chosen, and he tried to get others to follow him.

"If I had been there and I had presented a plan and Heavenly Father chose Jesus, I would have said 'okay' and followed his plan instead," he responded. He said he would have tried to help other people follow Jesus once his plan hadn't been chosen.

At this point, I pointed out that he had in fact been there for the presentation of the plans. His eyes widened a bit. "Really?" Although this is not the first time we have discussed the topic, I guess he was feeling more connected to the events. I asked him if he knew who he had chosen to follow. "Jesus," he replied with confidence.

I told him that just like he had chosen to follow Jesus then, we all could choose to follow Jesus now and try to help others choose to follow him too. He told me when he goes on a mission it will be to China, because one of his friends told him only 1% of the Chinese had ever heard of Jesus Christ.

Before we read tonight, I had almost decided due to the late hour to postpone the reading for another day. Instead I had a choice experience that I hope to repeat as we discuss other topics. I have enjoyed being able to share with Isaac, also, my knowledge and certainty of the truth of the principles we are discussing as we read. There is truly joy in parenting that we never find unless we choose to slow down and listen.