Fixit Cheap!

Don't you hate it when things on your car break and you have to pay a lot of money to the mechanic to fix them? Dave hates it too. That's why when his truck radiator sprung a giant crack across the top, instead of replacing it, he just glued it back together! The secret to such success is JB Weld. Apparently, this stuff is considered an essential travel item for classic car enthusiasts who can't easily find replacement parts for their very old cars.

Here's a picture looking down on the the top of Dave's radiator covered in the grey sealant. He made this repair about 6 months ago. Eventually, he does hope to replace the entire radiator, but only because he considers the old plastic of such an old radiator to be unreliable in general and it could spring a leak in another area next.

See I told You!

Dave rambled his jeep down the washboard road at a considerable pace, until finally, one of his passengers had about enough so he told Dave that he really ought to slow down. He was going too fast! Dave teased him back and continued on at the same rate. Until suddenly, everyone started to smell smoke. It was coming out of the dashboard! At that point, Dave was now ready to quickly stop the jeep after all, jump out, and fling up the hood. A giant cloud of black smoke billowed out from under the hood! And under the smoke was red hot flames! Dave and another passenger promptly began smacking down the flames with old towels. It was not looking good!

But eventually the flames were put out. What had happened? Bouncing on the rough road had put that last iota of pressure on some old worn out metal straps around the battery. The straps had broke and the battery slid forward until it hit a small piece of metal that bridged the gap between the positive and negative nodes of the battery. This short circuit then caused the metal to heat up and start a fire in the insulation under the hood.

The amazing part was that nothing was actually seriously damaged. A few wires were singed and a quick repair was made via some electrical tape. And the battery was anchored back in place via some bungee cord. And there is a tad less insulation now present. Now Dave keeps a sharp eye on the current state of bungee cord and straps around the battery and checks it regularly!

But the funniest part was the response to the event from one of his passengers who had been complaining about Dave's driving speed. Just as the flames were put out, all he had to say was, "See I TOLD you that you shouldn't drive so fast!"

Faceting a Space Ship

One of our more active club members, Bruce, has recently gotten involved in gemstone faceting. You can often find him at the shop sitting in front of one of the faceting machines sliding his stone over the grinding plate and fashioning some of his arcane projects.



Bruce likes to do unusual designs for his stones instead of the same old thing. His current project when I was at the shop was taking clear pieces of quartz and shaping and polishing them into large faceted gemstones in the shape of space ships.


A closeup of one of his stones half way done shows some of the facet faces on the stone already polished and reflective while some of the other facet faces are still milky looking from lack of polish.





An end on view shows the likeness of the spaceship more clearly.

The San Diego County Council Tailgate - Amethyst Flowers

Inside one nice covered outdoor booth were many especially beautiful specimen types of stones but one type in particular caught my eye here. They were called 'amethyst flowers' and were large, about one foot or more in diameter, sprays of amethyst. Almost no bits of host rock were evident. It was all quartz. Some of the specimens had a bowl shaped pattern with steep sides, almost like the bottom of a bucket.

The one in the second photo was (if I remember correctly) over a foot across and was priced at $200.00 which I thought was very reasonable. Apparently, the amethyst flowers are found in layers of basalt and the flowers must be carefully taken out and then the basalt and matrix must be carefully removed from the flower using hand tools. Sounds very tedious!

The flowers appeared delicate but seemed surprisingly sturdy when handled. The proprieter of the booth looked only slightly nervous (and I don't blame him!) after telling me it would be OK for me to move the flowers around to gain better photos.

He was very nice to me and mentioned that he also did watch repair, and custom stonework for watch bands. I don't know of anyone else in the San Diego that does that. As a courtesy, I will include here a photo of his card and contact information for anyone who might be interested.