Put up a few photos, on a.b.p.woodworking, showing part of the process of
making a Backstaff, as well as a little bit about the shop and the jigs I
built to do the job.

"Saville" wrote in message
...
Put up a few photos, on a.b.p.woodworking, showing part of the process of
making a Backstaff, as well as a little bit about the shop and the jigs I
built to do the job.

I'll be the first to say I viewed the pictures and it is an impressive piece
of work. I'll also show my ignorance and ask what you use it for?
:-)

Lowell Holmes wrote:


"Saville" wrote in message
...
Put up a few photos, on a.b.p.woodworking, showing part of the process of
making a Backstaff, as well as a little bit about the shop and the jigs I
built to do the job.

I'll be the first to say I viewed the pictures and it is an impressive
piece of work. I'll also show my ignorance and ask what you use it for?
:-)


Hi Lowell,

Actually it's my fault - I should have put in a description. A Backstaff was
used by Mariners in the 1600-1800 time period to measure the altitude of
the sun.


http://images.google.com/imgres?imgu...lr%3D%26sa%3DN

has an etching. The idea was to put the sun at your back, and slide shadow
vanes along the arcs until the shadow the sun makes is even with the
horizon which yuo can see in a slit through the sight vane.

You can see other stuff I make, he

http://home.comcast.net/~saville/backstaffhome.html

Gregg

snip
Hi Lowell,

Actually it's my fault - I should have put in a description. A Backstaff
was
used by Mariners in the 1600-1800 time period to measure the altitude of
the sun.


http://images.google.com/imgres?imgu...lr%3D%26sa%3DN

has an etching. The idea was to put the sun at your back, and slide shadow
vanes along the arcs until the shadow the sun makes is even with the
horizon which yuo can see in a slit through the sight vane.

You can see other stuff I make, he

http://home.comcast.net/~saville/backstaffhome.html

Gregg

I should have recognized it. I was a Quartermaster in the Navy and later
while recreational sailing, use a sextant. I noted the similarity of the
Backstaff to an Octant. I should have snapped to it.

During the time period you mentioned, reliable time pieces were either
non-existent or quite expensive. Local apparent noon was one of the few
observations they had. Have you read Dava Sobel's book, "Longitude"? John
Harrison was a wood worker and his first clocks were made of wood. I'm sure
I'm telling you what you already know.

Patrick O'Brian's characters had something to say about chronometers in his
novels.

Lowell Holmes wrote:

I should have recognized it. I was a Quartermaster in the Navy and later
while recreational sailing, use a sextant. I noted the similarity of the
Backstaff to an Octant. I should have snapped to it.

Thank you for your service in the Navy.

I would hardly expect a modern Navy veteran - even a QM - to recognize a
Backstaff by name ;^)

During the time period you mentioned, reliable time pieces were either
non-existent or quite expensive. Local apparent noon was one of the few
observations they had. Have you read Dava Sobel's book, "Longitude"?

Several times ;^)

John
Harrison was a wood worker and his first clocks were made of wood. I'm
sure I'm telling you what you already know.

Fascinating to me that they knew enough about wood to make gears that stayed
true, or that they somehow accounted for the humidity changes more in one
direction than another.

Patrick O'Brian's characters had something to say about chronometers in
his novels.

Yeah and I read what those characters had to say - about 6 times each ;^)
Now that you mention it, maybe I'm due for a 7th....

Cheers,

Gregg

Australopithecus scobis wrote:
On Sun, 11 Dec 2005 18:13:20 -0500, Saville wrote:

Yeah and I read what those characters had to say - about 6 times each ;^)
Now that you mention it, maybe I'm due for a 7th....

It was really rude of O'Brian to up and die on us.

Having had no nautical experience, I had to read the books while logged
on to the Internet so I could figure out what the terms were. Seems
like I had to do a Google search every third page.

Dick Durbin

On 16-Dec-2005, "Olebiker" wrote:

Having had no nautical experience, I had to read the books while logged
on to the Internet so I could figure out what the terms were. Seems
like I had to do a Google search every third page.

Another excuse for shopping at Lee Valley:
http://www.leevalley.com/gifts/page.aspx?c=1&p=50551&cat=4,104,53216&ap=1
http://www.leevalley.com/gifts/page.aspx?c=1&p=40983&cat=4,104,53216&ap=3

Mike

Michael Daly wrote:


On 16-Dec-2005, "Olebiker" wrote:

Having had no nautical experience, I had to read the books while logged
on to the Internet so I could figure out what the terms were. Seems
like I had to do a Google search every third page.

Mike

Hi Mike,

yeah well at least O'Brian used the same terms every single book. Without
adding new ones once you got past the middle of the series.

Sad to say I found the books getting repetitive after the 2/3's point.
Though the second to last was pretty good.

The last though ...well....I suspect it wasn't he who wrote it. The
characters didn't "sound" like themselves.

Gregg

"Saville" wrote in message
...
Michael Daly wrote:


On 16-Dec-2005, "Olebiker" wrote:
snmip
The last though ...well....I suspect it wasn't he who wrote it. The
characters didn't "sound" like themselves.

Gregg

I hadn't thought about it, but everything did get wrapped up neatly in the
last book. OH WELL!

I may read some of the early ones again. I agree the last 4 or 5 books were
not as fresh as the earlier ones.

I found the doctor to be a bit contrived in the first book, having Irish and
Catalan ancestors. That character sure added a lot to the richness of the
series though.
I almost never found where Catalonia is until the Smithsonian magazines
published an article about the anchovies from Catalonia.