Lists...

Today I had a doctor appointment which itself is completely insignificant, but that they made me wait for almost an hour during the middle of my workday to see him, is. Fortunately, I had several notepads with me, along with some liquid transfer analog recording devices. Or as I like to call them, pens. Rather than attempt writing a single post, I started making to-do lists for a few projects I have been working on (and/or ideating about working on).


Hamilton Beach:

• Inspect armature wiring attachment points and replace connecting wire with new if possible
• Polish build plate, and remaining upper and lower housing pieces
• Source matching replacement paint sticks for build plate engravings, and either clear lacquer or wax to seal it from the air
• Clean and polish armature and commutator shafts and bushings (finishing what I started).
• Source replacement felt/paper/? bushing material for the upper and lower commutator shafts
• Fabricate new bushing for upper commutator shaft and mill upper housing to fit
• Clean and inspect rocker arm assembly
• Determine new lubricant to use for reassembly (grease, oil, etc)
• Research and source period correct wiring and plug from Sundial Wire
• Clean and polish the bakelite pad attachment 
• Additional before/after pictures for your inquiring minds

Renulife Model R Violet Ray:

• Introductory posting
• Locate missing parts bag (it's somewhere around here, I swear)
• Disassemble output controls (again) and polish with jeweler's rouge and dremel (not just brasso like before)
• Order replacement wiring from Sundial wire
• Source replacement tungsten contacts for the spark-gap interruptor
• Take pictures of its current state as a reference for before/after comparisons
• Source replacement hardware for carrying case, or remove existing for media blasting and re-plating (nickel or chrome)

Master M66 Violet Wand:

• Introductory posting
• Replace capacitor with new ceramic film caps (from stock)
• Adjust the tension in the interruptor for better output control (if possible, so far it has been all or nothing for my efforts)
• Take some pictures, as always.
• Possibly disassemble the lower half and get at the interruptor with the dremel and polishing wheels/compound

Elco No. 7 Violet Ray:

• Introductory posting (despite the likelihood of everyone who's read this to have actually seen it)
• Open it up and take pictures of the restoration
• Find replacement or remove rust from existing chromed electrode clips (ideally blast and re-plate)
• Document the carrying case dimensions and fabricate a new shell out of new lumber
• Source replacement case hardware, or remove existing hardware for media blasting and re-plating (nickel/chrome)

Erostek ET-312B and ET-302R:

• Introductory posting
• A primer on TENS type devices and stimulation
• What separates Erostek (and others) from medical TENS units
• Comparison between violet ray/wand and TENS
• Pictures, as always
• Why I love them (and you will too)
• Accessories/toys/possibilities with electrodes
• Safety (don't be the next joke at the firehouse/hospital/etc)
• Where to get the boxes and accessories from (please, PLEASE, learn from my mistakes)

More happy zappy work tomorrow, if I make it home in time.
If not, you might even get to hear about the awesomeness that was my weekend.

The Green Mill Part 2

Ah, the music. The part that I was brought to the Mill for. Having two very entertaining women to enjoy said music with was merely the start. Alas, the band was set, and picking up where I left off from part 1, the violinist now had his instrument in agreement with his ears, the sound engineer, and most importantly, The Bard.

My eyes were transfixed on the band. One eye, most of the time, peering through the viewfinder, trying to make out details using a rather wide-angle lens (24mm). Low light be damned, I continued to snap more frames. Despite my quite outdated camera body, its extended ISO of 3200 combined with f/1.4 glass, was able to both auto-focus, and still make manageable images while shooting at f/2.8. The relative accuracy of the focusing was impressive, considering I could barely make out the details myself. But I could observe with relative ease the only photographic caveat, No Flash.

The band played song after song, their hands moving deftly for each set of frets, at times with dizzying accuracy and speed. My two companions, were in another plane of existence for fleeting instants, feeling the music and moving softly to it. I desperately wanted to capture them with my lens, but the single candle that offered its meager illumination to our table was just not enough to do anything with.


Following the first set, we recovered, the Bard went out for a smoke, and Ms. Devil and I stood up and stretched a bit, and conferred about our plans for the weekend.

The band duly returned with another set, which would ultimately take us to the limits of our responsibility. The second set was equally good as the first, but by this time I was getting rather tired. The motivation of good music to stay awake could not change the fact that we all had to get up in the morning for work. As the second intermission began, we made our break for the exit.

The Green Mill Part 1

One of the more storied bars in Chicago, the Green Mill, has been around just over 100 years in various forms.

Wednesday night, I went for the first time, with the lovely Ms. Devil, as well as her friend The Bard (not my nickname for her, but consistency is good.) We arrived rather early, having just had some good Mexican food next door in the hour prior.

The band of the evening, Swing Gitan, had not yet arrived, but we made conversation in the meantime. Having brought my camera with me, I was fooling around taking a couple of pictures of each of my two companions, and seeing how I would need to set up the camera to work with the relatively low light of the Mill.
As the band started to do their sound check, it was clear someone was missing.

The empty chair on the stage remained until just before the band was to start their set, and then this man, who I immediately think of walking off the set of the Sopranos lumbers down the aisle and begins to set up his violin. Not the first instrument I expected considering his broad shoulders and stoic face.

Once the band started playing, The Bard immediately started shaking her head. It took me a little bit to pick it up, but the violin was way off, both from the equalizer and volume level. The annoyance did not resonate with me, but after the first couple songs were over, the sound guy came over to made adjustments, and after a couple more songs, it was just about right.

My words will not do justice to the experience. Even after buying the CD on the way out, it is no comparison for actually being there.More on this later.

The Hamilton Beach Project - The Beginning.

About six weeks ago, a friend of mine asked me to take a look at one of her prized antique vibrators. This then led into a discussion about the history of vibrators, and she proceeded to explain how they were the 5th device to be converted for electrical power. Being a history geek myself, I was quite amused by this, and shortly thereafter the links started appearing in the IM window referencing the Hamilton Beach 1902 Vibrator. The original. Patented by the Victor Electric Company, which HB bought the rights to, and subsequently produced.

About a week ago, she brought me a little present. By present, I mean project. Carefully wrapped in some magenta fabric lay a lone iteration of this original. Its construction was not what I expected for something that was made somewhere around 100 years ago. (The patent date has little to do with the manufacture date, and I have yet to see references to production information.) For starters, the housing was cast aluminum. While today we may take aluminum for granted as a staple of wheels on cars, beverage cans, and aircraft, this was not the case a hundred years ago. It was, and still is an energy intensive process to produce the stuff. I expected  chromed steel. The rest of it was built like most things were in those days. Brass, chrome, wood, copper, steel. Things that will last a lifetime (or several, if well cared for.)

Once I had it home in my makeshift workshop, pulling it apart was the first order of business. Sadly, I didn't start taking pictures of it until after I was well underway in cleaning it up. Few power tools have been so useful as my trusty Dremel for working on small projects. The cleaning and buffing set, along with a number of felt polishing wheels, polishing compound, brasso, and obsessive compulsive tendencies have made it possible to really make it look good. This one is too banged up to look "new" but the few pictures that show how much difference is there to be had.

This is the bottom half of the housing. The stub end sticking up is where the handle attaches. At this point, I had washed everything with soap and water and a toothbrush, but before the brasso or abrasives had come out on this side. The left side has been polished with a felt wheel and polishing compound, to start with.

Same perspective, opposite side:

I cleaned and polished the stator ring area, which is clearly not the most finely machined surface, and that is a lot smoother than when I started.

Stator assembly, untouched, looking every bit its age:

The commutator, the contact area and bushing has been polished. The top and bottom shafts have been polished some. The top housing area needs a new bushing fabricated.

The top cover and business end, after much work, and no before pictures:

That's all for now. The remainder of the internals I didn't get around to taking pictures of last night, perhaps tonight.

Must start somewhere...

After much debate, I decided to start a blog as a means of preserving the history and some of the randomness and hilarity that is my life.

A little about me: I am not an electrician by trade, but I may have played one on TV and at the local club on select weekends. History and its preservation are interesting to me, and finding historically significant items that I can bring back to life is quite a bit of fun, even if a ton of tedious bitchwork. By bitchwork, I mean, I bitch a lot about doing it, right up until I'm finished. Sarcasm is an integral part of my language.


Since you had to click through to continue to lose more of your day by the "adult" content, here's what I have been working on recently:
2 Andis Model AV vibrators
Renulife Model R Violet Ray
Elco Lindstrom and Co Model 7 Violet Ray (Finished, at least electrically)

Other people's stuff:
Master M66 Violet Wand
Vibrosage (Andis) Vibrator Model BV (Finished)
Hamilton Beach 1902 Vibrator (the very first commercially available electrically operated vibrator)
Pending finishing what I have now:
Renulife Model R Violet Ray
Electro-Technic Products BD-10AS Violet Wand

Pictures will be forthcoming, once I get around to taking them.
Unless I already know you, and know you well, no, I will not fix your violet wand. Unless it's really interesting. Historically speaking, that is. The answer then is maybe.

Welcome to this freshly cut wedge of my world. For the love of god, do not feed the fucking pigeons.