Monday, August 3, 2009 - Pittsfield MA

Lazy Daze overcab paint electrolysis bubbles, August 3, 2009

See those four bubbled areas in the paint?

They are right outside the corner where you see the water in this picture.

If you see a bubble in the paint there is moisture behind the skin.

Believe it.

I still can't believe it but so far it has proven 100 percent reliably true. There is moisture behind the skin causing the corrosive electrolytic action that's pushing the paint off. It was true below the refrigerator access panel where I found the major water damage to the framing. The converse is not necessarily true however: no bubbles - no leak. There are no bubbles outside the desk area.

Believe it and go find the source.

There is no obvious source of the moisture causing this electrolysis but today I started my sealing operations by around the window and after I test for leaks at the window I'll caulk the seam in the aluminum skin. I want to determine the source of the leak, not just caulk everything and never know what was actually leaking so I'm taking this one step at a time. It was a leak in the seam that caused me so much grief with the leak back under my desk. If caulking the seam doesn't do it there must be a leak around a loose screw or two. We'll see.

I wonder where the water is getting into the door...

Night camp

Wal-Mart Supercenter in Pittsfield MA

Wal-Mart Store #2228, 555 Hubbard Ave./Suite 12, Pittsfield, MA 01201 - (413) 442-1971

Good level parking lot
Verizon cell phone service is good
Verizon EVDO Broadband service is good
Find other Wal-Marts in the area
Check the weather here

Heliograph route between Fort Cummings NM and Tubac, AZ

1886 heliograph transmissions between Tubac near Nogales Arizona/Mexico, and Fort Cummings New Mexico: Joe Marques (Flagstaff) was doing some research in old Flagstaff newspapers and found something that might interest. In the Arizona Weekly Champion, Saturday August 7, 1886, page 2 column 1, it says: "A message was recently sent by the government heliograph (signalling by sunlight flashes) from Fort Cummings, N.M. to Tubac, Ariz., a distance of 400 miles, and an answer received in four hours." What a great [research] find! This was during the Geronimo Campaign of 1886, and the heliograph system at that time did indeed extend between the two stations. From Tubac, the most westerly terminus, the intermediate stations were Baldy Peak or possibly Josephine Peak just a little south of Baldy), Fort Huachuca, Antelope Spring, Emma Monk, White's Ranch, Bowie Peak (or Helen's Dome), Steins Peak, and Camp Henely (east of Fort Cummings). This means the message would have been relayed seven times, one way. It most likely was a test message, and relatively short, but I would love to know what it and the reply really said. The 1886 "airline" distance between Tubac and Fort Cummings; and of course on to Fort Cummings. I calculate the one-way distance between the two extremes as being 241 miles, with round trip of course being 482 miles.

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