"Famous Sportsman"

In the original trailer for the movie "Caddyshack," the voice-over describes Ty Webb as: "A Sportsman who really knows how to score."

We don't need no stinkin' Bluetooth

I have seen many women in Center City Philadelphia sporting this method of "hands free" phone use....a hilarious confluence of tech and traditonal garb.

Dove Hunting and Women Hunters

As of July 1st next week...it will only be 2 months until the opening of Dove Season. The Federal Government sets the dates for hunting this migratory bird...which is most challenging to shoot. Doves are very fast,very wary and very agile. At our Hunting Club the Farmer plants several acres of Sunflowers just about this time of Summer. By September 1st...the opening day...the Sunflowers will have bloomed and be fairly dry...just how the Doves like 'em. The field is planted near a tree line and near the tidal river that runs along the edge of our Farm where our Club is located.

Each year,opening day of Dove Season finds a large group of Club Members, guests,sons and daughters ready to engage in some spirited wing-shooting. The day opens with a Barbecue Lunch and a Club Meeting. Then around 2 or 3 p.m. we take to the field. The shooters are positioned at set locations in and around the Sunflowers to optimize safety and coverage. It is generally a hot day so one's gear includes a camo cooler for water and ice. The normal uniform for Doves is camo shorts and shirt and hat. I have featured some examples of same in the posted pictures to demonstrate to the ladies and jangle the purient interest of you other knuckleheads.

After the shooting is over...and we all generally get close to the bag limit of birds...it is back to the Clubhouse for ice cold beers and a cleaning session. We will get several men and kids cleaing the days bag...which are then skewered and grilled. Often we will score a bushel of Steamed Crabs from the Delaware bay and have a "Wing & Claw" feast. Freshly shot Dove, grilled over coal and steamed crabs and a frosty keg makes for one damn fine Summer evening.

Last season my son made his first wing shot in the dove field...a fine 25 yard crossing shot with a 20 Guage. This Sportsman was practically levitating with pride.

Also of note, and in relation to the title of this post, are the exploits of a fine Sportswomen. My hunting buddy Ned...to whom I have referred in prior posts...has a daughter that is an excellent shot and loves to shoot doves. She aquits herself with poise and skill and has dove hunted with us the last 3 seasons. She recently won her age class in a local Sporting Clays Competition and is going to be better with a double gun than both her Dad and this writer combined. Suffice it to say this young lady is not attired like the scantily clad tarts depicted above. Again, those shots are purely eye-catchers for some of the lower brow element that stops by on occassion. Indeed, Ned always has the best gear and kit for both himself and his kids when we go hunting.

So, while there is lots of Summer between now and the Dove "Opener"...us Sportmen and Sportswomen are counting the days and cleaning the guns and keeping the dogs in shape...See you in the field.

Boxing Update

There was some drama this week in the Philadelphia Boxing world. A fight card was scheduled for this Friday at The Arena in South Philadelphia. The boxer I manage was slated for a 6 round bout against Manuel Guzman. Everything was set and I had friends and clients lined up to enjoy the evening in the private box.
However, the Promoter and the Manager of the venue became embroiled in some contractual dispute over ticket proceeds from the last event. It seems they could not reach an agreement and the fights were cancelled.
Fortuitously, barely 10 minutes after I received news of the cancellation, another promoter was on the phone inquiring as to whether my fighter would contract for the same fight on July 9th in Atlantic City. The July 9th event features Mike Jones defending his Welterweight title and is a much bigger platform for my guy. We agreed to the bout without hesitation.
My fighter is thrilled with this change as he will be showcased on a better card before a much larger crowd at Boardwalk Hall in A.C.
The buzz around local gyms is that I am a connected manager since I was able to arrange a quick contract for my guy...when all the other fighters scheduled to fight on the cancelled card are out of luck and justifiably angry.
So, what could have been a major dissapointment has turned into an opportunity....and if Butler can get a win in A.C. it will improve his career path considerably....

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Off to Annapolis, Maryland for the Father's Day Invitational Lacrosse Tournament. The weather forecast is favorable and the other Coaches and I are confident that the boys will aquit themselves well. There are teams from as far away as Texas coming to this event. It proves to be a wonderful experience.

If we have time, we plan to tour the U.S. Naval Academy Museum.

Happy Father's Day to all Dads out there...

I lost my Father last July so this will be my first Fatherless Father's day....I wonder how I will react come Sunday. At least the lax games on Sunday will keep my mind off of it and I will be with my son who is my Father's namesake. In a future post I will recount my Dad's story...he was an amazing man.

Messing About in Harpsichords: DIY Ceramic Plectra

T    he sound of the harpsichord resembles that of a bird-cage played with toasting-forks... No, it is more like two skeletons copulating on a corrugated tin roof.”
  —  Sir Thomas Beecham, British conductor (1879-1961).

S omtimes I cannot leave well-enough alone. An amateur guitarist friend at work was showing me his nice, new pick—made of some exotic ceramic material. The manufacturer of the pick is very mysterious and non-forthcoming with regard to what the “specially-formulated”, lubricious, hard material is. But junior Archimedes that I am, I go and measure it—measure its density, etc.—and I suspect (but do not know for certain) that it is boron nitride.

I  think: “That is really cool! But why should guitarists have all the nice toys? What about harpsichordists?”


T here are all sorts of other technical materials that are used for musical instruments that are specially selected or constructed so as to achieve physical properties that vary by desirable amounts, in desirable directions.


T hink graphite violin bows: how far they have come in the past 20 years. Think Michel Wegen graphite-epoxy composite guitar picks. Think ceramic composites in jet engine turbines. Think exotic dental composites and orthopedic surgery ceramic composites. Think yttria-stabilized zirconia cutlery in your kitchen!

I n one of my former lives, I did some semiconductor engineering and physical electronics. I have a slab of silicon nitride lying around. I look up the Young’s modulus (elastic modulus) and other physical properties of the silicon nitride and compare it to the properties of Delrin™ and of bird quill. Hmmm. I go down to my basement shop at home and begin slicing up my little left-over silicon nitride slab into plectra-shaped bits.

T he machining of the plectra is pretty straightforward, if you are a rockhound and have some lapidary and faceting tools and some diamond bits for your Dremel MotoTool™ (or comparable 20,000 rpm flexible-shaft hand tool). I used 400-grit diamond for most of the cutting, and 14,000-grit and 30,000-grit cerium oxide powder for the polishing work.

T he ceramic surfaces are polished to nanometer smoothness so that they will not abrade the harpsichord strings.


H ere is a drawing of my ceramic plectra:


T hey are quieter and slipperier than Delrin™ plectra. The sound of the harpsichord tongues and jacks would not be at all affected by these exotic ceramics. The “ceramic vs. Delrin™ vs. quill” noise differences I’m talking about are only about the noise of the plectrum tip itself, just as it slips against the deflecting string before the plectrum excursion (or string deflection) is large enough that the plectrum releases the string.

I  think the only person who can possibly hear the “scritch” of Delrin™ acetal plastic against the strings is the performer a few inches away. With nitride, there is no plectrum-against-string noise at all.

T o everybody else, the pleasant harpsichord “action-falling” sounds with ceramic plectra like these should be identical to the ordinary mechanism quilled with conventional plectrum materials.


R emains to be seen, but I suspect these technical ceramics may give much lower “wear” compared to Delrin™ or quill? Much less frequent need for re-voicing and re-quilling? Other advantages?


I  do suspect that plectra made out of such ceramics will, in general, give a “brighter” sound—maybe brighter than purists would find desirable, who knows? But the toughness of these materials might open up new horizons of harpsichord dynamics and expression.

A nd I have no doubt that the “springiness” (nitride elastic modulus ~ 200 GPa, compared to Delrin™ and bird quill elastic modulus ~ 3 GPa) will give a ‘faster’ action than Delrin™ or quill.


H ere is a little Excel spreadsheet I put together, modeling the stiffness of Delrin™ plectra of different dimensions. (I have a similar spreadsheet for my silicon nitride plectra.)


W hat else? The nitride materials do not undergo ‘work-hardening’. They do not get brittle like Delrin does with elapsing time and more playing. And the nitride composites have very low coefficients of friction (somewhat lower than zirconia, as I recall). Other advantages, too.

A nyway, the possibility of helping to advance the state of harpsichord technology intrigues me. Why is the ‘business end’ of the harpsichord sound-producing mechanism still stuck with Delrin™, same as Hubbard and others used 50+ years ago!

A lso, you may want to give a look at Lorna Gibson’s new materials science book, on composites (link below). More ideas for innovative plectra materials! No reason why homogeneous, nearly-isotropic (same properties in all directions, along all axes) like Delrin or ceramics is the only way to go.

• NITRASIL™ silicon nitride sheet
  
• CiDRA™ silicon nitride machining
  
• Marc Vogel GmbH quills for plectra (vulture, eagle, buzzard, turkey, goose, swan in online shop)
  
• Refractron Technologies Corp
  
• Accuratus Inc zirconia
  
• Zircar Refractory Composites Inc
  
• Zircar Ceramics Inc
  
• Washington Mills Inc, custom refractories
  
• Kyocera Fine Ceramics
  
• American Ceramic Society
  
• Dentsply CERAMCO™ yttria-zirconia dental ceramics
  
• Vident.com
  
• DoD. MIL-HDBK-17: Ceramic Matrix Composites. U.S. DoD, JUN-2002.
  
• CERAFLEX™ zirconia-yttria ceramic
  
• Alumina nitride ceramic
  
• SIALON™ silica alumina nitride ceramic
  
• REPTON™ alumina-zirconia ceramic
  
• Corning MACOR™ machinable ceramic
  
• PlanetWaves Delrin™ guitar picks
  
• BlueChip Picks
  
• Dunlop Delrin™ guitar picks
  
• StructureSonores.eu
  
• SmallParts.com plastics
  
• Fender Delrin™ guitar picks
  
• DragonPlate graphite sheetstock, Allred & Assoc
  
• Wegenpicks, Lochem, The Netherlands
  
• Aboushelib M. Long-term fatigue behavior of zirconia-based dental ceramics. Materials 2010;3:2975-85.
  
• American Ceramic Society. Ceramic Engineering and Science Proceedings: Mechanical Properties and Performance of Engineering Ceramics and Composites V. Wiley, 2010.
  
• Chernenko N, et al. Technological aspects of heat resistance in carbon-ceramic composite refractories. Refr Industr Ceramics 2009;50:149-52.
  
• Chawla K. Ceramic Matrix Composites. 2e. Springer, 2003.
  
• Cheok K. Guitar pick. U.S. Pat. Appl. 03-SEP-2009.
  
• Cleveland B. Turtle shell vs. faux turtle shell picks. GuitarPlayer, MAY-2010.
  
• Dawson M. Optimization of thin-wall cylindrical shells with compliant cellular-solid cores. M.Sc. thesis, MIT, 2005.
  
• Denry I, Holloway J. Ceramics for dental applications. Materials 2010;3:351-68.
  
• Gibson L, Ashby M, Harley B. Cellular Materials in Nature and Medicine. Cambridge Univ, 2010.
  
• Gibson L, Ashby M. Cellular Solids: Structure and Properties. 2e. Cambridge Univ, 1999.
  
• Lorna Gibson page at MIT
  
• Hubbard F. Three Centuries of Harpsichord Making. Harvard Univ, 1965.
  
• James J. Guitar pick. U.S. Pat. Appl. 20-APR-2006.
  
• Karam G, Gibson L. Biomimicking of animal quills and plant stems: natural cylindrical shells with foam cores. Mat Sci Eng C. 1994;2:113-32.
  
• Kottick E. The Harpsichord Owner's Guide: A Manual for Buyers and Owners. Univ NC, 1992.
  
• Krenkel W, ed. Ceramic Matrix Composites: Fiber Reinforced Ceramics and their Applications. Wiley, 2008.
  
• Kroll M. Playing the Harpsichord Expressively: A Practical and Historical Guide. Scarecrow, 2004.
  
• Mizek R. Plectrum or pick. U.S. Pat. Appl. 12-APR-2007.
  
• O'Brien G. Ruckers: A Harpsichord and Virginal Building Tradition. Cambridge Univ, 2008.
  
• Ouellette R. Pick for playing a non-bowed stringed instrument. U.S. Pat. Appl. 05-FEB-2009.
  
• Pilkey W, Kitis L. Notes on the linear analysis of thin-walled beams. UVA Working Paper, 1996.
  
• Pilkey W. Analysis and Design of Elastic Beams: Computational Methods. Wiley, 2002. (UVA)
  
• Roesler R, Harders H, Baeker M, eds. Mechanical Behaviour of Engineering Materials: Metals, Ceramics, Polymers, and Composites. Springer, 2009.
  
• Smith V. V-pick guitar pick. U.S. Pat. Appl. 08-APR-2010.
  
• Tjong S-C. Carbon Nanotube Reinforced Composites: Metal and Ceramic Matrices. Wiley, 2009.
  
• Wei D, Meng Q, Dechang J. Mechanical and tribological properties of hot-pressed h-BN/Si3N4 ceramic composites. Ceramics Intl 2006;32:549-54.
  
• Young W, Budynas R. Roark's Formulas for Stress and Strain. 7e. McGraw-Hill, 2001.
  
• DuPont Delrin™ page
  
• DuPont Delrin™ engineering manual [1MG pdf]
  
• Harpsichord.co.uk
  
• Harpsichord.com

Underrated Commodity

When one walks the streets of Philadelphia...or any City..or any Town...or any Airport...any Stadium...nearly everywhere...one sees people with wires leading to their ears. Ipods or ancient "Walkmen" blasting music into the heads of everyday people on a nearly constant basis. Why do so many people feel compelled to pipe a soundtrack into their lives?

Why does nearly every stadium feel it necessary to blast music between innnings during baseball games...during breaks in Football and during time outs in Hockey. These queries do not even consider the amount of time we use cell phones or get assaulted by TV and traffic noise.

One of the truly wonderful things about various outdoor pursuits is the time spent in virtual silence.

For the few moments before dawn in a duck blind the world is silent. Even as the marsh begins to wake up one hears only natural ambient sounds of wind and a few birds. Experiencing the natural world at times like these is one of the reasons we Sportsmen take to the field.

A deer stand can offer long periods of stark silence...punctuated now and then by a squirrel rustling in leaves or a Blue Jay calling.

Surf fishing necessarily places the participant next to the roaring surf...but the rythmic symphony of waves breaking is a type of quiet in the form of the absence of man made noise. Sitting on the beach watching your surf rod in it's stand provides ample time for reflection and relaxation.

A person often cannot recall or appreciate the calming effect of silence until it is experienced for an extended period. Long periods of quiet afford time for restorative thinking and contemplative self assesment. As the old saying goes: Silence is golden. Check the market..the price of gold is going up.

More Lacrosse

The BOLT Tournament last weekend did not go too well. Our team was placed in a bracket that was above our level....both in age and skill. Because of the reputation of the Club we play for...(very good players)...this sometimes happens. As a result, we went 0-3 and the kids were smoked in the last game 11-2. These lopsided defeats can be very demoralizing for the players and as Coaches we had a difficult time keeping things in perspective and helping the kids focus on fun and refining their lacrosse skills.

In addition, it was oppressively hot and humid. On balance, our kids battled the best team at the Tourney in our second game of the day and lost 4-3 in a close contest. We reinforced to our kids that in Lacrosse (as in life) hard work can sometimes defeat talent.

We have a 2 day tournament in Annapolis,Maryland this coming weekend. We hope to have a more positive experience during these games. On Saturday,all of our teams will get together for a Crab and Barbecue dinner at a park along the Chesapeake...and that should be fun for the kids and the Coaches.

Abby Sunderland

Unfortunate news....many of you may have been following the progress and saga of this 16 year old sailor.I have been following her story with keen interest. She has sailed around the world alone...and has been attempting to complete a circumnavigation. Today's news is that she is in the southern Indian Ocean and in serious trouble. She has been experiencing dangerously high waves and is feared to be lost. Her family is staying positive and notes that she has all the gear necessary if her boat founders...raft,survival suit etc.

Nevertheless, it is a sad and scary time as her loved ones and her fans wait for search results and some word that she is OK. Abby is a fellow Blogger and an intrepid young lady who is to be admired for her guts, determination and sailing skill. I suggest we all say a prayer or have a positive thought for Abby. Fair weather and calm seas to you my dear....