Day 7: Accurate Weighing Balance

Lovely, peaceful day … pottering about in old sawmill.

Changed from metal balance to a wooden one … it's so much better. It's so long - the errors will be much smaller. I've been able to write the lengths on it directly. And it doesn't bend with the weight of the 500g sugar bag - so I can use reasonable distances from the pivot point - and still get the bag balanced.

Don't think we need to check it in Mike's sugar tube method … this will be so much more accurate. It was good … woke about half hour before alarm went off. A fine time of day to be creative. Mike was carted off to the river to help. I was very happy finishing challenge off. With my new balance - I compared 500g of sugar in some nails (yes … the nails I painstakingly counted yesterday). So - I was able to work out exactly how much each nail should weigh (on average).

So then I took 10 nails to find how long a piece of wire I needed to balance against them. It was like a dream … 10 nails were 3850 mg … which needed 154 cm wire to balance, so 1 mg wire = 154 cm over 3850 and 10 mg wire would be 1540 over 3850 - which is EXACTLY 0.4 cm. Seemed pure fluke that it comes out so exact. But more possibly is a particular mass per just length (ie, 2.5 g/m in this case!). Very excited

Nice way to finish off day … feeling in control - and that a very good balance would be possible.. But I have completely surprised myself. I hate worrying about detailed nonsense. Hate having to check, recheck, check again . I know you often have to be as a security measure but I always make sure I look at areas where attention to detail isn't necessary. It's NOT my strength. Give me big picture any day (and EVERY day).

But - I have loved doing this. I guess 3 days in a lifetime isn't too much commitment but it's been a delight!

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