(January 17, 2000 was my first carving day.)
03-30-19 Saturday
68 degrees early morning 81 late afternoon, light breeze lots of sunshine with some clouds. This weather report is brought to you by The City of Pompano Beach Department of Tourism.
I found that I had two butcher blocks of knives I had not sharpened last week. What I had sharpened last week was the knives I use the most. A lot of these butcher block knives are serrated knives. Not my favorite. I took them out and sharpened all of them.
With serrated knives, they have the serrations only on one side of the blade. The other side is flat. What you do when you sharpen these, is not to touch the serrations, just the flat size. The only time you touch the serrations is to use a triangle file following the grooves to make corrections.
Some of my straight bladed knives needed edges so they got the sanding disk treatment. With the serrated knives, I laid them down flat on the grind stone and worked them until they had an edge. While I am not using these knives, I now have them nice and sharp.
There is a planter next to the front door of the neighbor’s house, and that I am basically maintaining his yard, I decided to take care of some weeds that were literally over a knee high. I grabbed a rake and a shovel and pulled the worst of the weeds out. I ran out of energy before I got all the weeds but I got rid of the worst of them. I will get the rest some other time when it is convenient. I am not used to that kind of work.
A couple months ago, mom had my brother uprooted a tree that went into the ground through the bottom of a pot. She removed most of the roots, and all the branches, then transplanted it to a larger pot, and put that in the neighbor’s front yard next to the palm trees that are in pots there. Mom said that if it dies, it dies. That is the punishment of going into the ground. Last week we noticed that the trunk was sending out leaves here and there. It lives. By this time next year, it will have good branches sticking out.
I decided to make some sheaths for my knives. I found some straight molding and I cut pieces off of it about the right length, then split them on the band saw. I then sat down and traced around each blade and carved out the blade shape on one side. I dug deep where the back of the blade would be and just a little at the edge side of the blade. Once I had it carved out so the knife would fit below the surface, I glued a second piece onto it and clamped them. I had some battery cables with bad cables so I cut the wires off and kept the clamps. They have strong springs and the teeth used to hold the posts of the battery will not slip. They will “mar” the work though but if you don’t care they are great. I set the knives next to the corresponding blocks.
My idea is to carve each one into something. Years ago, I had one carved into a running dog. These are a lot bigger than they need to be, but I can cut them smaller when needed.
I decided the blocks that the wheels are attached to, on the lathe, needed more reinforcement. There is a lot of tipping force on those blocks and two bolts is not strong enough (one corner has a screw instead of a bolt). The surface I am rolling them on is twelve by twelve inch paver patio that are not evenly laid. Catching on them creates a lot of force to the side. I got some bolts today and tomorrow I will fix that. It is holding all right for today, though.
I took the lathe out and grabbed a beam I had picked up in a garbage pile earlier this year. It has a big crack in it which was why they tossed it. I cut a piece off with the saws-all. While it was a bit of a problem because I could not effectively hold it down, I held the block as I cut the corners off. It bounced a lot, but once I got past the surface, I could apply my weight to the block to hold it better. Removing the corners allowed me to reduce the time on the lathe.
I put it on the lathe and rounded it. I did not go any farther as that was enough for the day. I accomplished something. This is a pine beam. I am thinking that it is not a yellow pine. It is softer than that. The crack might not work for my plans but I will think about that when I dig into it again. The crack could be filled with no problem if it is a problem.
There are times that just making a mess is satisfying.
Year 19, Week 12, Day Two (week 1002)
(January 17, 2000 was my first carving day.)
03-31-19 Sunday
68 degrees early morning 81 late afternoon, light breeze lots of sunshine with clouds. Predicted weather never came. This weather report is brought to you by The City of Pompano Beach Department of Tourism.
I unloaded the lathe completely and tipped it up on end. I ran in a bunch of bolts into the blocks holding it up (the wheels are screwed into the blocks). One bolt in each corner is not enough to hold the blocks in place when the wheels bump on the edges of the patio stone patio I am working upon.
Mom had gotten a new drill for Christmas and she has it out back for us to use. It is not the top of the line drills, but a good light-utility drill. I used my dremel with the largest bit it could hold to drill a pilot hole. I then drove the bolts in. The bolts would not go all the way in. I tried to force it and my brother told me “that is a good way to burn the drill up. It was already beginning to smell. At first I left the bolts proud, but later I used a crescent wrench to drive them in all the way.
With the bolts already there, I added two more to each corner. I tried to offset them a little but it ended up very little offset. I figure three bolts might slow the chances of the blocks from pulling the screws out and tipping.
I then had to put everything back on the lathe again. If I load and unload the lathe entirely, another ten times, and I should be able to do it in just minutes. I don’t have near as much stuff on it as I once did. I have just the turning tools and some blocks of wood. I had removed all the weights I was using to hold the lathe bed down. Not needed for the kind of work I am doing.
I mounted the sanding disk on the lathe and sanded the knife sheaths so the edges all matched. I did bandsaw a couple because I grabbed the wrong blocks when I put them together so there was a big difference between the two pieces.
I then sat down and tried to figure out what knife went with which sheath. I had set the knife next to the block it was for when I glued them up. When I grabbed the blocks, I did not note which knife went with them. I just gathered them together.
Some knives fit easily into their sheath, but some just would not go in. I finally found matches for all of them. One knife would not go in no matter what. I did not shave down the knife-shape deep enough. I now had to go with plan Q (other plans already failed). I took a drill bit in the dremel and drilled out the space bigger and bigger until the knife could fit in.
None of the knives fit all the way into the sheaths. That is a half intentional. Over time, the wood will get scraped more and more, and the knife will fit in deeper and deeper, until the fit will be loose. I am mostly protecting the point and most of the knife. There is sheath and handle to help let people know one does not touch the blade.
These pieces are about an inch and a half wide so they are comparatively bulky. I likely will remove a lot of the width when I get out there next time. Because of the blocks, I could not stick them into the holder like I had them in before. That will be a good incentive to carve them into something fairly quickly.
I will admit that I don’t really need this many knives. I had a whole bunch before, and have no clue what happened to them. One knife I made this past month is missing. It disappeared right after the turning club meeting. There are two places it could be if I still have it, but have to take the time to dig to find it in those places.
The big reason I got the idea of making knives was I had given a couple knives to a friend, who lives out of town, and I told him that learning to make your own knives is a good idea, even if it is done only once. When you know the process of making something, you can modify it to meet your needs, or you can make another one if you destroy it. I decided I would practice what I was preaching.
Oh, here is something I have never mentioned. You CAN sharpen pocket knives for carving. People did that back in the day. They MUST have stiff blade hinges. One of my pocket knives had a loose blade and I nearly cut my finger several times when the blade buckled while working with it. That knife was not sharpened to the razor sharpness of the carving knives. The knives do not have to be the locking type where you push a button to close it, but must be stiff so takes some pressure to close them. I have one pocket knife with all three blades sharpened for carving, but all the blades don’t need to be sharpened for carving. Just one is really needed, and many people use the smallest blade for carving. The smallest blade, a lot of times has a rounded end which I find to be better for carving. Some people like the points, I have not found a big advantage to that.
A couple friends have birthdays about a month apart. I send them some items in the same package. I saw a picture on line that really caught my eye. I decided to paint something on the idea of that picture. I decided I would paint three cards, one for each friend and one for me. They were basically the same except for the focal point of the paintings. It is hard to get good details when painting on a standard sized greeting card. Also I am using the cheap bottles of acrylic paint and one does not get a good definition of colors with them. Unlike the expensive oil paints where you can get pure colors that will mix, the acrylic paints are combinations of colors and don’t mix. Unless you have every color available, you have to make do with the color combinations you have at hand. Anyway, I did the basic painting from memory before re-looking at the original picture. I finished the cards and got them ready to mail out on Monday. They are not bad, not as good as I was hoping, but not bad.
I was pretty much lazy this weekend. I accomplished a lot less than intended. I have enough projects planned to do that would take 8 hour days, every day, for about a month.
One medium priority project is to empty out the shed and see what is all in there. There are a lot of stuff I remember having but have not seen. I have a lot of stuff out at the work bench area that should be put away. It is best to dig everything out, find out what I have and then put stuff away the way they are supposed to be put away for best access.
I have more pressing projects ahead of that, though. It will mostly be a balance of what needs to be done, and what energy I have, and the opportunity. Plans change by the minute some times. I had only planned on making one set of knives. I never planned on sharpening kitchen knives.
I will see what I actually do next weekend.
2196
new blades
new knives
the top knife is the last "pointed" knife I made
the blue handle was made by my dad. note the point.
the next four knifes are new. the second from the bottom is the blade I broke when trying to pull it out.
sheaths for the knives.
extra bolts to hold the blocks in place on the lathe.
one of the three cards I painted. it is based on a picture I saw on facebook.
I painted them from memory, then looked at the original picture for a few details.
this one is looking at an orb.
as bad as it is, this one they are playing chess, which they were doing in the original picture.
here they are talking to a fairy.
the tree mentioned where we cut the branches off and heavily trimmed the roots because the tree had the nerve to go into the ground. we put it in a larger pot and stuck it out front. if it died, it died.
proof that it is still alive. next year it will have nice branches.
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