Today a friend and I had a dink with the official Dead Bug Jumping record deck.
I somewhat prematurely (it appears) declared it working this morning. But further playing with it revealed that it wasn’t working well at all. The drive was slipping too much – but we took it apart, and spent some time cleaning the drive mechanism and the underside of the platter. Reassembly demonstrated that it wasn’t happy still – and then John noticed that the spindle (which turns in a bearing of some sort) was incredibly stiff. The manual declares that this is a self-lubricating system requiring no further lubrication. This may have been true in 1966, but today it was a system of very dry old oil that had turned into a substance not unlike glue.
I need to pick up some sewing machine oil, clearly, but the solution applied for the minute was to mix proper penetrating oil (Plus Gas) and engine oil (10W40). After a little while the bearing freed up, and the turntable now starts promptly and turns smoothly.
That’s not the only problem with the deck though. We also tackled the speed adjustment, using the neon light off an extension lead to provide the 50Hz flicker (I am in awe of John’s MacGyver tendancy). Unfortunately, the motor seems to be running a little tiny bit fast, but 33 ⅓ rpm is fine. 45rpm is okay… 78 rpm is a smidge fast, and I can’t quite get the adjuster down as far as it needs to go. 16 rpm is an unknown quantity, because the stroboscopic disk doesn’t include a 16 rpm adjuster.
So, it’s now in a state were getting a cartridge is worthwhile. However, the tone arm is not happy. Clearly there was a design flaw in the headshell, where over time the contacts got dirty and the deck got noisy… and soldering’s happened and the cartridge mount’s got deformed, and then wires have been soldered to replace broken connectors, and we’ve ended up with this:
So, until today I’d not heard of Jordan Reyne. You can all tell me how hideously out of touch my MSc has made me, but I hadn’t…
Unfortunately, I’ve not heard about her just because her music is awesome. It sounds like she’s had some really lousy luck and she could do with some support. There’s a Second Life concert tomorrow, or, I just bought both albums, because they’re awesome…
I’ve actually made the top of the desk. The desk on which the deck and studio kit will stand. See, I still love you all.
The show will hopefully return in September (or before). September’s the end of my MSc, I’ll try and get the show up again before then, but that gives you the outside limit for when we’ll be back!
So, in the teensyest bit of progress ever, I’ve sanded *one* of the *three* planks that make up the desk surface. I started the second one, but seriously? Old scaffold board not so great at just being sanded for prep. To be fair, to get to the stage where I could do that, I had to paint the garage walls (they were moulding!) and clear the floor of the garage enough that I could actually put up the workbench.
I’ve also been looking at microphone suspension mount solutions that are ‘within budget’. I’ve found one I’m happy with and hopefully will sort that out too!
Yes, I know it’s been approximately a year since our last show, and it’ll actually be well over a year before we back on air (since the last one was September 30th, 2010, and I doubt we’ll have a show out by the end of the month).
But. BUT. All the bits to build the desk (yes, build – now do you see why this is taking a while?) are here. Granted, the wood is in need of much prepping before it can be used as a desk, but it’s here. The supports are here. The office chair should arrive on Monday. Even the shelving to support the server is on order. So we are getting nearer. Don’t give up on us yet! We will be back!
So. Yes. Builders are here next week – house is rewired and replumbed. Once the builders have finished, and the plasterers and floorers have been we’ll be able to actually move in properly.
Until then, here’s another link of coolness.
8in8 Amanda Palmer, Ben Folds, Neil Gaiman, and Damian Kulash attempted to create 8 songs in 8 hours…
So we’ve been trying to extract quotes from builders for the last month or so. This is an experience which is much like having teeth drilled, but without the thankful end to the pain a the end. In so far as we’ve had 3 builders come to quote, of which one returned a quote who’s resemblance to sanity was somewhat distant (either that or he lives on Mars and we’re paying petrol for the commute); and two who’ve buggered off without quoting.
This it remains that most of our equipment lies in boxes in a storage unit, which is ‘irritating’ (to use one word), and ‘annoying’ to use another. When we get quotes in, and start work, it shouldn’t be too long before we’re ready to go. We’ve got someone coming to draw us up some plans, anyhow, next week, so we can at least go for approval and then it’s just a case of getting the buggers to actually build it.
We promise, a new DBJ as soon as we can. Sorry, again, for the interminable delay.
So, in keeping with our recent slew of house moving messages, we’ve now got a house. Not a house with heating or electrics, you understand, but a house. Electrician came by yesterday, plumber today, hopefully we can get sorted enough that we can bring you a podcast RSN. Well, moderately RSN.
Sorry, I know it’s been forever since we released a podcast. We will be back, but our house purchase is proving to be a bit of a nightmare. Once we get in and settled, there’ll be return of Dead Bug Jumping. Leave us in your subscriptions, and we’ll magically appear. I shan’t make any guestimate of when that’ll be, because at the moment we don’t know when we’ll be able to get our stuff from the storage units
