But I AM allowed to touch Wires.

We settled in Sunday for… well, for hoping.  I’d contacted the guy who sold us the shop and asked if he had any thoughts about the plate burner.  He was kind enough to stop by and take a look.  There’s a counter on the front that we thought was for tracking burns, but it was a photocell control.  He reset that, and verified the circuit breakers hadn’t triggered, but it still was no go.

After some head scratching, and a lot of thinking, I theorized that the safety switch that keeps you from burning your face off might have gone bad.  After a conference with Will, we jury-rigged a bypass.

Victory!

We burned a couple plates and got something printed (after a crazy amount of futzing with the paper feeder).  We’re back at it.

But my first action was to put a warning sign on the plate burner.  Burning our faces off for the sake of art would be a little much.  Don’t worry.  The Plate Burner is perfectly safe as long as it’s off.

What we thought was the bulb is not the bulb. Good news, we have a spare $60 bulb. Bad news, we can’t expose screens which means we can’t print. We don’t really know what’s wrong with the exposure unit. It makes a noise, not a happy noise.

Mungo opened the top and didn’t see anything that looked especially broken, not that we would know what the issue would be, but we were hoping there would be a bright red wire that was disconnected.

So we’re exploring some other options for getting plates made, we have 3 projects on deck, 2 are totally ready to print which makes being incapacitated all the more frustrating.

As you previously read, we broke a part.

Since then, we took a shot at using the other press.  That didn’t go quite so well.   We have a bit more learning to do on that one, and probably some refurbishment.  We got lots of inky paper out of it though.  Very inky paper wrinkled and torn up.  Then I turned a knob.  There was a noise from the innards, and the suction system stopped sucking.

I’m not allowed to touch knobs anymore.

Our replacement part came.  It wasn’t quite perfect, but Will filed it down and it fit just right.  The Chief is back up and running.  We set about printing stuff for the May box.

Then the Plate Burner quit working.  We think (hope) it’s just the bulb.  I guess we’ll find out when it gets here.

In the meanwhile, we cobbled together a box for May, and it’s been shipped out.  You all should be getting them very soon.  We’re already looking into the June box.  Let us know if you have any suggestions.

We managed to break something. Aren’t you impressed it took us this long?

We snapped a bit of plastic on the Chief (the larger offset press). So a new ‘paper stop deflector’ is on its way to us. I think of anything we could have broken on the Chief this is probably the cheapest part to replace as it’s one of the few non-metal components.

We’ve got a brand new and mostly empty etsy shop set up. If you haven’t received your subscription box and you like surprises you might not want to peek. We’ve only gotten one order so far but the order was from Studio Foglio which is so amazingly cool! I had to restrain myself and not slip them a sycophantic note with the shipment. Phil, Kaja, hope you like the stationery.

We came, we saw, we made a ruckus.

I really like the Maker Faire event in general. It’s a great idea, it’s fun, it’s got good exhibits and presentations, but I haven’t really figurde out how it can turn out so well when the organization appears to be so… disorganized.

We got really minimal guidance as to our role on education day. We camped out in the foyer of the main building and made noise as middle-school kids came through then again as they went out. Some kids were really into it and came and talked to us but the acoustics in the room were such that we could barely hear anyone unless everything was turned way down.

Eventually one of the organizers came in and suggested we roam around so we did that until some lady came over and said that our noise was “really great” but if we could just turn it off while some MIT grad was talking that would be just super. In my mind she then wrinkled up her nose and gave us a condescending little wave as she walked off but that’s probably fabricated.

We were all pretty burnt out so we packed it in, went to a greasy-spoon, checked into the hotel and zoned out for some hours then went out for supplies.

The Faire proper was fun, more people were interested in the project than I expected. I am unfairly biased because discordant noises make me want to crawl into a cave and listen to the croony voice of Bryan Ferry. Standing around shaking sticks and saying the same thing over and over is tiring. We passed out a few business cards, met some weirdos, and got to see a lot of our friends. So not a bad way to spend a weekend all-in-all. Let’s just gloss over the bitter, biting cold on Sunday, yes? Yes.

Pictures on my flickr here.

Well we are one night of little sleep away from the makers fair! And since we know some of you are coming we are holding a few boxes back so we can hand them to you in person. The rest of you will be receiving them shortly (depending on the vagaries of the postal system). If you let us know you are coming we will hold yours at our table.

See you there!

Just wanted to pop in and say that we are working on our April packages.

Right now!

Mungo, Will, and I are hard at work and we think you’re going to be pleased with the results. You may look at some of the stuff and say to yourselves; ‘I don’t know much about offset printing, but I don’t think this was printed.’ You will be correct. More things will be printed as we learn how to use things (better). We’re still giving you guys some fun and awesome stuff, and no one hates fun or awesomeness.

It’s the last day we are taking AotM subscriptions.

A few of you have expressed interest but haven’t yet paid. If you’re sure you’re interested but don’t have the cash right now, or don’t have paypal, let us know asap and we can work something out.

We are making progress in the shop and there should be a new entertaining video up for you sometime soon.

Yep. It’s official. Makersfield is coming to the Bay Area Maker Faire.

It seems these silly little noisy tubes of ours piqued enough interest to get us an invite. Thing is, none of us really are keen on the name Electric Rainstick. We’ve kicked around a few options, but nothing that really catches us. Got any suggestions? Email one of us, or leave a comment or something. If we use a suggestion, we’ll even give ya one for free.

Getting invited to Maker Faire is a pretty big deal for us. It’s pretty funny that it’s nothing to do with the print shop. But don’t worry, there will be plenty of print stuff to come.

So I guess maybe I should talk a bit about where we are. We’ve sold about half the earmarked Art Of The Month subscriptions (AotM, pronounced Autumn). It’s been a tremendous help on our end, and we love each and every one of you. We’ve still got a few left, and we’ll be closing subscription availability at the end of the month, so if you’re interested in getting in on the AotM action, clicky the logo below:

We’re hard at work on the first installment for AotM - we know you’re gonna dig it, and we should soon have something to show you all soon.

Also, new site design. You like it? We hope so.

Busy busy bees. More Later.

So for the past couple years, I’ve been making these tubes at Christmas time to give to Will and Damion. One of the ones I gave to Will is a sort of Electric Rainstick. I thought it was kinda fun and weird, and I know Will has gotten a lot of use out of it.

Well, to make a long story short, after a recent conversation with someone (I hope to be able to talk more about that conversation soon) I was encouraged to so more with these. So we’re gonna try to get a few together in time for the Maker Faire in May.

I don’t have much more info for you yet, but I do have some advice from Nadja on How Not To Carry Them On BART