Inside a Speedball Handle

  • Indexed some mounts for Fred Mullet stamp dies that Arlene had and wants to use for gel plate printing
  • Fixed three Speedball linoleum tool handles and learned that their collets are really pretty simple

There was a broken blade jammed inside this Speedball linoleum tool handle that I wasn’t able to get out until I disassembled the handle. The knurled part (did you know there’s a name for that diamond pattern that’s there so you can get a good grip? The K is silent, as in knight) comes off if you grip with a good pair of pliers and turn hard. The two pieces to the right of it form the collet. The upper one flips over (around a vertical axis) and fits over the lower one; then both fit inside the knurled part, and sit in a cup cut out of the top of the threaded part. When you turn the knurled part down onto the handle, the tapered part of the inside of the knurled part (see how much I like showing off that word!) forces the tapered parts of the collet together to grip the blade firmly. On the left is the broken part of the blade that was the problem.

  • Baked a third Passover cake mix
  • Got my “Reopen and Risk” statistics project working on desktop, but it is failing as installed on the web 🙁

Update: The failure was due to a spelling error on my part. I was looking for a file called “US_vaccinations.csv” which didn’t exist. There was a file called “US_Vaccinations.csv” which the Mac program found, but the program uploaded to the web didn’t find. Using an upper-case “V” consistently fixed the problem. That’s a rookie mistake but one that I still can make. The problem is fixed, and you can now go to ReopenAndRisk and see how COVID-19 vaccinations are progressing in your state compared to other states.

  • Did a lot of music editing for SymBa; down to one measure and then the divisi part right before the ending
  • Watched episode 4, season 1 of Shtisel
  • No walking, no serious cooking (matzo brei for breakfast and that cake mix don’t count)

Published by deanb

male born 1944 mathematician by training, software engineer by profession; retired since Labor Day 2013 birder, cyclist, unicyclist, eraser carver, knitter when possible