2015 POTD Thread Archive

[Franko]

Great lookin' roux, Ogberi. Gumbo sounds like it will be great.

I make roux to add to my pot roast juice for gravy, but I've never cooked it that dark. Usually, I just go to golden brown. I juice onion, celery and carrots and a bottle of beer to stew my pot roast. The gravy made with the roux is wonderful.

 

[ogberi]

You should try it dark. Some people like it barely sizzled in the pan, some like it the color of cream & sugar coffee, some like it the color of caramel. I like to cook it till it's the color of a chocolate bar, and by the time it cools and is ready to use, it's the color of used coffee grounds. Very potent, very agreeable flavor that it adds. I generally put several heaping spoonfulls into the Gumbo, starting with three, and adding more until it's the right color and flavor. I can't give a measurement, it's one of those 'seat of the pants' things. But you can add a dab at a time, and it'll turn out good. I have actually never tried my roux in gravy before. I think tomorrow I'll make some fresh-outta-the-hen's-butts scrambled eggs, a pound 'o bacon, some biscuits, and use a touch of my roux in the gravy for the biscuits. I've never tried that, but I suspect it'll be insanely delicious.

Got all the veggies except the onions cut, all the meat cut, so tomorrow morning it's breakfast, dishes, then getting a whole tubful of Gumbo going. Tomorrow evening, I will probably be too stuffed to move. That's what comfort food is for.

 

[sanddan]

ogberi, love the roux! I also make gumbo in the fall and winter. I got into making and smoking my own Andouille sausage years ago as I couldn't get the real thing in my area back then. My favorite gumbo is my "Left over thanksgiving turkey gumbo". The stock is made the next morning from the turkey carcass and the gumbo is made with the left over turkey meat and Andouille sausage.

My shop project today was making a v-block soft jaw for the mill vise. I used a 2"x 2" aluminum jaw from Monster Jaws and milled the V in it. I modeled mine after one I saw on a Oxtoolco video on youtube. This is part of a series on making a baby bullet vise and I'll need it when machining the base.

 

[markknx]

I did some arc stick welding on a very variable end of branch line mains power line , doing it on some 60 yr old lead painted steel 3/16 2 wall tubse to try and fuse it to a modern 6 mm thick mild steel angle iron on a well rusted , " Cattle crush " crate for a farmer.
The only trouble is I had to bend the electrodes in to curves to get the arc rods down & inside the holes to a welding angle .

Result it holds well & I definitely have lived up to my site name on another metal working/ engineering site which of " PIDGEON CHITT WELDER

I hope you stripped that lead paint first. That is some bad stuff to inhale. Always fun to weld on stuff so rusted you strike an arc and it's gone so then you need to add a longer piece.
Mark

 

[markknx]

Franko,
What is the study they are doing with this fine tool you made?
Mark

 

[ogberi]

So Yesterday evening I cut up all the veggies, except for the onions. Those I left for this morning.

Beautiful, beautiful peppers.


Two bags of celery, and a bunch of chopping later, I ended up with this.


Next up, I cubed the chicken.


And yes, that's a lotta chicken.

So this morning I dumped the chicken into the big stock pot, and cooked it up until it was done, and there were scraps of carmelized chicken sticking to the bottom of the pot. Got all the chicken out, onto a platter and put it in the microwave to rest for a bit while I chopped up the onions.


Dumped in the veggies, and am cooking them till the onions are nearly translucent. All that beautiful glazed chicken stuck to the bottom of the pot has come off and is flavoring the veggies as it all cooks.


Once it cooks down, and the onions are nearly translucent, I dump in the broth, add the andoulli, smoked turkey sausage, kielbasa, sausage, and some italian sausage (experimental ingredient). Add the roux (several big spoonfuls), some minced garlic, a touch of salt, some pepper, and some cayenne pepper. Bring it to a boil, then reduce to simmer and let sit for an hour. Dump the chicken back in, bring to a boil, then simmer another hour. About 40 minutes after adding the chicken, get the rice going in the cooker. Season to taste, then ladle a generous helping over some rice and sit down with an ice cold beer, a hot plate, and watch some 'How it's made'.

Should be a relaxing day.

House is starting to smell heavenly.

 

[MozamPete]

I had previously acquired a 25mm, 6 flute end mill with some other stuff I purchased, but it was too large for my mill to use. It had a threaded end so today I decided to make an adaptor so I could use it. Internally threaded a 25 mm socket to suit and then turned the shank down to 20mm - the largest size my ER32 collets can hold. It's a bit ungainly but seemed to cut fine and gave a good finish in aluminium in some tests I did as long as I kept the cut depth below 0.5mm.

 

[taycat]

spent day making collet blanks for my ml6 capstan lathe, as despite it coming with a load nothing in sizes i use often.

 

[Franko]

Franko,
What is the study they are doing with this fine tool you made?
Mark

Mark, the large rig with the chair is used for facial skin studies. They test various skin care products, ranging from pharmaceutical to cosmetic treatments for various maladies. The lighting includes regular, infrared, cross polarized, and high angle raking lights, along with various appropriate filters.

They do studies that can span over days to years, so the ability to re-position each subject exactly as they were previously photographed with exact lights is necessary. The head positioners are calibrated for each test subject so they can be reset on subsequent sessions.

The rig is designed to rotate all the camera and lighting on a carriage on a 180º arc, around the chair.

Real-time imaging is done at the computer station. They have ghosting software that is helpful in making sure each phase of the study is identical to the last.

This rig is about the 3rd iteration of the rig. The first one was cobbled together with 2x lumber, plumbing pipes and connectors. The angle shots were accomplished by rotating the chair, but we were never able to center a head on the pivot point of any chair we could rig up.

This latest version is designed to rotate around a center point about 4" back from the front of the forehead, which keeps it is proper position all around the 180º of rotation. Positioning the chair in the exact spot proved to be problematic. The calibration rod I made makes the adjustment easier.

Here is an over-all shot of the current rig. I've made a pivot mechanism that suspends the wires from the ceiling so they don't have to drag on the floor. There is a bearing and track mechanism under the platform that the cart rotates around.

 

[markknx]

Franko Wow that is some set up.
Mark