Like All Fairy Tales
Once upon a time ...
Gordon Sinclair was a Canadian from Toronto that recorded "The Americans" in 1973. A transcript was recorded by Byron MacGregor of CKLW in Windsor, climbing to #4 on the Billboard 100
Continue reading →Category Archives: Uncategorized
Hamilton, Nevada
Rich silver ore was discovered in the nearby hills in late 1867; the town of Hamilton, first known as Cave City, was first "settled" in May 1868 when a saloon was built. By August, the town had 600 residents, 4 saloons, and a post office - a "rowdy metropolis of vice and venture full of gamblers, miners, and madams". The town sat at about 8,000 ft with the mines on nearby hillsides being up to over 10,000 feet. Stage lines ran to Elko (on the Central Pacific Railroad) and Austin, another silver camp (now on US50).
The first silver strike was of a vein 70 ft long, 40 feet wide, and 30 feet deep worth over $1M 1869 dollars. It is claimed to have been the purest silver vein found in Nevada.
When White Pine County was formed in 1869, Hamilton was selected as the county seat. At that time, the population had grown to over 10,000 people with 200 mining companies in operation. By late 1869, the region reached its peak of 25,000 people covering 2 square miles complete with suburbs and every type of business of that time. Multiple banks, churches, schools were established with elaborate courthouses for each of the towns (of which Hamilton was by far the largest). Several breweries, over 100 saloons, and upwards of 60 general stores inhabited the region.
Theatres, dance halls, and stamp mills ran 24 hours. Typhoid fever, claim jumpers, and gun-fights kept the population under control. A steam powered water system was built in 1869; flattened tin cans provided building materials - of which many remnants even now litter the ground.
The 2-story structure is the Withington Hotel
The same story for most of the Nevada mining towns: the ore started to play out, much of the population moved on (but even with a population of just under 4000 by the 1870 census, still the 3rd largest city after Virginia City and Gold Hill; #4 was Carson City, the state capital). In 1873, a fire broke out and damaged most of the business district - many of the businesses never re-opened. Apparently, the fire was started by a business owner wanting to collect insurance on his property, a cigar store; the destruction basically finished the town. The business owner was caught and served 7 years in prison. By 1880, the population dropped to around 500 people.
These walls finally collapsed during an earthquake
In 1885, another fire destroyed the courthouse and county records. By 1887, the county seat moved to Ely, 50 miles away (and about 10 miles off today's US50). By 1895, most of the population had left for greener pastures. The last stamp mills ceased operation by 1895.
By 1919, mush of the town was full of deserted and dilapidated ruins of former glory. However, Hamilton remained important enough to justify routing the Lincoln Highway through town in 1913 but new routing of the road bypassed the town in 1924. The post office closed in 1931; the population had fallen to 25 by 1940 with ranching the main activity.
Some tentative mining was re-established during the silver price boom of late 1970s/early 80s but nothing came of it. Last I was there, a few worn out truck bodies, a metal quonset hut type structure, and rusted cable were scattered among the older ruins.
Remnants of some structures remained at least through 1996, most notably those of the Wells-Fargo bank but by 2006, someone/something had collapsed the bank walls and this mill chimney was the only standing structure of the glory days ... although ruins abound. The road into the area is seasonal; impassible in winter, not recommended when wet, and high clearance 4x4 recommended when dry - although careful driving may allow a passenger car to reach the site. Well worth a visit for those that explore these old places.
Gas up in Ely to the east or Eureka to the west. Carrying extra jerry cans wouldn't be a bad idea. I like carrying 2 spare tires ...
The 1912 Lincoln Highway ran across the 1st photo, just this side of the chimney. This view is of what was once a bustling main street of the town; when I was last there, the main residents were several herds of wild horses and I slept to the song of coyotes singing in the hills.
Continue reading →Fall At The Front Range
Western Turkey
Last Chapter
by ghostsniper
This is probably the longest review ever written on Amazon and I wrote it over 15 years ago.
Reviewed in the United States on January 23, 2009
Get a cup of coffee and sit back in your easy chair for a spell and I’ll tell you a little story called “The Nightmare Before (and after) Christmas”.
My wife bought this PSI Turncrafter wood lathe for me as a Christmas present, wasn’t that nice of her? Quite frankly, I was shocked on Christmas morning, and elated!
30 minutes into it the motor just stopped, didn’t overheat. Unplugged the motor from the speed unit and connected power directly to it, still wouldn’t work.
Called PSI the next day and spoke to Judy who referred me to Joe Roberts and he told me to send the motor and speed unit to them and they would immediately check it out and send me a new one (cost me $15 to send it back). That was lie 1.
A week later I called them to see whats up and Joe Roberts told me the motor hadn’t come in yet but he would call me when it did. Lie 2.
3 days later I called again and Judy told me she couldn’t find Joe but she’d have him call me. Lie 3.
At this point I start documenting this stuff.
I called the next day and Joe said he didn’t remember talking to me before but would check the motor and call me back but he never did. Lies 4&5.
I called the next day and Judy told me they were having inventory so there was no way my motor had been received by them and transferred me to someones voicemail so I left a message, and no one ever called me back. sigh.
I called back and asked to speak to Joe and he told me because it was Friday he’d send me a new motor the following Monday. So on Tues I called and Joe said he sent the motor on Mon and would call me the next morning (Wed) with the tracking number. He didn’t call. Lie 6.
I called the following Tues and Joe said he didn’t send the motor and forgot to call me but he had a new motor in hand and would send it to me that day and call me the next morning with the tracking number.
Now we are up to today, Jan 22, and I spoke to Joe this morning and he said he sent the motor yesterday and would call me back with the tracking number which he did, but the tracking number showed (via the UPS website) that what he shipped only weighed 2.3 lbs and was going to a different state than where I lived.
I called back and Joe said there was a mix up and he’d call me back with the correct tracking number. He never did. I don’t know how many times he has lied to me at this point.
So here it is, exactly 1 month since this lathe was purchased and paid for and all I have is a heavy piece of metal that doesn’t do anything and a severe case of irritation over this whole mess.
If I don’t have a new motor and speed unit by close of business on Monday the 26th of Jan I’m going to box the thing up and send it back to Amazon.
I mean really, have you ever heard of anything like this before?
I haven’t, and I don’t think a customer should have to go through this, especially with a Christmas present. Some gift.
I can’t recommend this machine due to the irresponsible performance of the people that work for PSI.
Oh yeah, one more thing, this Joe Roberts has a nasty little laugh he does almost constantly while talking that just drives you up the wall.
If it was up to me he would be standing in the soup line right now.
And all I wanted to do was spin pieces of wood to resemble visions in my mind……..
Part Deux:
Its now been about 4 months since this lathe was purchased.
As stated above dealing with Penn State has been a nightmare, specifically the enormous amount of lying by the guy in charge named Joe. He’s still there and he’s still lying.
Anyway, in frustration I scoured the web and found out there are 2 parts to the Penn Sate industry and up to that point I had been dealing with the part that was mentioned in the User Manual at […].
Don’t call that number unless you are a glutton for abuse.
Instead, call […] and speak to Mark ( […] ). When I called he was the one that answered the phone. You can tell instantly that Mark knows what he’s doing and he is used to getting stuff done, and solving problems.
Mark told me their lathes are made in China and recently they have been having a lot of problems with them as I outlined above and he had no solution for me but he said he would send me a new motor and speed controller which he did and they arrived in a few days. The same problem occurred. The lathe initially worked fine then out of nowhere it stopped and wouldn’t come on again. A few days later it would come on but would then go off again. I called Mark and he sent me a 3rd motor. That motor has worked fine to this day. However, there have been a few times when it would stop for no apparent reason and after pushing the reset button on the speed control unit it would run again.
I still don’t know the reason why this thing acts like it does nor does Mark, however I now have 2 extra motors and 1 extra speed control for backup.
Here’s what I think.
I think the issue is in the speed control unit, specifically, the reset switch. It doesn’t has a positive feel to it when you press it. You can’t tell if its been pressed or not when you press it. The button itself seems loose in the housing and its just a matter of luck if it makes a connection or not. One of these days I’ll get around to purchasing an after market push button switch and see if that clears the problem up.
Having said all of that, in the past 3 months I have turned over 300 pens and various other things and am very happy with the quality of the unit except as indicated above.
Last week I decided to turn a small bowl which means using the included faceplate. After turning the bowl I went to remove the faceplate from the lathe and realized that a special tool is necessary to do so and it was not included with the stuff that came with the lathe. The main shaft in the headstock has 2 small holes drilled into it and I inserted a cylindrical drift pin into it while turning the faceplate with a 1″ open end wrench and it came undone.
I called the original Penn State number and requested the special wrench that was missing and that idiot Joe said no problem, he’ll send me one, then he asked if I purchased the lathe from them. I had already given him the serial number and he looked me up in the database. I told him I purchased it from amazon and he said, “Well that's a whole different story, you’re gonna have to send me a copy of your receipt so I can verify it.” So now I have to find the receipt and go somewhere and make a copy of it and snail mail it to him in order to fix a problem THEY created by not including the wrench in the first place. Well, Monday morning I’m calling Mark and see what he says and if he says he’ll send me a new wrench I’m gonna tell him he needs to fire that idiot Joe.
I hope no one else has to go through what I have and if you do have problems I hope the info above helps out.
It really is a decent lathe but unfortunately the support is horrendous and its up to pure luck how your history will be with it.
Epilogue
Here it is a little more than a year later and I have no good news to add to this review.
In the past year this lathe has brought me ecstasy and agony (kinda like being married) but mainly the latter.
It is very unpredictable and that is frustrating. If I knew what was wrong I’d fix it, but I don’t so I can’t.
Just this morning I turned a pen, then stopped to eat lunch. When I came back to finish the pen the motor would not come on. I pressed the reset switch a gazillion times and still nothing. I tried 2 different motors and 3 different variable speed switches and still the thing does not work. Irritating. So I just fired off another email to Mark at Penn State (…), I doubt anything will get done about it.
In the past year, while dealing with an at times severely handicapped lathe, I have managed to turn about 300 pens and 30 bowls up to 9.5″ dia x 5″ deep and various other things like gavels, mallets, candle sticks, finials, etc., maybe 500 items all said and done. But because of the way this lathe works or doesn’t work it took 10 times longer to do all those things. You see, my problem was that I quickly became severely addicted to turning stuff. I can take a piece of raw material, say a piece of hickory from a tree that blew down in our yard, and then in the magical realm of the corner of my workshop convert that old chunk of wood into something everybody just drools over. Serious. Its easy to make bad stuff look good on a lathe if you pay attention, settle for nothing but the best and never quit.
My 3 rules for life. Because the lathe is inherently dangerous you MUST pay attention and stay focused. I’ve had a few minor mishaps, while wiping the shaving off the toolrest my finger got caught against the spinning material and yes I was rewarded with a nice blood blister for that infraction. I was holding a piece of 4/0 steel wool against a piece of wood and it caught and exploded, blowing the flotsam all up in my face and the whole area – what a mess. And I even had a few items fly clean off the lathe, over my shoulder and hit the wall on the other side of the room. I also have a few scars on the backs of my knuckles from rubbing against the edge of spinning bowls. Did I mention how much sawdust these things create? Jayziss. I have 3 60 gallon trashcans full of that stuff and I don’t know what I’m going to do with it. Just one bowl will generate about 5 gallons of shavings. Funny, you put a $20 piece of walnut on the lathe and then about $15 worth of it ends up on the floor.
I found turning to be sort of like therapy. I can stand there for hours working my art and thinking about stuff. You get a certain song going through your head like they do and you start thinking about a certain topic and the next thing you know 6 hours have flown by and you’ve solved all the worlds problems too, and that dam song is STILL going through your head. I can’t tell you how many times in the past year I’ve been late to supper, late taking the dogs out, late to just about everything. Time seems to fly when I’m turning. Its only when the sun goes down that I’m aware that time has elapsed from day into night, meanwhile I keep staring at this spinning object in front of me and observing the minutest of detail, making sure everything is exactly perfect.
I’ve made lots of mistakes, some of them major and cannot be repaired, but most of them have been minor and that’s where the creative mind comes into play – how to take a damaged thing and change it into a thing of beauty. Sometimes I’ll just take it off the lathe and set it aside for a day/week/month before I come back to it, and turn other things in the meantime. Like I said, its addictive.
All in all I am really infatuated with the art / skill of turning materials on a lathe but sadly this is not the lathe to do this on, at least not right now. It won’t work.
So, I am out a couple hundred dollars, er my wife is – remember, she bought it for me as a Christmas present and as of right now it's not a working lathe.
I still can’t recommend this lathe for the obvious reasons and suggest that if you are interested in a lathe of this size to look elsewhere, maybe a Jet.
Me? I think I’m going to move up to a larger lathe by another manufacturer, not sure who yet, and I’ll just set this one in a dark corner of the workshop and maybe someone in the distant future can figure out what to do with it.
But when I do get a new lathe rest assured I will come right back here to Amazon and deliver an amazing review for you to enjoy.
PS: I was just over at the Penn State website ( […] ) and noticed they no longer have any version of this lathe available. It appears they have a new lathe coming out in March of 2010 and in their listings it has better specs all the way around than this series I am writing about. It looks like this old series of lathes are being phased out so I’d have even more reservations about buying one as repair parts and service will most likely be scarce. Caveat Emptor.
Good luck and happy turning.
The Full Time Wood Wizard
Since writing that review I have continued to turn many things on this lathe. One of the contracted jobs I did was 53 walnut handles WWI era US machine guns for a guy that does military re-enactments.
All together I have turned over 1000 pen and pencil sets, most of which I have given away, and rest were sold on etsy. About 800 bowls, again, etsy. And maybe another 500 odd things like mushrooms, spindles, toys, etc., all sold on etsy and various art galleries.
I was initiated with lathes when I was 11 in 7th grade shop but then went about 50 years without ever touching one again. But when I did, LOOKOUT!
If you’re bored, have a little coin to blow, I suggest looking into turning things on a lathe. You might be surprised to find a part of yourself you never knew existed. You don’t need experience, but you do need aspiration, drive, determination, and imagination, and not take things too seriously.
Luck!
Continue reading →USS Bainbridge
Hull number DDG-96, the Bainbridge is a guided missile destroyer based in Norfolk, VA. Commissioned in 2005, the Bainbridge was involved in the return of the hijacked freighter Maersk Alabama's captain from Somali pirates. This was the incident which led to the movie "Captain Phillips". The Arabian Sea, not the Mississippi River in Minneapolis.
Pictured here at the ammo pier of the Yorktown Naval Weapons Station. Taken from the Colonial Parkway.
Continue reading →Watch For Falling Rock
Joys of living in mountain country. Been lots of unseasonable rain and little snow.
Rocks happen.
Should have one lane open soon ...
Continue reading →Oops – Re: “Depression”
Tunesday: Ladyva – Boogie Woogie Piano
A sample of some obscure - and maybe not obscure - tunes from my strange and off-the-wall collection.
Today's selection: Ladyva "Boogie Woogie Piano" 2022
A live performance from the 2022 "International Boogie Nights" festival in Uster, Switzerland. Worthy of a video.
Ladyva is a Swiss pianist, specializing in boogie-woogie, jazz, and blues. Born in 1988, she's quite popular on her own Youtube channel - with over 120 million views.
Look at those fingers ... born to be a musician.
Continue reading →Dry Well
This well-digging truck was sitting in a field outside of Grouse Creek, Utah.
Up near where Idaho, Utah, and Nevada come together is the small Mormon community of Grouse Creek, UT. First settled in 1875, it was named for the plentiful sage grouse that inhabited the area. Plentiful meadows in the area encouraged the support of cattle. By 1878, some of the sagebrush had been cleared off and wheat was grown but drought years made finding irrigation water difficult.
At that time, the Central Pacific Railroad still ran on the original transcontinental route; the nearest town for mail and supplies was Terrace, some 40 miles away to the south-east. A co-op store was opened in Grouse Creek but was only partially successful - several owners came and went over the years.
An LDS (Mormon) Ward was formed in 1879; meetings were held in private homes until a hall was built in the 1890s. A sandstone chapel was built in 1912 but torn down in 1983 when a new chapel was built.
A post office opened in 1890, a school opened in 1892. An irrigation pipeline was constructed in 1908; electricity came in 1952.
Even now, Grouse Creek - at an elevation of 5500 feet - is a very remote settlement of about 90 people. Mainly a ranching center, there are no paved roads leading to the town although the main street in town is paved. It's a long way to nowhere from Grouse Creek, and when you get there, it's still a long way to what many call civilization.
The roads leading to Grouse Creek are not recommended for low-clearance vehicles; 4 wheel drive is recommended, especially in wet conditions. The town may be inaccessible in snowy conditions. It is 20 miles to the nearest paved road (UT30), 80 miles to Wendover (on I-80) and 200 miles to Salt Lake City. Snowville is between 85 and 105 miles away, depending on the road taken; Twin Falls, ID is 100 miles away and is the closest major town.
There is very limited lodging, gas, and supplies available in town. It is not the kind of place one ups and moves to; while the people are friendly, it is the type of town where one is not a "local" unless one's g'grandparents lived there. My guess is it would help to be Mormon if one chose to move there.