Watch Dr. Horrible

Here it is, the three act, Dr. Horrible. It's just a bit over 40 minutes long. You can watch it for free now courtesy of Hulu or buy it in iTunes store for $3.99. Seriously. It's really good.

Dr. Horrible

I know we should be blogging about our wedding and honeymoon and posting pictures with comments and so on like that. And we will soon. Really. But we got distracted by amazing internet production! Joss Whedon, the genius who brought us Buffy, Angel, and best of all Firefly, brings to us an internet event. A wonderful piece of imagination and skill. A supervillain musical. Go forth and view Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog.

Today's the Day

Today's Wedding Day. Less than 12 hours from now we'll be married. I think we both started freaking out a bit yesterday over all there is to do and details and stuff. I know I feel much better after getting some rest. I imagine Maegan does, too. And extra bonus! I found my iron and ironing board last night, so I won't have to wear a wrinkly shirt. I'm sure that will be nice.

By the way, the Trebuchet idea didn't pan out. It launches the little wooden balls the kit came with. It may launch golf balls well (I didn't have any to test). But it won't launch water balloons. They keep falling out of the sling barely before it swings around. And while this kit has great detail for the winch, it has a fixed release pin. Next version I'll need to have something adjustable for items with varying weight.

Test Fire - Day One

Day one of testing the Bouquet Trebuchet:

The goal was to launch a small water balloon from Matt's patio, across Prestonwood Road, and into the parking lot of an office building. However, we ran into a bit of a problem early on. The ammunition kept falling into friendly territory. "Incoming!"
We spent several hour tinkering with lines, adjusting the launch pouch and adding to the counterweight. Yet it kept releasing too early. Finally we used a small wooden ball and it launched correctly.
Apparently water balloons are not ideal for trebuchet ammunition...

Origins of Wedding Traditions

With Wedding, Wedding, Wedding stuff on the brain I was not surprised to stumble across an article on Mental Floss about the Origins of Wedding Traditions. This part about the Best Man caught my eye.

The original duty of a "Best Man" was to serve as armed backup for the groom in case he had to resort to kidnapping his intended bride away from disapproving parents. The "best" part of that title refers to his skill with a sword, should the need arise. (You wouldn't want to take the "just okay" member of your weapon-wielding posse with you to steal yourself a wife, would you?)

The best man stands guard next to the groom right up through the exchange of vows (and later, outside the newlyweds' bedroom door), just in case anyone should attack or if a non-acquiescent bride should try to make a run for it.

Trebuchet: Part 11

Here I have attached the trolley block to the end of some twine which has the other end wrapped around the winch axle. The line goes down and traverses the length of the trebuchet underneath where the trough will be.


Here is the trigger system. The closest dowel has a loop of twine tied to it. The further dowel has a lever with a pin on it. When the arm is down, the twine will go over it and hook onto the pin on the other side. To fire, the latch gets pulled, the pin goes up, and the twine loop is released, which releases the arm.


It is completed! The sling is now hanging from the end of the arm. The trough is now lying along the centerline. I'll try firing it tomorrow after the firing mechanism has had plenty of time to dry. I bought about 500 water balloons for four bucks. By the way, the winching system isn't really necessary for the operation of this small size trebuchet. This is just table size, so it's small enough that it's easy to just pull the arm down. But it's great to see how the arm was pulled down on full size versions back in the day.

Trebuchet: Part 10

I stayed up later than I probably should have working on the trebuchet. But I got a lot done on it. Prepare for a long post.

Here are the smaller dowel pieces I cut from the very long ones. These will be used as tread dowels to combine the two sides of the winch wheels.


Here I have a few in place. I'm just using glue for now. That's why the rubberbands are there. I'll take those off after a day or so after the glue has fully dried. Eventually, I may use some twine to lash the dowels to the wheels. It would help a lot structurally, but it would mostly just look really cool. But the glue should do fine for now.


All the dowels are on the first winch wheel. You may notice the edges of the dowels are a little rough. That's because they came from a much, much longer rod. After measuring the length I needed, I scored it a bit and snapped it off. On the dowels used other places I sanded the ends after doing that. But there's just too many to do that here. Besides, maybe it makes it look more authentic? If I need to, I can always sand down the ends quickly with a dremel. Depends on how it looks once it's all together.


Both winch wheels assembled and sitting in their approximate final place.


A few of the axle holes needed to be reamed out a bit. These axles will be involved with the pulley system, so they need to spin freely. Note to self: when using a manual round file to make an existing hole a bit bigger, be careful where placing the bracing hand. When the file suddenly released on the other side, it grazed the top of my knuckle a bit. Just a scrape, but I figured I better band-aid it up. I'm guessing it wouldn't be good to get sawdust in a wound.


Good news on the A-frame width! While reaming the holes through the A-frames and holding the sub-frame, I accidentally loosened the glued connection there. And with a little more wiggle and prying, I was able to separate it. Then I sanded down the tops of those outrigger supports that were pushing in too hard. This time when I glued it all in, I used a level. Success!


Additions to the subframe to hold the winch wheels. That longer horizontal dowel is the axle where the winch wheels will attach. It will move with the wheels, but spin easily within the A-frames.


Both winch wheels attached. There are axle struts on the frame to solidify the stability of the wheels.


The trolley block. The twine from the winch axle will eventually lead to here. This will go on the trolley line on the arm.


I forgot to put a trolley line on the arm! So I redid the lashing near the arm axle and left a loop on it. I then just tied a line between that loop and the bit of loop I left when lashing on the release pin at the end of the arm. In this picture you can see that line hanging there. And the arm/counterweight box sits on the axle between the A-frames just fine now. I think this is going to work!


Lots of the pieces together, and it looks like a trebuchet! Just a bit more for completion. The main thing left is the trigger. Once the arm has been winched down, it will be held down by some more twine going across the top of it. Then the winch line can be released. That way, when it's fired, there won't be the drag of the winch unwinding. After the trigger, I think all that will be left is the sling and the trough. Seems like I'm missing something, though. The winch wheel axle is held in place with spacers which are glued onto the axle. But the rear and front dowels have nothing like that. As it is now, they can slide out of the holes. I could put some kind of stop on the dowel inside the frame. Just need to figure out what to use.