Woodworking

Back in 2000, I realized my father was in his 80s. I decided I did not want one of those "I wish I had said, I wish I had done" kind of situations. My dad learned carving years ago, and was trying to get me involved. I started learning to carve, simply by doing it, and avoiding the mistakes he made as he was learning.
Since then, I learned how to do wood turning - making bowls, vases, platters, decorative pieces on a lathe. He died at the age of 89, and I have continued the hobby he created for me.
Since 2000, I posted notes on my woodworking activities every week, usually daily. The following are the two posts I did this weekend.
Note, A pencil head is a carved head I attach to the end of a pencil as a decorative item.


year 9, Week 24, Day One (week 494)
(January 17, 2000 was my first carving day.)
06-27-09 Saturday

94 degrees, lots of thick puffs, some thunder heads around the horizon, nice breeze. Some wet roads outside our area. This weather report is brought to you by the City Of Pompano Beach Department of Tourism.

I did no woodworking today. I had to fix Mom's computer and that took all day.

The past two weeks, three weekends, I have been out of town. It was a good vacation, but we all forgot much of what happened until we went through our notes and records, plus our pictures. It turned out that we had a really full couple weeks.
I brought up the Pratt and Whitney plaque up to the husband of my writing friend up there. Many people where he worked, loved the plaque. He was pretty proud of it too. I gave a few carvings and turnings as gifts.
Several days into the week, we were working in the garden. I went with her husband to cut some grass to use as mulch in the garden. The friend who's grass we were cutting, has started doing woodworking. I had a tour of his shop and he showed what he was up to. I showed him some things about his lathe that he did not know. He says he needs more room but I would love to have the shop he has already. He has three more table saws and wants to be able to set them up so he does not have to reset his table saw for different stages of projects. He does a couple dozen of each thing he makes.

I was given a couple sticks of wood and I carved a pixy. It came out pretty good, but needs to be painted. I gave it to my writing friend for her collection of my woodworking. In the second week, I started carving a ball and chain, and broke half a link off. I decide to make a human head of the ball, then decided to have a snake body. A couple days later, I changed the human head to a snake head and that really set it off. My friend kept the snake, cutting it off the stick, then is carving a spirit man out of the rest of the piece of wood.
I looked over her carving tools and showed her how to sharpen her tools. She had done pretty good so far, including with the knife I made and gave her. I confirmed how to sharpen her chisels so she was happy.

They are just now getting some chain stores in her area. Lowes, Home Depot, We visited the Harbor Freight and wood crafts that is just outside her area. These chain stores are pretty much the same in layout, supplies and prices.

We went to a couple swap shops. One is all outside. I could have picked out about two hundred dollars worth of stuff I wanted to have, if I had a way to ship it. These are all yard-sale type people. The ground is not level, up and down some slight hills. My feet held out really good, but I was puffing for most of the third quarter of the place. It was good. I really wanted a set of blacksmith tongs, but only took pictures. I left with a set of three dividers.
The second swap meet we went to was indoors, except for a few hearty souls outside. I saw a few things I wanted, but was not about to ship. If I was living up there, I would have gone crazy. AS it was, NO room in my luggage so I walked out without spending any money.

We visited a school chum of my friend. She showed me how a spinning wheel works to make thread. She has a pair of sheep she cares for and is using the sheep to take down some tall weeds they love to eat. She gave me a piece of black walnut. I don't have room for it in my luggage so it will be shipped down to me later.

This was a working vacation, full of fun activities for a sedate kind of person. We are thinking I will go up in the fall next year, during a period where a big fair and a renaissance fair overlap.

I have no idea what I will work on tomorrow, but will see if I actually get something done.



year 9, Week 24, Day One (week 494)
(January 17, 2000 was my first carving day.)
06-28-09 Sunday.

85 when I checked the temp at around ten, 90 when I went in due to a light shower. Very light breeze, little or no blue sky. Storm cells surrounded us all day. When I ended my day due to weather, I was finishing up a book I had so it did not matter. This weather report was brought to you by the City Of Pompano Department Of Tourism.

I started the day a bit later than planned. I went out and petted the kitty, giving him some food. I after a bit, I got to work at taking out my "stick pile", where I store two by twos and branches, along with other long wood. I knew some of the wood was not usable any more and wanted to see what I had. I pulled all the wood out down to some large boards I was satisfied was all right. I laid the pieces out for about an hour. I then picked through the removed stack. I have some large wood and some special wood that was separated out, then I put them back in the stack.
I then picked out my Norfolk Island Pine Branches. These were all knocked down by Hurricane Wilma and were bigger than normal branches of the tree. I originally had the bark on them and was carving Pixies using the bark as part of the design. I went on to other projects and the branches just sat. The bugs found the bark inviting and wood borers got inside too. last year, I removed all the bark and put the branches back, making them uninteresting to the bugs.
I looked over the wood very carefully. The pieces which were in pretty good condition, especially in the large sections, got put back. I cut up some of the smaller pieces with bad worm holes in them. the pieces could well be used as they were, but I did not want to bother with that. I have more than enough wood.

My brother showed up between jobs. We talked quite a bit. I got a set of dividers up north and showed them to him. He said they were very good. One of them could have been better, but no one will complain about that. WE talked a bit but did not have too much time.

I also considered emptying the shed to get things in there rearranged and see what I have in there, but was not really in a mood to do much more so that will be a project for another day.

I have no idea what-so-ever as to what I will work on next weekend. It will be dependant on my moods and ideas.
So, I wills ee what I do next week.