Katona

Hello!

It’s been a while since I started the engine, and on Tuesday I felt like giving it a little razzmatazzle for good juju. I went to crank it and sure enough, the starter hardly engaged. Sometimes it did but sounded painful, like a bodybuilder trying to force out a big one.

Thinking it might be the battery, I let it charge overnight and came back Wednesday evening. Again, same problem.

Given its history, and worried about a suspect leak from the crankshaft corroding things, I took it off for inspection. Luckily it looked great, dry as toast, and violently span on the deck when I directly connected it. So I put it back, re-wired it, and… presto? Worked a charm, started beautifully. Maybe it was just a loose connection?

Thursday evening I went to pottery, as per, making a beaker and a bowl on a stalk for Kokedama plants (aka a poor man’s bonsai), or any plant that could sit in a bowl:

Then I asked Cathy, my teacher who runs the studio, about tiles… Only planning to make the weird shapes by hand, I told her about my quest for some nice square ones for the bathroom walls, to which she excitedly asked “Why don’t you make them?!”

I did find these beautiful tiles, but they’re cement-based and require a coating every couple of years to survive a wet room. That I am absolutely not doing, so unless I find ones which tickle my soul… welp. 2 weeks ago I was making fun of my dad for wanting to buy a ton of oak planks for his boat, given all the prep work, now I’m considering a side quest in tile production. 🤷‍♂️

Alas, I have been nerd-sniped. Depending on size it’ll be around 400 tiles, and it also means I can perfect the colours and patterns. Cathy is excited about getting a tile rack for the kiln, and given I’m at the studio anyway… I also don’t need them all straight away — I can produce them over the coming months and install them when ready, moving onto the saloon/lounge while I wait.

Luckily one of my side-projects, Pogzul — a pixelated, programmable artboard — will come in handy for designing the kind of tiles I want:

Finally, I was hoping to install the bedroom lighting coves, now screwing them in, but the screws I need didn’t arrive… a “manufactoring delay,” their estimate was updated to October, so I’ve ordered some different ones in the meantime. I continued with the final bits of wood trim, and I’ll start on the varnish next week.

Until next Sunday!

- Nick