56 degrees early morning, 64 degrees when I arrived at Mom's house, and 73 degrees when I left at around three. the sky was mostly high jigsaw puzzle with most of the pieces missing. It was mostly sunny all day long. I had sat in the sun for a while when I first set up to work, but quickly decided it was not needed, and more than warm enough to not have to be in the sun.
Thursday was the Turning club meeting. It was another demonstration on adding inlay to our work. this time was on applying it to the sides of a work, rather than on the top. It is done a little at a time. they showed several ways of turning the stones you get, into pieces small enough to inlay. they basically use metal pipes with caps.
I picked up a tap. This is a device to add threads into holes. This tap is one known as a 1"x8 tap. It is for a one inch hole with eight threads to the inch, which is standard for the lathe mounts. With this tap, I can drill a hole into a piece of wood, and mount it directly on the lathe, without having to use a metal face plate and screws, or a chuck. One can make wooden face plates or attach whole chunks of raw wood directly onto the lathe.
Saturday:
I got all my junk laid out, I spent most of my day working on the flower vase. I dug out the sanding drum for the dremmel and smoothed things out.
I was shown the kind of flower I am doing. I now cannot find the E-mail to tell what the name of it is. I had a good look at the pictures and now know what I am doing. It is nice where one designs something, then finds there is something real to resemble it.
I am at the point where I wish I could wave my hand over the piece and it be done. I have a lot more to do.
Flower vase, if you look very carefully, you will see a spot in the background that is a slight tan color. That was where I started to break through.
I did a little bit of work on the light house platter I am doing. the big thing I did was to use a pencil to mark where the support members of the light house is located. I have to cut the spaces between the members.
light house platter, with pencil lines for light house structure, and the back ground ground back to allow the light house to stand out.
I want to do some new projects, but need to concentrate on projects already started. I have that tap I want to try out. I also have some Christmas ornament blanks I need to finish up
I will see what I will do tomorrow.
year 10, Week 6, Day Two (week 528) (January 17, 2000 was my first carving day.) 02-21-10 Sunday
72 degrees when I arrived at Mom's house, and it got up to 80 degrees. A cloud bank zipped by and the temps dropped down to 78 and stayed there. The sky was mostly blue sky, with high ripples, plates, feathers and ripples. Other than the cloud bank that zipped by, it was sunny all day long. This weather report was brought to you by the City Of Pompano Beach Department Of Tourism.
Yesterday I had done some yard sailing. I picked up a wire rack, a FAR SIDE book, and a sweater.
Sweater I got at a yard sale
On the way home, I stopped at Home Depot and picked up some Boiled Linseed oil which is a finish, some acetone, a thinner, and a drill chuck for my battery powered drill. The chuck on my Harbor Freight drill had died, jammed up. This gets that drill back to operating again.
Harbor Freight drill with new chuck mounted on it.
I told Mom today that someone must of swapped beggar out again. today he was actually acting like a cat. I wished I could have spent a whole lot more time with him. He did get a whole lot of attention.
I got to work. Yesterday, when working with the pin that holds the lid of the beer stein on and able to swing up, I broke a piece out. Today, I re-drilled the hole, twice, to get it where it works. I then filled the old holes in and a broken spot on the top. Two of my fillers had become solid so I had to toss them. One was the right color I needed. I cut the tube open and got a bit of useable filler, since I really only needed a pinch.
I have to work out the exact system I will use for the hinge pin. The wire can work only if I can hide the ends. I won't pin the lid on permanently until I get the finish on.
Beer stein, opened and closed,
I looked at the three apples I have, and decided that I needed some bananas for a fruit bowl. I still have to make some pears to complete the minimum fruit plate.
The bananas are made from a Whitewood 2x4. I got two within the four inch width of the board. I made four bananas, approximately 7 inches long. Note that Bananas are not round. They are actually faceted, with some rounding on the faces. I was surprised to learn that they have five sides. My wooden bananas are generally eight sides, though six tends to be better. I was lazy, so these are eight. I used the band saw to get the basic shape (good to trace around a real banana for the first ones) the disk sander to do the angles.
Bananas individually and as a hand.
I did not do too much with the flower vase, mostly looked it over and figured out what I need to do next. I need to start under cutting the flowers and leaves. Get just enough to make them really stand out I will then need to make the background look the even depth, and get it to a fine finish. Once I get everything sanded to a good polish, I will then cut in the veins of the leaves.
I have decided that after the art show, I will daylight the background, leaving just the flowers themselves as the vase. For now, I will leave the vase solid.
I sat with my brother and carved some wise owl ornaments. I have to do the eyes on them, then I can paint them and finish them. I have some touch ups on them but they are close to be done.
I also carved on some of the swan blanks I have. when I cut them out, I have some pieces of wood that was not sliced off the blank by the band saw. I sat and cut off the excess wood, but did no more carving of the wood.
I did a tiny bit of hand sanding on the light house platter, but not much. I need stronger sand paper and likely some good power to smooth out the rough background, and I have some grinding to correct some errors, before I start actually carving the light house.
Next weekend, I need to concentrate on projects I have started. I also need to cut down on some projects in my home, and start re-finishing many of my completed pieces. Some of them rally need to be sanded down to bare wood, and then refinish. I can do better than I did in the past, and have to spend time on it. while I am looking at them, I will consider what pieces should be carved to make them interesting.
Will see what I actually do next weekend.
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