Hi,
I’ve been getting my crafting shed ready for this winter.
I’ve also been getting my life ready for this winter as well. My
grandmother taught me this lesson: if you do everything your family
expects you to, you can expect to spend your spare time free of
guilt! I passed that one on to my family, and I still follow it… my
wife and I are both retired and we do one heck of a lot of housework
both together and separately.
I want to be ready to have 2 or 3 hours of uninterrupted time 5 days
a week, so I’m not crafting right now, but doing everything it takes
to get ready for that “me time” this winter.
So I’ve now been getting the yard: installing a fence for the
garden, constructing a new bunny cage from salvaged wood, and the
trench for electric is now completely filled back in with dirt.
(We want at least partial protein independence, vital when I’m
supporting my entire family on SSDI, and we discovered southern-fried
rabbit tastes really good! We can also give them many of our fruit
and vegetable scraps, and they convert it into manure for the garden.
This will close one of our main waste loops.
We had one litter of 5 individuals this year because we started so
late, with only three survivors. One of them has a lame foot, so
he’s gonna be a dinner. We have high hopes for the remaining male, I
think he is going to start a very happy life come springtime. We’ll
return the young female in exchange for the pregnant doe we got a few
months ago).
The lower level is all picked up, tools now put where they belong,
more or less, and floor swept.
My wife and I sold a whole bunch of stuff this year just to make more
room, and so I was able to gain back a good three quarters of the
upper level.
I sold a bunch of radio parts and equipment (my hobby before jewelery
was amateur radio) for $240, and gained more room in the upstairs
that way too. I still have an oscilloscope and a dip-meter either to
sell or trade, but maybe next year there will be some takers.
I spent about $97 on some kiln shelf paper, two bottles of fuel for
my Miniflam dental torch (which I intend to play with and get to know
intimately this winter because I now have THREE bottles and won’t be
interrupted), and a new full set of Silicon Softies.
What that means, is that I made a small space on the upper level with
chairs, table, lamp, lazy Susan… my enameling supplies, and an
ancient model (ca 1950?) Foredom I got as a gift from a widowed
postmaster whose husband was a jeweler.
I also brought my porcelain and glazes I had purchased back in 2008
but never used because I could never safely use the kiln yet which I
bought that same year.
But now that I have full electric in my shed, this year, I’ll be able
to!
The polishing table on the lower level can therefore become just a
polishing table again, with a lot more room this time to add a pickle
pot. I also uncrated my bench grinder, a gift from my father-in-law
for Christmas last year, which has a flex-shaft attachment.
As I was cleaning out the upper level, I found a yard or two of
shape-memory wire, Nitinol, that I was planning on using in my radio
hobby somehow.
I vaguely remember seeing online that some jewelers are
incorporating this material. Wikipedia says it is used in medical
prosthetics… which would imply that it is hypoallergenic and
therefore possibly useable as ear wire and posts.
That’s my status. Here’s my question for this time:
Does Nitinol solder okay to silver or copper, or must I use cold
connection?
Thanks again,
Andrew Jonathan Fine