Awaiting sharp or abrasive answers

Jewelry Discussion
1

Hi all,

I wanted to let you know how I was doing, since I have been too busy
to post on Ganoksin for the past several months.

My craft shed electrification project is almost done. I’ve spent
nearly $800 on materials, and $100 on pizza and steaks for my trench
digging crew, of which I was part. We managed to dig 70 feet a foot
wide and nearly two feet down in just 7 days!!!

If you are curious to know how I got the money: I had saved up two
birthdays and one Christmas’s worth of cash presents from my extended
family. I also sold nearly my entire ham radio station as well. I had
to hold my money EXTREMELY close and resist the temptation from using
ANY of it for jewelry supplies.

I am determined to run a 220 volts, 40 amps line through underground
conduit from the main breaker at my house, which will be split at the
load center into a pair of 117 volt 20 amp breakers. I will run one
breaker into my existing lighting and outlet connections through a
GFCI outlet, and I will run the other breaker into a dedicated GFCI
outlet for a single high current device.

This way, I’ll have a “stiffer”, permanent connection for all my
normal electrical needs, and now I’ll also be able to use my Paragon
kiln, my used electric melter, extra space heaters during winter, or
a surplus window A/C unit during summer, depending on what I want.

During this same summer, I’ve put up a garden fence and gate to keep
my wife’s new dog out of my wife’s new garden, and I had been asked
to build a rabbit hutch.

My skill level and confidence definitely increased by the time I
stopped before Mother’s Day this year. Since starting this I very
slowly (12 hours per week) have made now about a dozen pairs of
forged fine silver cross earrings done, a single 28 inch fine silver
fused link chain, a mixed media pendant with silver frame, and a
solid silver heart pendant fused from strip construction based on a
paper model my daughter brought home from school.

I start with Northern Idaho Sunshine Mine 1 ounce fine silver rounds
and use a rolling mill to make wire for the chain and sheet for
frames and strips.

My wife was THRILLED to see the pendant, and hung it off of that
chain I made her the previous year.

I also dropped a pair of forged earrings into the collection plate on
at least two occasions this summer.

I’m very much looking forward to making glazed porcelain links to
combine the silver links with, learning the very basics of enameling,
and making fused glass beads.

It should be very nice. I’m looking very much forward to now having
the time to make Christmas and birthday presents for everyone in
gratitude for thier help.

My appointment for rough-in inspection is Wednesday, and between
tomorrow and Tuesday I think I’ll have the time to have nearly
everything fully assembled now that the trench is more or less
completely clear of debris at the bottom.

If all goes well, I’ll fill in the trench and I will have final
inspection the following week.

So far, on Slimfast diet plus 9 miles of racewalking per week plus
occasional upper body cardio workouts relating to the trench, I have
now lost 53 pounds since the past Thanksgiving. I am now 232 pounds,
and can hardly wait to see myself in Metric Onderland (100kg or
less).

I should be completely back in action, in about another month.

I am still so very grateful for everyone’s donations previously. But
I’m running out of some things and making it possible to engage in
this activity more often has taken a major toll on my room to
manuever to take my crafting to the next level.

I want to make another worldwide appeal for studio sweepings again…
but this time more targeted:

  1. I’m almost out of abrasive wheels, barrels, and drums to fit on
    Dremel/Foredom mandrells. Even used grit for tumbling would be okay.

  2. If anyone has a loose Mizzy or Silicone Softie or Cratex lying on
    the floor somewhere, could I please have it?

  3. As I said, I want to play with making class beads using my kiln.
    I’ll be happy for any COE-90 glass fragments which are the wrong
    size, shape, or color and are useless to you.

Thanks for listening,
Andrew Jonathan Fine

2

I am pretty impressed with all the projects including working on
yourself. Slimfast is a pretty difficult way to lose weight and keep
it off, so avail yourself of the wife’s garden. I look forward to a
progress report on your jewelry creations, the shed and the fitness
regime.

Barbara Blaschke

3

Andrew

I have not posted for quite a while as my jewellery making was put
on hold while we moved to BC and set up the farm. Now that things are
slowing down for the fall we will be able to finish off my studio and
I will be able to exercise my artistic itch back in the studio. I am
fortunate in that the farm had enough buildings that I get a whole
one to myself, except for the pressure tank for our water system.
Over the last two winters we have gutted and set up my studio to what
I wanted and renovated our house, Dan’s shop and a guest house.

Dan is a retired electrician and when I saw your electrification
project mentioned, showed him your post. He has a few
recommendations:

Hello Andrew, 

Your plan appears fine from the supplied I am
unsure if the underground conduit is existing or will be part of
the install. Distance from supply is always considered with a
view to feeding another location because of voltage drop in those
feeders. There are direct buried cables that might be suitable as
well, depending on ease of install and costs of both methods. 

Farmers have coined the phrases 220 and 110 volt where it is
actually 120 and 240 volt factors that are realized are used for
line drop calculations. I presume it is because they had voltage
crop to their farms which actually ended up with 110 and 220
volts at their farm. I mention this only because when the voltage
is less than desired, motors will draw extra current to
compensate and hard starts with thermal ageing of windings
occurs. 

Ground Fault Circuit Interruptors are great protection for the
application but they do have some requirements. They detect
leakage current to ground potential and in some circumstances
this is problematic. For instance, moisture winding insulation
may allow the trip as well. It only takes.005 amps to trip a GFCI
so be careful what array of loads you put on your non-dedocated
circuit where you plan to include multiple devices. 

You are welcome to contact me through Karen's email, should you
need more info. 

Regards,
Dan
4

Barbara, Dan, Karen:

I wanted to let you know that today, my electrical inspector gave me
a pass for all my rough-in work.

That means I can fill in the trench finally, which is something my
wife will also be very grateful to see. She has given me the end of
summer (21 September) as my deadline :slight_smile:

I only have a few sockets and some wire to install and I am good.
I’ll have a retired electrician friend supervise me when I wire up
the 40 amp breaker in the main house panel.

Then, watch out! I’ll be playing with my kiln some (as soon as I get
all my OTHER honey-do’s out of the way first!)!

About the Slim-Fast. I found it works for me like no other diet, for
three reasons:

  1. The taste of the Chocolate Royale powder in 1% milk is
    irresistable.

  2. It kills appetite for 4 hours, give or take

  3. With a target intake of 1200-1350 calories, the 2 servings I have
    for morning and before bed account for 500, leaving only 800 give or
    take to plan either as a single meal or two sandwhiches spaced during
    the day.

Most vegetables would be unlimited, and usually the Slimfast plan
does not count the first two pieces of fruit you have during the day.
I don’t eat their bars, they are no better than candy.

Plus I walk about 3 miles every other day unless I’ve done something
equally aerobic, like dig a trench :slight_smile:

Andrew Jonathan Fine

One other thing:

I didn’t do the trench all by myself. I had somewhere between 3 and
6 other people helping me for 2-3 hours per day for 6 days, and
together we were able to get it done fast.