Golden Bitter

I bottled my Golden Bitter last night. My first real attempt at an English pale, pretty much landing perfectly in the middle of the best bitter category. Fuggle and crystal hops with a base of Marris Otter malt.

Plum time

I harvested about 15 pounds of ornamental plums today at lunch. I soaked them for an hour in hot water in my mash ton, which softened them. Then I gave them a good squish, and added them back to the now juicy water for an overnight soak.

I'm going to split the batch into a wine, and a mead.

Earthquake

We just had a nice rolling earthquake in Chico. Well we felt it in Chico, no idea where it centered from.

Sent from my iPhone

Bluemoon blackberry tart ale

Susan got me a Bluemoon sample pack since I wanted some lighter summer beers to sip on, while I'm planted on the couch resting my wound. Tonight's offering is a blackberry ale. Not overly flavorful with berry, but it is a nice decent ale.

Beautiful Bruise

Hard to tell, but the entire top of my foot is bruised. Really easy to see it up by my swollen toes.

Bum foot

While enjoying an evening walk, I tripped on a rock, then landed badly on my right foot, rolling it over. It immediately hurt, and was throbbing with heat and swelling in 10 minutes. So my trip to Santa Rosa was cancelled, and I've been icing it all day, keeping it elevated. Nothing like pulled ligaments and muscles to put a damper on my fun.

Susan even went over to the local thrift store and grabbed a pair of crutches for me, so I can at least get around the house. The best $1.34 she ever spent.

Taillights and Motor Mounted

As the subject says, I got the taillights mounted, as well as the engine. I was waiting on a shipment from Thailand to arrive containing the lights, a new gas cap, and a new 6v coil. So not only is the engine mounted, but it is wired and makes the sparks.

C100 Carb Rebuild

Tonight it was time to rebuild the carb for Goldie.  I'm using a standard C100 carb, which is a 13mm Keihin.  I have a small box of old crusty carbs, so I grabbed one and started.  First step was to take it apart and then clean all the gubbins in the carb dip.   

This is a downdraft carb, with the throttle barrel sitting 90-degrees to the air flow: 

It also has a built in petcock on top of the float bowl side:

Choke plate lever in on the right, operating a simple flate plate inside the intake throat:

The two main parts of the carb pulled apart.  Air flow on the left, float bowl on the right: 

The float side pulled apart, witht he little brass float:

Petcock pulled apart:

All the different little adjustment screws and the throttle valve with needle:

All finished.  Thanks to the rebuild kit I got in from Thailand, I was able to replace all the gaskets and o-rings, along with a new main jet and new idle and a/f screws:

Side Covers

Side covers designed, painted, glittered, striped, and cleared.  I found some nice little glass drawer pulls to use as securing knobs.

More assembly

More assembly work on Goldie.  I'm not quite sure what the side covers are going to look like when I'm done.  I have plans of doing some numbers in gold, with sparkle body paint around them, with some black or white pinstripe around the edge.  So I laid down a base of gold to work with.

Assembly

Hello rolling chassis.  8:15pm evening light doesn't let the sparkle through.

Color

All the sparkly goodness has been shot

Homebrew Medals

Today was our homebrew competition awards ceremony. I ended up winning gold for my Strong Scottish, named Chester the Wee Heavy. Then three bronzes for a metheglin (spiced mead), cherry lambic, and a blackberry mead.

The fruit mead category was tough, as I scored a 38 yet only netted a bronze, thanks to 13 total entrants in the class.

Sneak Peak at Color

The base is "Key Lime Green", with a couple coats of "Citrus Blast" sparkle paint.  It has a fair amount of gold sparkle in it, which is what  was hooting for.  I've since laid down about four layers of clear on top.  I'll do a bit of gold and black pin striping too. 

Almost done with fab

I fabbed up a seat for Goldie.  I had an old piece of 1/8" thick aluminum, so I cut that out as the base.  Then I added two pieces of 1/8" thick 1"x1" aluminum angle that act as both the hinge point, and add some structure.  A pair of rubber bottle stoppers hold the seat against the fuel tank. 

Bottom side of seat pan:

I had some leftover fabric from El Guapo, and thought the brown would work great with the gold/green color scheme.  Three layers of foam and a couple layers of batting provide the cushion, while a few "furniture movers" push through to give the tuck and roll look.  

I also made up some side covers in card stock, to get the right shape and size.