Time travel

Sooo...It's been quite some time since my last post and quite a lot has happened since. After the last post in November '08, I simply got busy - both in the studio and on tour - and didn't have the mind to keep up with posts. I did, however, casually document various projects and progress in and around the studio. Beginning with this post, I ask you to join me on a little time travel mission to visit some of these past highlights.

This post will introduce the beautiful Cable Nelson upright grand piano that I acquired in January '09 and refurbished. This belonged to my neighbors here in the building, good friends and great musicians Scott Seiver and Jeremy Ruzumna, who were on their way out. I had a couple ADC patchbays that were not in use, so made an even trade.

It needed a fair amount of love. Sustain pedal was inoperable, action was uneven, a few ivory key tops were missing, a wheel was missing, bridal straps were deteriorated, etc. I disassembled the pedal systems, removed the entire action and removed all the keys. Cleaned the entire shell - which yielded teacher's/student's pencils from decades of lessons - and refreshed the beautiful quarter-sawn oak veneer. I outsourced the action adjustments and bridal strap replacement to paino tech Mark Greisen, who also had a book that dated this beauty to 1911. With the action was off location, I cleaned and polished the ivory keys and finished the pedal systems, wheel and other tweaks. Once Mark returned with the action, he adjusted the manual and gave her a nice tune. Since it's official introduction to The Tin Room, she's been used on a number of projects, most recently playing an important role on The Stripminers new album I am producing, due out soon.

Delayed Gratification

    
    

Aahhh! Completion! Sooooo Good!

Studio Landing

    

I found a really great rug in the Fashion District in downtown LA. It was a bit out of my price range, but after a little negotiation, I walked with it and it's a perfect addition. Here we see the rug laid and centered with the first of the studio furniture and gear falling into place.

The Negligent Blogger!

  

I admit it! Je suis culpable! I simply have not kept this here blog up to date in any fashion...But, dammit, I'm a busy man. I gave my camera to my father and just failed to focus on documenting the remaining building processes. I've been in and out of town and when in town long enough to get into a rhythm in the space, I just didn't have it in me to stand back and shoot shyte photos from my phone.

So what we see in the photos here are three shots of the first of two similarly designed and constructed bi-level storage areas. These are poor quality shots taken with my Nokia E61i camera phone - and some of the only shots taken until what is now pretty much an finished and operable studio. We have steel studs spanning the entire 12' floor to ceiling height with a loft storage level built at 7'. This framing has since been sheathed with OSB and painted, along with the second gear storage and CPU/studio machine room.

The Bike is DONE!!!

    

Cool! Finished the bike and had my first ride this last Monday...and have since been riding every chance I get. What gratification. What liberation. I love this little bike!

Slowly, but Scheherazade

    
    

Well, it won't be quite one thousand and one adventurous nights, but I'm learning from her nonetheless. I picked up the wheels a week ago and really felt that tectonic shift from a thousand pieces of metal to a realistic view of an overhauled vintage motorcycle. I had the wheels and hubs that I shined up threaded and trued and the tubes and tires popped on and balanced at the premier spot in Azusa, CA, called Buchanan Wheel and Spoke. Amazing place - all they do is make wheels and spokes - I was taken on a tour tour by one of the elders and witnessed spokes being made on cylindrical presses from the turn of the Century...yes the other Century! Very cool insight. Wheel truing is an art form. Mine are now shiny and beautiful...and on my bike! The photos show the wheels flanking the frame, and then on the bike. The engine block is up on the bench. I've sent the the barrels, heads and reed cages, along with new .25 first over-bore pistons and rings, off to a two stroke specialist in Tennessee. This guy is passionate about these bikes. He is going to do a glass bead pressure cleaning of the parts and then carefully bore and fine tune these parts. The compression will be considerably higher and therefore the bike will offer much higher performance. These other shot is of a pair of old Yamaha shocks that I disassembled and cleaned up. They are now on the bike and looking sharp.

Like you need another project, Brett...

    

Those are the words, verbatim, voiced by many of my friends upon learning that I'd bought a '70's street bike and had decided to completely rebuild it. It's true, with my loft only half done and a number of musical endeavours crossing my path it's seems a bit overwhelming to take on such a project, but truth be told, I'm loving every obsessive minute of it! And the unfinished half of my space is the best bike repair shop in the world!

Seemingly from out of nowhere, I've become fascinated with 70's Japanese street bikes. I first had a Honda CB750 Four in mind (which I'd still like to have at some point), but then after meeting people who had different smaller bikes was introduced to the Yamaha RD series. After looking up all things RD on Craigslist, a day later I found this RD200 2-stroke bike that ran, but needed some love. It was an impulse buy and after having some major issues during my first ride on it, I thought I'd really made a mistake. But with some encouragement from local bike shop personnel, I had it towed to the loft. One thing led to another and by the end of the week it was in pieces!

The shots above are of the bike the day I bought it and about three weeks later completely disassembled, with the frame and peripheral parts de-greased and repainted, wheels unthreaded waiting for new chrome spokes, and all chrome and cast aluminum parts rigorously cleaned and polished. Whew! that's a run-on sentence...and that's kind of what the process has resembled to this point; one continuous line of research, reading and hard work.

Vanity Shots!

    
    

Mornin'! So, getting back into the swing of things here after returning from Japan. While I don't have any new updates, I have a few shots that I took while documenting the stairs that were just for self-gratification - to kinda get an overview of how the place is developing. I thought this would be a practical way to bridge the next official entry...Official, whatever! Along with these I've included a close-up of the lamp that I built to illuminate the kitchen bar/dinning table - I absolutely love this thing - and a second work in progress that will be a ceiling assembly comprised of a trio of industrial fixtures that will illuminate the studio area...Um, I guess that makes this an official entry.