FundyBrian’s Explorations

Recycling/repurposing.
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My old Darkroom print developing trays getting a second life as seedling trays. Sitting in a sunny south facing window. The trays were up in the attic for, ahem, a few years, but I remembered where they were and dragged them out. This is our first batch of seedlings started this year. They were all started the same time in one of those seed starter trays with a cover. It seems to work best when I put it downstairs near the wood stove. They sprout sooner than the number of days indicated on the seed package. The most striking thing is the rate of growth by the cucumbers compared to everything else. They had the biggest seeds and were the first to sprout. The tomatoes on the far right are far behind by comparison. Looking forward to getting the greenhouse going again.
 
FundyBrian said:
Recycling/repurposing.
View attachment 144766
My old Darkroom print developing trays getting a second life as seedling trays. Sitting in a sunny south facing window. The trays were up in the attic for, ahem, a few years, but I remembered where they were and dragged them out. This is our first batch of seedlings started this year. They were all started the same time in one of those seed starter trays with a cover. It seems to work best when I put it downstairs near the wood stove. They sprout sooner than the number of days indicated on the seed package. The most striking thing is the rate of growth by the cucumbers compared to everything else. They had the biggest seeds and were the first to sprout. The tomatoes on the far right are far behind by comparison. Looking forward to getting the greenhouse going again.
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Yay!! Yes... cucumbers are monster plants... I always had so many to give away! :lol:
 
Glasses, wallet, keys and phone,
keys and phone, keys and phone.
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According to something Fabi showed me on FxceBxxk, these are the words to the seniors version of "Head and Shoulders, knees and toes", that we all sang as children at camp and other places. Remember this song just before you leave the house.
 
The Results Are In!
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After a 3 year study with a selection of images I can safely conclude that square notecards don’t sell worth a shxt compared to rectangular ones.
 
Fingerprint Recognition, or not.
I generally find that fingerprint recognition works quite well. I have 4 or 5 fingers registered on my iPhone and iPad for convenience. However, once you start doing any amount of work with your hands that includes things like paint, glue, nicks and cuts, sanding, wet fingers due to dish washing, frequent hand washing because of dirty hands or because of trying to avoid catching the flu in flu season, the fingerprint recognition doesn’t work at all.
 
One more week until the official opening of the Fundy Studio Tour for the season. Lots of preparation work going on. It frustration part is that after the opening weekend the number of people circulating drops down to nearly nothing until late June or early July. To my way of thinking it would be better to open later.
In the lead up to the opening our PR person has us all making a new post every day on our FB page. I’ve been getting pretty good responses to my artwork cards and to composite images that deviate somewhat from regular photos. What fun!
 
FundyBrian said:
Fingerprint Recognition, or not.
I generally find that fingerprint recognition works quite well. I have 4 or 5 fingers registered on my iPhone and iPad for convenience. However, once you start doing any amount of work with your hands that includes things like paint, glue, nicks and cuts, sanding, wet fingers due to dish washing, frequent hand washing because of dirty hands or because of trying to avoid catching the flu in flu season, the fingerprint recognition doesn’t work at all.
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I love it. Not looking forward to the inevitable switch to facial whenever I decide to upgrade.
 
FundyBrian said:
One more week until the official opening of the Fundy Studio Tour for the season. Lots of preparation work going on. It frustration part is that after the opening weekend the number of people circulating drops down to nearly nothing until late June or early July. To my way of thinking it would be better to open later.
In the lead up to the opening our PR person has us all making a new post every day on our FB page. I’ve been getting pretty good responses to my artwork cards and to composite images that deviate somewhat from regular photos. What fun!
Click to expand...
Yay!!!
 
RoseCat said:
I think if I was performing any of these tasks I would not be using my phone so the issue would be moot.
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But really, we’re using our phones several times a day, even if just listening to music or podcasts while doing something else. Once your fingerprint is damaged in some way it takes a couple of weeks to get back to normal. In the meantime, other things happen so getting back to normal can take a long time.
 
FundyBrian said:
But really, we’re using our phones several times a day, even if just listening to music or podcasts while doing something else. Once your fingerprint is damaged in some way it takes a couple of weeks to get back to normal. In the meantime, other things happen so getting back to normal can take a long time.
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Hmmmm... I’ve never experienced this.
 
Inside a flute.
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You might remember I expressed some interest in the Native American flute awhile back. It all started with one that some friends brought back for me from Arizona. I’ve been practicing, and making more flutes. So far I’ve made 7. I’m still awaiting arrival of a couple of router bits I need to finish 2 wooden flutes I have started using western red cedar. Until I get that sorted out I am restricted to making flutes out of material that is already tubular.

The naturally occurring cedar in eastern Canada is Eastern White Cedar and the western red cedar is quite scarce. In fact, after much searching around I discovered there is only one place in Moncton (the nearest city) that carries it. You can make flutes out of all sorts of woods but it seems cedar is favoured for its light weight and resonance that adds a warm character to the sound of the flute. Other harder woods like maple tend to have a more brittle sound by comparison. The harder woods are lovely to look at and are more durable, but heavier. Also, western red cedar is one of the most dimensionally stable woods, meaning they change in size very little with changes in humidity. That is an important factor in a wind instrument.

Historic Native American people made flutes (and still do) using a bamboo-like plant called river cane (and others). I have made 2 flutes using bamboo. Also, a few more flutes made from 1” PVP plumbing pipe. The lasted one I made using some tubing recycled from an old whipper-snipper. The long down shaft between the motor and the cutting head. It was a lovely shiny black anodized aluminum tube .90” inside diameter, just perfect for a mid-tone flute. And it is also black and shiny on the inside! After the flute was made and tuned-up I was looking it over and looked down the bore with light coming through the sound hole (the brightest spot at the centre) and a row of the finger holes (upper centre), and then the light shining through the finger holes in a row in the lower centre, and then all those rings of light. I thought is was worth a picture.

Incidentally, along the way, after watching several YouTube videos, I learned that in the USA there is legislation stating that only flutes made by actual Native Americans can be called Native American Flutes. Everyone else must call theirs Native American Style Flutes.

However, if you look more closely at the flutes being made by numerous makers today, very few of them are anything like the original Native American flutes made with simple hand tools - hand made tools, at that. Today, many are made with fancy woods from foreign countries and using all sorts of expensive machinery. In many ways they are more like musical artwork, some of them decorated with Native American symbols. Very few are made in a way that resembles the traditional way of making them.
In fact, it appears that many of the modern flute using 6 holes may actually be a misinterpretation of the artifact flutes found from 1500 years ago such that the hole spacing was used but the bore diameter was not recognized to be that important. But later research has shown that using that hole pattern with the original bore size turns out to play different notes than the modern way of doing it. Usually when playing the modern 6 hole flute the 4th finger hole from the bottom is always covered (closed) because it produces a note not belonging to the Pentatonic minor scale they use. A great many flutes are the 5-hole style that skips that one erroneous note. I have been making flutes in the 5 hole style. On top of that, if you did want to play that extra note there is a fingering that allows that note to be played without the extra hole. The 6th hole actually belongs to a note one note higher than the octave (currently the highest hole on a 5 hole flute) (or Modern 6 hole). This is called the Traditional 6 hole flute style and after so many years of making the Modern 6 hole flute the makers are quite opposed to admitting they made the wrong choice. There is so much inertial behind it. Countless thousands of wrong style flutes already made, plus an entire system of written tablature in music books printed for it. Can’t be helped, though. Evidence suggests they goofed, jumped to a wrong conclusion, plain and simple.
 
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FundyBrian said:
Incidentally, along the way, after watching several YouTube videos, I learned that in the USA there is legislation stating that only flutes made by actual Native Americans can be called Native American Flutes. Everyone else must call theirs Native American Style Flutes.
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I would agree with that rule. Cultural appropriation is unfortunately too common.

FundyBrian said:
You might remember I expressed some interest in the Native American flute awhile back. It all started with one that some friends brought back for me from Arizona. I’ve been practicing, and making more flutes. So far I’ve made 7. I’m still awaiting arrival of a couple of router bits I need to finish 2 wooden flutes I have started using western red cedar. Until I get that sorted out I am restricted to making flutes out of material that is already tubular.
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What a wonderful project! :notworthy: I hope you post some images of the flutes, and maybe even video of what they sound like.
 
RoseCat said:
I would agree with that rule. Cultural appropriation is unfortunately too common.


What a wonderful project! :notworthy: I hope you post some images of the flutes, and maybe even video of what they sound like.
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It is wonderful to have a woodworking project to work on. Also, a new avenue for me to enjoy music. No new band opportunities have arisen to take the place of the last one that was mostly playing jazz standards from the swing era. With me playing bass. But now I’m having issues with arthritis in my thumbs so playing bass is harder than it was.

Since my teens I have played bass in a variety of bands. But never a melody instrument. So playing flute is a new adventure. On top of that the pentatonic minor scale is not “in my ear” yet but it’s getting more familiar.

I decided the best approach was to start by familiarizing myself with traditional tunes originally composed on and for the Native American flute. I am deliberately staying away from playing familiar modern western tunes on my flutes. I want to learn the real flute music not renditions of popular songs. It turns out they are very difficult to find. Of course none were recorded thousands or even hundreds of years ago. Perhaps those traditional tunes are being closely guarded for cultural reasons. If you go looking for music with Native American flute you find the field littered with synthesizers and other modern electronic back up instruments. Hardly ever do you find solo flute music. Also the style is mostly new age, meditation, spa, yoga, etc. All very nice of course just not what I’m looking for. If you dig hard enough a few gems come to the surface. The spa music is all very nice but just not what I’m looking for at this particular phase of my journey.

When I have found “original” Native American flute music it isn’t “original” in the sense of having a long history among Native American people but it is original in the sense that some guy composed it a couple of years ago and recorded it with guitar or whatever as backup.

Another thing I was surprised to learn is that very little of the more famous flute music songs are actually “fixed”. What I mean is that there are some recognizable melody bits that may be repeated now and then but all the rest of the song is more or less improvised on the spot. Improvisation is the usual thing in jazz but I didn’t expect to find it in Native American flute music. The most famous best selling flute CD by R Carlos Nakai from 20 years ago was almost entirely improvised from start to finish. And each time he plays the song in subsequent performances it may have some recognizable bits but the rest is improvised.

I’ve been listening to Native American flute music night and day for weeks and still I can hardly bring more than a few fragments of melody to mind. And of those, I couldn’t tell you what song that fragment was from. It’s nothing like our typical pop songs where after one or two listens you have the tune stuck in your head. (I’m thinking of pop songs from a few years back) I listen to albums where the entire thing is familiar to me but I still don’t know how the song is going to unfold. As I listen I can tell I’ve heard it before but I can’t hum along, except for a few stand-out melody fragments. It’s the strangest experience. Yet all hauntingly beautiful. And all completely instrumental. Songs about the forces of nature or the flight of an eagle, or a journey up a river. One thing there isn’t anything about - “my girl left me, and my truck quit running, and my dog died, I’m so blue, whatever will I do”.

This is a journey of unexpected dimension.
 
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FundyBrian said:
Another thing I was surprised to learn is that very little of the more famous flute music songs are actually “fixed”. What I mean is that there are some recognizable melody bits that may be repeated now and then but all the rest of the song is more or less improvised on the spot. Improvisation is the usual thing in jazz but I didn’t expect to find it in Native American flute music.
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Oddly enough, I found the same thing in Baroque music. In my 20s, I played for a while in a recorder consort and learned some fascinating things. The sheet music of the time was written out pretty much the same way that many jazz standards and fakebooks are -- just a bass line and a melody line, with the keyboard player and other instrumentalists expected to fill in the right stuff from that. The written music also didn't show any dissonance, not because the musicians and audience didn't like it but because they considered it an ornament for the musicians to add as they felt appropriate. Frans Bruggen, a Dutch recorder player (and flautist and conductor and composer, etc.) who was a major figure in a Baroque revival in the 70s and beyond, freaked out many traditionalists by bending notes on his recorder (not hard to do and no reason to think Baroque musicians didn't do it).
 
terse said:
Oddly enough, I found the same thing in Baroque music. In my 20s, I played for a while in a recorder consort and learned some fascinating things. The sheet music of the time was written out pretty much the same way that many jazz standards and fakebooks are -- just a bass line and a melody line, with the keyboard player and other instrumentalists expected to fill in the right stuff from that. The written music also didn't show any dissonance, not because the musicians and audience didn't like it but because they considered it an ornament for the musicians to add as they felt appropriate. Frans Bruggen, a Dutch recorder player (and flautist and conductor and composer, etc.) who was a major figure in a Baroque revival in the 70s and beyond, freaked out many traditionalists by bending notes on his recorder (not hard to do and no reason to think Baroque musicians didn't do it).
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Quite a bit of note bending on the Native American flute, too. Not to mention pops and barks.
 
For all you folks in warmer climates, here is the current state of our greenhouse. The first plants we put out in the greenhouse a week ago got frost damaged and died. These ones seem to be making it OK. Mostly tomatoes and cucumbers so far.
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The other wall, against the house, is mostly occupied by woodworking tools - bandsaw, table saw. miter saw, router table - currently the flute-making shop. Plus some firewood. And under the green tarp- a generator.
 
My time lately is occupied by printing lots of notecards, trimming, folding, adding envelopes, putting in clear bags. Also larger prints, mounting, bagging. Adding to my inventory database.
Spring yard work. I built a new sawhorse for cutting up the many fallen branches from the winter storms plus the tree I cut down in front of the house. I have a big stack of branches to process, some into firewood, some to make smaller for a compost pile.
My new sawhorse has a pedal! It also has an extra support section on one side for when the pieces get shorter than the length of the sawhorse.
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With a shorter piece of wood in place you can see how important the extra support is.
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When I put my foot on the pedal a metal arm comes down on the piece of wood holding it securely in place. If I’m sawing smaller stuff using my bucksaw (bow saw) I have a spare hand to hold the wood on the sawhorse. But if I’m using my chainsaw, mostly for bigger branches, I need both hands to operate the saw so there are no hands free to hold the branch in position on the sawhorse. That’s where the foot pedal comes in very handy.
zenjenny - you should see the collection of rusty metal I have been collecting for my garden sculpture project. A bunch recently from an old farm nearby. Hand forged farm parts from the horse-drawn plowing days.
 

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FundyBrian said:
The Results Are In!
View attachment 145174
After a 3 year study with a selection of images I can safely conclude that square notecards don’t sell worth a shxt compared to rectangular ones.
Click to expand...

Hm. Do you have market research/exit polls that explain why your customers reject the square cards? I like square images! Not exclusively - but ... depends on the image, right? Sometimes the square cropped image is so striking - kindof “fills the page’.
Oh well, no accounting for some people’s tastes.
 
A bit more about the flute making. I have made several using material that is already tubular, such as bamboo, PVC pipe, and even a piece of aluminum tubing recycled from an old whipper snipper.
I’m getting more geared up for making “proper” wooden flutes but some of the router bits are proving difficult to find - mostly because the are odd sizes.
The wooden flute process starts by cutting a pair of “blanks” from a piece of western red cedar. On the east coast we only have Eastern White Cedar and the western cedar comes from the west coast and is quite difficult to find here.
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On the left there are 2 strips of freshly sawn western red cedar made to the size I need for the rest of the steps. There is a major step missing in the process but there will be another photo later to illustrate this. That is - the routing of the inside cavities of the flute. It requires to separate chambers: the air supply chamber and the main bore length.

The 3rd and 4th pieces of wood are flutes further along in the process. The have already been routed out on the inside and glued together. The 3rd piece shows the bore end of the flute while the 4th piece shows it from the mouthpiece end. The 4th piece is placed on its side so you can see the two pieces of wood glued together. On the 3rd piece of wood you can see two holes drilled near the far end. That represents the point where the two inside chambers each end. A short section at the mouthpiece end and a long chamber for the main inside bore of the flute. Between the two holes there is solid wood.

A key feature of the Native American flute is how the air is focused across the sound hole. The air comes out of the hole on top of the flute at the end of the air supply chamber, through a track area carved into the wood , and capped off by a “block” on top, which focuses the air across the sound hole at the start of the main bore of the flute.

My next step will be using a round-over router bit to take the flute from square-sectioned to round. And when I eventually get a lathe, I can do fancier rounding on it. But for now I’m waiting for the 1-1/4” round-over bit
 
zenjenny said:
Hm. Do you have market research/exit polls that explain why your customers reject the square cards? I like square images! Not exclusively - but ... depends on the image, right? Sometimes the square cropped image is so striking - kindof “fills the page’.
Oh well, no accounting for some people’s tastes.
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Of course I wondered about that but I can’t ask people who have not looked at the square cards why they didn’t buy one. I can ask anyone who does buy a square card why they liked the square ones. But that group was too small to tell me anything. The rectangular and square cards each use the same material size for printing, take the same time to trim, add the envelope, put in the clear bag, add to inventory, etc. The square cards have special envelopes ordered for them. The square cards have more waste. They sell at the same price. The main thing I think is that if you place the square and rectangular cards side by side the square ones are smaller - less writing space. However, when I put the square cards on sale at $1.00 each a few sold. When I asked what they thought of the square cards I don’t think they had noticed the card was square.The main thing is that it was smaller. In this case they just wanted a smaller card for adding to a gift.

Now maybe if my square cards were 7x7 (instead of 5.25x 5.25) compared to 5.25 x 7.25” notecards that would be a different story. Or even 6x6. However, that introduces a new problem in that 8.5x11” paper is the standard size and bigger sizes are not available in the required paper stock, except maybe 11x17” and that would have more expense and a lot of waste. Then you have to watch out for the maximum size the post office will accept before extra postage is required.
 
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FundyBrian said:
A bit more about the flute making. I have made several using material that is already tubular, such as bamboo, PVC pipe, and even a piece of aluminum tubing recycled from an old whipper snipper.
I’m getting more geared up for making “proper” wooden flutes but some of the router bits are proving difficult to find - mostly because the are odd sizes.
The wooden flute process starts by cutting a pair of “blanks” from a piece of western red cedar. On the east coast we only have Eastern White Cedar and the western cedar comes from the west coast and is quite difficult to find here.
View attachment 145849
On the left there are 2 strips of freshly sawn western red cedar made to the size I need for the rest of the steps. There is a major step missing in the process but there will be another photo later to illustrate this. That is - the routing of the inside cavities of the flute. It requires to separate chambers: the air supply chamber and the main bore length.

The 3rd and 4th pieces of wood are flutes further along in the process. The have already been routed out on the inside and glued together. The 3rd piece shows the bore end of the flute while the 4th piece shows it from the mouthpiece end. The 4th piece is placed on its side so you can see the two pieces of wood glued together. On the 3rd piece of wood you can see two holes drilled near the far end. That represents the point where the two inside chambers each end. A short section at the mouthpiece end and a long chamber for the main inside bore of the flute. Between the two holes there is solid wood.

A key feature of the Native American flute is how the air is focused across the sound hole. The air comes out of the hole on top of the flute at the end of the air supply chamber, through a track area carved into the wood , and capped off by a “block” on top, which focuses the air across the sound hole at the start of the main bore of the flute.

My next step will be using a round-over router bit to take the flute from square-sectioned to round. And when I eventually get a lathe, I can do fancier rounding on it. But for now I’m waiting for the 1-1/4” round-over bit
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Brian I think a few of us are already following the flute story with interest. Especially now if you are going to share some of the making process :thumbs::thumbs::thumbs:, would it make sense to give all the flute-related posts their own thread?
 
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