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And on the seventh day...
Feb. 27th, 2011 08:23 amOur default response to those "builds-in-weekly-parts" ads on the telly is to ignore and eschew them as snares of the Devil, but from time to time we have succumbed. The most recent succumptions have been the Harry Potter chess set for the Countess, with which we do on occasion try to play chess, and "Build A Model Of The Solar System" for me, both about two or three years ago.
And last night, after a long, a very long hiatus, I finally completed construction and set my orrery in motion.
It works. It works I tell you. About as smoothly as anything a Nyrond ever constructed, but it does go round, and even Pluto and Eris do move, whatever the Pope may tell you. All the little fiddly screws probably need tightening, and I had a bad moment when a worm screw got cross-threaded in Neptune's gear assembly and I thought I'd never get it out and would have to give up (the worm tempted me, Lord) but it is done, and there is indeed a great sense of accomplishment.
Normally the clue for these weekly-part things is "could I buy the equivalent of what I'm getting in bits for considerably less than I will end up paying over the whole run of the scheme?" In the case of the DVD sets, where you get one extras-free episode of Bless This House, say, every fortnight for about half the cost of a complete boxed set, with extras, from Amazon or HMV, this is fairly obviously the case...but I had a good look around at the time, and could not find an orrery of anything like this size or quality at a price we could thoyle (or a Harry Potter chess set anywhere, come to that). So I'm happy with what we did. Jan says I should feel like Dumbledore. I actually feel rather more like Aughra, but there we are.
When I've overhauled and cleaned it, I may even take a picture.
And last night, after a long, a very long hiatus, I finally completed construction and set my orrery in motion.
It works. It works I tell you. About as smoothly as anything a Nyrond ever constructed, but it does go round, and even Pluto and Eris do move, whatever the Pope may tell you. All the little fiddly screws probably need tightening, and I had a bad moment when a worm screw got cross-threaded in Neptune's gear assembly and I thought I'd never get it out and would have to give up (the worm tempted me, Lord) but it is done, and there is indeed a great sense of accomplishment.
Normally the clue for these weekly-part things is "could I buy the equivalent of what I'm getting in bits for considerably less than I will end up paying over the whole run of the scheme?" In the case of the DVD sets, where you get one extras-free episode of Bless This House, say, every fortnight for about half the cost of a complete boxed set, with extras, from Amazon or HMV, this is fairly obviously the case...but I had a good look around at the time, and could not find an orrery of anything like this size or quality at a price we could thoyle (or a Harry Potter chess set anywhere, come to that). So I'm happy with what we did. Jan says I should feel like Dumbledore. I actually feel rather more like Aughra, but there we are.
When I've overhauled and cleaned it, I may even take a picture.
