Joiner's Musings

Last night I thought today, the second Monday of December, would be what we call a "storm day". Storm days occur when the weather is terrible and essentially means that we will get a prodigious amount of the white stuff usually in the area of 20-25 centimeters. The driving is treacherous and some roads are virtually impassable. Yep, there's car under there  To give you an idea here is a storm we had last year. You can see that quite a bit of snow fell. The roads in the area were undriveable. A storm day means a nice relaxing day at home and for many a paid day off. It also means shoveling the stuff. Although he roads are eventually plowed you still have to get your vehicles to the road and that means many hours of lifting and shoveling. that's how deep is was  The first two snow days in the snowy weather are exciting because you have an unexpected days off, but through the winter season they start to wear thin and it means whatever work at the office that ...

Snow shoeing in the back yard As we transition into the winter months in Canada there are a few things I am really not looking forward to; bad driving conditions, snow shoveling, and that housebound feeling when it is too cold to go anywhere. I certainly look forward to the coming together of the family and friends for the Christmas season. I look forward snow shoeing and winter photography and leisurely walks on sunny days though in our winter we don't get a lot of sunny days, unfortunately. I know that come January I will be wishing I were some place else, like the Caribbean or our summer cottage in Quebec. Paradisus Rio de Or To stave off the effects of seasonal affective disorder we have decided to break the winter doldrums with a trip to Cuba. This will be our 7th trip and our third stay at the Paradisus Rio de Oro located in the Holguin province. With the change of government in the United States it looks like America will sadly reverse its normalization process w...

Okay, so I am back. My last post was the celebration of 40,000 page views. Thanks to you, the internet viewer, that number has risen substantially. Well, it was a great summer spent at our family retreat in Quebec. It was our longest stay yet at over twelve plus weeks. The weather was perfect. Not much rain and plenty of hot, sunny summer days punctuated by the odd bit of rain. On our way back we visited the Sagueneay region of Quebec. Talk about a must see area. We first stopped at Saint Ann de Beaupre where we toured the famous religious site. Saint Ann de Beaupre Main altar Next we paid a little visit to Baie St. Paul while on our way the Saguenay region. Baie St Paul is a pretty little town obviously geared towards tourism as there are plenty of shops. On the day we visited there was not much activity since early September is just off the peak season. Main Street Baie St. Paul We stayed at a small B&B in Saint Simeon, Quebec. A quaint little B&B. Though...

It's climbing steadily. I never thought this blog would climb to 40,000 views despite the fact that I have not been posting as much lately. Thank you readers for coming to my site and thank you for those that keep coming back. I intend to post more often once summer is over. Again thanks and 40,000 kisses to you all. Ron

Dynaco SCA-80Q Integrated amplifier Restoring my Dynaco SCA 80Q integrated amplifier to it's original state has been a interesting project though some would argue that the changes might even be beyond the original state and yes, it is a better integrated amp in every way. Capacitors added After replacing the C9 and C11 caps as well as the speaker caps I still experienced distortion in the left channel. What to do? The only boards I did not touch were the pre-amp and amp boards and it turns out that the problem was with the amp board, left channel. Since this was beyond my level of expertise I took it in to a professional shop. The shop found the problem almost immediately. The charge was $100 but worth it. The sound is wonderful. So far I have put about $225 into this amp. Was it worth it? Unequivocally, yes. Why? It restores the amp to better than original condition and guarantees its life for an additional 10-20+ years. There are some other things I can do and that ...

In the next few weeks you will see fewer posts as I am spending some quality time with friends and family at our summer get-away in central Canada. While in that area I intend to make my third visit to the  Canadian Clock Museum in Deep River, Ontario . It is always exciting to see the newly added pieces to the museum collection and to chat with it's knowledgeable curator. See my clock blog for more information about this excellent museum Regular readers have no doubt observed that my usual practice in the past year is to post at least one article per week in an effort to keep readers interested and of course help me, the writer, offer the kind of content that appeals to a broad spectrum of readers.  If you have a comment on any of my posts please feel free to leave one though it may take some additional time for me to respond, so, a little patience would be appreciated. In September I will resume my weekly posting sched...

If you have an interest in collecting and repairing antique and vintage clocks may I suggest you go to my blog that is dedicated exclusively to clocks. Some time ago I decided to concentrate on my clock hobby by writing about them in a separate blog. You will still find clock posts on this blog though they are not as detailed and thorough as they are on my other blog. For more in-depth analysis of the various aspects of horology may I suggest you visit https://ronaldjoiner.wordpress.com/

It won't be long now. Soon we will be making our annual trek to our paradise at the lake. Good food good friends, fishing, boating, hiking, camp fires at night are all the niceties in life to look forward to as we spend our summer at the shore. The cottage is a great place to decompress, to get away from the toil of everyday work and to take time to contemplate the future. Indeed, our most significant family decisions have been made at the lake. Projects this year include a porch roof, trim painting, more stairs to the lake plus a railing along side and a new bunkie for family and visitors. However, this could be a lean year for visits from the family as our oldest will be beginning her residency in July, our second daughter will be busy preparing for her European trip and our youngest, who is in the navy, will be deployed through the summer and part of the fall. Moreover, that will give us a chance to concentrate on my projects and allow us to spend more time with friends on...

Front of farmhouse  As I mentioned in a previous post our tour bus broke down on the way to Holguin City. Our perplexed tour guide came up with an impromptu plan. Why not visit a typical Cuban farm? Marcelo made a discrete inquiry with a local farm and within minutes took everybody off the bus to see what a typical small Cuban farm really looked like. What made this so fascinating was the fact that it was a completely unplanned and un-staged.. All of us got to experience, however briefly, a genuine Cuban farm. The first photo shows the modest farmhouse which had a small living area, one bedroom and a galley kitchen. This was likely the original farmhouse and it was surprisingly compact. We were informed later that this was not the main farmhouse and that a larger, more modern and better equipped home was located about 100 meters away on the same property Crop of some kind of spice This was a very small farm of about two hectares. I cannot remember the crop but it was s...

Smoking tour bus We signed up for a day trip to Holguin City. Holguin is a large city in the Holguin province of Cuba. Holguin is said to be the birthplace of Cuban music. The city was founded in 1545 by a Spanish conquistador and it is the fourth largest city in Cuba. The brewery Cerveceria Bucanero is located in this city  and what I did not know is that Bucanero is a joint venture with LaBatt breweries a one-time Canadian company. No clue to the problem A full day tour of Holguin involved the requisite cigar factory tour, a drive up to a cross which overlooks the city and was blessed by Pope Francis when he came to Cuba in the fall of 2015 and a delicious meal at a hilltop restaurant as well as free time walking through the downtown core of the city. The bus emptied on the side of the road The drama occurred before we even got to the city. Just about 10 minutes outside Holguin, the bus broke dow...

Dynaco SCA 80Q Some time ago I wrote about doing some updates to this 45 year old stereo integrated amplifier that I built from a kit in the mid seventies. The Dynaco SCA80Q appealed to me at the time because it was a low cost solution to satisfying sound from a good quality amplifier. I used it exclusively for about 10 years and eventually like anything old it found it`s way to the basement where it was turned on only occasionally through the years. Last year I thought, heck lets bring the old amp to the cottage. At least there we can enjoy the sound of this antique treasure every day, Well, it was fine for a few weeks but its age started to show and show it did!  A mild, unobtrusive hum slowly developed into a loud and annoying one. I thought it might be the pots and switches and perhaps they needed a little cleaning spray to fix them but I soon discovered that it was much more than that. I did a little research online and discovered that the old capacitors had seen their...

From the class of 2015-2016 Well, retirement had to come sooner or later and the end of January seemed to be the perfect time. My hour had come, so they say. I was invited into the classroom; wait a minute I thought. Is something happening? A few seconds later they presented this very timely gift, a memento of my retirement, a clock. I have to give them a big hand! The second year class whom I had taught for nearly two years knew that I had an interest in clock collecting and repair and thought that a timepiece would be appropriate as a retirement gift. And it was and I was touched. They even had it inscribed. An appropriate memento Interestingly enough it is probably the most accurate clock in our home. I have 25 mechanical clocks, all shapes and sizes and not one can maintain the accuracy of this small clock, such is the state of modern technology. I looked on top and said, "what in the world is this? And it spins too. I thought my wife and I could use it to ...

Masked and ready for trim painting There was not be as much work to do on this project as I had thought. Firstly, the side panels are in very good shape. I though it would be a real shame to strip it all down. I have seen disastrous results of wholesale stripping and I did not really want to go there.   I did some light sanding and applied clear lacquer to the existing finish to fill in small scratches and gouges. The results were very positive. I then applied a clear polyurethane coat over the top of the sides and front to bring back the original finish and that glossy look. Following side renewal I decided to do something a little more radical on the trim sections. Most of the unsightly damage was to those sections; the base plate sections were the worst.   I had two options, sand those sections down to the bear wood and recover them or cover over them with paint.  I selected the second option and after a good cleaning, taking the grease and oil off...

I have had this Westinghouse console radio with chassis number 512  for a number of years and now that I have the extra time it seemed appropriate to fix it up. I don't know what model number it is but as is the case in many of these old radios and Westinghouse is no exception, the 512 chassis found it's way into a lot of radios, consoles and tabletops alike. If you happen know the model number please let me know. I do know that it was made in 1936. Westinghouse console radio I thought it needed total redoing but a couple of things concern me. In the photo you can see a view of a geometric-style design (upper part of the clock along the sides) which might be very hard to duplicate, so let's stay with a mild rejuvenation rather than wholesale stripping.  This design would be very difficult to duplicate It also looks like someone (not me) tried to spruce it up by applying a new coat of lacquer(?). Not unsightly but I can work around that. Some...