ABOUT ME

I live in a camper van with a West Highland Terrier for company.
My passion is creating images but it is a work in progress.
I am always willing to share what knowledge I have and can be contacted through the comments on this post or e-mail ADRIAN
ALL IMAGES WILL ENLARGE WITH A LEFT CLICK

Wednesday 30 September 2020

CRACKING UP.

 Were psychiatric help available during this pandemic, which apparently is the worst since biblical times and so bad that one has to be tested to see if you should be feeling ill, I would consider popping down to the nearest funny farm.

Today we have experienced constant rain, I decided to occupy myself creating a Roots Blower or the rotors for one. I have no idea why.


I did this in FreeCAD and then exported it into Blender hoping for a better render. No such luck, it still looks as if some idiot chopped it out with an adze. It's not lack of geometry as I've seen perfect renders from FreeCAD made things. I'll look into the matter and see if I can sort the job. I have subdivided the mesh and done everything I can think of. There will be a solution but I'm loath to go onto the forums as the helpers use big words that I don't understand. Not to worry it's only playtime.

This made me smile.


Have fun, wash your hands, dowse yourself in petrol, suck a Fisherman's Friend or whatever they've dreamt up for tomorrow.


Monday 28 September 2020

HDR REVISITED.

 Following on from the last post I decided to try some HDR the proper way, I've not been bothered for years. Off I set with camera, tripod and cable release. I didn't venture far and shot three images at -2EV, 0EV and +2EV, that's two stops under to two stops over in old money. I fouled up and had the camera on summat daft, it has to be on manual and then one juggles about looking at histograms for clipping. I got there in the end but it's a good job I don't shoot weddings and funerals anymore. I can be an idiot.



The originals, they could all have been taken up one stop as I don't have any serious blow out at +2EV. It's a dull, misty, rainy day. Perfect for realistic images. I popped them through Photomatix Pro 5 and the results were awful.

Horrible no matter what I did and the ghosting of the tree on the right is unacceptable.
I thought the emulsion in the algorithm had possibly become a bit old so I downloaded the Latest version, Photomatix Pro 6.2, this was better but is watermarked because I couldn't remember all my sign in stuff. It must be the thick end of ten years since I used Photomatix. I used to love the surreal effects but have grown up since then.
This is much better. I like it but it took some fiddling about and I doubt I'll be buying the software.

I then ran the same images through Efex HDR which is part of the Nik collection, it's what I usually use for my images of machines but I use only one RAW image and not three or more as here. It used to be expensive, then it was free when I got it and now it costs again. I like it, I think it's about fifty quid which is nearly free. 
This is not natural but it is reasonable and I don't find it objectionable. There is no limit to what you can do with a RAW image in HDR as long as you don't blow out the highlights in all your images, if you do then the jobs a cuckoo and the blown out white will be replaced with neutral grey. There is usually enough information in the darkest shadows to rescue the job. That's why when shooting in aperture priority I set the camera to one stop under. It's a bit like film, easier to push than pull.

Here are a few more from this mornings efforts.
The dark, dank drier shed with one dog, If you don't use anti ghosting you will get three. She's looking for rats. This is just tail end stuff for the pigs. Nowt wrong with it but it has too many ears or whiskers for the Malters. A bit picky they are this year. It would dress fine but it's not worth bothering. The pigs will eat it and it's cheap food at sixty pounds a tonne. 
This one is using photomerge in Photoshop. It sort of does the job and only has a few sliders which is a help. I really must give the camera sensor a polish. I am spending as much time cleaning images as editing.

I'm going to post these images as I don't have YP's email and he is one of the countries premier snappers. This is awful HDR.
I feel for the lad. They really should get a proper photographer in for publicity shots, image is important. Poor bugger looks about ready for the cardiac ward. He needs an image consultant, if one can't grow a beard don't try. Looks like he's got mange. In the navy you were given a week and that applied to WRENS as well. Tatty beard and off it came.
 

This is my version colour is fine, exposure reasonable but I would ditch this one were it for publicity. The boss praying over his pan and the sous chef fiddling with his cock is not a good look on Blue Peter or in any kitchen come to that. Never ever point ones camera at a television screen in mixed light especially if shooting JPEG. If anyone wants to know how to get a reasonable image from broadcast media then feel free to ask. I'm here to help.

Have a good week I'll leave you with this.







 


Saturday 26 September 2020

A LUCKY ROBIN.

 It was blasted cool first thing, not quite a frost but as near as damn it is to swearing to one. I had a pleasant wander and luckily for a Robin came back via the combine. It needs a new bearing in the grain elevator, an oil change and the diesel topping off before it's put away but the bearing hasn't arrived so those are jobs that can wait; my sort of tasks.

It's parked on the tilt so that we could get underneath to blow it off after the harvest. I looked up and saw a Robin flitting about the cab. Some dozy blighter must have shut it in, good job I spotted it as it had been there for a couple of days. Everybody else was away at Robins fart muck shifting Bridge of Earn way but the boss must have heard the cab door slam and came out to check it wasn't gypos. I told her it was only a Robin and she asked if I'd let it go. Told I'd only opened the door to chuck rocks at it. A pound to a penny she'll have to go to make sure it's gone.

I suspect these are the last of the flowers for this year.
I'll take a guess and say Ox-eye Daisies but please don't take my word for it. 

I'm about 20% of the way through the Comoran Strike book that I downloaded at vast expense. It's okay, a bit of the Chick Lit about it but I consider it no bad thing to admit to having a feminine side. If I start hankering after ladies clothes and makeup I'll bin the book before it does permanent damage. One has to be careful these days.

I see the students are more than a little peeved to have been conned into paying for courses and accommodation only to be locked in. That should mean years of Marxist indoctrination negated. Good, happen knock some sense into them.

Enjoy what's left of the weekend.



Friday 25 September 2020

PINES AND NEEDLES.

 I was playing about in Blender overnight and think I'm on the right track. This, as I hope you can see, is a Christmas tree.


I could easily make the trunk a little less uniform and add a bark texture but It will be part of a short Christmas video so I think it will do as it is. I am thinking of adding decorations and animated lights, these will detract from the blandness of the tree; I'll think on the matter. I see Walmart are selling Obama tree decorations but I'll not hang him. I suspect it's a little passé to hang black men from trees but what do I know, I have trouble keeping up these days.
This is a zoomed in view, it will do the job. I can increase the amount of both foliage and branches but I want to leave room for the baubles and lights.

I occasionally see clips of this lass Kayleigh McEnany doing the Whitehouse press conferences. She is bright as a button and entertaining with it. 

Have a good weekend and try and remember what you can and can't do. I know it's complicated but just do your best.


Wednesday 23 September 2020

LOOK WHAT TURNED UP.

 It's a beautiful day here. I thought it was going to rain but I must have looked at the wrong day or the forecast for somewhere else. Anything is possible in this crazy world. I see the Covid thingy is due to mutate again late Sunday, it is safe to go out until 2000hs but after that it will get you and we will overwhelm the NHS. We have been banned from entering strange houses but they said nothing about looking through their windows so that's okay. I went down to the bottle bank with the site empties. What a lot there were, seven sacks full. On the way back I called at the haircutters and fortunately looked through the glass door before barging in. The haircutter had her skirt hiked up and was adjusting her pantyhose......Very nice.....I asked if she had her knickers in a twist. She was very rude and said if she heard so much as a whisper of this in the town then it would be the last haircut I'd need. I don't know what this fuss was all about as her frocks leave little to the imagination hiked up or not. 

The first grain lorry arrived, that'll be about thirty tonnes less in the shed.

I saw this arrive last night.
These are a smashing little bike, really compact and quite rare. It's the road going version of the GS, 800cc and in wonderful condition. This one will be getting on for forty years old but doesn't look to have done a lot. It's on it's way to Belfast. 



Nothing else to report so I'll have some lunch and then try and grab a quick siesta.


Tuesday 22 September 2020

SERENDIPITY.

 I was playing around last night trying to work out a backdrop for a Christmas video and this sort of did itself.  It isn't very Christmassy but I find it quite pleasing in a Japanese sort of way.


It's no good for a  Christmas video but it looks as if Christmas will be cancelled this year. The sun is a bit choppy but that can be remedied by sub dividing it's mesh.

I noticed that Robert Galbraith has a new book out, I have enjoyed her Cormoron Strike series and went to investigate further.......Almost killed me she did......£10.99p for a kindle book. It's not too bad as when I looked further it's nine hundred and ninety nine pages long. Keep me out of mischief for a while. I think it very brave to publish such a long book with folk dropping like flies.
I can now type and get the characters I expect, it's been a bit of a lottery recently but I eventually got fed up and reinstalled the keyboard drivers and all is now well.

That's all for today.



Monday 21 September 2020

RISK THERE IS NO RISK.

 I am old, I'm seventy, there is no way I can climb Ben Nevis again but I have run it in the past, a couple of times. I've done the Three Peaks in Yorkshire not too shabby to do those in just under a very wet fourteen hours (the record then was ten and a bit, most likely done by some southern tosser who was lucky and encounted perfectly dry conditions). I've several Lakes fell runs under my shoes. I have raced cars and dived in seas, climbed bits of rock, ridden motorbikes, never won anything in anything but was once awarded a best newcomers plaque at a car hillclimb, in a car I built myself. The silver salver went rusty, made me suspect it wasn't silver. I did come third in a village wakes run and could have come second had I not been distracted by some totty who I got chatting to during the final mile. I have been hit hard. Very few bones have remained intact.

 I've been lucky, I met a young medic in the old Sheffield Royal Hospital after I hit a sheep on my BSA Bantam, the sports 175cc model, it had power that took ones breath away. He did a wonderful job on my ankle. We came to an agreement. I could give him a ring anytime and for a pound a week he would do the necessary when I did something again. A year later I clipped the top of a wall with my knee when the naughty bike, a BSA C15, mega grunt it had, hit a bit of a bank and fired me over the handlebars. He always said to keep the bits. I did, I popped them in my helmet and a passing motorist a very nice if slightly squeamish bloke drove me to the Royal on West street. I told the nurse I was private and could she give him a ring. He was there and sorting everything out within the hour and all for fifty four quid. In those days there weren't Direct Debits I used to have to tell my bank to give him a pound on a bit of paper. He rebuilt my knee cap from the bits and it has not given a moments gyp since. 

Twenty years on and somehow, through little fault of my own, I hit the tyre wall at Charlie's Bend Cadwell park. There is enough room on the out field to hold a cricket match but inexplicably the bike and I washed across the tarmac a bit higgeldy piggelldy. I was rolling over and over on the grass having hit badly designed curbs and the bike, a CB750 engine in a Seeley frame, was fast catching me up, it achieved it's goal just as I met the tyres. I felt properly out of sorts. The rest of the incident is a bit blurry. I had a wife, a pregnant wife and from the back of the ambulance told her to ring the man what mends me cos I felt proper not right and poorly. The bastard had gone to work in the USA and was unavailable. I then had no end of rigmarole trying to find anybody who seemed remotely competent to sort a fractured vertebrae or three, a bad wrist and a terrible pain in my left bollock. Me who had tingly arms and a bad testicle was panicking first in Louth and then in Leicester for two whole days. I rejected the first two medics I saw as they looked more frightened than I was. I rejected the third as he looked a bit weird, he had that silly grin vegans and other self opinionated folk have, all teeth and no substance. Then my crooked surgeon who my wife had hunted down in America came good and paid for an Egyptian chap in Chesterfield to do the necessary fusing of my backbone bits, slapped a cast on my wrist, gave my bollock a stroke. He was so good that Egyptian that he wanted three grand and I was only in credit for a thousand and a bit. My old besty mender paid the balance but suggested I use BUPA in future. I looked into the matter. I went with a different company and only stopped premiums of a few hundred a year five years ago when I decided that no one can live forever and the last thing one needs on ones death bed is the inside of one the NHS death camps. Or even a posh private one.



Sunday 20 September 2020

MOSTLY A GOOD NEWS DAY.

 This morning I had to rush off down to the Co-Op as I had run out of rolly tobacco. Just as well I went as they have Talisker single malt on offer. It is my favourite whisky but at forty odd pounds a bottle a little pricy. Today it was a very reasonable seventeen pounds for 70cl. Made my day.


A while ago I noticed that there are Particle Nodes in Blender. They are in Blender 2.91 Alpha so it'll be a while before they are released. They are far from complete but I enjoy messing about with 3D stuff and as everyone seems to be heading towards node based editing it's best to keep on top of the job. 2.91a is compiled but there isn't an installer and you will have to go into Preferences>Interface> and make sure Developer Extras is checked. Bottom left a new tab titled Experimental will appear, click it  and New Particle System will be available to check. Should you need assistance either Google Blender Particle Nodes or ask and I'll try and help.


I'll have another look in a few days as I'm having a few problems and am unsure which are down to Blender or which are me being thick.

There is a little cloud in the form of the starter on the Tele-Loader. It has broken. It is also a sod to get off. This normally wouldn't matter too much but a pound to a penny the grain wagons will arrive tomorrow, be a tad embarrassing having given the hauliers grief if they turn up and can't be loaded.

I'll leave you with these.



Have fun and enjoy your week.


Thursday 17 September 2020

ONLY IN SCOTLAND.

 I managed to get to Lidl for just the back of eight. I couldn't see any heather plants so asked a young lassie if they had any. She talks to base on her radio thingy and the manageress came out. She was a very tidy manageress and took my mind right off plants. I composed myself and explained I wanted heather plants in various colours about twenty or so. She was very apologetic and said although Thursday is a plant day some stupid twat must have missed loading them on the truck but she'll give them grief and there will be lots in on Sunday which is next plant day. I asked how many different colours there were and she said four, maybe five. I asked her to save me four or five of each and she used one of my special words followed by OFF and fetched me a clout on the shoulder. I guess she had nodded off during her customer relationship course. I was bedazzled and forgot to ask if she was working Sunday.

I got back and helped pop the track back on the big digger, it went very well. Thought about taking a link out of it but considered it worth while to fill the track tensioner with brand new grease and pray that entrapped air was causing the skipping problem, there was nothing obviously wrong with the idler bit. Splitting tracks is hard work and I'm old, further debilitated by chatting to the Lidl Manager. It seems okay now but is in need of new drive sprockets and a chain. One could buy new but taking the track pads off and installing a new sprocket and chain saves about £800.00p per side. It is an awful job, boring and repetitive and ones hands take days to recover from wielding a half inch drive air impact wrench in one hand and the oxy/propane torch in the other.

The last of the barley is just in. It's been a good year. The lorries never turned up to collect it as promised but time is different here. If the buyer has sold it abroad then he'll wait till he has a coaster in Perth docks and wagons will arrive back to back and it will be a pain.

The leaves are turning and it was cool first thing.

This is Silver Birch and the other stuff is Beech and Larch.

Looks as if we are heading for another unenforceable lock down. More testing more cases. When the idiots use a PCR test that will give results dependant on the number of iterations of the test sample the results are meaningless without them publishing the number of cycles used. I know I'm a bit cynical but if there really was a deadly pandemic we wouldn't need a test to prove it exists. Doctors surgeries would be open to treat sick folk, hospitals would all be full with folk dead and dying, the crems would be working 24/7 and we would all know of several of the afflicted. It's bollocks. 

In other news I applied for a firearms certificate. I had to decide whether I was male or female. In this day and age I assumed I could decide what I was but I went along with their nonsense sucked my tummy in, undid my belt and noticed a willy. Male then. I suspect it's their way of stopping nutters getting their hands on a lethal bit of kit. 

Have fun. 


Wednesday 16 September 2020

THIS COULD BE A GAME CHANGER.

 For a year or two I've been able to render animations in Blender quickly using the EEVEE render engine. The cycles engine used to take all night just for a few minutes of video and much longer if one wanted to eliminate things like fireflies. Okay one could turn off caustics and random sample the frame but it was still far from quick. EEVEE is not a ray trace engine and basically fakes everything but it does work in real time or near enough. I noticed there is an ADD-ON called SSGI (Screen Space Global Illumination).....Come on wake up at the back this is important.

This is a simple scene without SSGI rendered in EEVEE.

This is with and as you can see we now have fake reflected light. This scene is lit with a single spot. It's brilliant or almost, what I can't get it to handle well is if I light with and HDRI but that could well be me being silly or thick. Render times do not seem any longer so another step forward. A vast improvement which I used to fake by upping the reflective characteristics of materials and adding, coloured or not, point lights here there and everywhere.

This is the SSGI node tree.....I took one look and said wonderful, I like how he has coloured in his nodes. I must admit that I understand very little of it but I do like the fact that it is available to peruse........It's the beauty of open source stuff, nothing is hidden, in fact the opposite, one is encouraged to criticise and contribute. Not that input from me would improve things.

In other news I failed to get to Cupar and Lidl, I went to see the horses and called at the animal feed place for horse food and dog food. I did stop by Sainsbury's for tinned grapefruit so am well stocked up with both the pink stuff and normal. There is no appreciable difference in taste and the price is the same, I suspect they just drop some cochineal in the pale piss coloured vat after canning off enough of the the normal stuff. It adds a bit of variety to my fruit and Wheetbix which is not really Wheetbix but Aldi's or possibly Sainsbury's version thereof. You will be pleased to hear that I didn't bump into any working class folk. There was one lady in grubby white tracksuit bottoms, a fluorescent pink blouse and down at heal trainers but I spotted her and diverted down a different isle, she was possibly working class and one can't be too careful.

I will do Lidl first thing or be there for eight when they open. I have to get lots of heather or Ling plants as they are £1.60p as opposed to a fiver in the garden centre. I'll take a couple of trays full and that way one of the working class will load them for me. Little point in having an underclass and not using them. 

Tomorrow is going to be busy, the grain carters are coming and hopefully we can get the last of the barley ready for them. There are about thirty tonnes to combine, it's been dry since eight this morning and is forecast bright and sunny for tomorrow so all should be well. I see I have another job to do..........Some dilatory blighter has forgotten to close the cab door on an excavator. I'll have to get off my fat arse and shut it for him. I do hesitate to do so as only working class folk could manage to shut a digging machine door. There's a special lever for that job.

Not to worry. Have fun.


Tuesday 15 September 2020

IT'S GETTING NEARER.

 The internet is really bad today, bloody EE must be rewiring their mast yet again. Not to worry, all those working from home will be able to excuse themselves.

I don't usually start doing a Christmas video until a few days or sometimes hours before but I noticed Blender 2.90 had been released and decided to have a play. I downloaded and installed it but it wouldn't render video. I started again and it was fine. Most peculiar.

I have an idea for the main bit but saw this or something similar and decided to have a go. A bit of fine tuning and I think it will do the job. The link to DefaultCube is in the video description. This chap is entertaining but goes very fast, he also uses some of my special words. Should you try it and get confused just drop me an email and I'll sort you out.


It will be a text overlay, I may try and get it to place one letter at a time then start the glow malarkey. Another Math node set to multiply after the colour ramp may help with control. I'll mess about and see.

The dogs are having fun hunting rabbits in the neeps. Moll caught one yesterday but the daft dog just gave it a good licking.

I suspect they will enjoy it more when the foliage has grown a bit. 

The deer is back, it's a few weeks since I've seen it. 

Tomorrow I'm away to Cupar, it's Lidl day. I just hope that there aren't too many working class people to contend with and that Lidl have a twelve pack of milk. After that mission I am going to see the horses and will call at Sainsbury for tinned grapefruit. Funny that neither Lidl nor Aldi do tinned grapefruit, it's a mystery. They do peach slices and pineapple but not citrus stuff. It's possibly because the lower orders don't eat anything but peach slices and pineapple.

Andrew Lawrence posts most days and this is a middling to good one.



That's all for today. Have fun.







Saturday 12 September 2020

YOU ARE OLD FATHER ADRIAN.

 I have been a bit rough this week, runny eyes, runny nose less puff and go than usual. I am a bit better today so can't join the rich, famous and sundry lefty tossers to blame Batflu.

Yesterday I helped move seven Highland ponies up the glen, three mares, three foals and the naughty bugger Eros. The foals really enjoyed the journey, skipping and frollicking on the tarmac and generally acting as foals do. The foals follow along, near enough, so are not haltered. One put the fear of god into the DPD van driver as he was in a rush and wanted to pass, I told him he'd have to be patient unless he wanted his headlights kicking out. They thought his van a wonderful new beast to intimidate.

 Guess who got naughty Eros? The owner couldn't catch him and Ally who was also assisting said Adrian can, I've seen him when Eros escapes. Thanks Ally. I wandered down, he saw me and stood perfectly while I popped his head collar on, he then began knocking me this way and that until I got the magic mint box out. The owner wasn't impressed......"I don't bribe my ponies." Horsey women are not to be trifled with so I mumbled sorry and off we set. This pony is very funny, I say walk on and he lifts his head and opens his mouth as wide as he can, imagine a hippo. He then moves his head very slowly towards me threatening to bite........he doesn't if you advise him of the consequences using special words. He goes through this routine at every command stop, go, this way. He has added to his repertoire, If I laugh, he whinnies and if I stamp my foot so does he. He gets a bit close to my foot with his but it takes his mind off more serious antics.

This morning the big excavator right side track was skipping on the drive sprocket. Decided to see if the idler wheel spring had snapped. The tracks are grease tensioned. Released the grease the track went slack, shuffled the machine back and forth tracked to the right but would the track come off. I can often drop a track going in a straight line but it was going to be one of those days. 

Eventually got the idler out but there seems little wrong with it, there was a biggish rock stopping it sliding out but these things eat rock for a living. The boss will check the spring length on Monday but it looks fine. It is usually a broken spring which is a half day job to swap and a mauling one. These are big bits but are on the very limit of manhandlable (not sure that is a proper word but it ought to be). Anything bigger and the workflow is different. You have to split the track and wind it off with the drive sprocket then get a hefty tele-loader to do the lifting. I can't lift this idler and know none who can. The digger bucket moved it this far. 
I still maintain it's going to be a hard winter. The crows are busy burying stuff, the squirrels are hiding their nuts.


The neeps are coming on a treat.

Very little slug damage and the blasted pigeons missed most of the seed. The lambs will be very fat lambs and the pregnant ewes should have plenty to eat.

They are combining the last eight acres or about three hectares for the Europhiles out there. It's a good year the whole crop is going for malting, the yield is good and they are picking it up next week, undried and undressed.
 Amazing what folk will try on. Two weeks ago the buyers were saying that due to Batflu they still had stocks from last year and it would have to be stored on the farm. It was bollocks. Folk working from home will be drinking like fishes as the bosses have no way of telling and many of the latter will be on the piss as well. Farmers are pragmatic folk and most round here said okay, don't call us, we'll give you a ring next year. The sugar and wet man was round the following day and carting was arranged a day later. Prices are middling but better than last year as I suspect some of the big conglomerate farm accountants believed the hype and dumped their crop into animal feed.  

I have decided I don't want to be a Marshall but I do want one.

Perfect, a big single cylinder cartridge start diesel tractor. This one is a bit poofy but gorgeous nonetheless. A Field Marshall.

Some illiterate bastard sent me a couple of memes.

And.

Have fun and don't weaken.

The title is ripped off from Lewis Carroll. "YOU ARE OLD FATHER WILLIAM"


Wednesday 9 September 2020

A CABINET OF STUFF.

 After several hiccups and cuckoos I have finished the wheel tutorial, I'm half satisfied but will do another one which will hopefully be both better and much quicker. I'll export the new one into Blender for rendering if it is anything like reasonable.

I have the basics sorted and am getting much faster with FreeCAD.

The barley still isn't in and we keep experiencing heavy showers which not only stops the job but means a good percentage of it needs drying.

Yield is good and prices reasonable from what I can gather.

Sunlight on the barley.


Both the Rowan and Hawthorn are resplendent with fruit. I hope it isn't a sign of a bad winter but it will do as it pleases. We have a new genset so power won't be a problem even if we have cuts.

I hear we have yet more rules to abide by. I really can't believe it........A disease so deadly that one has to be tested to see if you have it yet all this fuss. Still it gives the powers that be something to occupy themselves with and two and a half a side football should be fun. Suppose they could go for three a side and ditch the referee.

That's all for today.


Monday 7 September 2020

OCCUPATIONAL THERAPY.

 It's raining again today so I am back playing in FreeCAD. Designing an exhaust with equal length pipes is a real challenge. I find designing anything in FreeCAD a serious mental exercise but the software is very good once one gets used to it's little foibles. I prefer it's curves and splines to Blenders as they are much more controllable once one susses the tricks. Sketching 2D reference drawings anywhere and at any angle to another face or point is not easy but once mastered the drawing plane can be placed anywhere to suit in 3D space but you have to persevere.

I am running through a series of tutorials by an American....JOKO ENGINEERINGHELP. I am finding him invaluable.

I am trying to create his latest which will be revealed tomorrow if I manage to crack it. It's not an exhaust for my dream bike but the workflow should be applicable.

As you can see above I have the three (Green) Bezier curves going where I want. These are three point curves controlled by reference sketches at the ends and the three white lines or the points at the end of them in the middle, the lines are a sketch so can be modified in length with no bother. One can add as many control points as you need and put them where one wants so I'm getting closer to a constant length pipe regardless of it's path. I just have to click a point on the bottom sketch then click the middle point then the one on the top sketch. The job is parametric so just like non-destructive editing in Photoshop one can go back and play with anything and get an instant or not so instant update depending what your computer is like. As always remember not to bevel or chamfer till all is sorted as unless you have a mainframe computer you will wait forever. This is old fashioned CAD but as I grew up with a pencil and sheet of paper it is wonderful. I can recall having to use French Curves. 

As you can see the Curves Shapes Add-On pops a few wire frame replcas of the sketch along the curves. It doesn't want to do more than three curves but one is plenty for a pipe. You can see under items (High lighted) that we have five sections.

As you can see a perfect loft and the cutout in the profile is larger than the sketch in the first screen grab. One just goes back to the sketch and adjusts it for an instant update. I love it.


 With fifty items instead of five I get a wonderful profile. Like Photoshop and Blender the software is fine. The trick is to know what is where and when to click. On the left the panel shows many options like the usual programming True/False, it also can be used for points in space and sometimes dimensions. It's not a real problem excepting when trying to use ENTER. It's better to alter a 'Z or Y' if you are altering an 'X' or press re-compute. There is a button in most Workbenches for this and there are many Workbenches. It is good fun and could be of some use were I to get my dream bike.

The wonderful Honda CBX 1050. They are available for a few grand though not looking like this one. The originals handled like a sack of spanners or marbles but sounded wonderful. A French bloke did frames, forks and brakes for them in a desperate but misguided effort to make them user friendly; I suspect this is a modified one of his as the engine is being used as part of the frame....Brave. It is drop dead gorgeous. All these are forty years old now and are much more rewarding than modern bikes with traction control and ABS. I can but dream.
Have fun.












Saturday 5 September 2020

I AM TIRED BUT HAPPY.

 It's been a grand day, started out a bit chilly but I soon warmed up loading weeds and sundry vegetation into the tele-loader. I then realised I can't get to the midden as it would mean squashing loads of neeps. The neeps are really doing very well it's seems a good method to spray fallow land then drill straight into it. The pigeons don't realise one has seeded. I have started a new midden next to the new access road be nice for the campers to admire on their way to the pitches.

John who owns the lambs called by to check on them and me. I may not get a lamb before Christmas as he is worried about Halal slaughter. Bloody Muzzies if they don't like our meat killed as nicely as it's possible to kill it then let them bugger off to somewhere that does or go veggie. 

The road is looking really smart and we are using it to haul the grain on which should compact it and find any weak bits.

I had to pressure wash the loader bucket so it was clean for the barley so washed the car at the same time. I then came back for lunch and had a quick look at the Going Postal web page. I also had a laugh at the Yorkshire Peepers blog. It's great today, well worth a read, he's written a speech for Bidden. As Creepy Joe doesn't do coherent speeches it should be perfect.

Here are a few random snaps.

The twenty tonne Case is now parked outside my van.
The access road is now finished to all intents and purposes.

I went out butterflying but had no luck. This is a Small White and I have given a clue as to it's whereabouts.
The first load of barley. It looks a bit more than ten tonnes, I suspect the new trailer and road are in for a good test. It's coming in very clean, we drilled twenty percent more seed this year. Combines work best at full load. It's a bit wet at 17% water content. I don't know what the sugar content is but it ought to be fine for malting. Not that there seems to be any shortage of malting barley this year. I wonder if they could convert it into Tofu or something similar for the weirdies. If we don't get it dried it will convert itself, bloody stuff has a mind of it's own. 

Have fun it will soon be winter and global cooling. In our hemisphere anyway.