Year 21, Week 02, Day one (week 1096)
(January 17, 2000 was my first carving day.)
01-23-21 Saturday
Temps starting with a 56 low and rising to 77 high. 66 when I went outside to work. Mostly blue skies with some clouds. It was sunny all day long. This weather report is brought to you by The City Of Pompano Beach Department Of Tourism.
I am making hearts for Valentine’s Day and needed to do some hand painting on them. I painted a white heart in the middle of the red painted hearts. I found that the gloss spray paint I painted them with last weekend did not let the acrylic paint I was using to stick easily. I had lots of touch up where the almost dried paint would touch something and leave a hole. Also, my paint was not the best and the white heart has ridges and blobs. I did figure out that if you have streaks on the first coat, brush across the streaks to cover. There tends to be light ridges that will scrape the paint off into the streaked area.
On the Camphor hearts, I painted pink around the edges, leaving the center bare. After that paint dried, I wrote on the edges to “lightly sand the center to release the smell”.
I had to do some corrections and used my knife to scrape the new paint from the area that was not supposed to be painted. Not great but did the job.
I noticed that some of the lights on my Christmas tree have gone out. There appears to be three strings of lights and the top and bottom strings are out. I now have the choice to either buy a new tree or spend the time to find the dead light. New trees are not available now. I will have to see if I remember, and have the money, next year. I am planning on taking off my ornaments and putting up the hearts. I might make some paper hearts also.
I get all sorts of crochet and cooking emails in one of my E-mail accounts. I saw one tonight about Valentine’s Day, and looked at it. I found and followed a link and learned how to make simple hearts. I dug some pink type yarns out of my lifetime supply of yarn in my stash and will make a bunch of hearts in crochet. They look pretty good. I have made some operator errors, but they will be passable.
Years ago, I sold some turned pieces to my boss. He got remarried and moved in with his wife, and gave me some of the pieces back. Many of them had seen better times. I took a yellow pine platter I made, that now some had paint on it, and sanded it. I tried to power sand it with a small 40 grit sanding disk on the dremmel and it really scored the wood. It removed the paint but scored the wood. I then spent much of the day sanding out the scratches. I sanded it with different grits up to 240 grit and it really looks nice. When I made it, it was not sanded that well. It had a really good patina, then I remembered I likely gave it an oil coat. Add mineral oil or vegetable oil and you can use it for foods. The oil acts like a protective coating, like used on the cutting boards. That will be for a later time.
I worked on my tea pot. I did it wrong, of course, but I dug out a piece of mahogany and turned it on the lathe, half on one side since I could not reach inside the lathe chuck, then half on the other with a bit of the square in the middle. I then bore out the inside until the lid just fit. Then I made my mistake. I should have left it at that for now. And cut just a portion of it off. And then fit the back side of the slice to fit the tea pot. Instead, I bore the back side out more, and then cut a thin rim to fit the pot. In the end, my “sleeve” was way too thick. I guess I could cut it off and do it right. I will decide later.
I used the lathe to shape a piece of wood for the knob. It was too short to shape the waist on the lathe. The jaws, when closed, has a tiny hole in the center where they meet. When you open it up some, you can grab something of small diameter into it. On the knob, I could cut straight in, but to shape the waist would have the cutting tool too close to the spinning jaws. I made the sides straight.
I cut a handle to fit the pot. With the handle, I needed it to follow the curve and shape of the tea pot so I held some sandpaper against the pot and worked the handle up and down, side to side to get it to match the curves. The body of the tea pot is not round, but has some shallow where the wood was depressed. I ground quite a bit to correct some of it but it still has a lot of unevenness, and a thin, flexible, sandpaper and moving the handle just a little slowly is working it to match the curve of the pot. I think I still have more to do.
I have made so many mistakes with this tea pot you cannot believe it. I am just trying to save it and make it look halfway nice. The next one I do will be better, I know, but still I am going to rescue this in some way. I will learn all I can from this project.
See what I do tomorrow.
Year 21, Week 02, Day Two (week 1096)
(January 17, 2000 was my first carving day.)
01-24-21 Saturday
79 high, 64 low, clear in the morning, thin puff cloud build up after ten. Sun showed most all day in spite the clouds. Light breeze, not enough to move a piece of paper, kept it nice. This weather report is brought to you by The City Of Pompano Beach Department Of Tourism.
A couple weeks ago, I picked up another pack of rotary rasps. I had machined one ball style rotary rasp so it would fit the dremel, but was dissatisfied with the results. The shaft I machined was way too short for my comfort. Last night, I had the idea of fitting the head into a round piece of wood where it is drilled to fit the head, the burrs are fitted so they do not hold the head off center and hold it firmly. Well, that was the idea. In practice, I could not figure out how to hold the other end in place so the piece would be held straight. I needed to pock the end so the point of the tail stock had something to hold onto. I could not quite figure out how to do that and get is centered.
As usually happens, I broke something. I had a face plate with a lathe dog. I did not understand how it was used. I over tightened it with the idea of keeping the piece held in place, and the lathe dog broke. It was likely made of pot metal, like most of the lathe. Talking to my brother, I learned that the purpose of the lathe dog is mainly to force something to rotate that would be difficult to otherwise rotate. My brother suggests that I make a new lathe dog, but this time out of steel.
To do what I want to do on that rotary rasp, and on some other projects I gave though about, I would have to make some parts to do it.
I took the tea pot to the bandsaw and cut two slices off the mahogany I had added around the lip. I was thinking of using one ring to fit into the larger hole (it got bigger going down). Once I cut them off, I saw that would not work. I then found that the lid fit in the hole. I sanded it a lot and that became a dark rim at the joint. I also glued the other ring on the bottom of the tea pot. It seemed to be something that would help, make the one at the joint seem more logical.
I decided to work on the knob I made yesterday. Spinning it in my finger, one side at a time, I had a drum-style grinding bit that I held about mid way and created a waist that flares to the roof of the lid and to the ball on top. With some sanding I glued it in place. After about 45 minutes, I dropped the lid and the knob came off, which was after I had thought it was set in place. So I glued it back on. I have not dropped it since so it should stick well. I think I did not get the shape of the bottom of the knob to fit the cup at the top of the lid. Actually, I should have sanded the lid top flat and the bottom of the knob flat. Hindsight....
I finished shaping and sanding the handle, and after drilling holes in the handle itself, for securing it a little better, I glued it in place. After the glue held, I drilled through the holes into the body of the vase a little bit, not deep, and then glued skewers in place. Hopefully, they are in deep enough to give the handle plenty of strength. I went by feel and might not have gone in much.
I was reminded that every tool does damage to the piece you are working on. Some, like drills, cause damage you want. Sometimes though, the damage is unwanted. I used a drum style grinding bit with long burs sticking out to remove wood and shape the tea pot. While it nicely removed wood, it left little scores all over the wood surface. I sat and sanded and sanded. For the worst spots, I used a sanding drum on the dremel, but most of it was by hand. Have I told you I hate sanding? I still have more to do, and have to clean up glue and such, but the vase is coming together. I should be able to finish it next weekend.
I had made several hearts in crochet yesterday and made some more today. I saw one heart pattern where it is stuffed, and has wings attached. I experimented with making a wing. For one of my flat hearts. I have the concept but did not quite do it right. Yesterday I pulled out what I thought was pink yarn from my stash. I found out when I saw them in the sun, these were orange. I will use them anyway. I also dug out some white today and edged one heart. It looks good. While the hearts are not spectacular, they will do with what I have planned. They are fast to do so it won’t be a big chore to make a bunch of them.
My brother and I talked about videos that we watched. It was nice to just sit and talk. He told about projects he is working on. He is in the process of making a rotary table accessories that will allow him to make gears for one of his lathes. With the right gears, he will be able to make all kinds of threads. This week, he had a learning experience. He followed the dimensions exactly on the plans he was following, and learned afterwards that the math was wrong. He made a new one with the right math. He is doing all the work he can do with the lathe on this project before he goes to the milling machine. There is like half an hour of setup to change from lathe to milling machine, which includes a lot of cleaning. The less swapping between the two processes, with the lathe spinning the part, while milling is spinning a cutting bit, the better his limited time will be served.
If I make the lathe dog on my machine, I will have to put the lathe into milling mode, were the motor is facing downward on a shaft and the part is on a plate with all sorts of things to hold the metal in place. My brother replaced my motor with a freezer fan motor and it is a lot more powerful than the original one. It will be interesting to see how it machines. It might eat metal nicely.
Something else I need, for both my lathes, is a center rest. This is a device, sometimes with wheels, sometimes with just rods, to support a piece in the center so it does not wobble. This is really needed for really long pieces. On my big lathe, I often work on something that is either too long or not easy to hold with a chuck. I have worked on pieces that would bend as I tried to make my cuts. A steady rest would stop that from happening as it would be right near the place you are cutting, eliminating any bending.
I still have loads of projects to work on for next weekend. My boss had given me some items I had sold to him that he could not keep once he moved in with a new wife. I cleaned up a plate he returned, yesterday. The thought that crossed my mind was to carve something into it he loves and also carve his name. I did that many years ago. I will have to see if that happens.
I will have to see what happens next weekend.
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