iburkard.worklog

I'm taking a little vacation this week. I hadn't used any vacation days until now, so here we go! I hope to get a digital camera, work on my book, work on my bike, read, and lounge around. My next vacation will be... Christmas.

Andrew wanted to see what I printed on my shirts last weekend... so here you go Andrew. It's a bootleg "Black Bat" action figure from Argentina, and a cool German cookie tin lid.

I tend to use obscure found graphics... fun stuff. I also did a reprint of my classic DeLorean shirt, and Teen Wolf. I may dork out and make a NORAD shirt later this week.

I spent yesterday reworking my violin. The ebony nut (slotted bar at the top of the fingerboard, which separates the strings) wasn't getting the strings high enough off of the fingerboard. What's the problem? The strings buzz, rattling against the fingerboard, because they are too close to the surface (in this case the high E string was literally on the fingerboard). If you've ever heard fret buzz on guitars, it's a similar sounding thing for violins.

So what did I replace the ebony nut with? Well, I decided to use some leftover bull horn from a fairly unsuccessful project last year, making gemshorns. I'm strange guy, I know. (I actually got one of the horns to work, but I messed up and drilled the holes too large so I couldn't adjust the pitch. Anyway, back to the violin.) I took a small portion of horn, and sanded it for an hour or more to make a new nut. I used some of my small sculpting files to cut the four slots. I should really make a video, but I never think of it at the time. Here's what my webcam calls a picture: