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reticulate menorah III
Tuesday, May 2 2017
While Gretchen was out walking the dogs this morning, I took advantage of her absence to remove the enormous electric motor from the ancient Whirlpool washing machine from the Wall Street house, a washing machine that would be going to the Hurley transfer station soon. That motor had a big pulley mounted on its shaft and looked capable of driving just about anything, and I wanted to hoard it until I had a proper application. But I definitely didn't want Gretchen seeing me removing that motor; she's pretty sure I've hoarded enough stuff already. Unfortunately Gretchen returned while I was still trying to remove a bolt that required pretty much every socket wrench extender I have (in a long chain) to reach. Somehow, though, she never caught on to what I was doing, delighting instead that I appeared to be in the process of loading it into the Subaru to take to the dump. I removed the motor seconds later and quickly transitioned to loading the Subaru with stuff for the dump, most of which consisted of that single dryer. There was also the metal remains of the old glass table that used to be on the east deck. The umbrella had blown over in a storm back and February (I think while we were in Mexico), smashing all the glass, and Gretchen had recently taken delivery of a replacement made mostly of tropical wood.
With Neville and Ramona crowded together in the passenger seat, I drove the Subaru to the dump and handled the disposal of everything by myself while Ramona obsessed about a woodchuck safely hiding beneath a shipping container. Rock 'n' Roll Bob (the guy who always works there) told me it would cost $5 to drop off the appliance. At first I thought he was offering me $5 for its scrap value, but of course not. Later when Rock 'n' Roll Bob wondered where Ramona was and I told him, he told me that the woodchuck in question was super fat back in the fall but, due to the long winter and prolonged hibernation, he was super skinny when he finally rematerialized this spring. Meanwhile Neville had made a bit of a nuissance of himself when his presence excited a pair of rottweilers in some woman's car, so I'd put him back in the Subaru.
Towards the end of my workday, I began assembling my third reticulate menorah from the parts I'd cut the other day. It's a messy job that I kind of hate; the flux gets everywhere and at some point I always cut myself and start bleeding. In this case, the cut was crescent-shaped gash in my left palm caused by the sharp end of a copper pipe. I also rushed things a bit (starting with the pipe cutting the other day), and had cut the long pieces (necessary to get all the candleholders to the same height) an inch too short. I also failed to make the center candle holder (the "shamash") taller than its companions. But this was easily fixed.
My biggest innovation in the production of this menorah was to use a Dremel to sand away the surplus solder on the joints. I'd been using a thick-wire spool of solder and had some rather big blobs to get rid of, and the Dremel made quick, precise work of it. In the past I'd used a hand file to remove such blobs, assuming a power sander would destroy things. But now I'm convinced that the Dremel is the way to go. Here's the result, which is nearly identical to the menorah I made back in December:
Meanwhile, Gretchen successfully got a lease signed for the Brewster Street house. A woman will be living there with her teenage daughter and occasionally her adult son (whom Gretchen described as "very handsome"). Since the daughter attends the nearby high school and the mother works at the nearby hospital, they don't actually even need a car. She celebrated by drinking red wine and watching the final thrilling episode of Sherlock, which had been languishing on our DVR awaiting a sufficiently-celebratory occasion.
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