14.5.2013 Firmaliiga, Salmi
#1 when initially lost, should have continued to the road, re-located on map, and would have found control much quicker.
#6 approaching the control from above would have been better.
Firmaliiga result 49./56
Aluerastit, Reuna
#4 veered off course and came close to #9. Should have taken the route shown as the blue line.
#5 too high up the hill close to the control
#12 running along the highest point of the hill would probably have been better
Iltarastit, Pirttibacka
6.5.2013, Pirttibacka. This should have been a familiar map... but made bigger mistakes on three out of twelve legs. (numbers refer to the control-codes on the map)
#30 Aaargh! How is it possible to start towards the first control at 90-degrees to the right direction??
#6 wanted to run along the path and find the less steep opening in the hill (blue-line). Didn't run far enough and instead circled around #19
#14 my route is direct but the second half is slow going through an area with many details. The blue line probably shows a route which is easier and more fool-proof to implement.
Itärastit, Salmenkallio
4.5.2013 Salmenkallio. Ugh - many mistakes (five out of twelve legs) - and they were out of maps so had to use a hand-drawn map.
#3 circling around as I was looking for the control on top of a ridge or at a saddle, when in fact it was much lower down. Wrong interpretation of height contours..
#5 BIG problems. It should have been easy to run along the path and look for the right cliff features on the right and find the control 50m from the path. I managed to climb the hill much too soon and circle around on top of it. Dead last in the split-times! 
#6 veering off compass course to the right, which resulted in unnecessary distance. Blue line shows a better direction.
#11 somehow I was afraid of the green area and decided to run around it, but made a much bigger loop than necessary. Should have run right through(blue line) the green thick area!
Länsirastit, Olars
2.5.2013 Olars. Again quite good! Maybe slightly harder course.
#1 maybe a bit too careful at the start
#3 very slow close to the control - went for the wrong feature inside the control-circle
#7 did not have very good control/feel for the distance along the #6-#7 path. should have kept up speed better along the path.
#10 amazingly, the huge detour right around the hill resulted in the best leg on this course! Fast running on the road/path, then very carefully into the control which looked hard to find on the map.
Aluerastit, Myrbacka
1.5.2013 Myrbacka. Overall very good orienteering on a fairly easy course.
#3 lost a few seconds looking for the control at a big stone when in fact it was a hill
#9 should have found a quicker/better route on top of the hill at #5
#11 slow out of #10 since I did not find the path immediately
Crimp Clamp Tool
I've been cranking out parts for this Crimp-Clamp-Tool over the past few days:
(design inspired by Lindsay Wilson's site, which has more information on the seal-off technique)
It's used to permanently seal vacuum-systems that are pumped through a ~10 mm diameter copper tube. The jaws of the tool compress the tube and "cold-weld" the tube walls together which seals the tube.
The top and bottom clamps are milled from 20x40 mm steel bar. The bottom clamp has slots that secure two M12x100 bolts in place, and 6mm holes for M6 screws that hold half inch Thorlabs rods that guide the top and bottom clamps. The top clamp has 12mm holes for the bolts, and half inch holes that I opened up with a boring head so the Thorlabs rods (about 12.66 mm diameter) fit accurately.
The jaws are 3.125 mm diameter carbide rods (the shaft from old used PCB milling bits). They are held in a V-groove on a rod-holder part that bolts to the top/bottom clamps with M5 screws. I glued the rods to the V-groove with Loctite Hysol.
Here's how the crimped tubes look like. The first test resulted in a jagged edge, while the second test produced a nice straight cut. We will test how vacuum-tight these are with a Helium sniffer later.
PDF drawings:
Iltarastit, Luk
#15-#16 a long pause to read the map on top of the first hill
#16-#17 a small correction to the south just before the control
#18 had a reasonable plan and executed it OK.
#19 again a long pause to read the map
#20 found the swamp instead of the lake 🙁 didn't have a good plan when leaving #19
#21 again poor planning running up/down hills instead of around them.
Itärastit, Nybondas, Nordsjö
Out of 12 controls I did OK on five: #1, #5,#6,#7 and #11. All of the rest were a struggle.
Uutela on wikipedia.
Iltarastit, Svedängen
Very straightforward running along roads and paths. Still some snow on the ground which makes direct routes or cutting corners through the woods slow.
