shoe whore heresy

For most guys,

there's a loyalty that goes with shoes.

Certain brands fit certain foot types,

and for people that don't have time for uncomfortable surprises,

and wasted purchases,

we'll traditionally rebuy the same shoe.

I've gravitated to Adidas Stan Smith's 

for at least 25+ years,

sometimes dipping into the Rod Lavers.

The SS's are durable leather,

and hold up to metalwork - welding & grinding,

for a really long time.

Two months ago I took a detour,

and tried out the revamped suede skate versions,

 with the gum sole

Wow.

It was like a custom made shoe for my feet,

getting more comfortable with each step.

I  was leery about the construction,

The thin suede reinforced with "sprint skin",

a thin plastic skeleton.

The wife was so enthusiastic at the new styling,

she scored a white soled pair.

The difficulty is knowing these would flame up with serious metal work,

the reason I stopped wearing the Rod Lavers.

The plastic-y tongue will not hold up.

Besides the suede isn't nearly as durable as the shiny leather.

I'd limit my work to not destroy the shoe.

Hey,

it's endless summer here,

and no big work boots with shorts...

The tough part is ruining new white stan smiths.

They'll look good for about an hour,

although looking good in bright white shoes,

only works for senior citizens in track suits.

Yeah I know this is my OCD secret stash.

My problem is venturing out of the Adidas lines.

Even my rarely worn dress shoes have Adidas soles.

Which made me realize,

I should have just got a shiny black pair of stan smiths for dress up...

Dang it.

Which comes to the heresy.

Someone ditched these Nike's on us years ago,

probably some dead old guy's,

 I don't know.

They're obviously wannabe stan smiths,

with the green bottom.

They've been shuffled under the couch,

in my closet,

under Jaxons bed...

Time to give them them a workout.

Let's see how they hold up.

Definitely not as comfortable...

Yeah yeah yeah...

Waaa was waaa...

TP

xmas thrash

In typical Perich Brothers & Sister's fashion,
a great idea for a token family gift popped up,
two days before Christmas!

crosses

The kids and I had a fun time figuring out a couple different cross shapes.
That first evening was spent cutting cardboard templates,
and I'm bummed to not have taken any pictures of the mess.
In very rare fashion,
by the time I brought out the camera,
everything was cleaned up!

Jaxon Perich - drillium machinist - 2013

The cross templates were laid out to get the most from the aluminum plate.
These took much longer than I expected to cut,
and by the end of our work night we had a pile of rough blanks.

holey chit

The next day we realized how much time this was going to take.
We had a pile of roughly cut aluminum crosses,
designed with no straight lines or right angles.
Basically the most time consuming designs we could come up with!
I had a couple obligations,
and the boys did an amazing job hand-filing the crosses on the vice.
Really cool to see them take charge like that.
Again I'm bummed to not have a picture or two...

Jakob Perich - engraving machine - 2013

A huge surprise when I got home.
I was expecting a long evening of filing,
and instead the crosses only needed the lightest cleanup.
The edges were hammered out,
softening up the squared file marks,
and the hard part was about to begin.

perich brothers & sister -child labor- 2013

At this point we could have done a quick sanding and polishing,
and called it good.
Remember our bout with engraving a couple months ago?
Now it was time for the kids to show their stuff.
An outline was drawn out,
and it's hammertime.
Of course this started just as the sun went down!
Notice the single light bulb...


They really got the swing of things after the first couple,
then their attention span was just strong enough to finish the pile.
They were a metal engraving machine.

perich brothers & sister - hammertime - 2013

Meanwhile Macey and I hammered out the date stamps and their initials,
and each cross was brushed on the old wire wheel.

Holy Water

Now for the finishing touches.
A simple paracord loop,
and some HOLY WATER to seal the deal.
Yeah we just happen to have some in our secret stash!
This was passed on from our Auntie Fifi.

blessed cross

We were able to finish much earlier then expected,
and with enough for our immediate family.
There is still an unfinished pile though!

perich cross 2013

Happy Holidays from the Perich Family!

TP

free

After 2 months I am finally free.
It has taken that long for my fingernail to finally fall off.
perich brothers (and sister): throbber
perich brothers (and sister): mechanic or welder?

The first couple weeks were no problem.

The last week or two is when it starts becoming a hassle.

The nail is like a hook waiting to snag.

zombie nail

I did have a couple tricks.

The first is not cutting it.

I've made the mistake trimming the loose part of the nail off,

and it just makes it easier to catch on stuff.

I think it also prolongs the time,

as there is no leverage for the nail to loosen its suction.

The most important thing about keeping it whole,

is the last couple days,

as it is possible to tape or bandaid the finger around the nail.

This is crucial.

You may think its easy to just twist or slide off.

I guess I'm a chicken I tried purposely and accidentally.

hand model

Here's my main tip,
and the kids benefitted from it as well.
We're always on the kids to do their chores,
and washing dishes seems like it takes the most bitching.

They were lucky for a couple weeks,
as instead of barking at them,
I'd just wash the dishes.
It was so peaceful.
The side effect was the nail would get waterlogged,
than super dry,
a couple times a day.
I think this helped weaken the grip.

the gimp

The nail fell off without much fuss one morning.
ahhh...

TP

casket flag

Found this cool american flag at an estate sale the other day.

perich brothers and sister

I couldn't pass it up,
it was an early pre'59 version with 48 stars.

48 star 

***************************************************


Grateful Dead - Wave That Flag - 10 june 1973
a good tune
***************************************************

flag box

Right off the bat I knew it was a casket flag,
and was stashed in this trick little box.
It was too cheap to pass up.

secret spot

When I opened it up,
there were all these secret combos and keys.
Too bad there wasn't any money stashed in there!

valley forge U.S. flag

This probably hadn't been unfurled in a long time.
I'm sure it liked getting some air.
Bummer to think this was draped on a casket,
Maybe from the korean war or WWII eras?

Now to find that secret safe!

TP

when to say when

Sometimes it's good to go and visit friends,
especially when they're into similar hobbies,
or in this case addictions.

holey chit

This guy makes any of my past stereo posts look small-time,
which they are in comparison.

travis bean #996

Sean is a guy obsessed with McIntosh sound equipment,
which led him down the dark path towards the Grateful Dead,
who had the biggest Mac based sound system in history,
the Wall of Sound.

grateful dead wall of sound - november 1973
ripped photo

Here's an early version - 1973.
If you look close there are amp stacks peppered all around.

grateful dead wall of sound - march 1974
ripped photo

Here's something close to the final incarnation of the WOS.
Notice it's about 12 feet higher with the radial center speaker array.
Almost 50 of those blue faced MC2300's powered this beast!

jerry garcia - may 1974
ripped photo

If you look in the background,
you'll see how stacks of amps were layed out to power certain instruments.
It must have been fun to wire this thing up.

bob weir - may 1973
ripped photo - m. parrish

While I have more of the musical obsession,
Sean's got more of the gearhead obsession.
He's so deep into it,
that some of the pieces are actually from the GD setup.
*******************************************

Jerry Garcia & Merl Saunders - I was made to love her - 1973
Well this song doesn't have much to do with this post,
but we did talk about it that night,
and it kinda goes with Oldies Month since it's a Stevie Wonder cover!
*******************************************

chip and mcintosh mc2300 short stack

With the collection overflowing his small bungalow,
it was time to get some documentation.
Another friend Chip and I happily lent a hand,
or back in this case.

Sean and mcintosh mc2300 tall stack

Each one of these amps is about 130+ pounds.
By the time I got there the 5 tall stack was already bowing the floor,
even with the plywood reinforcement.
Figure a 7 stall stack is right under a 1000 lbs.
A half ton on a 2'x2' section of the floor!

me with tall  mc2300 stack and travis bean guitar

Not only does he have 2 actual GD mc2300 amps (top ones)
he's also got an early Travis Bean guitar similar to the 1975 model,
and some speakers used on stage.
The lower left double speaker cabinet was actually in Egypt 1978!

Mcintosh MC2300 + grateful dead speakers + preamp

To top it off,
he also scored a bitchin Mcintosh MC-225 tube amp,
actually used in the GD studio about 1975!

grateful dead studio mcintosh mc-225 tube(less) amp
vince welnick's speaker box

I'm not sure where Sean was stashing all this stuff!
He had so many early JBL speakers it was crazy.
Finally an intimidating mini Wall of Sound was set up.
Funny thing it was so big there wasn't enough distance
in his living room to take a good cellphone shot!

sean marcy's 4600 watt wall of sound

Sadly we didn't have time to actually hook everything up,
but it would have been fun to blow the fusebox.
It's only 4600 watts of power!
Now Sean is getting a book together to document all the stories
from his acquisitions.
He's met with so many of the brains from this time period,
it will be an interesting read.

TP

secret stash - norden steering box

The recent shop move has forced me to filter through the seriously tons chit I've been hoarding for years.
It's been a huge relief trimming off some of the dead weight,
there was almost 3000 lbs - a ton and a half just in scrap steel and aluminum!

not so secret stash

Along with the junk,
I've been ditching some good stuff too.
Most of it is stuff that is cool but I realistically won't ever use,
either there is no future project in mind,
it is a part that relies on something I don't have,
or it is the 4th or 5th multiple version.
While clearing some of my now limited space,
it also allows my other projects to get completed,
so another project can take it's place!

hmm what have we here...

So as I sort out some of this stuff,
I'll start posting since I'm taking pic's anyway.
Some of it is tough to find on the internet,
and maybe it will help out some other poor hoarder.

Norden sprint car steering box

Okay so the first piece I'm torn about keeping is this Norden steering box.
I've had this for a really long time.
Around '94 or '95 I found this at the LA roadster show.

norden steering box

One of the main reasons why there is cowl steering in our RPU.
I considered using it but figured it wouldn't be good for a long-term driver.

Norden cowl steer box

Most likely this would have been in a sprint car like a Kurtis or Solar midget,
so it was built for a couple hard races for hopefully a couple seasons,
not a daily street driven roadster.

Kurtis Midget Sprint Car with Norden steering box

This is the only picture I could find quickly of a box actually installed.

1946 Solar Midget

Okay here's a quick tangent.
That box would have been installed on one of these too.
1940's Solar Midget
Interestingly enough these Solar Midgets were built right here in San Diego,
at the Ryan Aircraft Company.
Small world huh Tom!

Okay back to the actual steering box.
Here's some pictures.

Norden Steering Box

Cool to see how companies adapted there engineering skills after WWII.
What looks so simple is actually really intricate.

Norden steering column support

What looks like a simple aluminum carrier bearing,
ends up being a clamshell work of art.

norden steering column carrier bearing

Instead of a throwaway heim joint,
there's a bolt-on support ring.

Norden Steering Box

The box looks easily disassembled for rebuilding.
I wonder if the insides are custom Norden or donor gears from a big 3 manufacturer?

Norden Steering Box

The other thing that is cool about older speed equipment,
is instead of a production type sand cast finish,
most everything is either polished or at least smoothed out.
Hugely time consuming but well worth it.

norden steering box

Maybe it was too hide a rough casting,
or maybe it was because of cheap labor!

Norden Cowl steer

So now I've got to figure if this is a keeper or not.
The gamble is if I ever want to restore an early postwar sprint car,
or build a car specifically around this piece.
Even up to last year I had been collecting parts for a track roadster,
which this could have been in.
At the time I had a v8-60 and the 27 roadster body that would have been...

track roadster vs sprint midget

But it turned into the chocolate and cheese roadster.
For now this is about as close as we'll probably get!
Thanks Jakob for getting the model out!

Jakob's pre-modelmania

More later!

TP