[ATM] "Render Unto Ceasar. . . . "

[artbianconi@blast.net]

I think it was Kriege and Berry who suggested a more modest 
start.

I've built airplanes. My experience and knowledge of composites 
were well established 20 years ago. When FAA engineering 
offices in two New England regions discovered this, they 
mandated that before they sent out of their own staff to inspect 
an aircraft for certification, the builder must have me come out 
first. 

My point in sharing this with you is that in the process of 
conducting these inspections, I got to see a lot of projects, most 
of which never got completed. Many got sold off to other builders 
often just for the price of the materials alone. The investment of 
labor, often extensive, was a complete loss. 

Two primary factors were apparent in the vast majority  of these 
failed projects:

1. The protracted length of time it took to complete the project.

2. Modifications to the original design

The longer it takes the project to be completed, the greater the 
likelihood of the builder loosing interest. The greater the 
probability of external circumstances getting in the way (health, 
marital problems, financial troubles, change in lifestyle, etc)

Changes to a successful design may be wonderful and justified 
BUT the domino effects of any change are often not properly 
anticipated by the builder. Furthermore, it's one thing to have an 
idea for a better widget, another to properly execute that idea. I 
can think of great ideas that took, months, often years to properly 
develop and the scrap pile in any shop is ample testimony of the 
number of iterations that had to be ploughed through before one 
worked properly. And, the builder still has to the deal with the 
consequential mods that the change triggers.

Long ago, Burt Rutan, asked me: "Art, do you wish to build or do 
you wish to fly"

Rutan is recognized as the most creative, most prolific designer 
of aircraft and space vehicles in the world and when he asked 
me that I sorta stumbled some answering. I like both!

There are those who love to build things and the shear joy of 
bringing something into existence with their own two hands 
brings much joy. I know men who long ago lost their Flight 
Medical and with that their Airman's Certificate was no longer of 
use. Yet they continue to build airplanes. A check of their log 
books shows that even when they had a valid medical, they 
didn't exercise their flying privileges all that much. Other 
"builders" are pilots first and foremost and make the mistake of 
thinking that they can get the plane of their dreams for a lot less 
money, building it themselves, than if they bought a factory built 
aircraft. These are the ones who suffer the greatest percentage of 
incompletions usually for the reasons cited earlier. There is no 
long term enthusiasm for building; they just wish to build one 
airplane, yet they must still develop all the same skills, 
knowledge, tools and levels of expertise of a building enthusiast 
who will spread the cost of his learning curve over many years 
and projects.

Admittedly, building a two to four passenger airplane takes a lot 
of time and an enormous amount of commitment. Magnitudes 
more when compared to building a telescope. Admittedly, the 
consequences for making a mistake building a plane are a lot 
more costly than for a mistake building a telescope (for many 
that challenge is part of the appeal), yet the same phenomenon 
exists amongst us: there are those who are astronomers and 
there are those who are ATM's or, more specifically, mirror 
makers. One man I know is a dedicated mirror maker. He no 
sooner finishes one, it finds a new home and he is off making yet 
another. And his enthusiasm for the process never subsides. It's 
Zen at the level of polishing glass and the quality of his work 
reflects (sic!) that.

Size of the mirror is important in finishing a project, not merely in 
terms of the exponential increase in work required but because 
that extra effort costs a lot more time and the more time it takes 
the greater the chances of incompletion.

In reflecting back on the time invested in my 15", I concluded 
that it's OK to stop at 90% complete, and give it to a Zen Mirror 
Maker for the remaining10%. I can still say I did the bulk of the 
work even if I can't brag about having brought it to 1/12th wave.

And that's OK because the extra time I didn't spend on that extra 
10% will be lavished on a tandem seat, two passenger tail 
dragger that will fly me from my home airport to the grass strip at 
Cherry Springs State Park in 90 minutes. A tarp tossed over the 
wing will provide shelter almost instantly, the scope will be set up 
as dusk approaches and I'll be watching the skies while others 
are still fighting traffic and four or more hours of fatigue from the 
drive. And I can be in Stellaphane just as fast!

I am fine with the choice.

Regards

Art
On 21 May 2004 at 21:53, Mark Cowan wrote:

Don't recall saying anything about small, but small is
usually cheaper and mistakes are plentiful when you
start out.  Become fewer as you go along only they're
usually bigger.

Cheers,
Mark

--- artbianconi@blast.net wrote:
> The only thing I remember reading about starting
> small was in a 
> book on Dobsonians. 
> 
> "Fools rush in"
> 
> Art
> 
> On 17 May 2004 at 12:18, Mark Cowan wrote:
> 
> Hi Art:
> 
> Much amusement - didn't anybody say "Run away!" when
> you floated the idea?  It has to be a hobby if
> you're
> only doing one.  If you want to do many,
> commercially,
> (as I am currently) the science requires painful and
> slow extraction over the course of experimentation
> and
> a certain possible irreducible level of error.
> 
> But pressing on to that first superior mirror that
> you
> made yourself does convey a huge sense of
> satisfaction...only exceeded by using it on the
> near-infinite sky while contemplating the extremely
> unusual nature of just what has been accomplished. 
> Or
> so it did for me.
> 
> Do what you gotta!  Or as John Dobson once told me,
> "Like what you get."
> 
> Cheers,
> Mark Cowan
> Salem, OR
> 
> 
> 
> --- artbianconi@blast.net wrote:
> > After almost three decades of designing and making
> > things for 
> > others, frequently with composites, you get
> > intuitive finding 
> > solutions and comfortable with the material. 
> > 
> > I allowed this comfort to delude me into thinking
> > that because 
> > OTA design and fabrication is relatively benign,
> > that I should 
> > make a mirror too. That way I could proudly say: "
> I
> > did it all 
> > myself". At my age, you'd think I'd know better
> than
> > to get 
> > suckered into something by my ego! 
> > 
> > Another reason I should have stayed away from
> mirror
> > making 
> > was my oft demonstrated bewilderment at
> > understanding the 
> > process. It's not the idea of generating surfaces
> > accurate to 
> > angstroms that bothered me so much as the magical,
> > mystery 
> > tour of translating surface abberations into
> > something parabolic 
> > with movements that appear to be created by tribal
> > shamans 
> > from the interior of the Dark Continent. 
> > 
> > Well folks, this man is eating crow! I have no
> > desire to build lots 
> > of mirrors; just one. It's become painfully
> apparent
> > that the 
> > amount of time needed to climb the learning curve
> to
> > build just 
> > one good mirror is considerable and more than I
> care
> > to spend.
> > 
> > If the time I spend building polishing tables,
> > making Faoucoult 
> > testers, constructing mirror benches, pouring
> dental
> > tools, 
> > heating pitch, grooving and pressing laps and the
> > arduous 
> > testing and figuring were applied elsewhere, not
> > only would the 
> > ink in my bank statement be blacker but I'd have
> my
> > telescope 
> > built too.
> > 
> > To invest so much time into making just making one
> > mirror is not 
> > wise, especially for one such as me who has such
> > varied 
> > interests, responsibilities and commitments. 
> > 
> > I've learned a lot and met some wonderful people
> > along the way, 
> > so the investment thus far is not without value.
> > It's best, however, 
> > that I acknowledge my limitations and do what I do
> > best: cut 
> > carbon and glass plies and mix resin.
> > 
> > Last night I did just that and it was enormous
> fun:
> > I took a roll of 
> > corrigated card board, saturated it with resin,
> > rolled it into a tube 
> > and set it aside to cure. This morning I awoke to
> > the lightest, 
> > strongest, cheapest telescope tube, I'd ever held!
> > The flutes are 
> > on the outside. I can either repeat the process
> with
> > the flutes 
> > inside or simply wrap it with a sheet of heavy
> craft
> > paper, 
> > saturated in resin. 
> > 
> > It wasn't my idea. Molt taylor died about ten
> years
> > ago. An 
> > innovative airplane designer, he made, among other
> > things, a 
> > 170 mile-per-hour airplane using that technique. A
> > single place, 
> > PAPER AIRPLANE that gets almost 3 miles per hour
> per
> > 
> > horsepower and sips fuel at the absurdly low rate
> of
> > 4 gallons per 
> > hour!
> > 
> > Taylor was not alone in innovating. Burt Rutan
> built
> > structural 
> > panels using foam, resin and bed sheets! They
> turned
> > out to be 
> > stronger, lighter and less expensive than the
> > construction 
> > method used on a popular airplane design of that
> > period.
> > 
> > If someone had told me that to tell the time, I'd
> > have to learn 
> > watch making, and I had no passion for watch
> making,
> > the right 
> > choice would have been obvious. It's taken longer
> > than it should 
> > have to discover that mirror making is less
> science,
> > and more art 
> > form and that I love astronomy more than polishing
> > glass.
> > 
> > Thanks for all the support 
> > 
> > Art Bianconi
> > 
> > _______________________________________________
> > ATM mailing list http://www.atmlist.net/
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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