Here is a little trick some people may not have seen yet. It is a flexible sanding stick. The material is metal banding for pallets and crates. It usually gets thrown away. I have other uses for it in the machine shop so I always have a stash on hand.

No, not that crack. Not that one either... I’m talking about the CRACK you hear when a part de-molds successfuly!

Today is the day after thanksgiving. Also know as Black Friday.
For me the black in Black Friday is the black residue from polishing aluminum.
I’m grateful to be here doing this instead of what I was doing last year.
Last year I was in the middle of a 6 month round of chemo and all that it entails. Food tastes good
again, I’m regaining my strength, and everything is about as good as I can expect.

I feel like getting that “round tuit” and doing projects I have meant to do “sometime”
This week I programmed and machined a mold to layup Rotor fins....Continue Reading

Well, it certainly FELT alien!
This is my heart catheter, the chemo port that I received monthly doses of mustard gas and
RODENT DNA. This kept them from scarring my arms from all the IV activity I’ve been having.
It looks way smaller than it felt, stuck in my chest like some kind of third nipple.
Removing this signifies the end of my run of chemotherapy. Deepest thanks to everyone that offered good vibes, thoughts and prayers.

Doug

The "chemotherapy side effects " are here in full force.
Weird thing is I moments where everything is ok, and I can eat without trouble.
coupla more days of this...

Just chilling in the chemo lounge getting some Rodent dna &mustard gas.
Check my new t shirt- ninjas killing cancer cells!
A birthday present from my daughter Jenny, it’s a fundraiser
For a little boy who made the poor choice of getting leukemia and being poor at the same time.

This is my last chemo treatment!
So the plan now is to do the last session, and wait 7 weeks before a full blood work up, and a CT scan. They want to check lymph nodes and spleen for signs of overwork.
If I’m okay they will
Run blood every 4 months for a lifelong wait-and-see.

Who can decipher the gangsta hand sign?
I’m going to be out of it for about two weeks, then I’ll post more.

Not as rough as yesterday, I feel 50% better.
Special cookies help a lot with the jitters and nausea . I expect another 50% tomorrow.
Fingers crossed.

Day 5 & 6. Chemo side effects include jitters, nausea, and back pain.
Today day 6 is the most noticeable.
Got a get well card in the mail from a friend I have yet to shake hands with!
Thanks to John Higgins!
Hopefully tomorrow will be easier.

This Friday I finished round 3 of 6 chemotherapy sessions for my Waldenstrom's.
So far the only side affects have been a little jittery and some dizziness, but the dizzy could be from
an anti-nausea med, too.
My blood test values continue to drift back towards the normal range.
The next 5 days are usually when the side affects show up.

This last month has been different. After a brief hospital stay and a painful bone marrow biopsy, it has been confirmed that I have
Waldenstrom's macroglobularanemeia. It is a rare form of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. What this means for me is 6 months chemo
starting right after the eclipse. Hopefully I won't get so run down that I can't build or go flyin'.

This is not a big scary cancer that kills you right away, but treatable and controllable. My acupuncturist is confident he can help through the next six months of chemo.

Tubes up my-
Tubes in my arms
CT scan shortly.
Not going home anytime soon.

goes to the anodize shop tomorrow

People that know me know how I love to make tricky-trick servo installs.

It seems that everyone wants to reduce blisters on their wings. To do this, There have been RDS, LDS, RDH LSD, Rotomilan, Servoarmen, and others introducing
wing mount servo drive systems. The idea here is to use as short as possible servo arm connected to an equally short control surface arm.

I'm building a Kinetic 2MDP that I got from Spencer. One of the build challenges besides tight precise linkages, is to get the aileron pushrod short enough to fit.

Like other people I have been using MKS servos in the CNC machined aluminum mount with integral outrigger bearing. I like these mounts a lot but they have a few shortcomings IMHO.

The outrigger bearing has a shaft that replaces the servo arm retaining screw.
When using a clevis on a short arm it is sometimes "necessary" to grind away half of the clevis' strength in order to use full rotation of the servo. For me this is unacceptable. My usual alternative is a top mount ball link, but even this can interfere with the outrigger bearing shaft.

Tony Fu sells a bearing kit that includes just the bearing in a mount and you can retrofit your install for a tighter linkage.

So far all the available servo mount/drive systems have something that the picky bastard in me would like to see done differently.
Some have weak materials, (but lighter) some require very precise installation, and 'break-in period', or excessive current drain could cause a fire.
Some get too sloppy over time.
Grub screw impinging directly on servo splines- shame on you.

So once again, I'm rolling my own. This time it's a MKS servo mount with outrigger bearing and drive system, specifically for the K2MDP but I will also put these in my new SRTL build instead of the Ming mounts I had saved for it.

I will try to address all the shortcomings (as I see them) in this new design.

:d:d:d

The spindle speed control went out on my mill last week

It's a bad repeat of the last time this happened about 4 years ago
https://www.rcgroups.com/forums/show....php?t=1238972

Probably not gonna get away from it cheap this time.
Some of you might have been wondering why I'm selling some choice stuff lately.
No spindle control no CNC mill stuff. No blingeron, no blinghorn, no secret project #7, nothing. Not till I get this fixed.
I feel like IronMan without his suit...
So I'll be scratching my head to solve the problem, and maybe find something else to sell from the shelf of shecret schtuff...

I (nearly) stole this from Trader Vic a few months back.

He had the fuselage pretty much done but with a few nagging details that had me stymied until I finally decided to change the wiring and component locations.

One thing was the fact that I had to run the power the old fashioned way thru a plug into an unused port on the RX. I prefer to run the power to the wing plugs and then to the RX. This way I can use the smaller 6ch RX without a dedicated power plug-in....Continue Reading

Did I mention it was RED?

Woops, sorry, my mistake... I accidently posted the WRONG pic. Some Ferrari or something. Not mine, but it was in my driveway for the afternoon.

My sincere apologies to anyone that might have been mislead by the inadvertent mix up of pix..

Now I plan to persue more enjoyable endeavors.
Plan on seeing better availablity of WinchDoctor stuff like Blinghorns, Turnaround pulleys, Blingeron TWF hardware, and a few BIG surprises I cannot reveal at this time.

In the meantime, I got lathe-ed...

WinchDoc

former meat robot

I flew PB this last Wednesday. It was 17-24 straight in all day with a (not too) low ceiling.
The hill was mine except for a few eagles passing by on their way up to the top peak.
I brought 4 planes and flew 4 planes and returned with 4 (intact) planes

I flew the Pace DSE (I call it "Baby Pace") as well as my new Pace VXE.
Since last I flew them, I have adjusted the elevator servo output arm length (shorter) to use more of the servo's throw and resolution. It makes trim inputs finer, and I swear I can 'feel' the difference when I fly them. I had to re-adjust my elevator compensation % (more) in the landing mix, but managed to do it on the fly. Adjusting TX settings whilst flying is like texting & driving!
Now, they both hover in with flaps/crow to a soft landing. SaWEEeeet!

I've been experimenting with the CG location on the VXE, and both designs really like a neutral CG.

I also brought out my HotRod Tweed Rotor and had several satisfying flights, skirting the lower lip and pulling big loops and roll combinations. I think the CG 'could' go back a bit, but it's pretty groovy to fly as it is now,and loops pretty well. Pitcherons have trouble looping with a forward CG, this may be a reason they get a "poor pitch response" rap. Next outing I'll see how much forward stick it needs when inverted, and try to sneak the CG back a bit.
It uses a new revision blingeron that seems to contribute to the rock-solid feel in the air.
This Rotor is...Continue Reading

My Dad died last wednesday. He was 91.

He was a pilot from WW2 and beyond.
He trained with the RAF, Flew 75 missions over "The Hump" from India to China, Saudia Arabia in the '50s, and fast planes over bad guy's back yard.
His military career is documented pretty well, but his impact on me imeasurable.

I got his sense of humor as well as right from wrong,
and good manners when necessary.
He lit my inspiration for all things that fly.

Those of you that know me personally know how much and how often I bragged him up to you.

I thought I'd share a few pix

I'll miss him.