Monday, September 20, 2010

Week 558 Wood working.

year 10, Week 36, Day One (week 558)
(January 17, 2000 was my first carving day.)
09-18-10 Saturday

90 degrees, a breeze good enough to not need the fan, well separated puffs of clouds that never seamed to block the sun. Perfect working conditions. Only one cloud that looked,, like it might contain weather, but it was down wind of us and seamed to just disappear. This weather report is brought to you by the City Of Pompano Beach Department of Tourism.

THURSDAY:

I had sanded and varnished my ducklings. I also painted eyes on them. that made a big difference in how they looked.
The turning club meeting day came up. I grabbed my ducklings from the drying rack and found I made a little mistake. I varnished them all over and set them on the rack. The varnish stuck to the bars of the rack, and left resulting lines. When I went to Mom's house for dinner and to get some stuff, I hit the "feet" with a disk sander, signed the ducklings, and then hit the feet with several coats of varnish. They were presentable now.

The turning club meeting was very good. My stuff was not up to the quality of the worst stuff there. while in the club meeting, I saw that the knot pattern on one of my pencil cups was interesting when viewed upside down. It had either two big eyes and two small nostrils, or two big ears and to small eyes. I decided that cup needed to be turned upside down.
The demonstration was of making spider boxes, where grooves are cut into the lid of a box, off centered on top and centered on the inside, that makes it look like a spider web. it was shown before but there was new techniques and tools involved.


Me holding vases and flowers




Pencil vase showing the face I had seen, shown upside down.


SATURDAY:

After breakfast and yard sailing, I went out back and dealt with the beast of the back yard. He had reverted a little bit, and actually half heartedly swatted at me when I was doing something he did not like. Nice to see the beast back, and not that dumb cat.....

I did bouts of making shaving flowers, a total of 18, and I made a new pencil cup.
I turned that interesting pencil cup around, and was getting set up to finish off the new bottom. it was not quite centered I adjusted it and kept hearing some creaking. then one more adjustment, turned the lathe on and it came apart in four pieces. Darn.
I will glue it back together. It is too cool looking to not fix it.

I did not get as much done as yard sailing went late and had a number of interruptions.

I hope to get more done tomorrow. I have four sticks for shaving flowers left, so I will finish them up. I can get either four or five flowers from each one, depending on how the process works out.
I want to make at least one more pencil cup tomorrow. One project is to get my things together for my vacation that starts next weekend. I will bring my carving stuff, even though I doubt I will do any carving. I need to pick out what knife, glove, strop and sharpener I want to bring.

I will see what I actually do tomorrow.


year 10, Week 36, Day two (week 558)
(January 17, 2000 was my first carving day.)
09-19-10 Sunday.

90 degrees, little breeze when I arrived, but it picked up a bit later and kept things feeling cool. There were puffs of clouds everywhere, but just a few had the audacity to block the sun.
We have had a rather strange summer. What I remember most about summers here, is that we will get an afternoon rain, and then the humidity would get so thick you could almost touch it. The temperatures would be lower, but the humidity would be oppressive. this is the kind of weather I have been preparing myself for all year.
This year, We have been getting temperatures into the 90s, very little noon time rains to make things really thick. when the rains have come, the winds blew the humidity away. the air has remained comparatively dry all year long.
This weather report is brought to you by the City Of Pompano Beach Department Of Tourism.

I mis-read the clock this morning, really bad. I ended up leaving a whole hour earlier than I planned. I made up for it by stopping at Walmart, but the pharmacy was closed. I stopped at two permanent yard sales at warehouses. One had completely changed their space around. She apparently opened a store front some place. I did not find anything I wanted at either place and was at each of them for a few minutes.

I feed the beast of the back yard. He started out as the beast I almost remembered, and then became a cat as the day went on, falling asleep at my feet for quite a long time.

I got all my equipment out. My drill set, my dremmel set, my carving set.
I took the cup I broke yesterday and glued it back together. I used tape to clamp it together. It needs clean up but is presentable. That will be my personal pencil cup. One problem with this cup was that it was too thin. When I clamped the jaws of the chuck on it, it was not strong enough to hold under the pressure.

Broken vase

I made another pencil cup today. It is simple and came out of the wood quickly.

Having some extra time, I dug out two pieces I made a while back. Both were supposed to be hats for face vases, but they looked really stupid as hats. I remounted each one, and finished them into bowls, giving them a good finish. One of them has cracks in it, so I worked filler into the cracks and did some light sanding.
My new chuck with my cole jaws on it, really made the project nice. I could hold the bowls nicely in the old tenon with my normal chuck, getting everything I could reach with the work facing that way. I then turned the bowls around, and mounted them in the Cole chuck and held them safely and easy to finish up the bowls.
I showed my bowls to my brother and he said he likes the designs. They are different.

While letting the cat sleep at my feet, I made, in several sessions, 17 shaving flowers. Most were painted, only two remained in wood color. Those two were among the best I have made. Looking at the flowers I made yesterday and last week, together, there needed more color flower in the bouquet.

The day went well and I accomplished a lot.

I have some finishing on some items during the week.
I will not be doing any wood working the next two weekends. I am going on vacation to visit a couple on line friends.

If I post a woodworking diary, I will be very much surprised. I am bringing my carving knife but don't plan to use it. Just bringing it just in case.

I will see what happens over the next weeks.

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