Year 20, Week 45, Day one (week 1087)
(January 17, 2000 was my first carving day.)
11-26-20 Thursday ThanksGiving Weekend
Last week I finished my ornaments for the year. I have two kinds of boats, Orca and Dolphin, pianos, two kinds of guitars, two kinds of drum sets, and Banjos. I tried many more designs and they were either not satisfying or were going to be a serious amount of work I did not want to do.
Now I have to work out what artwork will be in my Christmas cards. I have plenty of snowmen, lighted trees inside and out, fire places and windows. I have to find a design that is easy to do in great numbers, but something different than what I have done so far.
Because it was Thanksgiving, I was involved in indoor projects in the morning. We had decided that our three families will have our Thanksgiving dinner individually. Mom cooked the turkey, stuffing and mashed potatoes and had someone deliver the food to the other two families.
I took a nice nap and spent the last of the day talking to mom.
Year 20, Week 45, Day one (week 1088)
(January 17, 2000 was my first carving day.)
11-27-20 Friday
Blue skies, with clouds, low 80s with almost no humidity. There was some showers to the south and to the north but none here. This weather report is brought to you by The City Of Pompano Beach Department of Tourism.
I ran to some stores, helped rearrange the living room, worked on some quick projects.
After I took a quick nap, then went out back to work. I took out the metal lathe and started machining some drill bits so they could fit in the dremel. I only worked a couple hours and had four drill bits modified so they would work. The main reason I stopped working was the motor overheated. The safety refused to let the motor run any more until it cooled down completely.
Year 20, Week 45, Day one (week 1088)
(January 17, 2000 was my first carving day.)
11-28-20 Saturday
Blue skies, with clouds, low 80s with almost no humidity. There was some showers to the far south but they were leaving. This weather report is brought to you by The City Of Pompano Beach Department of Tourism.
I got a late start, going to a few stores, then went out back. Most of the year, I was bringing a basket full of project and supplies out back with me. Today I left it inside. I dug out the lathe and the dremel box. I emptied the dremel box completely, dumped out some accumulated sawdust, then got my drill bits together. I ended up with two batches of drill bits.
One by one, from the largest to the smallest, I was machining the shafts of the drill bits to fit the dremel. I removed the chuck from the dremmel and made sure that the bits not only fit in the jaw, but could pass through the slightly narrower shaft.
Yesterday, I found one drill bit would not cut. The very end was soft enough to cut but closer to the flutes of the drill, it was hardened. I tried it a couple times. It was not until I changed bits, and after getting some cutting oil, that I got some results.
I was using bits with interchangeable triangle bits. I broke a couple triangle tips in the process. I got a lot of where the rod bent slightly and rode up onto the bit. I got a bunch of times where a piece of the metal would cut thick and curl and catch on the cutting bit and stopping the lathe. Most of the time the motor still spun but the belts would be slipping.
At this time of the year (with the loss of daylight savings time), the sun starts showing under the awning after three. That was when I started packing up. I figured that when the sun went low enough, it would be too dark under the awning to work. I was happy that I made all the drill bits fit the dremel. Once I got down to a certain size (working from the biggest down), nothing would need to be done as the bits would already fit the chuck. I think I counted 14 bits I converted.
I had emptied my dremel box and found more drill bits. Had I known I had them, I would not have purchased the bits I did a few weeks back.
It is surprising how when you empty a box, when you put stuff back in, there is never as much room as you started with...
Year 20, Week 45, Day one (week 1088)
(January 17, 2000 was my first carving day.)
11-28-20 Saturday
81 degrees, very low humidity. It showered slightly last night but was dry all day long. It was mostly sunny with some clouds moving across the sky. This weather report is brought to you by The City Of Pompano Beach Department Of Tourism.
I had a special project to work on today. After I did a run to gas up, and then look for some things mom wanted that turned out not to be available, I went out back to work.
I had to set up two folding tables. One folding table had my carving basket, the dremel box and the contents of the lathe box, including the lathe. Even then there wasn’t quite enough room and I was up and down on my feet quite a bit.
The bottom of the lathe box was breaking away. I knew that there were problems with a couple of the sides of the lathe box also.
With the lathe box empty, I took a small hatchet and hammer and went over the different sides of the box. Bugs attached one wall. I found that they ate the layer of the plywood just under the surface. I scraped the bug damaged material off. The bottom was in really bad condition. I removed the plywood from three quarters of the bottom. The last quarter was strong yet.
After I finished cleaning, I took some remaining thin plywood I had purchased for other projects. I measured by laying the plywood on the box. I had to straighten the edge of the remaining plywood and then cut the new plywood to fit. It was thinner than the original plywood but I went with it. One section crossed the whole box but there was a small section left. I had another board and could have cut it to fit, but instead, I took a smaller section of plywood and cut it in half and had the two halves sitting on two wall, touching the larger piece meeting in the center. Yes, the joint might not be as strong as it should be, but I figure it would work. I used A-B epoxy to hold the plywood in place. The box had a fiberboard over the bottom wood I had pried that off and I spread glue all over the surface of the plywood and laid that back on. I then drove in brads at about 3" spacing all the way around the box bottom. I was surprised when I looked inside the box that none of the nails were showing. Between the epoxy, the glue and the brads, I figure the bottom of the box will be strong enough for how it is used.
There were several U shaped fittings on the inside to hold things in place. Except for the center divider, they went easily in their original locations. Nails stuck out in a couple spots to take them in place. While I cleaned their bottoms, I put them in, upside down to improve the glue bond.
The center divider was a bit of a problem. The original wood it was attached to did not survive the years. What I did was to glue and brad nailed some pieces of wood to it, then glued it to the bottom. I really needed to screw or nail them to the floor, but could not find a screw the right length. I ended up leaving it with just the glue. At the end of the day, I had to put everything back in the box and I moved the center divider a few times putting it back in place. How well it holds will have to be seen next weekend. I may have to run screws in the blocks and then grind off the ends on the bottom. Will have to see.
I reached for the drill bits to show my brother and dropped it. Bits everywhere. I picked up most of them, used a magnetic tipped rod to try to find more. After everything was put away, I ran a wheeled magnet over the ground and found a few more, really small ones mostly.
I am still surprised at the results I had this weekend. Getting all the drill bits machined to fit the dremel was really something. Then fixing the box so it is useable again was also great. My brother took a large drill bit set with him. He will de-rust them, and then sharpen all of them. I need to have a different way to hold drill bits both for the dremel and for this big set. The hard part is to have the drill bits under control but not taking very much space.
Next week, I am thinking that I will run the sander on the outside of the lathe box to make it look cleaner. I do have a hole to fill on the lid. It was suggested that I should sand and varnish the box so it looks nice and hold up a bit longer. That might be my project next week if the weather is good enough.
Some coffee cans have a soft aluminum seal. You peal it off to access the coffee. I’ve collected them for several years. One project I would like to try it to work that soft aluminum into some roses. I know the concept in theory, but execution will be something else. It would be a good present for someone I know.
Tomorrow, though, I will bring my Christmas ornaments to work to show them off. Some people have purchased them. I always have ornaments from previous years to choose from. Each year, some of the new ornaments are gifted to members of the family and to some close friends.
We are talking about putting up my tree. I have ornaments from every year I have done ornaments and they are in a box. I now have to try to find out what I did with that box. Things have moved around a lot this year and it will be an interesting treasure hunt.
I will see what I actually do next weekend.
1824
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