With The Big T-Day Coming Up In A Week, Time To Drag Out The X-mas Tree! Status: Still Can't Find Those D*mn Tree Decorations.

Found this in the basement of an estate sale some years ago. It's in excellent condition...except for it's lack of electric motor. You see, it's designed to slowly spin the tree while playing a little music box rendition of Silent Night.

I can sympathize with someone not wanting to hear Silent Night over and over and over and

over, but why'd they pull out the entire motor? If it went bad then there really wouldn't be any

reason to take it out. Unless they intended to replace it and just never got around to it. I know

all about that. It is my intention to finally replace that motor and at least get the tree spinning

mechanism working.

As you can see, the "dome" stand hidden inside the aluminum barrel is a pretty common '50s

aluminum tree stand (well, except for the high power flood lights poking out of it!) and the

shape of the motor mount looks a lot like many of the motors I've seen that spin conventional

color wheels. I might be able to scavenge a motor that is a direct fit from another unit. We'll

see. On another note, I'm definitely going to put in some compact florescent floods in this as

these are like 150 watts each...and they get HOT. I think that three 23 watt compact florescent

floods will be just fine! I have one of these lighting the back yard and it is sufficient for that.

This is just going to be the icing on the aluminum tree cake this year! Now if only I can find the

decorations! I had them two years ago...they got to be around here somewhere. You'd think

they'd be right next to the tree, but no. I'll find them. I'm not going to have a bare tree again this

year!