The progress reports

Each week (hopefully) we update this page with new photos of instruments in progress. The updates are usually made on Monday.

We hope that you enjoy seeing the progress on your instrument and those of others who have them on order.

Week ending November 11, 2002, part 2

Stacks of plaques for the memorial service. .

Colson: the instrument pays a visit to Candy the helpful X-ray technician

Colson: the X-ray lets us measure the size of the thrust collar and select the correct drill (and to see an amazing amount of metal holding the instrument together.)

Colson: Alden is drilling out the tail bearing block...

... and voila, the shaft and wheel are out. (If only it was really that easy... ;-) )

In the studio, we trimmed some of the windows and the internal dust filter "window" into the spray room:

Around the door and east window,...

...around the north window and the outside of the spray room....

... and inside the studio. Remember that hole from last week? The trim material is cedar fencing. It was purchased several months ago, fully dried, and then laboriously planed and sawn to dimension (mostly by Justin - what would we do without this guy?)

Saturday this week was kind of a day for disasters. Cali developed an unusual and very painful lump in her right wrist. Justin's dog Mauser went missing overnight and was found on Sunday morning after being hit by a car on Saturday night. He has a dislocated hip, a fractured pelvic bone, and a broken tail. The vet tried to get the hip joint back into place, but more surgery will be needed, and his tail will need to be amputated. Meanwhile, the pump for our well decided that this was the day to fail, so a new pump, new wiring, and a new controller were needed. Fortunately Jerry was kind enough to come out on a Sunday to diagnose our problem, so we could get to work on the groundwork:

Alden is cheating a little here: it looks as if he dug all of that trench, but he just started a few feet ago. The well head pipe is in the background there. The trench is 18" deep, for a new electrical.

Here's the guy who did most of the digging: Mr. Merritt. And you thought lutherie apprenticeship would be indoors with power tools...

Here's the boom truck in position for pulling the old pump out of the well and putting in the new one.

Here's a view of most of the trench, all 80 feet of it. At this point it looks more like a moat than a trench, because the well head is spewing out at least 4 liters every second. Made us wonder what we needed a pump for....

For other news of the week, please go back to page 1.

See last week for more pictures.

Please contact us if you have comments or questions about this page or other pages on this site.

Alden and Cali Hackmann
Olympic Musical Instruments

Beati illi qui in circulum circumeunt, fient enim magnae rotae.

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