Jerry Feather

I'm working on the third coat of epoxy on the surface of the center section. I think this will finalize the large basically flat surface. Then I can further define the leading edge. Then I'll cut the stiffening ribs/grooves in it, then work up the base of it for the forming table. Then one more form to go with it which will be the inner rib structure for backing up the air ramp for rigidity.

The heart is fine. Looks like surgery now on about the first of June.

MjRocket

Jerry

Good to hear that the heart is well my friend. That's most important.

curtisr

When students tell me they plan to study Engineering I always congratulate them on a fine choice and then ask them how the shop classes are going. They always return a look of incredulity and tell me that 'those courses are for skids'.

After I correct them and reinforce the importance of getting along with and understanding the world in which the engineering techs operate in, I suggest they read "Shop Class as Soulcraft". They usually decline.

Jerry Feather

Hi Roger. I think I know what your point is, but I may have to find the book and read some of it to be sure.

What I have found is that one's ability to create something is dependent on one's ability to conceive of it. In order to conceive of something I have found that knowing as much about tools, equipment, processes and materials is very helpful and important. Without the ability to think through the entire process of fabricating something that you might have conceived of tends to leave one at the mercy of others; then your dream becomes a product of their imagination and their dream and may or may not end up what you had in mind at all.

I took some of the shop classes in high school and would have taken all the rest of them if the school had made the decision about my course of study; but my mother, bless her heart, insisted that they run me through their college prep curriculum courses instead. I didn't do all that great academically, ending up 47th in a class of 69, but I was able to get into college somehow. I had intended to study engineering also, but they did not want me in their school with my poor academic background so they put me in a course of study in physical science instead which had essentially all the same courses as the engineering students for the first year. I didn't perform too well there either. So after a year I went into an offshoot of the shop classes, known as Industrial Arts, the offshoot being called Industrial Construction and Management (ICM). I did that for a year and did ok, but found that it was merely a course of study involving the introductory course in everything on the campus plus the shop classes and then 4 years of mechanical drawing. By that time I would have needed to take the four years of drawing in two years and I didn't feel up to it, so I found my way into Economics, something I had never even heard of before I took EC-1, for the ICM course, but which had caught my fascination.

The short story is that I ended up with two degrees in Economics, did a tour as a flight officer in the Air Force as a Navigator, all with a pretty high level of academic achievement and later completed Law School, but only about the middle of my class.

Since then I have become what I consider myself, an intuitive engineer, and have accumulated as much machinery and equipment as I find useful to create just about anything I can conceive of in the areas of interest I find myself from time to time. I am now a fairly well qualified gunsmith, machinist, aircraft sheet metal and other mechanic, woodworker/carpenter, auto body worker and mechanic, and overall fabricator, including quite a bit in plastics, of course. My mother taught me how to sew and I have two industrial sewing machines, one here in my shop and one in Doug's shop where I do most of my upholstery and which Doug helps with quite a bit.

So, I think you are right in telling the hopeful engineers to take the shop classes. At least it will probably limit the need for the fabricators to scratch their heads over how to make something the engineers have come up with.

curtisr

Jerry,

I am always fearful that my efforts to put my thoughts into posts such as this is that I may be misconstrued or more likely, do a lousy job of it.

Like you, my mother taught me lots of good things including in the event that should I have nothing nice to say, I shouldn't say anything at all. And so what I was trying to say is that I think it is wonderful what shop classes can do for any student whether or not they wish to study engineering, architecture or some other applied science.

Industrial arts can make one self-reliant and, at the very least, conversant in the language they will surely hear should they hire someone to fix the plumbing and the like. Trying to sell this idea to my own kids got nods of understanding but little more.

I couldn't agree more with your comment about conception benefiting from a solid familiarity with the basics. This is an argument we teachers have with edu-gurus all too regularly. They espouse 'discovery learning' and we say they need a solid grounding in the fundamentals first, but they won't listen. Administration fear what will happen should the kids find school difficult or the basics (think multiplication tables) boring. It's quite sad what has happened to education these days.

And as for finishing in the middle of the pack, well, join the club. Frankly, the kids I see leave my school with the highest marks are not the ones I would hire. Nor are they likely to rule the world.

So, please go on creating. And as for the quality of work: res ipsa loquitor.

Roger

Jerry Feather

I just read thru this thread for the first time in a while, mainly to bring myself up to date on just what I had in mind about it. In the course of cleaning out the shop to make space for the Radical Custom 928 project I had to relocate the components for this front spoiler and found myself trying to recollect just what I had in mind about certain aspects of it. The benefit of this thread was a great help in answering those questions.

I had the back surgery on June 1, 1916, and the results were not particularly great. I find that I made two mistakes in the process. One was not having the surgeon write down in some form of agreement just what it was he was to do to or for me and perhaps how, and the other was in not going over with him just before the surgery what it was we had agreed to have him do. The result is that I think he forgot what it was he was supposed to do and simply did a kind of off the shelf procedure that he thought would be sufficient to justify whatever he charged for the service.

The result is that I have more pain now than I had before and the nerves are pinched about the same or even worse now than before. I have thoughts about having it done over but have not acted yet on those thoughts.

For this spoiler project I think I had it very close to being able to take to the plastics shop to have them pull some pieces for me; and now that I am close to having the space for the overall custom project I think I will also have some work space to lay this part of it out and progress further with it.

gomez123

I had Stenosis at L4-L5-S1 and a Herniated disc at L5. I had surgery to repair these issues two years ago. I met with 4 or 5 Doctors and decided to go with minimally invasive surgery. Went in at 9 am walked out the next morning at 10 am. This was two years ago and I'm still pain free. I have a friend that's going through the same issue you are after his surgery he's in terrible pain. There is no pain like chronic nerve pain. I writing this to encourage you to see a surgeon who practices this type of surgery. Good luck. One of the best in the country is near Albany NY in Amsterdam. https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=...g9mnFFp1Pk-eyh

Jerry Feather

I'm not sure why this project came to mind recently, but I felt cause to look up this thread and review it to see where I had left it before life sort of got in the way. Life has now kind of come back around, so along with some of my other efforts, past and present, and with this isolation time needing some attention, I thought I would dig up the remains of this one and see about putting it back on a burner.

I have a sort of tentative date with my Plastics Guy to spend a day on his new vacu-forming system, in a couple of weeks, forming some Cowl Covers, which I am out of right now, and perhaps work these forms in to pull a couple of sets to see how close I am to being able fit these spoilers to an actual car and to see just how much finish work it is going to take to be able to produce these for anyone else.

Since most of the original design work was in my mind, it is going to be interesting to see just how much of that can be resurrected to finish this up. I do notice that I said toward the end of this thread that I was just about ready to form some, but I also see that I had in mind to create an additional form to make some kind of structure to go inside the middle part of the spoiler. What I had in mind has not yet come back to me.

grepin

Hi Jerry,

Hope your surviving your post surgery issues. Unfortunately one thing leads to the next. We are sort of like 928S when we are old one job leads to another. You have been a good vendor especially giving access to your products for us a far. I look forward to another Jerry purchase. The belly pan arrived in Australia in good shape. I have other bits removed for now so not fitted. I regret the day I never purchased a spoiler from Roger for $350 when he had a sell off.

Greg

Jerry Feather

Thanks, Greg, for bumping this thread. I have gone thru it now again about 5 or 6 times to see if I can recall just where I was with it and where I had intended to go with it; or maybe just how I might go with it now. There seens to me to be a little bit of fit with my new thread about the earlier front spoilers even though they are very completely different animals. I think I'll get the forms down from where they are now and see what I might do to perhaps work this project into the earlier spoiler project, at least from the standpoint of needing to pull a couple of prototypes of the later one for evaluation and then adjustment and completion. Thanks again.

Jerry Feather

Holy Project Resurection, Batman! I have the later spoiler forms out of storage and have put a couple of hours in on them to try to finish out some epoxy coating I had put on them so long ago. There may need to be quite a bit of that yet to do. I see that I had the center section completed much further than I think I had reported before and it is pretty much final shape, as far as I can tell. What I need to do mostly besides the surface finishing, is to try to figure out just how to present these forms to the heated plastic to be formed around them. I think I need to take what I have now down to my plastic guy's place and consult with his expert about how best to do that. The problem is that I need some significant negative forming to get these pieces the way I want them. I think I have designed enough into these forms to do that, but I'll need to see just how to present them to make it work.