Tag Archives: hobbies

When I get busy with things I have to do, my brain will squirm like a bored toddler and suggest stupid hobby stuff instead. I waste a lot of energy arguing with myself that I don’t need a pedal powered landspeeder, don’t have room to store one, even if I knew what to make it out of, and the steering would be a real issue, though I guess we could knock up a variant of rack and pinion and…

This is how I get into trouble.

Right now it’s pretty bad because I have a suit of Clone Armour (From The Bad Batch, coming soon to Disney +) that needs a complete overhaul. I have a dalek that needs surfacing work, and a ton of electronics. I have a helmet I’ve started for Mrs Dim, the first costume she’s expressed interest in wearing, and there’s loads more to do on that. Oh, and I started a rough project to build a Hollow Knight mask for my youngest Weasel.

All of which means, along with my day job and the paid writing work, that I have plenty to do, thanks very much Brain.

So a couple of weeks ago my brain started sketching out ideas for a new juggling box (see the illustration at the top.)

I know the kit I need for the kind of show I do these days, so I made a list and began to imagine the box I would need to hold it all. Since I didn’t have any way to measure the clubs and stuff, I used Z as the length of the clubs, and X as the depth, and Y as the width of all five of them together. All the other parts of the box would be measured in relation to those distances.

Don’t worry if none of this makes sense, it’s just what I do to keep my brain happy.

After a couple of weeks, it became clear that my brain wasn’t going to let go of this one. Never mind that I haven’t had an actual juggling gig in over a year, never mind that there’s nothing wrong with the kit transport that I have now. Oh no, we must make a box, my precious, and it must be very, very complex!

I bought wood. I wanted to buy piano hinges as well, but obviously they don’t make those the right length. In fact, of all the things I went to buy at Home Depot, the only bits I actually found there were the wood (2ftX2ft project panels) and some all-purpose tool holders that were going to be used to clip the clubs into place inside the box.

I didn’t photograph the early stages because it went very quickly and I didn’t have any hands free. First, construct a box with all the correct dimensions. Check those dimensions very, very carefully. Get corners as close to 90 degrees as possible. Then very, very, VERY carefully, cut all around the middle of the box, and really, really hope you picked the right side to start. Then, cut one of those pieces in half on the other dimension. Now, go look in that box of hinges and see if you can find four the same.

Ok, well, are there two the same?

Good.

Are there another two that are the same as each other?

Ok then. Put two hinges on each side, and now you have a box that opens along a central seam! I put the tool holders in place in the back and the clubs fitted in as if I had measured. (Which I had. Again and again.)

This would have been a good place to stop. I had achieved something, and my brain was a little surprised. Maybe it would have left it at that, but now my confidence strode to the fore and said “This is JUST the beginning!”

Because there’s more than clubs, right? You saw the list I made. By putting in guard rails on either side, and little restraining rails on the bottom, I could put juggling knives in one side and fireclubs in the other, swinging out like some magical thing!

I also made a box to sit on the top that would hold all the juggling balls.

And this was good, and I was happy, but then a little voice spoke up from the back of my mind and said “Er, excuse me, but where does the diabolo go? And the diabolo handsticks? And the devil sticks, come to that. Also, the front swings open, weren’t you going to design some fancy closing mechanism that would ALSO hold the juggling rings?

Reader, I switched off the lights and left the workshop.

But a few days later I was back at it again, because my wretched brain could see POTENTIAL. This might actually be GOOD and IMPRESSIVE and lots of other concepts that really shouldn’t matter to me now that I am nearly forty nine and living on a different continent from most of the people who made me feel inadequate as a human being.

I shifted the knives over to the same side as the fireclubs, because there’s room for both and then they rattle less, and that made space for the diabolo and both sets of handsticks on the right.

The Devil Stick itself was too tall for the box. I didn’t want to cut holes in anything, so I bolted a small plastic holder to the bottom of the right hand side, and the last of my general purpose tool holders to the top. Click!

Now for the front. I cut a couple of blocks to the curve of the juggling rings, then glued them on either side of the front doors. Then I cut a couple of square blocks that were larger and glued them on those blocks. Now the rings would hook in on these blocks and sit snug, holding the doors closed!

I also dug out a small pair of wheels for the back and some rotating castors for the front. Now the front doors could swing open easily.

And that’s where I am now. The voices in my head have subsided a bit, apart from the one saying the box of balls needs to be secured to the main box, and the whole thing should be edged with veneer to hide the screws and then lacquered a deep honey gold. Oh, and there should be some sort of handle to pull the thing along. And where am I going to put the poi? And what about the buckets for the magic bucket trick?

I don’t know why zombies want brains. They’re nothing but trouble.