90 degrees, blue sky with a changing mixture of clouds, some of which blocked the sun for a while. Nice breeze made it comfortable. This weather report is brought to you by the City Of Pompano Beach Department of tourism.
Friday:
I went to the Antique shop. The people I needed to see was not at the Dania Water gardens. While at the antique shop, he showed me where he got a whole bunch of wooden rose buds. These were professionally made, mass produced wrapped shavings. I was impressed.
He has a guy who designs his shop to look good. That guy was there while I was there and he said he was impressed by my work. He also liked my display. That was nice. I left a set of wood platters there. I have a bunch more in process so I don't need those.
I showed, on my camera, a picture of my shaving flowers. He said he was interested in seeing them. they might also be something that the Water Gardens might like. I am making a bunch of them.
Saturday:
I had a pretty good say today.
First off, the back yard beast attacked me. He pinned me down in my chair and forced me to pet him several times during the day. such horrible torture! He was so mean, he almost fell asleep at my feet while I was carving!!!
After I got all the equipment out, I started on another pencil cup. It started out really good, but I accidentally got so deep while flattening the bottom, that I actually started to cut through the tenon in the middle of the bottom. That is deeper than the bottom.
I decided to fix that. I had cut the piece from a longer block, so I mounted the other piece of block, made a tenon that would fit into the mouth of my pencil cup. It took some work but I got it to fit nicely. I have not been lucky like that too often.
I glued that as square as I could, and let it set on the lathe. After It dried, I cleaned up a little wobble on the outside, then cut away the old bottom and trued up the inside. After I did that, I noticed I made a little mistake. I should have lined up the rings of both pieces of wood. Because it was not lined up, I decided to remove as much of the bottom as I could, to hide my mistake.
I put the piece into he cole jaws and put a center on the end and cut down and cleaned up the bottom so it is a thin ring. It looks pretty good now.
Shaving flowers as they were when I arrived on Saturday
A few were painted pink, but the rest are natural wood
I had picked up some paint and varnish. I painted a bunch of my shaving flowers, red, yellow and blue. I will have some of the flowers in natural wood color as a contrast. I could use white, but chose not to.
Today I took a three quarter inch board of basswood and sliced it down the middle, making two boards, then cut both boards into sticks.
I have enough sticks for about a hundred flowers. How many I get, will depend on how long I make the petals. Shorter they are, the more flowers I can get, but the longer petals look better, usually.
The grain in one of the sticks was going the wrong way and it was splitting, instead of shaving. I ended up with a few sick looking flowers.
Tomorrow, I will make more shaving flowers, do a bunch of sanding, bother the cat, I have a turned figurine in oak that needs to be finished.
I will see what all I actually do tomorrow.
year 10, Week 34, Day Two (week 556)
(January 17, 2000 was my first carving day.)
09-05-10 Sunday
94 degrees, blue sky, sunny, a few changing wispy puffs of clouds here and there. Some mountains of clouds over the everglades in the late afternoon, but not coming here. A tiny bit humid in the morning, but a light breeze in the afternoon took that away. This weather report is brought to you by the City Of Pompano Beach Department Of Tourism.
The backyard beast acted so much like a cat, I was a little worried about him. He did give me "the look" twice, but otherwise, let me do whatever I wanted to him. He even slept at my feet for a long while, until I finally got up to get back to work.
The Curly tail lizards are getting big and fat. They get a few morsels of cat food each day. When we are out there, we will toss them a piece or two.
I got the equipment out, but did not really need to use the lathe. I then decided to take a piece of Florida Mahogany and make a bowl out of it. I left the surface that was under the long gone bark, as it was, and just hollowed it out and made a good base under it.
Because of the size of the piece, I decided to turn it between centers rather than make a tenon to fit the chuck. It needs sanding, but is passable as an ugly bowl. It had been chainsawed and that left a really bad surface, which is my rim. That is really why it is ugly. I could have leveled it, but wanted something different.
Will see how that finishes up.
My ugly bowl and my pencil cups.
My brother came by and repaired a brace of our awning. it had rusted through. He needs to fix all of them. the drain holes had plugged and that was causing the damage. He will do them later. He had a problem with an electrical outlet in the garage or he would have done some scroll sawing.
We went out for dinner to a Chinese buffet. Our normal one appears to be out of business or on vacation. so we went to a different one.
I made a bunch more shaving flowers. I made two out of mahogany. It was not cutting right and I gave up on it. I left the best of the new flowers in wood color, and painted the ones that are not as good. I will be doing that from now on.
Shaving flowers. white ones are natural wood.
I have tomorrow off, so I will be working wood again. I have sanding and varnishing to do, and have a whole lot more of those shaving flowers to make I also need to finish up on the crochet hooks. I had started the process to change their design to something that works a bit better.
I will see what I actually do tomorrow.
year 10, Week 34, Day Three (week 556)
(January 17, 2000 was my first carving day.)
09-06-10 Monday
85 degrees, blue sky with high feathers and streaks, filtering the sun. Afternoon puff columns built up over the Everglades, their tops spreading to cover the sun in the afternoon. Light breeze just strong enough to make it comfortable, but not strong enough to really notice it. This weather report was brought to you by the City Of Pompano Beach Department of Tourism.
After the beast of the back yard decided he had guarded me enough, I was able to get out of the chair and get to work.
I had started a dress vase in oak, at least a month ago. I mounted it in the lathe and tried to drill it out some more. Oak is a hard wood when it is dried. I think I drilled it, at most, two inches deeper. I still have at least four inches to go.
One thing I have to be careful of, is that when I am changing Forsner bits, They get very hot. I have more work to do before I can really take it off the lathe for good.
My lathe stand is designed that the wheels can be tipped out of the way so the lathe will stand on wood blocks. I did this today because the lathe was rolling when I pushed against the boring bar. When done, I just rotated and locked the wheels back in place and rolled the lathe into the space under the awning. I don't do that too often. I tend to be a bit lazy.
I sanded a little bit on my crochet hooks. They will require a lot more sanding before they will be ready to test.
I made more shaving flowers. A couple looked rather sick, so they got painted, while the really good ones got a coat of varnish and called done. I have a blister on my index finger where the knife rubs on it. It will be gone when I work next week.
final display of shaving flowers
painted and natural wood
I remembered that the antique shop was open today. I cleaned up, packed up everything, and headed down there. I brought the flowers in and he loved them. It was then that I saw how good they really looked. I also gave him my pencil cups that I made. He is starting with five bucks piece for the flowers, and ten bucks piece for the cups. Good prices. He said he can lower the flower prices if they don't sell. I used to sell these shaving flowers for a dollar a piece so anything he sells them for is good.
I showed him that unfinished ugly bowl I made. He said,”What is so ugly about it?” I guess it looks better than I thought.
For next week, I will be making more flowers. I now have a good reason to make more. They are easy to make, look good and might be worth having for a market.
I will likely work more on the dress vase. Holding and pushing the boring bar is hard on the hands. I have no idea how much I will get done on it.
I will likely make some pencil cups as I need a couple and dropped them off at the antique shop.
One thing I planned to do this weekend and never did, was to unload the lathe completely, clean it up and replace the sheet plastic dust skirt I have around it. plastic sheeting degrades outside, even when it is not in direct sunlight. Sawdust is getting onto the shelving and into everything on the shelves.
I have some platters I had started for the turning club demonstration, and should finish them up.
I still have not started my Christmas ornaments and now is getting too late. I at least looked at some swan blanks from last year, but that was all.
I will see what I actually do next week.
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