(January 17, 2000 was my first carving day.)
06-12-10 Saturday
96 degrees under the awning, 93 degrees officially. It was 90 degrees at around nine thirty when I got out back and there was little wind, leaves barely moved. I plugged in a fan to get some air moving. The humidity was not bad so the day was quite tolerable. the sky was blue but there were clouds on the horizon, but over head, was blue and sunny. Long after I got home, rains showed up on the radar, but they were over the everglades, heading south instead of east. This weather report is brought to you by the City Of Pompano Beach Department of Tourism.
I petted and fed the cats first thing. Tom got some petting, ate, and then left. Beggar stayed longer and then left. He came back later for more attention and did so three more times.
The last mother cat that had kittens in our area, had two kittens. A female Calico, which my brother ended up with, and a black male with. The boy and the mother were taken to a no-kill shelter
I was looking at some old pictures and ran across that family. the boy had a white spot on his chest, very much like the old tom we have coming around now. They looked so much alike that we discussed whether it might be the same cat. Mom says he is likely from an older litter, possibly by the same mother. It was interesting to see how close they looked.
I was in the mood to do some wood turning. I decided to try a new project. I have seen square bowls, where the rim is a square, raised high above the table.
I started making it without taking the necessary time to do it right. Short cuts tend to create a lot of work in the end. This time, it has not created a whole lot of problems, but I still have some work to do because of it.
I had the chuck closed and the tail stock stuck into the wood. I worked around the tail stock, creating a post of wood that my tools could not get to. I had hollowed it first, then flipped it around. I put the chuck inside the bowl, opening it up to create pressure to hold it, and then turned the back side.
I have to remount the piece on the lathe. I have to reshape the bowl slightly, making it cleaner and a better shaped bowl.
When I turn it around, I have to trim the back side of the rim. I don't have the thickness even. the rim gets thicker as one goes closer to the bowl, and this causes an arc in the thickness of the rim from corner to center.
I need to make the bottom cleaner and better. I started with a good thickness rim around the base, but lost all but a thin edge. I have to make sure I have enough thickness, and do it right.
I also have to remove the posts It would be better to do this on the lathe, but I may have to do it using grinders. Will see how things work out when I make my corrections.
For tomorrow, I will finish this bowl, and then apply myself to some carving. I would like to make a whole lot of progress on the faces. I will work on the eyes. I saw that on one face, I made the nose off center. I got the idea where I May be able to save that face. I will see if I can have him looking to one side. I will see what kind of damage I already done when I started carving the eyes, how thick the wood is there. I am positive I can correct it. I just have to work things out.
Square bowl as I stopped working on it.
Look at the slight change of thickness on the edge
I will see what I actually do tomorrow.
year 10, Week 22, Day Two (week 544)
(January 17, 2000 was my first carving day.)
06-13-10 Sunday
As high as 96 degrees, blue sky most of the day, light breeze, just enough to make it tolerable. The winds were heading North West so that was where the storms off the ocean was coming. One storm looked like it was going to come by, and it blocked the morning sun, dropping the temps to 86, but it faded out before it reached us. After that, there was no threat of weather. this Weather report is brought to you by the City Of Pompano Beach Department Of Tourism.
I got to Mom's house early. I petted and fed the cats. When that was done, I got to work by dragging out the lathe, which requires moving other pieces. I took the square bowl and mounted it between centers. It was not absolutely center so I did not correct the rim. I flattened the bottom and built the new rim on the base. I then turned it around and cleaned up the inside. I have a little groove on the bottom that I need to grind out. I did some touch up, sanding the surface on the disk sander. It now needs finishing.
The storm looked like it was brewing, so I had pulled the equipment under the awning while I was working on the finishing of the bowl, removing the posts and cleaning up my work.
"finished" square bowl.
I took a nap, and when I got back outside, I really was not in the mood to work. I picked up the face vase and decided to get a pencil and work on designing the eyes of the faces. After I got the eyes drawn, I took out the dremmel and mounted an hour glass shaped bit, and cut in the eyes. I mainly undercut the eyelids, setting the eyes under the lids. I also did some work on the face itself. I have a long ways to go.
Three faces of the vase.
I got an idea for a project. I am learning crochet. I decided I would see how hard it would be to make a crochet hook. I decided that it needed to be strong, so I took out some orange wood I had. It was shorter than I really wanted, but since it had a nice shrinkage crack in it, I chose to use that piece.
I first cut it down the shrinkage crack. I then cut some roughly square sticks. It was too small for my chuck. I got an idea on how to hold the wood in the lathe.
My tail stock has a live center with interchangeable tips. I took one tip that is hollow so you can run a drill bit through it, and stuck that in the chuck. I then took one that has a pin point center and a ring that also goes into the wood. I put the pin into the center of the piece of wood and it did not touch the ring.
I mostly used the skew chisel to peal away the wood but had to change to other tools. I got them down to the same diameter as my metal hook I have been using. The ends were raw. After I finished the second one, I took both to the disk sander and fixed up both ends.
I then sat down with my knife and cut the angle to the base of the hook. I took the Dremmel with a cutting disk and undercut to create the hook itself. The first one is not as clean as the second one. learning errors.
I tested them and they do work. The wood grabs at the threads so it is rough. I will need to sand it to a polish. I likely will make some new ones using what I learned with this.
My metal crochet hook and two Orange wood crochet hooks.
My crochet project where it is right this instant.
nice stuff on top is my recent work
For a lazy day where I did not really want to do too much, I got a lot done, and have something to show for my work.
I have the turning club meeting Thursday. I will try to get the crochet hooks presentable. I will try to get the square bowl sanded and presentable too.
Next weekend, I do not know what new projects I might work on. I need to work more on the face vase.
I will see what actually happens next week.
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