(January 17, 2000 was my first carving day.)
11-06-10 Saturday
50 degrees early morning, 58 degrees when I got out to work at nine thirty, and it got up to 68 degrees when I left in the afternoon.
One must remember that here in South Florida, we are in the sub tropics. Water freezes at 56 degrees here, rather than 32 up north. You should have seen the way the area glistened from the frost on everything. My truck slipped on ice several times on the way up to Mom's house. Had I known it was going to get this cold, I would never have moved here......
This weather report is brought to you by the City Of Pompano Beach Department of Tourism.
Friday:
I went down to Dania to check in on what is going on down there. The antique shop had not sold any of my flowers, or anything else, but that is all right. They are on display and my stuff looks good.
I picked up my face vase there and took it and a few more things to the Dania Beach Water Gardens.
Antique shop display
I left my two latest bowls and the face vase at the Water Gardens. I was told that while they are doing well financially, the family decided to shut down the place at the end of the year. I will go down there next month and see what is going on and likely pick up my stuff. Will know for sure when I talk to them then. My stuff looks good there. I took pictures of several items of interest that I might copy in wood.
Dania Beach Water Gardens Display
Saturday:
We hit half a dozen yard sales. I saw a few things of interest but did not buy anything.
The cat had his moods, but mostly showed up every now and then and get some attention, before walking off into the sun or to sleep somewhere. Scarface made a showing and he got some attention too.
Yesterday I saw something in E-mail that might be a good ornament. I decided to give it a try. I needed to turn a ball first on the bottom of the ornament. I then cut the upper part free of the stick and the rest was hand carved.
I carved a face on the upper part. I quickly realized that this was not going to work as an ornament. I finished it up so others can see what I had in mind. Mom said it was not cute so it would not work. What I had was a carved face, this one a man with a mustache, with a ornament ball for the body. She was right. it did not work. I will have to come up with something else.
face ornament with two snow people
I stopped and got a bunch of Eye hooks for my ornaments. I cannot find what I did with the ones I have had, since I put them in a logical location. These were on as deal. Instead of the seven brass eye hooks, these were fourteen steel eye hooks for the same price.
I then went and got some wipe on varnish for finishing my work.
I took out the Norfolk Island pine piece I have. It has two sets of knots in it. Norfolk Island pine has an unusual growing pattern where the trees grow in a circle around the trunk, then there is a space and then another ring of branches. It is almost like a horsetail plant, for those who know it.
On this piece of wood, One ring has six knots which is good for the faces, and the other had some nine knots. I cut the nine knot piece short so the face vase has the most wood to work with.
I then made a simple vase of what was left, having the shoulder of the vase at the knots so some of the knots streak along it. and then the mouth spread wide out again. All I had to do was to finish the bottom to call this piece finished.
I took two shortcuts. One of them would not have given me any problems. The two of them together caused a not-nice situation.
I had mounted the piece with the mouth in the Cole Chuck and only used half the rubber stoppers to hold it in place (short cut number one). I then did not bring the tail stock up to the bottom of the piece to hold it in place while I cut the wood away (shortcut number two). The rubber stoppers were not strong enough to hold the piece in place. While I was cutting, I got a catch and the bowl went out of center and then flew off, bouncing on everything on the way down to the ground. Two chips came off the lip of the vase.
I now have to decide whether to do some decorative cutting of the edge of the mouth to make it look like I intended to have pieces of wood missing, or I could cut the mouth shorter which might mess up the design. I will have to give it some thought.
Chipped Vase
I also carved two more of my snowmen. Mom said that the arms are not needed so I left them off these two.
I have loads of projects I should be working on. One is to empty the shelves under my lathe, take everything off the bed, clean and protect everything, empty the roller cart of all the wood an tools, then re-stack it all in a logical order, possibly all the tools on the cart and all the wood on the lathe.
I have some work on my truck to do, such as sanding and varnishing the bed rails since the clear coat is pealing away.
I need to go through all the surface areas of the awning area, and clean everything and sort them so it will be easier to find things. I should empty the shed and clean it up. I know that some bugs have enjoyed some of the wood in there and I need to get rid of them or at least mess with their minds.....
I will likely be working on Christmas Ornaments tomorrow. I have swans, snow people, cats to make. and should make some Christmas trees while I am at it.
I will see what I actually do tomorrow.
year 10, Week 43, Day Two (week 565)
(January 17, 2000 was my first carving day.)
11-07-10 Sunday
It was 50 degrees early this morning, got to a steady 72 degrees, with one point with full sun where it got up to 76 degrees. That was gone quickly, though. We had what is called an Indian cloudy day, "A-patchy...(Apache) There were periods where we had full clouds, but those times passed quickly. A few looked pregnant but they passed without incident. There was a brisk breeze that blew wood chips everywhere. It made the day feel quite cool.
this weather report is brought to you by the City Of Pompano Beach Department of Tourism.
Today was strictly a carving day. I dug into some ornament blanks I have. I started carving under the awning. The cat would come in, get petted munch a little, then go out to the sun. I then moved out into the sun and the cat did not like being fed away from the awning. I did get some carving done out there, then returned to work under the awning the rest of the day.
I dug out the blanks for ornaments I had. Swans from last year, snow peoples, and cats.
The snow people were easy to do except I kept breaking off the rim of their hats.
One of the cat looks strange, but will leave it like that.
The swans need some work, mostly sanding to get rid of bits caused by the dremmel I worked with. It raises fluff on the surface. I spray painted the swans white, but a lot of that will go as I clean them up. I will then paint them by hand.
Cats, snow people and swans
Basically, I have to paint all of them to finish them up.
I need to explain about my lathe a bit and the accident that happened yesterday. The way my lathe is set up, is where I can have wheels down, to roll the lathe around the work area. It is then designed so I can lower the lathe onto four by four wood blocks so if I am working on something that is really out of center, the lathe won’t be traveling around the countryside. I usually don’t drop it down onto the blocks as most of my work don’t need that steadiness.
The wheels are welded to boxes, and the boxes are welded to a shaft that goes across the bottom shelf behind the blocks. When I raise the wheels to set the lathe down onto the blocks, the box of the wheels get raised up and the wheels stick out sideways.
Now on the opposite side I work, there is welded a lever set so that the wheels are straight down when the levers are level. The levers are held down by blocks that can be twisted over top them. That locks them in place to roll around. When I drop the lathe onto the blocks, the levers point up.
What happened was that the lock block for the wheels on the end where my feet were, slipped and that end of the lathe dropped. The box the wheel is attached to came down on my instep. If you remove unmentionable words, I said ouch...
Last night and this morning, I dipped my cats and snow people ornaments in wipe-on varnish to seal them. They will now get spray varnish to give them a good finish.
I sent a picture of the vase I made to a master wood turner in the club. He said the design was good and shortening the rim to get rid of the chips would ruin it. He said to make a decorative edge instead.
He also said that He needs to work with me on tool control to remove the tear out he sees.
Next week, I will likely make some more ornament blanks. I might decide to start on the face vase.
I will see what I actually do next week.
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