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[Fletcher]

Good luck Dwanye.

The beauty of doing a build is the enjoyment of the process - overcoming the frustrations and finding the work-arounds. It gives a lot of satisfaction. Many times I wished I'd had better skills that many here probably take for granted.

Then you approach the moment of truth. That last thing that should complete the build. Sometimes I found myself taking a break for a few hours or days before 'pulling the trigger'.

Probably fear that it wouldn't work I suppose. None of mine ever worked as I'd planned or hoped. That is in a 'working wheel'. One where once started would self sustain its rotation after an initial acceleration, with no obvious energy entering or stored in the system.

But .. I always felt relieved afterwards that although it didn't work as I had hoped I also no longer carried around the same thoughts in my head, going over and over them, sometimes for years. That was quite liberating.

A new idea or plan B usually came along.

Not suggesting that yours will fail - you might be the one with just the right idea and skill set to build it. So good luck again.

[Furcurequs]

Hey Fletcher,

Thanks.

With my health and chronic pain problems, I pretty much have to force myself to do anything, so unfortunately building is not quite as enjoyable as it might be otherwise.

Also, even before my health issues I tended to be more of an arm chair philosophizer and procrastinator than an actual builder, so there's those obstacles to overcome too.

When I actually did build stuff in the past, however, I did have a fair amount of success getting things to work and even when others couldn't, but that was with more traditional devices, of course.

I was the only kid in my middle school science class to get my cork and nail electric motor working, for instance, and in college, though I waited until the very last day to do them (having procrastinated, obviously), I was often one of only a few people to get our 10 week engineering design projects working. It was certainly a rush - having been up all night and while loaded up on caffeine, too - to do in a day and two hours or less in the lab what some people couldn't do in 10 weeks and every day the lab was open of trying (I heard them whining about that... ...lol).

...but, of course, a gravity motor or some other type of "perpetual motion machine" poses a bit more of a challenge, I would say. ...and so I've certainly had my failures with experiments along those lines.

Anyway, there are definitely further obstacles to work through once one gets off the couch and starts doing the hands on. All those little things you realize you hadn't really given enough thought to rear their ugly heads - clearance issues, material strength... ...stretchy ropedness. ;)

As far as the "moment of truth," one of my most promising builds has sat unfinished for many many months now, maybe it's even been years, without me putting on those finishing touches. Part of that is definitely due to my health issues, but I suspect that another big part of that delay is an actual fear of failure.

Maybe that's why my plan B, C, and D come before I even know how plan A is going to turn out. ..lol

I do have quite the backlog of design ideas and unfinished builds now. Some of my ideas may be over two decades old, and I still don't know if they will work or not.

I do think they are all quite unique, however, in that I've really not seen any of my currently untested ideas tried before. That gives me some hope, at least.

I really do need to put as many of my ideas to bed as I can, however, so that I can move on to other things if necessary. Of course, it would be nice to have success with one (or more) of them, but as with you, it should at least be liberating to finally get some answers to my questions even if the answers are all "negative."

At the very least, even if my contraptions ultimately don't work, they will still look interesting enough to impress my landlord and other friends. ...lol

Thanks again.

[Fletcher]

LOL, yeah, best of luck. You only need one to 'work'. Getting many to 'work' is a bit greedy ;7)

I too have some Kinetic Sculptures in my back garden and shed in NZ. At least that's what others think when they see them, though the main one will be rusted solid by now.

[Furcurequs]

I hate to be greedy, but a few of my designs are actually variations on perhaps the same basic theme. If one build was taking too long and/or I decided it was just too complicated, I then tried to come up with a similar but simpler design and shift my focus to try to save labor and time.

So, if one of my current designs were to actually "work" (the accepted definition), there would be a good chance that I could ultimately end up with multiple working designs.

Of course, though, with this situation, too, a failure of one might also essentially eliminate all the others designed around the same principle from the running.

Anyway, I've now cut my new 5/16" steel rod to pieces of the correct length and replaced the flexible oak dowel shafts with them and remounted my bearings and pulleys. The new shafts were a little narrower than my oak dowels, so I put a little epoxy on them when mounting the bearings and pulleys to keep them in place. I still have some assembly and alignment to do overall, but I'm getting there.

I also cut slots into the end of the steel shafts and into the wooden pieces I was attaching them to with my Dremel tool cutting disk. I then dropped in pieces of nails that I epoxied into place to use as keys to keep the shafts from slipping.

It's not too rugged a design, but since I'm only working with 125 gram weights (rolls of 50 new U.S. pennies), I think it will now do the job.

I'm probably done for the evening, so next time I'm able to work on the thing, I should get back to the place I was before I discovered that my wooden shafts were too flexible.

[Art]

Fletcher... " But .. I always felt relieved afterwards that although it didn't work as I had hoped I also no longer carried around the same thoughts in my head, going over and over them, sometimes for years. That was quite liberating. "

------

Yes , I think that is a very critical observation which I completely identify with .
Its like going through the day without a good "constitutional" - the day is never quite as bright ! : )

Coming up with original new ideas just doesn't seem to work with me when I already know what works and don't have any data to back it up.
One part of my brain then just abuses the other more imaginative part of it with hubris .

What continues to amaze me though is even though I have been religeously plodding along , basically still testing major builds at about one per month
I still havn't been without what I consider to be original ideas for more than about 4 days at the maximum . There was a period of about 3 months a few years back though I was "idea-less" and life just wasn't up to scratch !



Dwayne .... "but I suspect that another big part of that delay is an actual fear of failure. "

-------

I remember one build that I had worked pretty hard on for a few weeks that I finished about 11 PM one night , and I decided to leave it fully primed and ready to turn until the following day.
The next day it sat there on front of me for a few hours while I tidied up my paperwork and gradually it started to dawn on me that I already knew exactly what was going realistically going to happen when I gave it that little push and it wasn't going to be what I had initially hoped for .

When I finally did spin it (after I got tired of waiting for a gust of wind to do it for me ), the results were so close to my new predictions that I felt vindicated and it almost gave me the same feeeling (I think) as I would have got if I had had to stop it so that I could get another cup of tea ! ( I think I'm so accostumed to saving energy I probably wouldn't want to leave it running all the time : )

I liked Scotts quote the other week : _

"Patience is the greatest of all virtues."
- Cato the Elder (234 BC - 149 BC)

Wheel building does that for you !

[Furcurequs]

"Nothing is easy!"

I think I should make that my new signature line.

I would really really like to have some answers about my own ideas. I've just been mulling them over for so long now that I'm just tired of thinking about them and feel I now really do need to KNOW something!! ...one way or the other.

Unfortunately, though, my ideas typically involve mechanisms that are a bit involved and so can't be easily tested. If any one of my ideas were to actually "work" (the accepted definition), and with all the work involved for me, and it proved to be an answer or even THE ANSWER, I could see why no one has just stumbled upon it in the past.

"Simple to build" once already properly designed may not at all be the same as "simple to design."

It would be nice to have simple tests and quick answers, but unfortunately that's not where I'm at. I'm sure that long and difficult builds that ultimately led to a solution would be very rewarding, but they could just as well lead to extraordinary frustration and failure.

That one build of mine that I can't seem to put the finishing touches on, I do mess with it on occasion, but always with "Mr. Hand" in the equation. Some days it's like, "Hey, wow! This thing might actually work when I get it finished! Woohoo!" On other days it's like "Oh, man! I'm just not sure. I think I might be pushing on it! What am I doing?!"

So, I need to finish it!! ...and replace "Mr. Hand" with a proper mechanism so that I can quit torturing myself!

No constitutional here! More like constipation! Help me!

[honza]

Hi Dwayne,
procrastination in my case comes because I don't like to loose "hope". So not so much a fear from failure. I am usually able to finish an experiment once I have another option (hope) in my mind.
Anyway, most of my builds remain unfinished. It is because I usually discover where I made the mistake in my thoughts before finishing.
Interestingly - this "revelation" rarely comes before I have a substantial part built and the remaining parts ready.
Good luck mate !!!

[ovyyus]

"Nothing is easy!"

I think I should make that my new signature line.

It's good, but I do like your current one, especially in a place like this :D

[Furcurequs]

Hey Bill,

Thanks.

My signature line is something I once said in an online chat room (either Yahoo's "Religion:1" or "Atheists vs Christians"). A few people got a chuckle out of it, I believe, so I decided to keep it.

The "Nothing is easy!" is something I've found myself saying off and on over the years. Actually, I guess some things may be easy - like failure. ...but in getting a proper experiment set up when exploring inventive ideas, I've yet to find that to be easy.

Maybe all the easy experiments have been done by the mainstream scientists. ...lol

[Furcurequs]

Hi Dwayne,
procrastination in my case comes because I don't like to loose "hope". So not so much a fear from failure. I am usually able to finish an experiment once I have another option (hope) in my mind.
Anyway, most of my builds remain unfinished. It is because I usually discover where I made the mistake in my thoughts before finishing.
Interestingly - this "revelation" rarely comes before I have a substantial part built and the remaining parts ready.
Good luck mate !!!

Hey honza,

I certainly understand where you are coming from. Without my health issues I would probably still be that way myself. With multiple ideas, I didn't use to put too much faith in any one of them, so I always had some hope in other options.

With my health issues, however, where I use precious (relatively) comfortable time or where I fight to work through my discomfort, a failed experiment is a bit harder to deal with. Because of my struggle to get things built, I'm probably putting too much hope in any one project.

No matter how much hope I have in a project, however, I do know better than to delude myself into believing it "has" to work without actual experimental validation.

Unfortunately, most of my unfinished builds aren't where I've discovered the flaw in my reasoning but rather where I may have had other technical issues with the experimental build itself. So, I usually still feel the need to test the idea after deciding that that particular build won't do, and so I then have to come up with a better test design for the same principle.

Thanks for wishing me luck! Good luck with your stuff, too!

[Furcurequs]

I've fully replaced the oak dowel shafts on my build with the new steel ones with the addition of slotted and keyed ends. For the weights I am using, it looks like this should do quite well.

The new keyed steel shafts don't twist and flex like the earlier oak shafts.

Also, after mixing up some of my new epoxy to use to hold my cut nail "keys" into place, I would highly recommend the squeeze bottles over the dual syringe. Using the bottles seems to be a lot less messy, and it's much easier to control the amounts of resin and hardener.

ETA:

Moisture! I've noticed that on one of my builds, a catch and release mechanism I'm using works wonderfully - when the air is dry. ...but fails miserably on humid days!

Did clock makers have this problem?

I now have to investigate some solutions to this. I likely have birch wood sliding against poplar. Should I sprinkle talcum powder on the connection? Oil it? Should I change materials altogether?

Nothing is easy!

[ME]

I likely have birch wood sliding against poplar. Should I sprinkle talcum powder on the connection? Oil it?

I would sand it high-grid, polish a bit, and wax them.

[Furcurequs]

Thanks for the suggestions.

After thinking about it, though, these parts are so small that it might just be easier to replace the poplar dowel that makes up one of the surfaces with a smooth metal pin instead.

Actually, my old standby "wire nail in hole" may be sufficient.

Thanks again, though. If I end up using wood surfaces sliding against one another again, I'll keep your suggestions in mind.

[ovyyus]

Graphite is sometimes a good lube for wooden parts.

[Furcurequs]

Thanks.

That may certainly be worth a try before changing out parts. I can just pull the swiveling piece off of the dowel and mark up the mating surfaces with a pencil.