year 9, Week 32, Day One (week 502)
(January 17, 2000 was my first carving day.)
08-22-09 Saturday
90 degrees, lots of heavy puffs of clouds, very light breeze, not too much sun later in the day. A dark cloud expanded out to something large in the afternoon, allowing mom to skip another day of watering her plants. That stopped me from working after lunch.
We had a turning club meeting Thursday. Wood turning is where you spin the wood on a machine, scraping and cutting wood off as it spins around until you have vases, bowls, plates, candle sticks, and other items that are rounded.
We had a candlestick challenge this month. A challenge is designed to get people to make things they might not normally make. Some people make only bowls, some only make vases, some make only pens or pepper grinders. The challenge is to make something new. The club then uses tickets to randomly select three people who get gift cards. There is no judging.
This month, I had tried to make a three armed candlestick. My first attempt failed, but not miserably. I was able to make it look like something. I made that one to figure out the process to make one for real. I broke my second attempt and my third one ran into other kinds of problems, mainly due to operator error and not having developed technologies and techniques to pull off the project I was doing.
They also had a photo tent there so members can get pictures of their pieces on the club web site http://www.goldcoastwoodturners.org/ in their member's gallery.
I did not have anything to show so I did not get any pictures taken.
One guy goes into the dumpsters of furniture company and brings to the club choice wood he finds. They are free to the club members. Another guy had taken pieces of a tree that was cut down. He was going to have a wood raffle, where the money goes to the club. I was good for once and did not come home with any more wood. I have plenty.
Today, I got a bit of a late start. We went to a yard sale and mom picked up a plastic rocking chair and a wooden glider rocker bench. The glider was old and the wood was not in optimal condition. I ended up cracking the arm, and then repairing it. I did have a problem that my batteries for my drill were all dead. I charged them up and was able to finish driving in the screws.
I decided I am making owls as one of my Christmas ornaments. I make blanks on the lathe to save on carving time and effort. These owls have horns, and a beak, wings, feet and tail. I use the lathe to remove the wood between these features, adding some of the shape. I remove the corners of the square stick that don't fit the shape of the owl. Two corners that remain on the top become the horns. I leave one corner for the beak, one corner for the tail, and one corner for the feet. The rest is shaping with the carving knife.
The cat was quite sweet today. He only showed his displeasure of what I was doing to him once. Last year, he would swat with one claw bared. Now he will wave his paw in the air to tell us to stop. He has learned to love to be petted and likes our company. He has changed a lot over the past three years, going from swatting after six pets while eating, to enjoying being petted even when there is no food around.
I went in to cool down and got involved with Mom's digging through watches. It started out when I could not get the band on a watch when I was swapping bands. What we figured out was that the pins were for a wider watch than we were using.
Mom ended up going through nearly a dozen watches that were once my dad's watches. She found two wind up watches that seam to work and gave them to me to use. I also have a self winding watch that usually works pretty good. It does not store the motion long enough though.
Anyway, we spent a couple hours going through the watches.
When I went for lunch, I saw a small grey cloud to the south west. After lunch, I decided to go out since we heard thunder. I had left my lathe out and shed doors open. It was sprinkling lightly with large drops. We got everything put away before the sky opened up. It was worse to the west of us, and to the south. That ended my woodworking day.
Tomorrow, I need to get to work fairly early and make something more substantial I have not done any serious wood turning since June when I made several platters. I have loads of projects I want to do. I just have to decide which one to do. My first projects is to find a fitting piece of wood for whatever project I choose.
Will see what I actually do tomorrow.
year 9, Week 32, Day two (week 502)
(January 17, 2000 was my first carving day.)
08-22-09 Sunday
95 degrees, lots of patchy clouds, periodic sun, some breeze, a dribble from the sky that was quite ignorable, but used as an excuse for a break. This weather report was brought to you by the City Of Pompano Department Of Tourism.
I came to Mom's house with an intention to make sawdust. I was going to make a bird bowl. I was thinking of using a piece of Norfolk Island Pine, I have, but was open to using a different type of wood.
After petting the kitty cat, I went out to the shed. There was a piece of Florida Mahogany that I have had for a while. I decided it would do the job. I sliced a chunk off the wood with the band saw. I should have made it longer, but it would do for this project.
When starting with a log, one can choose to spin it on the center of a log, as it was growing, or one can spin it sideways, as a branch grows out of it. Each way has different effects on the final product. Bigger in diameter the piece is, the more opportunities one can have on the final results.
The piece I was working with was about five inches in diameter. It was a bit egg shaped in diameter and I used the added size in my design.
I measured the wide part and found the center, then went to the "point" of the wood and located the center of that. I ran a line through the points I located and that was the center line of the wood I was working from. I did that on both ends and then ran a line through the length of the wood which was about six inches long.
I measured along both lines and located the center of the wood that way. That gave me where my drive center and my tail stock would stick into the wood.
I spun the wood, the ends whipping around like a propeller. I first leveled the part that would be the bottom of the bowl. I had to sharpen my bowl gouge as it was bouncing off the wood. I got it nice and sharp and the gouge ate the wood so nicely.
Learning to sharpen tools is very important. dull tools are dangerous, can do serious damage. Improperly sharpened tools can be totally useless.
REMEMBERING to sharpen tools is also important. It is a habit I never got out of. I tend to want to get to work right now. I don't want to stop and sharpen tools, Just get the job done. Many times, I can be my worst enemy.
My bird bowls have was can be described as a saucer as part of the base, which becomes the feet of the bird bowl. I shaped that first, then rough shaped the outside.
I tend to rough shape the outside of the bowls because I am rather rough and my work tends to go off center and run into all sorts of problems. I used to fine finish the outside first, then I would mess up on the inside and have to refinish the outside again so it was center to the inside. I need to get my skills better on that count.
Spinning a log sideways has an interesting effect if you leave the edge natural. the edge of the bowl becomes saddle shaped, dipping deep on the sides and rising high on the ends. I use this shape for an effect with my bird bowls. They are unusual a shape. The head, and if necessarily, a tail, goes on the high parts of the bowl.
Very unusual for me, I finished the bowl with little problems. I do have lots of sanding to do to get it to a finish surface. Because I am working outside, I tend to be quick and sloppy, and then have to correct that manually.
Next week I hope to do more turning and have several projects that need to be finished up including this bird bowl and a beer stein, and a vase.
I will see what I actually do next week.
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