Husqvarna Manufacturing Concern, Viking Branch

Sewing machine repair doesn't seem very daunting when the cover is on.
Take off the first cover and the genius that is Howe, Hunt and Singer becomes apparent.
This is the lower arm with the backside of the gearing that rotates the bobbin. This was where the majority of the machine clogging lint was found.
This is the front side of the lower arm, with the bobbin assembly removed.
The power plant. It was bogged down by an accumulation of lint and lack of lube.
The belt was loose and the tensioner spring was weak. When I applied more tension by pushing against the tensioner arm with a screwdriver the motor had enough power to make the machine go.


I got some fabric in from Seattle Fabrics in the mail last week. Those cats have a great selection of hard to find materials, but it took over a week for my order to arrive. I broke out the sewing machine, only to find it wasn't in working order. The local Sew N Vac wanted $200 USD to do a clean and inspect, not including any parts. I figured for 200 dollars I could fix it my darn self. I tore it down, cleaned it up with a toothbrush and lubed everything up with some silicon spray. It runs much smoother, but the drive belt and the tensioner spring need to be replaced. I thought that these would be no big deal to procure, this being 'merica and all, but I'm having no luck finding a V belt for a 20 year old Swedish rig.
Today was the first day of class. It feels good to be back in class after a long summer off. I'm at a campus I've never had day classes at. The scene is a lot different on the main campus during the day as opposed to a satellite campus at night, but I still have a night class at the local campus on Tuesday and Thursday nights to keep me sane.

Hops

Some Hops from my garden. These are drying on a screen. I got about 12 ounces or so this year, enough for about 4 batches of beer.

Smoked Out

Literally, but we'll get to that.
We've had quite the weekend. I knew it was gonna be busy, but a few of my planned events didn't go according to plan.
On Friday night the taxpayers were supposed to play a date with The Seditionists (from Portland) and Lunacy (from Eugene). Unfortunately the managers of the anarcho-bookstore/warehouse space we were going to play at never showed to open it up. Lunacy felt that since they drove up here, with their van breaking down en route, they were going to play come hell or high water. Rob Taxpayer offered up his garage, but in transferring locations of the show we lost most of the crowd and The Seditionists. Since The Seditionists planned the show I was a little disappointed they didn't come to Rob's place to show support for the band that drove up here on their invitation. It was a giant clusterf*ck, and I really hope the kids in Lunacy aren't pissed at Portland for sucking, because they rock and we'd like to play with them again.
On Saturday we bought a new Hyundai Accent. Buying a car is always a giant hassle, but hopefully this one will be breakdown-free for the remainder of my undergraduate studies. It's the SE model with a 5 speed, and even though it's a hatchback it will fit me, the Wifey, Max and all our camping gear just fine.
Saturday night we played the Red Room with Prohibition and The Seditionists. Rob broke 2 strings, Noah's snare exploded off its stand and due to Robs equipment meltdown we wound up playing half a set, which was ended with a guitar-less sing along.
Sunday we went camping along the Pacific Crest Trail north of the Bridge of the Gods. We hiked in about 3 miles and got the camp all set up by about 3:30pm. We were about to walk to Gillete Lake to swim and refill our water bottles when I noticed the faint smell of smoke in the air. At first my brain didn't register that this was odd. I'm quite used to everyone having campfires in the woods. Five minutes later the wind shifted and the sky grew dim. I looked up to see the woods filling with smoke. Then I realized that this was not coming from campfires, but rather that we were within spitting distance of a forest fire. Visibility decreased to about 100 yards, so we contacted the county fire district dispatcher, who told us that 5 acres near Kidney Lake (about .25 miles from us at the time) were burning and that the fire was traveling south. This gave us the possible risk of being cut off from the trail by the fire, so we packed up and left. I don't think this left a good impression on the girls who were with us that aren't used to camping, but I hope they aren't turned off of the wilderness by this experience.
Having been smoked out of our campsite we headed home and roasted weenies and had S'mores in my backyard, where the party set up their tents and salvaged some outdoors time.