Plot Twist

So I went to TechShop -- sorry, "TheShop." (Idiots). And despite the calendar showing it was open, and even the tool reservation calendar showing tool reservations being made....it was actually closed. No, there wasn't any notice. Closest they came was a question asked by a member on the private Facebook group that was answered by another member.

Yeah, great communications. Why am I paying membership to these idiots?

Wasn't a total waste. I went over to MOMA and looked at art (I get in free all year -- more benefits of the full-time job).

Was kind of tired after closing night anyhow. Had a light go out. I have five front lights so I really, really needed it. Corroded socket of course, so all I could do is scratch out the worst of it with a nail file. On closing night the instrument dropped out right at the top of the show...fortunately it hangs right in front of the light booth so I was able to tap it back to life with a broomstick and then I spent the whole show carefully never turning it all the way off (because it would never turn back on).

So I still don't have anything I need at TheShop. But I'm eager to get checked off on the machines I've used in the past so when a future need comes I can go in and start bending metal. (Well, not bending metal...I didn't do the Safety and Basic Use classes on the brake and sheer yet).

What I have for the moment is random fun-to-do projects. Chief among which is making a mini loom. Honestly, for what I want in a loom I can tinker up something at my workplace. The only reason to do a laser-cut version is to, yes, get my permission in order for future lasering.

Could also cut some guitar picks, again just for the fun of it. Weaving tools gives me a few other excuses to unlock tools; 3d print a spindle whorl. Or even lathe one up on the wood lathe. Or could even CNC a spindle whorl out of aluminium but...

Oh, right. Haven't ordered the churro yet (did order some deerskin scraps and rawhide to make a tool roll for my traditional flint-knapping kit). Found a 1oz pack of wool roving in the embroidery supplies at my favorite local fabric store but my first attempt at hand spinning did not go swimmingly. Mocked up a quick drop-spindle from a bamboo chopstick and some red clay. Did eventually get a short two-ply that doesn't look horrible, but I went back another 2,000 years down the tech tree to create that one; I rolled it on my thigh.

Yeah, looms. Sure, I might make a ukulele strap with a tablet loom, but it is primarily for historical research. Even if I don't even know if my Cretan weaver is using a fixed heddle. Or any heddles. Certainly not tablets. Well, probably not. Remember what I said about adoption? It is a tech that is of limited use in that time and place, and I can defend that it might have arose here, been known to a few people but never documented or achieved any prominence.

As for prop projects: after I've gotten some cleaning done I'll dust off the Holocrons and see if anyone at the RPF still wants one. Unfortunately I haven't been able to think of anything that really leverages the kinds of equipment I have available at TheShop. There's always Aliens grenades, but they are a finicky machining project that takes way too long to be profitable. Or interesting.

Unfortunately top of my prop list right now seems to be re-doing the "Yamatai" necklace. This is actually a good lead-in project for the Wraith Stone as I intend to do the same sculpt-and-scan process to make a 3d file. Which I'll then have printed at Shapeways for the fine detail available there, clean up and hand-detail the print, then cast it in resin. Then make the 3d file publicly available.

References are of course poor. I'm almost tempted to play the game again to see if I can get a better screen shot. There are some visualization and promotional artworks, but they look rather different. In fact, there's almost reason to go with two necklace designs (at least in part because the artwork version has a clearer link to real existing traditions -- chiefly Maori -- and to my eye is a more pleasing design anyhow).

And actually, that might be a quick laser project too. Would make the sculpt easier if I created a flat "armature" out of some thin, stiff material like 1/16" acrylic...

Inkle Dinkle Do

I've mentioned that I rather dislike when a character in a historical novel starts going around inventing modern technology. I mean the sort of stuff that seems obvious in hindsight, like the stirrup or paper clips. I don't think it works. It doesn't really make the character seem smart and insightful, because we have paper clips. It does make the society they are in look dumber, because if it was so obvious, why didn't they have it already?

First there's context. Stirrups do you no good in an age of chariotry; you need horses and the horsemanship to fight from horseback before the extra stability is helpful. Then there's development; there were a thousand variations of paperclip (and even more, the zipper); the trick was figuring out how to manufacture it economically. Inventing a technology is nothing if you can't get it adopted.

And lastly there's a nasty little observation, and that has to do with the subsistence trap. The people who kneel over a floor loom for generation after generation don't invent the standing loom, because they don't have the spare time. They can't take a chance on something that might work when it takes every waking hour just to put food on the table. It is the same economic trap every poor person in the developed world falls into.

So, no, I don't want my Cretan weaver to invent a tablet loom.

Yeah...there's an academic paper which I'm currently trying to track down, which apparently argues convincingly that a certain embroidered belt belonging to Rameses II could not have been constructed on a tablet loom. The best evidence for them is 800 BCE Europe -- and most textile and metal technologies seem to have spread from Europe to the Aegean.

Pity, in part because this means I need to learn what the actual technology for decorative strips was. So more research.




Also pity because tablet weaving just seems like so much fun (well....for a certain level of fun; you really have to grade this one on a curve because weaving and spinning are almost defined by being monotonous and extremely time consuming.)

I'm very much going to try hand-spinning on a drop-spindle. I found a place called The Woolery which has wool top from Navaho Churro -- the most similar thing to Bronze Age sheep I've found so far, although I remember reading somewhere there is a breed that definitely comes close (the distinction is, bronze age sheep shed instead of being sheared.) And the Woolery has Dew-Retted Flax, for when you want to get really crazy.

I've also found some plans on Thingiverse for simple laser-cut looms. I am thinking of lasering at least some tablets and shuttles, and possibly design up a mini fixed-heddle loom. And perhaps 3d print or even wood lathe a spindle whorl.

Because even more than doing a little historical recreation bronze-age weaving, what I rather need to do now is get checked back in on as many tools of the reborn TechShop as I can.