Year 21, Week 07, Day One (week 1101)
(January 17, 2000 was my first carving day.)
02-27-21 Saturday
75 degrees early morning low, 82 high, some to few clouds, lots of Sun, moderate humidity with a brisk wind. This weather report is brought to you by The City Of Pompano Beach Department Of Tourism.
Yesterday I had plans for a number of projects. I stopped at the grocery store on the way to Mom’s to pick up some stuff I needed. I like shopping at a small independent grocery store, but find myself going to the big local chain more and more as they have stuff the small store does not have, even if it is more expensive...
Today, I mainly sanded. I’ve told you other weeks that I hate sanding, but for some strange reason, I sat and sanded. I ran across a bowl that turned out to be Camphor. This bowl was an early project and was originally made on a faceplate as there are four tiny screw holes on the flat bottom. The inside was rough and raw wood, and I have an idea that I had put it on the lathe and cut the inside thinner. The outside had varnish.
I’ve decided I am going to carve and pierce this into a leaf bowl. It is best to start the carving with the surface near finished condition. It does not need varnish, but should be sanded to about what one would finish. It makes it a bit easier if some of it does not need sanding. This bowl has a spot where the lip had chipped and I added multi colored filler to that spot.
After I sanded it fairly good, I marked down from the lip about three quarters of an inch with a pencil. I had made one of these years ago and it was really delicate. It also was in Camphor. Camphor is not a really strong wood. Oak of maple would be best for this but I don’t have those woods.
I decided having a good lip will make it a bit stronger. The center where the foot is will be solid also. Now I have to figure out what shape I am going to use to carve onto it. It has to be the right scale for the space I am working with.
I sanded the apples I finished last week with 400 grit sand paper and spray varnished them. I gave them several coats. They need a bit more clean up but look pretty good. Much better than they had before.
I also lightly sanded and re-varnished the bowl made by someone else. It looks pretty good. It could use more sanding and varnish, but it looks pretty good now. I like it much better than it was when I got it.
The bowl I modified the foot on needed to have some glue spots cleaned up. I sanded them well, then ended up sanding the whole bowl down almost to the wood. It needs more grits of sandpaper before it should be varnished again. I can see scores from the sandpaper I’ve used so far so it needs more careful sanding.
I had laying nearby a piece of wood with a branch sticking out of it. I though it might be a good test of what I learned on making a tea pot from my first attempt. This one would be made much the same way, but not making the same mistakes.
The top was cut on a sharp angle and the spout was on a sharp angle too. I bandsawed the top and while it was closer to straight, it was still on an angle. I mounted it on the lathe so the bottom and top were parallel and cut the top almost flat. The point of the tail stock limited my getting it absolutely flat. I then marked a bit closer to the spout with the tool and then bandsawed along the line it made. That piece cut off might be the lid. If it is not, I have more of the same wood to work with.
I used my knife to remove the bark and some knobs here and there. What I need to do now is to get out my drill and bore out the main hole and the hole for the spout. I will then mount it on the lathe and hollow it out properly. This is a strong wood so I want to remove the worst of the wood before I finish the hollowing on the lathe.
I saw a pair of mocking birds fighting over territory. I have no idea which one, but one had gone onto a wire and sang a little, then another showed up and they starting fighting, their fight went behind some trees and I did not see what happened. I did not hear either one after that.
I worked a bit on those scissors blades that I am making into knives. I got the angle more like what I am after, but have to remove more metal before I can take them to the hand stones. I would grind a bit and when the metal where I was holding them started feeling warm, I would swap to the other. I did that a couple times and then stopped, letting them cool. I will do more tomorrow.
One blade had a sharp angle to the handle. I had removed that, making this a shorter knife blade. There is the hole where the two blades hinged. On both of them, the tang that goes into the handle is ground past that hole. On the short blade, I ground it farther past the hole so the handle will have more to grab onto.
When I usually make my knives, I use a one piece, piece of wood and cut a slot and drill a hole to give room for the metal, and drive the tang of the blade into that. When I make the sheaths, I will have two pieces of wood and will mark around the blade, and then carve some of the wood out of one side and glue them together. When you stick the blade in, it fits pretty good, though a few times, the knife did not go all the way in for one reason or another.
The thought crossed my mind to make the handle in two pieces and carve around the spot where the hole is and use that nob to hold the blade in place. I doubt I will do that. I was going to say I did the handles that way too, then remembered I only do that for the sheaths. They don’t get as much force as the handles gets.
I did not feel like I accomplished much, but after writing this down, I did quite a bit. I hope to be even more productive tomorrow.
I will see what happens.
Year 21, Week 07, Day Two (week 1101)
(January 17, 2000 was my first carving day.)
02-28-21 Sunday
75 degrees early morning low, 82 high, Indian Clouds (Apache), then at about three a few puppy dog clouds zipped by and lifted their legs and then left. lots of Sun, moderate humidity (in the 70s) with a brisk wind well blocked by the house so I had to use the fan. This weather report is brought to you by The City Of Pompano Beach Department Of Tourism.
I took my Christmas out of the house and set it next to the garbage can to go out on garbage day. I had pulled the red bows off the tree and put them in a popcorn can. I changed them from that to the coffee can sized can back into the big one. Since it was all that was in it, I put them in the small can, then set the small can in the larger popcorn can. Next year, I might need the small can also. Since it already says ornaments on top, I will keep it.
When I got out to Mom’s house, I painted ORNAMENTS on my two full ornament cans. The one with the bow had it already written on the lid. Back in the 80s, I had taken sign painting and calligraphy and have since forgot most of it. It requires eye hand coordination and muscle memory, and I was bad with the eye hand coordination back then, and I have none of the muscle memory. The cans are lettered, on the sides and on the top so I will know what they are when I see them in six months to a year from now.
I started working on those two scissor blades that I am making into a knife. The short blade needs a lot of work, even after I put it to the grinder, which I need to do some more. The long one was coming in nice. I worked mainly on the long one, using the 180 grit diamond stone and just ground and ground. It took some time but, because I had a good angle on it from the grinder, I was able to get it close to where it needs to be.
I decided to try to make a new handle. I took one knife I had and was cutting on a piece of that mystery wood I got from work, that I have used for many projects. One of the knives I was looking suddenly bent in the handle. I pulled and it came out. The wood broke.
I cut a slot, then drilled a hole for the tang in the new handle I was making. I had made it wrong, cutting away too much wood. I trimmed the snout of the old knife handle, sanded it, and then opened up the hole for the blade tang a little more. I then drove both blades into the handles.
The handles split. That is when I realized that, One, I was driving the short blade into the new handle, not that there would have been a difference. Two, I was using that mystery wood for both handles (old one was made of it) and it can be split fairly easily.
My best handles were in something called BISHOP’S WOOD. I am out of that. I also used black walnut. I don’t have good pieces. I also have used Mahogany. These have all done fairly well. I do have mahogany so I guess that is what I am going to be using instead of the mystery wood. That will be for next week I think.
I had a tray of screws and nails and other things. A while back I had sorted it. I stopped at a store after leaving the gas station this morning and they had a pack of 10 lunch containers for five bucks. These are two section containers. I took that tray out and sorted again the contents, putting them into different containers and different sections of the containers.
Instead of one open tray, they are now in 9 separate containers, a bit better sorted. I have one container left empty. Will use that later. While the containers might not survive well outside, their contents are no longer outside in the weather and even easier to see where what is at. They really should be in glass jars hanging from a shelf in the garage or work shop, but this will do well for now.
I was in the process of already cleaning up, putting things away when we noticed the sky became grey and misty. Soon I was smelling rain, the wet dust being kicked up. I was putting my basket away when it was sprinkling on us, but it never became hard. It was a heavy mist for the most part. It came down just enough to wet the pavement before it was gone, about ten minutes total. Radar showed some east-west dots moving over us heading north.
I did not accomplish a whole lot this weekend, but I enjoyed being outside. I got some work done that I wanted to do and (sanding) that I did not really want to do but seemed to be the right thing to do at the time.
I hope to be more productive next week, but will have to see what happens.
2063
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