WHEN BLOCKS WEREN'T CUBES

They really were a bit  more interesting. Admittedly the pentagonal cylinders and tori were more challenging to produce, although accurate cubes turned out to be more challenging than expected. The linear polygons were a good bit easier than the toroidal ones. For all but the rhombic rods, the solution that we favored was to begin with a fat dowel. We laid the blanks against a scrap of plank and made a reference line lengthwise, and then matched up  the polygons on the ends. Using the same plank, marks from one polygon to the other marked where the points (edges) touched the surface. Then it was just whittling down the humps between the lines and sanding them, trying to leave the lines to the last then erasing them.

 The methods worked out for the smaller polygons came in handy when I started thinking about packing. How circles relate to polygons fascinated me and they seemed like they'd be a thought provoking bunch of blocks. Fitting the polygonal rings tight enough so they didn't slide down unless pushed was a slow tuning challenge. Thank goodness for self adhesive sandpaper sanding disks. Using the home made wood files I made we managed to get a pretty fun set going. Who knows how far this would have progressed if I hadn't burned up the vacuum cleaner using it to capture the dust coming off the band-saw. Oh well, the neighbors downstairs were good sports about my hours of hand sawing and chiseling but no doubt they'd had about a dose of my block mania. Chloe and Madison were great at testing and didn't mind that I kept showing up with grocery sacks full of new and odd kinds of blocks, but Amy, Niko and Jason though very helpful with the hours of hand-sanding were also ready to round off the block fest.

 Lately I've had my hands full organizing the Blocklogic section of  The Flatware County General Store. The retro collection just mentioned already rate a couple of mugs, but the arithmetic blocks (the Buffalo Mao collection) are so far the biggest part of this section.
With eleven so far, Mineral Comix # 47 still has a few more surprises in store.

 "Dem Bones," are a pair of blocks that started out to be dice. The idea of dice that had human skulls for numbers though strange seemed kinda fun, till i got well into the first one. You probably haven't counted the spots on dice, there's twenty one (each). Well before I finished the first one I was way tired of trying to find new and interesting ways to draw human skulls.

The thing is one dice (di, dye, whatever) isn't quite right, eh? Still the prospect of another few hours on a block I was already tired of, well maybe one die wasn't so bad.

Then I started looking at animal skulls. Awesome, so there was no way to make twenty one of them fit on a block less than two inches square. These animal skulls rock. The first challenge was picking six that I could fit on block faces, and the next was burning them in. 

    
 The Blocklogic section is due to be well represented in The Flatware County General Store. So far there are only 15 mugs in the Blocklogic section, but we're just scratching the surface. The Olmec, Toasters And Squid, The Okinawa Aquarium, and the Hamlin/Kelly block all seem like candidates, but I'm leaning toward the cornbread next I think.

BUFFALO MAO KALEIDOCYCLES

Ok there they are. Since I was giving away my only color proofs of these two kaleidocycles, I figured I better get a picture up showing how they look assembled. The two printable Buffalo Mao kaleidocycles themselves and the assembly instruction tips I offered are in an older post, "Buffalo Mao and the Banned Dental Boop" post May1, 2010. I had to change the way I loaded the originals in the article to get them to print right for folding, this made them look lame in the article but they printed and folded great.

The bizarre critters above are from the excellent collection of flatware animals at Hoveyware. The black and white pictures of stainless steel tableware sculptures made an even better black and white kaleidocycle than the "Banned Dental Boop."  All of my kaleidocycles except the first "Buffalo Mao" one were made with the kaleidocycle maker at Foldplay.

BREAKFAST WITH BADGERS

Alrighty then, I finally completed "Breakfast With Badgers" and it only took till 3:30 in the morning. The proof is only black and white so far but it folded up nice and there weren`t any obvious flaws to fix with the images.

I had to draw from 3 blocks this time. Not all of the fore ground breakfast block was looking good enough. The squid tentacle holding a coffee cup was just a confusing tangle, and the espresso looked better than the coffee.

So there it is, enjoy, but remember if the badgers ask you to pass the marmalade you probably shouldn`t make them wait. As before, the best assembly instructions I`ve found are by Sam Ciulla online in pdf form. Other than that the hint photos in the previous post might be useful here as well. I had some challenges opening the pdf instructions after saving them to print them out, so here they are in jpg form eh?

 

JINGLE BONES, JINGLE BONES ...

Ah-yup, there`s a cheery thought. Getting past the arithmetic blocks didn`t cause the outpouring of block post variety I had expected, but I have taken a couple of interesting themes up. Toaster And Squid cartoons and finally a pair of blocks, were just the beginning. The "Toaster Squid" spiky-ball Christmas ornament was a challenging but fun experiment that led to the "Xmas-Bones," ball and then the "Tribe-Ball." Each of these ornaments include faces from two wood-burned, cube-shaped blocks draped over the faces of stellated-octahedra (spiky-balls). Forgive my black and white proofs, my printer`s stumblin.

 The single sheet origami stella-octangula plan I used was designed by Sam Ciulla. The instructions I found most useful were, stellated_octahedron.pdf.

I`ve made several in the process of working out image placement precision. The only things I would add to these directions are, these hints as to how it should look as you get close to finished folding. If you got this far with the folding, you probably woulda figured it out anyway, but here they are.

My friend Keven came through wit the color proofs, and they`re pretty cool even with no jingle bell showing.

BUFFALO MAO # 47 TO GO

Alright I`m about tired of messin whith this book, I hope somebody enjoys it. for viewing on the computer screen or some mobile device these images are organized as they would appear in the booklet, but for printing the 2 previous posts are the ones you want. Anyway here they are.

Alrighty then.

SHIRT POCKET BUFFALO MAO # 47

Well the loading of the big booklet went smooth enough, reckon I`ll just git on with it eh? Here`s the 6 pages of proofs for the shirt pocket (2 7/8 inch square) size booklet. All these proofs were setup to print on 8 1/2 x 11 paper.You had a little wiggle room on the larger one, but registration is closer here. Anda one ,anda two, anda...

Welcome to my world. This some what different world view fits like gravy in mashed potatoes into Flatware County. I can`t help but think of this little booklet as a passport to Flatware County ( yeah, like we hada border). these pages also don`t have the text that matches the pictures next to them (except for the middle page) as they are print ordered...
The next post will contain the correctly juxtaposed pictures and text for perusal on the web.
                                                                       Inaminute, eh?

BUFFALO MAO # 47 GOES OPEN SOURCE

                                                                             

 BlockLogic was started as a way to share the fun of making and playing with blocks.  The Arithmetic Block Project, spun up out of day dream about a curving wambly looking wall-stack of kinda clumsily home-made blocks. I thought "In the tradition of John Steinbeck`s "The Drapes Of Math", I could probably get away with some wambly walls-o-withmetic blocks even if they won`t stack straight." Leave it to Plush Neon Monkey to notice that the six and the nine burned into the same block was not the most efficient use of time. "So is there some pattern to how the numbers fall on the faces,"he asked innocently?                                                                      

Who knew that can-worms would end up containing 12 kinds of Arithmetic blocks and include 36 math symbols. Chloe and Madison was glad to get the blocks, but their parents, Neko and Amy wanted if not instructions at least some definitions. What 36 math symbols? With the help of Mineral Comix and the Flatware County Gazette, it was Buffalo Mao #47 to the rescue. Well, we made two sets of arithmetic blocks and the booklets to go with them. All totaled there are currently more kinds of Arithmetic Blocks inna set than there are copies of Buffalo Mao #47. What tha hey?. I tried to put them side by side, but without resizing them (which might make them not print as well) they only fit one wide on the blog page. These pages are print ordered, so they won`t have the pictures across from the text intended to show there in the book. They`re meant to print front to back, with a fold at the center line (probably easier to fold first). Then mark lightly in pencil on the guide marks (except center lines) and cut with scissors. The booklet is too wide for most staplers, and I liked how the stitcher stapler at the print shop hit right on the fold and tightened everything up neatly. I offered but they were real nice about it and wouldn't `t take money for just a couple of staples. They did offer a good price to print copies collated, folded, cut, and stapled. They also had the kind of color copier that made brilliant durable copies.  The cover prints front up. It looks good on white and even better on ivory parchment (paper), which seems tougher too.

Well thats it, the top of the stack. When you`ve gotten everything printed folded and slipped one inside the other, this is the middle of the booklet. The next post will contain the the 6 page proofs for the shirt pocket sized 2 7/8 in version. In the words of famous native-American mathematician Buffalo Mao," Power flows from the point of a pencil, keep your eraser handy"