Diversions [i]

What do you do when it's unhealthy to go outside and network television is an incessant stream of yellow journalism? Fun in the garage of course.

I picked up some carbon fiber weave and epoxy resin to see if compression could make up for my shameful lack of an autoclave. Additionally, I tried curing the resin at 500F.



The resin runoff cured in the oven within minutes and turned a deep amber; neither of these things is desirable. I removed the bake assembly from the oven and let it cure at room temperature, surprisingly it turned out to be visually identical to the full room temperature cure (seen below on left and right). Nonetheless, my procedure will hence be room temperature curing.



Straight out of the press, the composite surface is a bit hazy on account of the mold release. With a bit of wet sanding and a layer of clear coat it looks pretty good. I have a two layer carbon-carbon that is rather flexible. I also created a carbon-glass-glass-glass-carbon-carbon that is quite rigid.

A chain guard is currently drying in the garage, we'll see how it turns out.

Regarding the fires, I was out checking on a friend's house and decided to skirt the perimeter of my area to see if I'd need to worry. The one blaze I saw was pretty small, particularly in comparison to what I shot three years before about a mile west.



Apparently the most significant damage was done farther north in Rancho Santa Fe and east in Ramona.

Another exhausting weekend [s]

Left to right: a bone, a flower, the Union Jack, a smiley, a Wario-style 'stache.

The Camp Pendleton (World Famous) Muuuuuud Ruuuuuun started bright and early at 9:00. We arrived much brighter and earlier at 6:30 because we are abnormally bright. It didn't feel great after the SAIC zoo event the night before, but hey, snakes on a plane.

The course included slimy hills, walls and tires, a sizeable lake crossing, and knee-deep mud pits (some for running, some for crawling). I was fairly certain I'd see Martin Sheen eerily rising from one of the pits, but maybe it just happened on Saturday.

Most teams stayed together. Being jerks, KO and I set our own pace. We got to the finish at 1:01:45 (he beat me).

As a team we we finished in 1:11:38, 13th of 151 (0:57:18), overall 41st of 285 (0:51:15) .

Photos courtesy of Connie.