In My "Spare" Time: Year 18, Week 52, Day One (week 990)

Year 18, Week 52, Day One (week 990)
(January 17, 2000 was my first carving day.)
01-05-19 Saturday

A front came through. It did not water the plants as Mom hoped. It was cool enough this morning to wear a jacket but when we came back from breakfast, but was just warm enough that a coat was too much. I should have worn a long sleeved shirt, I guess.. But I don’t have one....... It got up to a cool air conditioning temperature in the afternoon. Early morning the sky was mostly all clouds with just a few patches of blue. Later in the morning, the sun was shining through a high thin cloud with a few patches around the sky of heavier ones. It cleared up for the most part in the afternoon. This weather report was brought to you by The City Of Pompano Beach Department Of Tourism.

We figured that the passing front would discourage yard sales, so we did not bother to go out. Instead I headed to Mom’s back yard.

My first project was to sharpen a few tools. I chose the ones I would use during the morning and nothing else. I should have sharpened everything, but decided to hold off for this moment.
I sharpened a round nose scraper, a parting tool, and the bowl gouge I was using.
With bowl gouges, there are basically two kinds of grinds. One is the round grind where the tool is simply rotated all the way around on the grinder so the bevel is the same all the way around. The other grind is the Fingernail grind, where the sides are flat, and the nose is round. Each has their uses. Since I do my turning as one would imagine Godzilla would turn wood, I am not a great source on the differences. The fingernail grind is supposedly more aggressive in cutting away the wood from the work.
I started grinding the bowl gouge (the one I bought recently), and found it was not a round grind, but a finger nail grind. I adjusted the way I was sharpening it to the way it was made, but did not fix all the damage I did. It was sharp, anyway.

I decided to try the ornament design of a hot air balloon. I cut some wood about six inches long and after marking the center of the ends, I put it on the lathe with the chuck holding it. The initial turning is simple, like a light bulb with a longer than normal screw end. I got them made and gave them a quick touch with sand paper. I should have sanded them a whole lot more, but did not quite think right when I was doing it. I had turned two of them, narrow end against big end. I took it off the lathe and used the bandsaw to separate them from the waste wood and from each other.
While on the lathe, I had scored some lines around them at different points. Off the lathe, I used my knife to score some lines up and down. I used the disk sander to flatten the sides of the part that was the basket, trying to get it somewhat square. I likely could have done better with the knife but the sander was handy at the moment and I was in a hurry.
I sat down with the dremmel and drilled some holes to daylight the space between the basket and the balloon, leaving the corners to be the ropes holding it up. Just like not sanding enough, I was not too careful on this day-lighting. When I was done, it was a little rough. Even with some knife work, it was not the best I could do. I was sending a package out to a friend so I was rushing to get these done. I grabbed my paint box (same paint I use for my Christmas cards) and painted every other square a different color. There were some knots in these pieces so I left them as raw wood. It was while painting that I saw how poorly sanded these were. I wanted to include these with a box I was shipping out to a friend so I had to keep going. I later added my name and the date to them with a pen, and then gave them a coat of varnish.
One of my bowl gouges had about an inch, inch and a half of flute (a rounded groove in the rod to create the cutting edge) left. It was one of my first bowl gouges. I decided I would try to extend the flute.
I had picked up some “diamond” grinding wheels. They were not exactly what I was hoping for. The small diameter one which had a shaft that could fit on a demmel was really wide. There was two big ones were better, one had a diamond profile that came to a point around the edges. I used them to grind at the metal, creating a groove. I tried a grind stone on the dremmel but it was not doing much other than smoothing the metal a little. I ended up using the large flat-bottom one for the drill and held it on an angle to cut the side back. I made headway but was not getting really deep. I think I wore off the edge of the one with the pointed edge. The faces are still useable.
The way they usually make these turning tools is to shape a grind stone to the shape they want the flute and use that to cut away the excess metal to the shape they want. If I was really serious about this, I would sacrifice a grind stone to do it right. As it is, I am trying to do it on the cheat.

A bit later, I saw I had some extra time and made two more balloon blanks but did no carving on them.

SUNDAY

We did sit and talk about videos on black smithing and projects we had seen, but I did not accomplish anything. I had to pack up the box to mail out so I did not do any wood working today.

I will see what I do next week.

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