Incident At Thirteen Fathoms

[Jimway]

The Wright Brothers had covered about 120 feet on one of their first manned attempts at flight. I had covered four of five times that on my first manned (or would that be boyed?) flight but injuries to the aircraft (The Bearscat) and to myself, had been sufficient to ease all desire in that direction and make further attempts seem unrewarding and possibly fatal. Even as I had been immersed in the quest for flight, I had been working on the design of a 'deep sea diving outfit'. My thoughts had been centered upon retrieving large logs that had sunk into the nearby lake in our small mountain town. These large logs were quite valuable. I suspected that over the years, many large valuable logs had found their way to the bottom of the lake and were just lying there in wait of someone to drop down, hook on a cable, and winch them topside, to be loaded upon a log truck for a quick trip to the mill. I could just feel all of those dollars and cents funneling through my hot little hands.

 

[keith4216]

Another morning bathroom read

 

[1954bmw]

Another morning bathroom read

How do you work a laptop in the library?????

 

[karzrus]

How do you work a laptop in the library?????

You switch to a tablet for those occasions.

 

[Jimway]

I'm laughing here.

 

[Instigator]

The Wright Brothers had covered about 120 feet on one of their first manned attempts at flight. I had covered four of five times that on my first manned (or would that be boyed?) flight but injuries to the aircraft (The Bearscat) and to myself, had been sufficient to ease all desire in that direction and make further attempts seem unrewarding and possibly fatal. Even as I had been immersed in the quest for flight, I had been working on the design of a 'deep sea diving outfit'. My thoughts had been centered upon retrieving large logs that had sunk into the nearby lake in our small mountain town. These large logs were quite valuable. I suspected that over the years, many large valuable logs had found their way to the bottom of the lake and were just lying there in wait of someone to drop down, hook on a cable, and winch them topside, to be loaded upon a log truck for a quick trip to the mill. I could just feel all of those dollars and cents funneling through my hot little hands.

Was this alcohol fueled or sanely conceived?

If the latter, I remember a while back there was a reality show about them doing that.

Also, we were in a dive museum in the Keys a couple yrs back and they have on display, some AMAZING (-ly crude/basic) early diving helmets/rigs.
Almost all supplied w/air from topside.

 

[Jimway]

When I say that it was just after the home built plane crash, I mean that I was still wearing the cast on the broken arm. I had just somehow made it to double digits in age.

 

[1954bmw]

Hey Gary, check out a thread named piston rings started by 2015vxr and hyjacked by jimway at my suggestion, splains it all, also, how close are you to Polaris shopping center????? And GO jimway.

 

[Jimway]

Remember also that it was smoking hot weather that distant summer long ago. Back then, logging, in the Northwest, was big business and rampant. I was fortunate enough to be able to hang with my Grandfather and his buddies. Oh the smell of two cycle engines, grease, gasoline, diesel, rusty cables being stretched to their limits (and sometimes beyond), and fresh cut pine trees in the morning. Being around with all of the equipment was a dream come true for a mechanically interested kid. Just keeping blades and chains sharpened was a full time job and someone who could put an edge back onto stuff was a highly sought after commodity, likewise, someone (or kid) who could repair a saw, on a stump, out in the woods, with a minimum of tools, parts, and money. At the end of the day back then, if trees weren't hitting the ground, nobody got paid. Out on the ranch, as we called it, down behind the mountainous barn, sat all kinds of equipment, parts, cables, hardware, and contraptions, some of which defied description. If a person, even a small one, wanted to make something, all one had to do was just go out there and find what you might want, because it would be there. As a side note, we built several street rods from scratch out of that pile of stuff in later years, not to mention keeping a big GMC truck running to this day (some of you will know the significance of this little tidbit). Right after the 'hard landing' (as a Navy guy we know might call it), being sutured up all over and sporting a cast on my arm, I was protestingly put on injured reserve and unhappily left in the care of the women folk who, one in particular, were clean, methodical, hard working, non smoking, non drinking, non boasting, non fighting, and non swearing, and equipped with very little sense of humour. "She aint Hooman" our old friend and reprobate Wayne (aka 'The Shark') would say about an Aunt of mine.

 

[1954bmw]

Hey Jimway, did you ever buy Mrs. Jim a new Jaguar????

 

[Jimway]

She's looking at pickups. I'm thinking four cylinder automatic Ranger. She's thinking supercharged F150. I hate to think that I may share some small blame for all of this big performance stuff. They have been sneaking around in that big block f 250. I started watching the odometer after a bunch of brake dust started showing up on the front rims. On a hunch, I looked up under the rear wheel wells, sure enough, little bits of rubber here and there.

 

[1954bmw]

Are you talking about the new Ranger or an older used one??? I think I would like your wife. Ok, back to the story!!

 

[Jimway]

You know me, the one that I have been working out of is 27 years old. You'll laugh cause it has a stroked v6, body lift, tuned exhaust, super duty suspension sway bars front and rear, and then this old gray haired guy climbs out... I do believe that she would like a new one. There has been talk in the media of the Ranger coming back. I'd like to check out a new one.

 

[Jimway]

When trees are submerged in water for long periods of time they take on a different look. These logs can be used for furniture, crafts, musical instruments and cool stuff like that. This is old growth stuff with slow growth tight grain no knots. Imagine having wood from the 1800's in your hand. Some of the wood cut from these logs can be worth 10 times as much as 'new' wood. Back in the boom times, logs were floated down to the mill on cricks ('S' crick being one of them), creeks, rivers,and lakes. If a few of them sank here and there you just cut down another one to take it's place. All of those big trees being gone now, you can see that a new supply of them might be valuable. Such thoughts were going through my mind as we were fishing at the lake. If it weren't for the bad luck of the broken arm, I could just swim down and hook on to a big one and winch it up. We were fishing at the lake to get as far from the ever prying eyes of adults who seemed to be preoccupied with trying to curtail any experimentation with any aircraft, powered boats, powered bicycles, go karts, roller skates, rocket powered skateboards, and powered parachutes. It was best when executing these projects, if not ourselves, to keep any practical application of these projects out of sight of the adult portion of the audience. As the sun beat down ferociously upon my head, out there on the lake, my eyelids slowly draped down over my eyes.

 

[1954bmw]

Ok, you was fishing with a broken arm, need more facts, which arm, what kind of cast, above or below the elbow???? How many guardian angels did you wear out, sounds like a bunch?????

 

[Jimway]

It was the right arm, at the elbow, entirely from deceleration sickness brought on by the untimely landing of a certain home built. You remember those big white plaster casts. This one extended from the wrist up to the armpit. Then the right arm was kind or wrapped up against the chest. I think the general idea was not to move the arm at all (like that was going to happen). It was a 'bad break' as the vet said. Nowadays, there would have been an ambulance ride to an emergency room physician, surgery and screws and pins (firsthand experience in this realm also). One was supposed to keep the cast clean and dry heh heh. It was a different time. I do remember the itch of all of those sutures and little shaved patches on my head to facilitate some of those sutures, gave one a look of the mange.

 

[Jimway]

Out on the lake, gently bobbing in an ancient wooden row boat, eyelids drooping down to reveal the 'silver screens' on their backsides, I was the star of an underwater classic. The Main character was lowered into the lake in a diving bell that had exterior lighting, port holes, and topside air supply. One could just sit there on the bottom edge of the diving apparatus, under water, and hook a cable around the end of all of the logs that were all lined up down there on the smooth clean lake bottom and signal topside to start winching them up. The logs rose past the port hole and eventually rose out of sight. If a really nice lake trout happened to swim by you could just reach down and grab it up for the evenings supper. From the roof area there came a reassuring hiss hiss of supply air. It was completely dry in there, comfortable too. In no time at all, there was a log truck load of trees loaded up and the main character was hoisted back up topside to step down out of the diving bell. Local dignitaries were present to offer up hand shakes and nods of approval. The star then hopped aboard a big v twin bike and roared off in the direction of the local banking establishment to make a big deposit.

 

[Jimway]

When I finally opened my eyes, I tied a fishing weight to an inverted Coke bottle, and watched it float next to the boat, gently bobbing in the water. I tied more weight onto it and another line to lower it into the depths. When the bottle was retrieved, it was still full of air. No problem I smiled. When a passing vessel pulling a skier came by the weights came loose and the bottle flopped upon its side. Water ran into the bottle and soon it alarmingly began to sink out of sight. I made a mental note to myself concerning this development. Shortly I was back at the ranch gazing out over the pile of derelict equipment spread before me down in the field below the mountainous barn. Here was the remains of a tank of some type, the end blown off from some experiment. Rope and cable abounded here and there. A big hand cranked winch equipped with a brake would easily handle the raising and lowering chores. Providing a breathable air supply proved to be a little more problematic.

 

[Jimway]

As adults,we sometimes lose that laser like focus that a kid can have. It's a marvel to observe a youngster doing an activity. Their mind will be only on that activity,110%. We, remember that my expert in flammability childhood friend 'The Flame' was up from the city for a few weeks, tackled the air supply problem with three bicycle air pumps and the remains of a drag saw. Back in the day before chainsaws (Sim knew this was coming), someone, who you would have been easily identified by the absence of a few fingers, attached a rudimentary two cycle engine to a two man saw that had been shortened. The engine drove a big cogwheel that had an arm attached to the outer edge, the saw was attached to this arm. As the engine ran, a feat in itself as they were notoriously hard to start, the wheel turned in a crankshaft kind of way and the blade went back and forth. The whole contraption was only about seven feet long, weighed definitely under a ton, minus the blade. The 1920's epitome of compactness, utility, and portability. It looked a lot like a big wheelbarrow minus the metal or wooden tub. On the handle end were big spikes that you would drive into the log that you were trying to buck. You would fire up the big single cylinder unmufled engine, normally by great effort and the complete supply of your vocabulary of swear words, by reaching in between the razor sharp blade, its drive arm, a drive chain, and a gear reduction set up, to spin the flywheel for start. Hand guards were a thing of the future. Once running, you engaged a clutch handle and set the blade in motion, lowered it onto the log and jumped back four of five yards and started counting your fingers and toes to see if they were still where they were supposed to be. The cylinder of the engine was cast inside of a big hopper that you would pour water into to facilitate cooling of the rig although it seemed to love to 'run hot'. By removing the blade and arm and attaching three bicycle pumps at 120* separation in a circle, we solved the air supply problem. Fortunately for the operator in the depths, I had come across these neat little pilot egress air supply tanks that pilots, who found themselves in an airplane with water both above and below it, could climb out and swim to the surface, at the local Army/Navy surplus store. You stuck this rubber mouthpiece in your mouth and enjoyed a couple of minutes of air. Surprisingly less than a couple of minutes of air could be had if one was excited by external means.

 

[Jimway]

Since we were in the prototype stage, we bolted an eye hook to the center top of the tank. We figured that we would add the porthole in the future. A fitting for the air supply was added also to the roof. We added a shelf around the bottom for the operator to be seated upon. Inside, we fastened the little air supply tanks up high toward the roof. I had procured a couple of waterproof flashlights from the surplus store and stowed them up there also. Not wanting to publicly reveal our latest invention just yet, we decided not to drag all of the diving apparatus down to the lake just yet but to make our trial run a little closer to home. Now down at the Southeastern corner of the property stood a small structure about 12 feet by 12 feet. It had double doors on it and a big timber across the roof. Hanging from this big beam was a big pulley. We hauled and drug all of the 'diving' apparatus down to the structure and, with some difficulty, hung the creation up on the pulley. It looked quite handsome, hanging there. We fired up the drag saw and from inside the 'bell' there came the reassuring hiss hiss hiss of air from the pumps. I had little doubt that the wonderful contraption would work. What little doubt that I did harbor caused me to offer up the maiden voyage to my buddy 'The Flame'. He rather firmly declined, offering up the feeble excuse that the 'topside' crew should, by necessity, have all extremities functioning to operate the air supply and winch. Drat this broken arm.