Week 591 woodworking

year 11, Week 17, Day One (week 591) (January 17, 2000 was my first carving day.) 05-07-11 Saturday

86 degrees in the morning, 90 degrees in the afternoon, a very light breeze that made the trees wave their little fingertips, and take away whatever heat there might have been. half clouds half sun kept the reflective heat down. This weather report is brought to you by the City of Pompano Beach Department of Tourism, Florida's Warm Welcome.


Friday

Last week I had filled in some cracks in the Sea Grape bowl I re-worked with wood filler. While digging for something, I found I had some decorator sand in several colors. I had seen in the club where they pulverized stone to make inlay. I decided the sand was about the size I could use for inlay. I scraped the filler out and cut some cracks a little bigger. Using super-glue, I set the purple sand in cracks. I had a bright red and now think that would have been better. You are actually wanting the inlay to stand out. I also have yellow and white sand. I nearly made it flush but have more sanding to do as I got super glue on the surface in one place and when I added a coat of varnish, it stood out. I have to add some more coats of super glue to get the proper surface on the inlay, making sure the spaces between the stones are filled. It looks good.

Sea grape bowl with purple sand inlay

SATURDAY

We went yard sailing in the morning. A friend had a yard sale so we went to it. I picked up a boombox. The CD does not work but the radio works perfectly. It is replacing a radio I have at home.


Boom box I got at yard sale. works great enough

I picked up some Campbell’s cook booklets. don't need them but she pushed them on me. I don't follow recepies very often.


Campbell's cook booklets


There was some porcelain dolls there. One in yellow and one in blue. I absolutely loved the blue dress she had on, and her face was perfect. She was beautiful. She is now on one of my shelves.
I am more picky on what porcelain dolls I buy than the teddy bears I bring home. With this one, her expression was just right. her dress color is my favorite blue, the price was right, and also it was from a friend. I haven't a clue where to look and what to look for to find out if there is collector value to her. I did not buy her to sell her. She is now on a shelf in my living room, protected by half a dozen fairies and a wizard.



Three views of the doll



At another yard sale, Mom and I picked up a "saws all" by Makita that will be a birthday present for my brother. It is new, never been used. The price was pretty good too.



The fordum - motor, shaft with a bit in it, and a foot pedal speed control




Unimat metal working machine in the lathe configuration


Unimat metal working machine in milling machine configuration
same motor unit mounted onto a shaft to point down.

The turning club periodically have club challenges. These challenges are to get people to make something they never made before, rarely or in a very long time. At one time there was a beginner and advanced competition, but they decided to take the competition out. Now when one brings them in, you get a raffle ticket. They then draw tickets from a hat for the winners.
Next month they will have a challenge of making spin tops. I decided to make one.
My very first one was out of a two by two and I had the proportions wrong. It won't spin. Not broad enough for the height and it has a big nob on top that reduces the spin you can impart. That will now be a dangle Christmas ornament.

little spin top was my first attempt, and second attempt is the big spin top.

I then took a piece of four by four yellow pine post. I got the shape right, but when I tried to spin it, it was not spinning well. After looking at it a while, I got out my Fordum with an aggressive grinding bit and started decorating it. At first I planned on having it hollow with fillagree, but should have hollowed it out first for that. Instead, since it was solid, I started grinding it out so it would have spokes. I had four spokes that were flat vanes.
I decided to remove the webbing so the four spokes became eight spokes, four top four bottom. When I was about done, one set of the spokes had broken through because of a flaw in the wood. I chose the wrong location for the spacing of the spokes. I then removed that pair of spokes, and then the opposite pair of spokes,
The inside of the outer rim is rough. I will set it in the lathe, and hold the grinder at the thinnest place on the rim. I will then turn the piece against the grinder so it ends up the same thickness all the way around. I will have to do some shaping of the spokes so they will look good too.

I took the last three sidewalk bolts and squared the heads in the grinder so they are closer to being a T-slot bolt than what they were. I left them slightly larger so when I machine them, I can get them centered on the shaft. It only took a couple minutes for them while it took me like an hour for the one I machined entirely.
I should pick up a few more of them and prepare them too. When I get to machining, I can do some production machining, one after the other. I need them in different lengths so I could use quite a few of them.
I could well make them entirely on the grinder, but I have to do more setup than I have done so far. I just held them in the plyers and pushed them into the grinder until they looked close to size. The grinder could well be a lot faster to finish these up. I do need more practice in setting up to machine. Setting up the parts in the machine is really what machining is all about.

Tomorrow, I will finish up the top I started, and may make another one. I would like to make the next spin top hollow. I need practice with that anyway. These could be a nice turned Christmas ornament to offer next year.
I will likely work a bit on those T-slot bolts. I have a face vase that needs more work on, a vase that I want to carve flowers on, and a number of various projects to work on along with anything new I might thick of.

I will see what I actually do tomorrow.


year 11, Week 17, Day Two (week 591) (January 17, 2000 was my first carving day.) 05-08-11 Sunday

84 degrees in the morning, 90 in the afternoon, light breeze to make things comfortable but not enough to move sawdust around. We had variable clouds, clear blue skies when I arrived at mom's house, A while later a rippled shield was over us, then patchy clouds, then blue sky, then patchy clouds. It was different every time I looked up. This weather report was brought to you by the City Of Pompano Beach Department of Tourism.

After arriving, I took pictures for my mom, and then took pictures of all her flowers. I took flower pictures yesterday but some did not come out so I took more. I also got pictures of the Curly tailed lizards and the cats. I plan to put them on line sometime this week.

After I got all the equipment out, I decided I would take a grinding bit I got from my dad, which has a shaft a drill can use, and make it so it will work with the Fordum and dremmel. I had a little bit of difficulty keeping it in the machine lathe and it damaged some of the spurs on the grinding bit, but I got the shaft down to where the smaller machines can hold onto it. I only did a little of the end so I could also hold it in the drill.

I took the top I made yesterday and mounted it in my wood lathe. Using a sanding bit, I held the sanding bit in place and rotated the work so any high spots were ground down. I cleaned up the inside of the outer rim and a few other places. It looks pretty good, but could have been done better.

Finished big spin top. and little top


I sanded more on the bowl I added inlay on. It is looking a bit better. I will do some finishing on it during the week.

I used the hole saw in the drill press to cut some disks out of 3/4 board. I then ran screws into the holes and mounted them on the lathe. I trued up the disks and then undercut the inside and outside. These are the wheels for the cannon I am making for my grandnephew.

I cut some boards for the toy cannon I am making. I got the body of the cannon assembled. I cut three boards the same size, one had the two wheels cut out of it. The second was cut for the body. the third had a strip cut from it. I was able to make all the pieces I needed from what I had left, cut-offs from the body.
I have to add the pivot rod for the barrel and install the wheels. I also have to add dowels to peg the pieces together. Glue is not strong enough to hold it together under the destructive power of a little child.

Little toy cannon. body all glued together. Needs a little clean up
and some childproofing before wheels and barrel goes on.

While I had a lot of projects in mind to work on, I did get a bit done, though it was not as productive a day as I had hoped. It never is. All those projects are still available to work on next week.

I will see what I actually do next week.

May 02, 2011 Did You Write?

May 02, 2011 Did You Write?

Another week has arrived. I can see from some of the posts in previous weeks that some people are actually getting the effect of this note. Many of us have writing goals, some met them, others missed. The goal this note pushing for is to write something, anything, during the week. It is aimed at those of us who write once a month, or once every few months. It is also to keep the rest of us active and writing.
You know the note is coming each week and you want to report favorably about your writing, so you will open something, anything, to report that you wrote. The hope is that even if you failed, that you post about what is going on in your life.
Those who write regularly and write volumes of work are asked to post as it gives the rest of us a view of what we could be if we got off our lazy duffs and started writing.

How much we write is unimportant. One word, a paragraph, a thousand pages, does not matter here. If you are editing, your word count could go up, go down or even stay the same. I have had times where I have struggled with a section, and got almost nothing done, while other times the words flowed like a river. While high word counts are nice, they are not important.

What is writing is wide open. We all know that new writing is writing. Editing is also writing, even if it is the work of others. Critiques are also writing and count as such. Poetry, articles, technical writing, blogging, writing assignments, world and character creation, and even E-mails can be writing if they are wordy and pertain to story or writing. If you have to ask if it is writing, it is. Of course, you may choose not to count many of these. It is up to you. It is better if you count them as your writing as it makes you look more productive.

As for me, Yes, I did write. I am writing my third Waxy story. It is more about the plot right now than anything. The writing itself is poor, but I think my plot will be good. When I reach the end, I will do heavy editing to make some attempt to bring it into shape, let alone up to level. It is not the story I planned it to be, but it is a good story as it is. I can always hope it will be super when I am done. As it is, I wrote THE END on this rough draft tonight at 6182 words on page 14. That was 4776 words this week. So much for crap. Now to make it good.

On the story idea front. I have, including what I am posting tonight, 43 story ideas in the compost pile. I have come up with some good ideas, but have posted them as fast as I have gotten them. the new ideas are always better than old ones for reason.
Last month. I did fairly well on the story idea front. I ended up posting 31 story ideas amounting to 30 pages, with a total of 17518 words. Many really deserved more than I did to them. They should be written into published form. Since I don't have the time, I hope someone here likes them enough to make them into something.
I work from the concept that if twenty people wrote from one of my story ideas, there would be twenty different stories that will result. That is why I never worry about any great story I post in the story ideas.
Another thing is that one might take my original concept, or might take one bit of my presentation to create a story, or it might just seed some other concept. Because of that, those who don't like to use other people's ideas, can pick bits and pieces as a jump off point of one of their works and not be borrowing from someone else's work. A good number of my story ideas is taken from songs, advertisements, or reports of stories or movies. What I end up with is not the same thing as what seeded the concept. I would expect the same for everybody else who uses these too.

Outside writing, I messed with my little metal working lathe. I attempted two ways of making a project. I need some screws with special heads. I decided I would make my own.
My first attempt which was to make it from raw bar stock, showed me my methods and concepts will work, but I forgot several steps and stopped long before I got farther than humiliating the piece of metal.
My second attempt was to take some wide head screws I found and make the head smaller and square as I needed. That worked nicely. While machining them was fun, I can save myself a lot of time by grinding the excess metal off and then using the machining to finish the job.
For wood working, I took a bowl I made in 2004 that was poorly designed. it was thick and clunky. I used a mounting system that I worked out over the past few months and re-worked it. After it is heavily sanded and finished, it will be a really nice bowl.
I started my third cannon. this one is going to my grandnephew. It is small. I made the barrel. It needs a little work but looks good. I will make the carriage for it over the next month. These care kind of fun to make.

As to the question of the week, I can say

YES, I DID WRITE!

DID YOU WRITE?

Week 590 Wood Working

year 11, Week 16, Day One (week 590)
(January 17, 2000 was my first carving day.)
04-30-11 Saturday

85 degrees early morning, I forgot to check the high temps. Mostly and partly cloudy, with one pregnant cloud to the south in the afternoon leaving wet streets to drive on when I went home. A good wind blew light sawdust around and made things very comfortable. This weather report was brought to you by the City of Pompano Beach Department of Tourism.

FRIDAY

I brought my stuff to the antique shop. I took just about everything I had in turning.
He had taken over the store front next door and moved half his stuff over there. It made for easy walking and great looking. I drooled all over the place for stuff he had. One guy rented some space and had some tools I loved. some planes, some blacksmith tongs, cooking implements, and even an old time soldering iron where you stuck it in the fire to heat it up.
My table was in use. We decided to take a section of wall for my stuff. I laid out my stuff and it just looked junky. I decided to use two of the boxes to give some of my stuff separation. I came up with a pretty good display after some work. I also displayed nearly everything I brought. I could well have put it all out, but decided they were not needed.

My antique shop display


SATURDAY


It was getting light when I got to my mom's house at 8:30. It was dark just a couple weeks ago.
We checked on two yard sales and neither were out. That gave me more time to work.

The cats wanted extra attention. Scar Face has been fighting again. He is in good shape but has some pin scabs everywhere. I assume he wins most of his fights.
The beast acted so much like a cat for much of the day. He did pat at me with closed claws when I did something he did not like, but basically wanted attention and got quite a bit.

I have a box of pieces that desperately need work. I took a Sea Grape bowl I made in 2004. It was thick and clunky. When I turned it, one part of the original under-bark wood surface still showed. One of the points for my tail stock has a ring with a sharp point in the center. I had a tiny hole near where the original center was so I put that center point into the hole. It was not exactly centered but that did not bother me.
I flattened the bottom, then reshaped the outside. I got rid of all but a tiny bit of that original surface and sanded the outside quite a bit. I still had some tool marks but really could not get rid of them.
I flipped the bowl around and worked the inside, reaching in with the tool next to the center which was now deep inside at the bottom. I cleaned up the inside and changed its shape to match the outside more. The bowl is not really much smaller than it was, but it feels and looks smaller. It is much nicer.
I filled some tiny shrinkage cracks and bark inclusions and then after that sanded the surface filler away. It needs hand sanding and then finishing. It looks a lot better.
What I am doing is fitting the chuck into the interior of the bowl, and simply using the pressure of the tail stock and friction of the chuck against the inside wood to hold the piece in place while I work. When I turned the piece around, I had a "foot" around the rim of the bottom and the bottom was inset. I opened the jaws of the chuck to apply outward pressure on that ridge to spin the piece, and then used the tail stock to push into the bottom of the bowl. Simple holding and pressure kept the work in place.
After I was finished, I used a grinder to remove the nub on the bottom and flatten the inside bottom so they were both flat.

The original bowl. Notice how thick the edge is. It was thicker inside.


Inside of the remade sea grape bowl



Bottom of remade sea grape bowl

During the week, I came up with a great design for a part holder for my milling machine operations on my little lathe. This was a holder to stop slippage for side to side motion. The design was essentially a cross shape, one part had two slot screws to hold it in place, and the other was a sliding piece that went across it. I figured a dovetail joint would work perfectly here.
The idea was that the two screws could be in the same T slot or separate slots. The arm would stick out and touch the work piece to prevent twisting or sliding, depending on where I put it.
I looked at my work and had some pieces I really did not want to cut up, partly because I did not want to take the time to cut them, and then there was the fact that I could use them for something else.
Looking at my pieces, I got the idea that I could use some metal disks, like washers, my brother created when he used a hole saw to cut some sheet metal. I could simply put a T nut through the hole and bolt it in place. It would simply add extra friction to prevent movement.

I needed some T bolts so I took a piece of rod bigger than I needed and set up the milling machine. I changed my design several times and worked out the best way to work. I did make several mistakes which I worked out after the fact. Every one of them can be easily solved.
I used the milling machine to cut the sides of the rod until they were narrow enough to fit into the T-slots. Before I had done anything, I should have used the lathe to find the center of both ends. One end had a bit of metal machined out of it and that created problems in getting it centered.
I milled the sides of the bar for a short length and but did not mill the end square which would have been a good idea too.
The machined end was useful in placing one of my clamps to hold it in place firmly. It just would have been nice to know where the center was first.
After I had the end machined for the T slot, I mounted it in the lathe (taking the motor off the upright shaft and placing it in the base) I could not quite get it centered on either end because my chuck is a three jaw chuck and the milled sides required it to be held in a four jaw chuck. I did not have the exact center of the other end so I had to guess. the piece was just not quite centered. I figured I could make adjustments in the end.
I started reducing the diameter of the bar. I have to do it in two steps. I did not have enough room to machine the entire length.
What I wanted to do is to reduce the diameter down to that of a standard nut, and then thread it over the entire length so I would have my own machined T bolt. Until this week, I never considered being able to make my own screws and nuts. I now know I can, but have to plan ahead a bit better.

I took the day easy beyond that. I have a large number of projects to work on but did not get to them.
My brother had fixed my FORDUM last week. the switch was mis-wired in the factory. The wires were supposed to cross and instead they twisted them so they did not cross. He got the wires right and it works great.
A FORDUM is a motor connected to a shaft. Dremmels have such shafts available, but the FORDUM is much more powerful. They also come with a foot switch where you can control the speed of the tool easily. It costs about four times that of the Dremmel.
I used it today and it worked perfectly. My dad used FORDUMS all the time. He has hooks along the workbench so you can hang the Fordum motor so it is out of the way. this is the first time I used the hooks since he died.

I stopped at ACE HARDWARE. I was looking for square headed nuts or square headed bolts. They had what are called SIDEWALK BOLTS. These are bolts that have like a one inch diameter slotted heads. I am thinking they are used to fill the screw holes that your shutters bolt into. That is a guess anyway.
I decided it would be much easier to machine those heads to fit my slots, than it was to make my own bolts. the bolts and a nut was cheap enough for an experiment.

A few weeks ago, I picked up a microwave at a yard sale, from a friend. Because the cord was about two feet too short, I plugged it into what looked like a very strong power strip. I found that when I ran it for longer than ten minutes, it would flip the strips breaker because it was heating it up. While I was at ace, I picked up a three foot cord designed for heavy appliances like air conditioning. I won't worry about this extension cord.

I am not sure what will be happening tomorrow. I have a large number of projects to do but will have to see what I am in the mood for. I do not know whether my brother will be coming up. What I do may change if he shows up or not.

I will see what I actually do tomorrow.


year 11, Week 16, Day Two (week 590)
(January 17, 2000 was my first carving day.)
05-01-11 Sunday

90 degrees, good breeze lots of patchy clouds with a good mix of sun and shade. This weather report is brought to you by the City of Pompano Beach Department of Tourism, Florida's Warm Welcome.

On the way home yesterday, I picked up some "sidewalk bolts." I am not exactly sure what they are used for, but one guess is to fill in the screw holes used for hurricane shutters. These have really big heads with a slot all the way across and a Phillips socket in the very center. I have a need for some slot screws. Yesterday, I was making one by scratch and made a few planning errors. It was a good test of concepts. Yesterday, I was looking for square headed screws and nuts and the ACE HARDWARE did not have those. I saw the usefulness of the sidewalk screws so I picked up for of them.
Today, I mounted the sidewalk screw under the milling machine. I took time to get the screw lined up square and straight. I decided that the slot should be running corner to corner so there would be less chance of the piece splitting in the center of the slot.
I then sat and machined the sides of the head, measuring often, until I got the head the size of the slot. I then machined the top. It fought me tooth and nail going across the top. There was some fight when working on the sides, besides the fact that the bit kept slipping out of the chuck when I bore down hard.
I found out that there is a big difference in the cutting power of the bit as one comes across it. I was working with the piece left to right and back on bed. I would have the bit working in front or behind the bit as I worked. There was trailing and leading forces, along with side to side forces. When machining along the top, there was all sorts of movement, slop. Part of learning machining is to know the best direction to address the bit.
I wanted to slide the work in one of the T-slots once I got it to fit, but found the shaft a bit too long. It would interfere with the chuck of the lathe. I should have been using the drill chuck but the lathe chuck needed more force to come off than I was willing to give it at the time.
I flipped the piece over and eyeballed the square and machined the last side of the square head. I had to do some filing to get rid of burs to get it to fit. I decided to mount it in the machine as a lathe and thin down the piece by flattening the face. A bit more filing and the piece fits nicely in the T-slots.
I showed it to my brother and he said it was an excellent job. I need to make a bunch more of them and cut them at different lengths to match the work I will be doing.
I figured out that I could get the job faster by using the grinder to rough out the square, and then machine it to fit into the slot. I will be making more of these and speed is important. I spent a few hours making this square head. I would rather spend a few minutes to do the job instead.
What I loved about this project, in spite of the fact that It is my first finished project, is that I was able to figure out how to do it on my own.


The T-slot screw experiment.
First screw is the original sidewalk screw
The second is my finished T-slot screw
The third was the original T-slot screw I copied.

My toy cannon was taken to the Antique shop. I decided to make a new cannon for my grandnephew. I had used a tool handle for the barrel of the toy cannon I already made, and had cut it short. I took the remaining piece of barrel and used that for the new cannon. It ended up thinner than I ever planned. I wanted it big in diameter. Instead it somehow kept getting smaller and smaller.
Over the next few weeks, I should make the carriage for it. I will not get it done for his birthday next weekend. I could, but doubt it. It does need sanding as it is.

The new toy cannon barrel


My brother and I sat and talked, looked at books and magazines. I had picked up a 1954 Popular Mechanics encyclopedia. My brother kept showing me tools and projects they had there. A lot of their stuff will work today, though some parts, like a Ford Truck axle to make a tractor powered post hole digger might be a bit more difficult to do as they are not designed the same way, but much of the projects are "make do" and can be made even today.

Next week, I have the cannon to build. I have a face vase and another vase that is supposed to be carved into flowers to do. I have some ornaments from the past years that I should carve so I can get caught up on what I need. I have some wood that needs to be turned. I have a few pieces of work that I can clean up with little problem or effort. I have more of the flat head screws to make. I should be thinking about new ornaments, I could make more shaving flowers and more turned and carved flowers. I had decided that replacing the lathe box is lower on the priority list as it is holding up now. I saw a new design for a steady rest for the lathe and may make that design for practice.
I will have more ideas between now and then.

I have a birthday party Saturday afternoon so I will likely only work till noon.

I will have to see what happens next weekend.