High Desert Swap Meet Redmond Oregon part 3

Living in the United States between world wars and having a fascination with two and four wheel transportation: Now there's a First Wish that would be followed by a request for the genie to put away the magic bottle! One of the darling little ideas to reach fruition in the mid-teens was the Auto Red Bug. It went through some parent company changes, and existed in two distinct models: One, an electric motor harnessed to wet-cell batteries in the metal box behind, and the other, a small one-lung internal combustion plant that traveled sidesaddle with the wheel it drove--which dangled off the back like a crazy-wheel trailer of the fifties!

When, that lovely September Saturday morning in 2009, I saw this work of art in the images above, I knew what the creator had copied. It was not for sale--the vendor had just bought it himself. While it appears the dimensions are true to the original, the workmanship was clearly an exquisite one-off effort by someone who knew her or his way around a machine shop.

The power plant idea was kin to the fifth wheel noted above, but seemed more like the result of an AHA! moment when the anonymous creator spotted a Honda Trail 90.
That tall stud on the back? It just fits into a HT90 after you remove the front fork and wheel. The controls link up seamlessly, and you're on the road in your snappy little cyclecar, living the good life promised by the end of the War to end all Wars and freed from the waning days of the Edwardian era.

Knickers and Argyles. Gibson Girls. It all seems like simpler times.

High Desert Swap Meet Redmond Oregon part 2

Non automotive: Plenty to see and experience. Under the heading "implied speed" consider the pedal car and the locomotive, right hand end of the table of toys.

What is it? I can't remember, but the seller had a copy of the patent there. It looks roughly like a juicer, but somewhat more industrial than we're accustomed to.

Jogger moms wouldn't do well with the perambulator. But it worked for us!

And finally, the Zenith media center. And that's the correct color--nearly as yellow as a caution light, but clearly still wood veneer. It was in such good condition that, once plugged in, it would probably get all those old radio shows like One Man's Family, The Green Hornet, Lum and Abner and Mary Backstage, Noble Wife.

High Desert Swap Meet Redmond Oregon part 1

Here's the official subtitle of this annual event in Redmond: Antiques to old car parts, collectible toys to new toys. A car show of classic cars and even some cars for sale.

That's pretty good, actually, but it doesn't come close to covering it all. It's a big deal and a lot of people do a lot of work to make it happen. And when that first Saturday after Labor Day rolls around, I'm ready. Equipment: Shoes that will tolerate dewy grass for the first two hours, head covering, water, snack, backpack, and GO! Gates open at 7! Costs you nothing to get in, and you're in for, if you cover all the ground, and linger over this or that, 6 hours of joyful sampling of stuff for sale, friends to reconnect with, and stories to overhear.

When you hear these, stop and listen:

"My dad had one of these...it's the car I learned to drive..."

"I'm looking for a right front fender for a 37 Packard sedan..."

"Will that fit on a 55 Chevy?"

"What the heck is that?"

Fish stories, hard sell, dickering in the friendliest context imaginable, people puzzling over some strange object (usually not car related) that "I got at an estate sale," all here under the bluest skies and punctuated by squeaky wheels on rusty old Radio Flyer wagons that are being pulled out to the parking lot to be loaded up so the buyer can come back for more stuff.

There will be several posts here about this year's sale. For the first time I took my camera. Later you'll see the split-personality object I bought which is now in the living room, as well as an inscrutable piece of hardware, with moving parts. I'll post some images of some of the cars that were on display--not for sale--and sample the non-automotive stuff.

All that, and I never made it over to the antiques section. We'll cover that next year. Can't wait until Labor Day comes and goes.

Oh, that little Rambler convertible for sale in the picture? Someone shoehorned a serious V-8 under the hood of that little julep. It's the quintessential Saturday Drags, Sunday Drive set of wheels. Surprise!

Small Woodworking Project: Candle Holder After A Chinese Pictogram

The librarian thumb-flipped the book like a magician convincing you the deck was complete. She stopped, riveted by the one-page piece titled "Candelabra from Chinese Ideograms." The sparse, high contrast black and whites of the artist's work are juxtaposed with their inspiration: Chinese characters for umbrella and home. Home was it. "Someday I'd like one of these," she said, holding the Fine Woodworking book a little sideways so he could see it.

So he tackled it, unbeknownst to her. Yes, it is a small project, per the book's subsection, but that might just be referring to real estate on the workbench, or cubic feet of shop space, or board feet of material. It's about 16 inches wide and 7 inches tall.

She was presented it yesterday, in its own storage box. He explained that the lower part, the walnut, was from some lumber given them by friends, an elderly couple, who died this year. The other was material he had been saving, though it seemed too small to be of use.

He blathered, she stared. "Beautiful, just beautiful," she would say, between his stumbling sentences.

Happy birthday, Linda, the love of my life. The words my heart speaks sometime get to my hands first, and that's often how they're best said.

One Strange Coincidence

We were on our way to the coast for a weekend away, my wife and I. It was the late seventies. Both avid readers, we agreed we'd stop at the used book store in Grand Ronde, west of Salem (Oregon). 20 minutes was our contract, limit 6 books. So we stopped, shopped and grabbed.

A few hours later, comfortably established in our motel room, I pulled a chair to the window on the Pacific and opened the topmost book from my stack: The Swiss Account by Leslie Waller.

It was published in 1976, ISBN 0-385-09661-5.

By now you've peeked at the pictures. Imagine my disbelief as I read that dedication.

I wrote Mr. Wallace, care of his publisher, and received a response--from Italy. Now, as I read about his life, I know he was there on his honeymoon. The Lee Barker whom he knew was an editor, LeBaron Barker, who had been a great help to Mr. Waller and who recently had died.

And the postscript: Years later we got a thing called the World Wide Web, and it made it easy to find other Lee Barkers. And other copies of the book. When I found one of the formers, I'd send a copy of the latter. Why not?

After you've created something a bit new and realized that folks more than a mile away are wanting it, the image of putting your product in a box becomes something more than a passing thought. If your creation is not an easy three dimensional shape, and if it is fragile in the slightest, the ante is upped.

Enter Rick Wilcox and Columbia Corrugated Box of Portland. Once again it's Prototype Time: Try, fail, learn. The CCB pros created the bespoke box you see here. The stand, boxed, fits in it too. The key part is the die cut foam insert into which the bass snuggles like a puppy into the new afghan folded at the end of the sofa. Everything is padded on the top by the eggcrate foam and the gig bag. Barker Basses have arrived safely in places as far flung (from Oregon, USA) as Germany, Mexico, England and Venezuela.

Enter Mark DeHart of Rock Hard Road Cases which is conveniently located in Albany, Oregon. Mark designed the blue beauty you see in the images, using the tried and true foam insert. If you're touring, by surface or by air, it's the one for hard duty.

In between these two lands the case shown in tandem with the shipping box: A lightweight but still protective version that's easier to handle than the CCB box. It's shopmade here, and is usable without wheels and an end handle, and actually smaller in dimension than the box.

It's people like Rick and Mark that enable a small company like this one to be on the map.

And that's coming from the Barker Musical Instruments Shipping Department Manager. Who also is the CEO. And the Janitor. Photographer. And, periodically, the Blogger.

Fibonacci Series, Simplicity, Green and the practicality of CD storage

Some stuff one can't throw away. A year or so ago I built a desk for Kevin Kubota, the photographer and he had discovered an unusual material which he wanted included in the design. It's a quarter inch thick, a translucent plastic-like material with patterned strips of bamboo embedded, and it is an environmentally respectful product. In the design exploration we discovered that the bamboo color echoed the sapwood tone of eastern walnut. (Often the sapwood of walnut is discarded, a notion that suited neither of us.)

So, desk completed, I ended up with a few small pieces of this material, which I have been hoarding. Then came the message (oooo-eee-oooo) to build a wall cabinet for storing CDs or DVDs or both. The overarching idea was simplicity, function, and unshowy craftsmanship.

Then I remembered the diagonal-cut doors I had included in a media cabinet for clients Gary and Tricia some years ago. About seven degrees, as I recalled, with apologies to Kevin Bacon.

Here's the result. Initial sketches explored the muntins (horizontal separators of panes) being aligned or being aligned but at right angles to the slanted stiles. Neither caused any friendly dashboard lights to come on. Because the left door is smaller at the bottom than at the top--a visually disturbing element--it seemed best to raise that muntin to give the doors equal weight.

The overall dimensions were driven by the Fibonacci series: 1,1,2,3,5,8,13,21,34, etc.
The math is easy--add the prior two numbers to get the next number. The implications are huge. For us with a small calculator and a ruler, we can learn that the ratio of one number to its neighbor tends to become the same as the series progresses. I think that's dumbfounding. My friend Dan, the graduate engineer, says it's reasonable.

The cabinet had no opinion, but seems to be happy at about 22 inches by about 32 inches.

On this very informative site about Fibonacci we learn that this realm is a "constantly expanding branch of number theory."

Meantime fiddling with these numbers makes a pleasantly-proportioned cabinet, would you not agree?

And yes, it is for sale, $395 plus shipping.

Addendum 8/10/09....And it is sold!