year 9, Week 35, Day One (week 505)
(January 17, 2000 was my first carving day.)
09-12-09 Saturday

85 degrees, cloudy, very light breeze. A front coming from the west coast of the state never hit while I was there. This weather report is brought to you by the City Of Pompano Beach Department of Tourism.
We went into Palm beach county to the Mount Botanical Garden. They had a plant sale and a wood turning club art sale. The weather there was cloudy, very light breeze, up until we were almost to the car. The rain started coming down. We looked out at the airport across the road and saw a deep grey rain cell over the airport. We drove south and when we were half way out of the county, we left the rain entirely. This wether report was brought to you by the Palm Beach Department of Tourism.

After visiting some yard sales, we came home and I petted the cat. Or tried to. There were men next door working and the cat was frightened, at first not wanting to come out of his hiding place, and then was very skittish. He calmed down when the men were gon.

I dragged out the lathe and re-mounted the banana bowl I had started last week. I worked my way to near the bottom. Then there was a catch where the tool caught onto a bit of the wood and sort of stopped the turning for a moment. and the tenon popped off. The piece hit the ground. When I am having a really bad week, I would be really frustrated already. I was having a good week so I just picked up the piece and mounted it in the lathe backwards. I had a post where the tail stock held the wood in place when I started, and did nothing to remove it. I closed the chuck down onto the post.

The jaws of the chuck are interchangeable. You remove two screws for each jaw and one can have really large jaws, small ones, specialty ones, and can even make your own jaws if you have the technology. The jaws are on a slide. While the jaws might only close to two inches in diameter, "bottom" of the slides almost close up completely.
I stuck the post in to where the slide can grab hold of it, and the jaws up against the work piece.
I started turning a new tenon to hold it on. I got a new catch and the post broke before I had the new tenon made. I did have something there. I located the center of the remains of the post after I cut away the off level wood, and set the tool rest up so it pressed on the center of the post, and the jaws were just around the remains of the tenon. I got it spinning and finished the inside. I also flattened the outside bottom some too. when I had it pretty smooth, I removed it from the lathe.

When you turn dry wood, you might get some tear out, where instead of the wood cutting away cleanly, some of the wood will get pulled, making broken holes in the surface. Sometimes it might be caused by dull tools. Sometimes it is caused by dry wood, and sometimes it is caused by techniques. In this case, I know the tool was sharp. I think a lot of it was caused because the tool bounced off the wood.
I used my strip sander to wear away the wood and get rid of the tears. I also used my disk sander that has a really aggressive grit to make some surface corrections. I then sat down with the strip sander and carefully cleaned up all but the very worst of the problem.
While I want to make this a Viking Dragon boat, I see that it is not exactly the same shape I need. It has a natural edge, where the bark is still on the wood. I may have to cut some of that away to get the shape I need.
I have some strip wood. I might make an upper deck for the boat. I will turn a bunch of shields and decorate them. I also will have to have a mast and a sail. I think I know how I can turn the sail or two sails on the lathe. Most likely, I would turn a disk with a rounded groove in it, where the back side follows the shape of the groove. I would then cut the sail shape through the groove so the bow is the billowed sale. This will be a project to do over the next month.

In the afternoon, We went to the Mount botanical garden next to the Palm Beach Airport. They have a flower sale, which my mom wanted to see, and the wood turning club up there was selling their work and doing turning demonstrations.
We drooled over the Orchids they had on display. I love the blasts of colors some had. I shot about a hundred pictures which included pictures of the turned pieces on display. I would love to be as good as some of these guys. Of course, I don’t spend enough time at the lathe to get that good. Last year, there was a continuous drizzle all day long. This time, the weather was cool and cloudy, and we only started getting drops as we were walking out to the car.

Thursday is my club meeting. I have loads of sanding to do before the meeting arrives.

Tomorrow, I will sand on the duck to get it close to be ready for varnish. I don't know what else I will work on.

I will see what I do tomorrow.


year 9, Week 35, Day Two (week 505)
(January 17, 2000 was my first carving day.)
09-13-09 Sunday

94 degrees some blue sky with filtered sun early. Clouds popped up in Palm beach county just to the north of us. The clouds spread and the wetness infected our beautiful weather. This weather report is brought to you by the City Of Pompano Beach Department of Tourism.

I got to Mom's house and we spent about an hour taking the pictures off my cameras and viewing what we had.

I finally got outside and the cat showed up. I petted him and gave him some food. He got well settled in for a nap between my feet, then I needed to get to work. he gave me a dirty look as I got up and he dashed to avoid any possible being stepped on. I got set up and he settled between my feet for a while until I stopped petting him. He got angry and went into hiding to sleep.

My number one project is to get my duck bowl up to a good level. I started sanding and changed grits twice. Each grit is progressively finer.

Sand paper is created when they SCREEN" OR SIFT THE GRIT. they have a mesh with different number of holes per inch. Any grits that go through the larger holes, 100 screens to an inch but does not fall through the next finer screen, 150 screens to an inch, becomes listed as 150 grit. In this way, the higher the number of the sand paper, the finer it is.
grits below 100 grit, tends to be used for shaping of the item you are making. It grinds off wood. Grits between 100 and 220 are mor like repair grits, removing tool marks and scratches. 320 to 600 grits are finishing. There are grits well above those that are polishing grits. Generally for furniture, one stops at 320. For most wood turnings, we stop at 600. Some woods can be polished beyond 8000 grit.
When sanding, one uses the finest grit that will remove the tool marks and scratches that are visible on the piece. it is best to use all the same brand sand paper as manufacturers use different steps in the grits and have different binders and grit qualities.
When you finish sanding with one grit, you got to the next grit to remove all the scratches the previous grit added. As you will see as you get into the higher paper grits, you work to an even haze over the entire piece. that generally eliminates any gouges and scratches by the previous grit. Then, after cleaning off the piece, you go to the next step of sand paper and sand over the entire piece until it is to an even haze. Do this at each grit all the way up.
You may find you have to back up a couple grits to work out some spots you missed.
Keep in mind that varnish or other surfaces, show your errors vividly.

I worked the grits on the duck bowl up to the last grit I had at Mom's house. Over the week, I will back down a few grits and work up until I get to 800 grit.
I am trying something I have not done in a very long time. I usually work from the idea that when I sand a piece, I will varnish it early, as it freezes the fibers and then sand it smooth, and work up the grits until I get the finish I am after. It actually causes more sanding as the bad spots don't disappear as easily. The wood is harder with the varnish.
This time, I am going to get it nicely sanded to a level I like, before I varnish it. What sanding I have to do then, will be a whole lot less.

The Handle I had for the tea pot seamed a bit big to my brother. Since I had two of them, I made some educated guess cuts and showed the smaller handle. he liked it much more. I will see how that finishes up and decide whether to use that one or correct the better one to match. The tea pot is too heavy, but it will be made the way it is.

My brother arrived to fix something, and he brought the wrong parts. We sat down and while I sanded, we talked about projects, model railroads, and metal working.
We had a lunch break and I petted the cat for a while, then we started packing up. while loading mus stuff into the truck, we felt a few drips.
We went in and watched the pictures we took this weekend and it rained hard out. When It was time for me to go, the rain died down until I closed the truck door, then it picked up again.

I have the wood turning club meeting on Thursday. Between now and then, I will varnish the duck bowl and get it ready for the club.

I have some new projects to work on next week. I could add stuff to the banana bowl to make it a Viking ship, but will wait until I can turn the shields

I will see what I actually do next week.