Quick update while food is cooling....mmmm... King Ranch Casserole. Yum!
My eye is doing fine now, my work is being worky, and things are all generally moving in a forward direction.
Two weeks from RIGHT NOW I will be sitting under a tent, setting up.. equipment. Art. Science. Fire.
I have all of my propane hoses and harnesses and manifolds hooked together now. Three of my six POL fittings, it turns out, have check valves built in! Neat! Internally, the tanks also have overfill prevention valves, so generally, things should work out okay wiring the tanks together. We are looking at #300 of propane here, to burn off in a few evenings. I'll do a full test this weekend and have next weekend free to do full panic in.
I wired up my new 3,000VA variac to a nice 12ga extension cord (which required some cutting and fiddling). It's a lethal device, with 110VAC hanging out where it could conceivably be touched (mostly shrouded, but I'm paranoid) -- I need to get a nice high-voltage-danger sign for the console table.
Right now I'm putting some salt through a... ball mill... of sorts (it has balls in it! stainless steel balls, and some conical abrasive media)... in an attempt to make sodium chloride powder (vs. crystals) to act as a chlorine donor for my copper oxide and/or barium carbonate, to make a better green flame. I hear boric acid works too for green; I have some! I will have to try it.
I wonder where I can get some potassium iodide cheap and locally... hmmmmm...
Anyway, I aint'nt dead yet, and rumbling towards some grand finale soon.
Posted by Edwin at May 7, 2008 08:12 PM