Joiner's Musings

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...