Year 21, Week 05, Day One (week 1099)
(January 17, 2000 was my first carving day.)
02-13-21 Saturday
76 degrees as the low, 82 as the high. Humidity in the 70s, but the brisk breeze kept it nice. There is a front sawing across the state to the north. Very early morning, it looked like blobs from it were heading our way. By the time I got out back to work the threats of liquid sunshine was gone. We had broken clouds in the morning and blue skies with clouds now and then during the day. Nothing like predicted. This weather report is brought to you by The City Of Pompano Beach Department Of Tourism.
Tomorrow is Valentine’s day. I decided to work on the puppy bouquet. I have never made one and was working from memory. There was a lot I did not know. Some I figured out by the time I was done.
I already had a small pail that had a citronella candle in it. Mom had already roughed cleaned it out. A few weeks ago I had cleaned it up more, scraping it, scrubbing it. Today, I decided to look again at Mom’s collection of pails again. In the very back of the cubby hole they were in was a pail painted blue. It really needed to be repainted, but I decided to use it as it was. I washed both pails in super hot water and soap, scrubbing them and then brought them out back and let them dry some. The first pail was galvanized. We had three cans of red spray paint and none of them would work. I found a blue spray paint and sprayed that. I found that it took all day to fully dry. That cause me to give up on trying a second puppy bouquet.
Expecting the possibility of liquid sunshine, I set up in the smallest area I could under the awning. I had intended to lay everything out and photograph it, but did not have room on the folding table I chose to work with. I have two folding tables. I used the smaller one.
I had three foam blocks to stick the flowers in. I cut one of the blocks in half. I then trimmed the two half blocks on an angle to fit the pail. I stuck the pieces in the spaces on both sides. One was thick enough but the other was a bit too small.
I started building the legs as I thought they should be using one of those “tuft”flowers where there are dozens of blossoms in cattail looking clump. I had some plastic fern and I cut sprigs off and stuck them between the legs. I kept working them so the sprigs would make a good separation between the legs. I then used medium white roses to build the head and body and I had some big roses or chrysanthemums for the muzzle and ears.
My first attempt was bad. I was about to take pictures and bumped it and it started falling apart. I decided to take it all apart and do it over.
I had various buttons to use for eyes but could not find them last week and could not find them today. I did have some googly eyes and decided to use the biggest ones of those. I decided the nose should be wood. I looked at some cuttings still sitting on the bandsaw and picked out a small piece and used my disk sander to rough shape it. Since the shape was acceptable, I took out a Stabilo and colored it black.
I had cut a pair of chop sticks and a wood dowel to hold the eyes and nose. I cut the big end of the chop sticks on an angle and glue the eyes to them. I also cut the dowel on an angle and glued the nose to that. The eyes had to be higher than the nose so the chop sticks were longer.
I tended to be in a hurry. I glued the nose and eyes on them and did not wait until the glue set to try to stick them into the puppy bouquet. The eyes mostly stayed on but the nose kept coming off. Once I had everything the way I wanted them, I set it to the side and did not touch it.
I then spent a lot of time packing everything up. That was when I found the buttons I could not find. The ones I was going to use for eyes was too small. The button I was going to shape to make a nose was not as good as the wooden one was. I sorted everything. The cut flower garbage went into one bag. I kept the cut wire stems and put them in another place. Wires can be used for many things. I had everything packed away, then sat with Mom and talked. She loved the bouquet.
Later in the day, I stopped at gave the flower bouquet to a friend. She first thought they were real flowers, then saw they were plastic, then backed up and saw the face. She instantly fell in love with it.
In the evening, I looked up PUPPY BOUQUET images on line and saw that while I had results, the ones on line looked like real puppies. I then watched some videos on how to make them, and I made my a bit too complicated. There are two levels of the puppy bouquets. One looks like the dogs they represent. The others are mainly the head and feet and other flowers hide the rest of it.
It would have been nice to have done the research before I started, but it was fun trying to figure it out. I will make another, but not for a little while.
I will see what I do tomorrow.
Year 21, Week 05, Day Two (week 1099)
(January 17, 2000 was my first carving day.)
02-14-21 Sunday
76 as the low, 84 as the high. Broken clouds early morning. The state took them back for repairs. Blue skies with wisps of clouds. Humidity in the mid 70s was helped some by a brisk breeze. Sometimes it still felt a bit stuffy. They suggested morning showers and afternoon showers. None shown up. This weather report is brought to you by The City Of Pompano Beach Department Of Tourism.
Over the years, I gifted or sold a bunch of wood turnings to my boss. He moved to another house and could not keep a lot of it so I got a milk crate of my woodworking back.
I had taken a plate I made and gave him, and sanded it really nice. Today I dug out the crate and sorted through the stuff. I found some of them just needed a cleaning sanding and revarnishing. Others needed some serious work. I picked out two apples and a bowl and decided to refinish them. The bowl is not something I made. I am sure, as the finish on it was nothing I would ever do. It was made of different boards stacked together. It just did not seem like something I had made. In that crate, there were a few other things I had not made. A couple I did not think I made until I picked out some clues on how they were made and were something I did.
The finish on one apple was really bad, flaky and mottled. The other just had a bad finish. I sat with some 80 grit sand paper and started sanding. first around the equator, then around the curve of the top. Then the curve of the bottom, then worked into the centers. I used power on a few places to get some hard to reach spots or some spots that would not sand properly. I cut off what remained of the stem and drilled that out. On the bottom is the remains of the flower. I had used a clove, which looks like the petal. Over time, it took a beating. I have no clue where my craft cloves might be now, and I don’t have that spice in my kitchen. I might have asked mom for some of hers but did not think of it.
I grabbed a piece of mahogany I had laying nearby and took an ax and a hammer and split a piece off. I then cut it into sections. I made stems for the top, using the dremmel and the knife. For the petal, I shaped it, using a sanding disk edge to cut three lines across the end. The ends and the stems would be glued in later.
On the bottom of the apples, I ground in the bumps that form on the bottom of the apples. One had six bumps, one ended up with four bumps. They were both supposed to have five. Using different grinding and sanding bits, along with hand sanding, I smoothed things out. I should have waited, but I glued the stem and bud in place and set the apples to the side. They are going to need to be sanded with much finer grit before I am done, and the bud and stem might be in the way in the finishing process. Both of these apples were made in mahogany. One was from two boards glued together. Thinking back, I may have been given some boards that were glued together and I used them for various projects as I am not good at gluing boards.
I then tackled the bowl. I am thinking that it was stained as part of the finish. There was a red or pink tinge to the varnish. I have never used colored varnish nor have I ever used a stain. I like the wood to be natural as possible.
On the inside, I used a one inch sanding disk to grind away the varnish on the inside bottom, and on the inside sides. This was a really course grit disk. I then went to a fiber disk and sanded the surfaces even more. Finally I hand sanded the inside, sometimes going back to the power to remove stubborn spots.
I then worked the outside. I tried to do it mostly with hand sanding. The underside bottom needed power to clean that up. The finish looked thick. I used power on several spots on the outside but mostly sat and sanded with sandpaper. When I decided to end. The bowl was well sanded, but still needed more. There were a few spots where it looked like there was some scuffed finish still lingering. I will save that for next time.
One piece I did not think I made, until I figured out how it was made, and I knew I made it. This is a turned piece with a drawer in it. At first, I could not figure out how to make the drawer. I think I had seen a club demonstration on how to make these and gave it a try.
What I had done was to cut the piece of wood into three parts. I think I roughed turned them first. The narrow middle I cut out the drawer. I think I used a scroll saw at that time. I likely used a dremel to hollow out the drawer. I then glued the pieces back in, locking the drawer in place somehow (or that part might have been finished turned already) and finished turning it. It was when I just barely saw the glue joint that I knew how I made it.
This would be a project to try again and see if it works the way I think I did. With greater skills, I can see other ways of doing it, but my description sounds about right.
I have loads of projects to work on. I will have to see what I dig into next time.
Will see what happens next weekend.
2005
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