76 degrees when I got out back, 85 in afternoon, blue skies, clear, light breeze with a few slightly heavier gusts, A great day to be outside doing light work. This weather report is brought to you by the City Of Pompano Beach. "Florida's Warm Welcome."
FRIDAY
I went to the antique shop to pick up my work for the Art show. The shop next to him closed and the building owner offered him deal on the closed shop. He did not want to get bigger, but at that price he could not skip the deal.
I dug out all my battery powered drill stuff to go through Saturday. I have a lot of stuff and wanted to know what was good and what was not.
SATURDAY
We stopped at a couple yard sails and I did not buy anything. While mom was in a store, I was trying out my palm 3 PDA and somehow lost the stylist. At the end of the day, I checked and found that some large skewers would pass as a stylist for the screen, so I made a temporary one out of bamboo. I have some modifications to do, but I wanted the glue to dry first. I had to stick a second skewer into the first to act as a clip to pull the stylist out of the holder. I messed up one skewer, but it turned out to be the wrong one anyway. I had made a couple changing the points to fit what I felt would work best. I found I needed to step drill the hole, each drill slightly bigger than the first. When I got it to the right size I flattened one side of the skewer I was sticking into the hole so it fit closer to the first. I then drove it in tight.
A couple weeks ago, I made some large mushrooms for my fairy carvings. I had mounted them in the chuck and made the caps, and then reached next to the chuck as deep as I could with the gouge to hollow the underside of the cap. At that time I was not sure how to finish the stem. Since then, I figured out I can mount pieces without the spurs digging in. I can press it against the chuck itself.
What I decided to do was to mount one of my tail stock points in the chuck and use the light friction of that to drive the mushroom. I had to use very light cuts but I worked the stem down on two mushrooms.
I made the stem also a tenon. I figured I can drill a hole and fit the tenon inside to hold the mushroom up.
I took a piece of orange tree wood and chopped up both ends to look like a broken log. I then used my dremmel to grind away the saw cuts so it did not look like it had ever seen a saw. I added a light wash of brown paint to hide the freshly cut wood.
I then drilled a hole for the stem of the mushroom and glued and filled that in place. When that dries, I might dowel it for extra strength as people will likely pick it up by the mushroom.
My king frog will go on top the mushroom. I need to make several small mushrooms to fill out the scene before I attach the king frog and the fairy.
I laid out all the pieces I retrieved from the antique shop to look for damage and quality of finish. A couple pieces really need to be sanded and varnished, but I doubt that will happen for a while. I brought them home and will get out the rest of my stuff.
I expect to be up at mom's house Friday to do a practice set up to see what I have and how to make the display look good. I will do that again the weekend of the art show. It will make setting up a whole lot faster, especially if I pack things in the order I take them off the table.
I went into the house for another reason, and the couch grabbed me and pinned me in place until I fell asleep, I mean passed out.... I napped only a half our but that really helped.
I laid out all my battery powered tools. My Makita battery powered circular saw seems to be what can best be called the most universal battery. I found I can charge several of my pieces of equipment with that charger, and can use the Makita batteries in several other things, and can charge their batteries in some other chargers.
Each manufacturer likes to add little slots and tabs so you cannot use anyone else's equipment with theirs. It does create problems. I have one pair of drills that the charger does not work. I can get them running with other batteries, but they don't fit quite right.
I will dig them all out again, go through them one more time, and put stickers as to what fits what.
I found one battery powered drill where the charger plugs into the drill itself, the battery is integral. I found out that this drill will run plugged in, though most tools like this says you should not. Since I don't have the instructions, I will follow my own. this is going to be a regular drill for me to use since it does run while plugged in.
My collected battery powered sets.
Tomorrow, I will go through the batteries, chargers and equipment. I will add stickers telling what goes with what.
I will finish the base for the fairy, including turning some small mushrooms, and get that out of my hair finally.
I have some work to do with the mini lathe, the baggies I have the scrap metal is getting cut up and need to do something different. I really should not have that metal in the lathe box as it adds to the weight when carrying it over to the work area. I should carve on the face vase.
I will see what I actually do tomorrow.
year 11, Week 12, Day Two (week 586) (January 17, 2000 was my first carving day.) 04-03-11 Sunday
85 degrees, Blue skies, wind enough to blow some light sawdust around, but not enough to be a problem for papers and bags. This weather report is brought to you by the City Of Pompano Beach Department of Tourism. Florida's Warm Welcome.
I got to Mom's house a little early and after bothering the cats, I got my stuff out. One project was to lay out all my drills again and place stickers on everything. The sticker thing never actually happened.
I did match everything up again. My brother showed up on his way to another job and had a look at all I had. I have two Craftsman drills and the charger is dead. We opened the part the battery plugs into and no power was reaching there. Since it is a 14.4 volt battery system, I am to keep my eye open for a charger in that range. We can re-wire the system so we can get them working again. I will go on line and see if I can find the charger and see what it will cost.
I had tried to plug the battery into the Makita charger. I found that both companies have slots and ridges of plastic to keep you from using them in other company chargers. I modified one battery and got it to plug in. The charger gave an error signal. Oh well. It was worth a try.
Several things went back into their boxes. One battery powered drill works while plugged in which is nice. It dawned on me that I have, somewhere, a drill with two batteries. One battery has a socket to plug directly into. I will have to see if I can figure what I did with that.
I made two small mushroom. I planned to make more, but when I checked my fairy scene, I saw that three small mushrooms would be enough. I had one small one from before so I stopped at two mushrooms. It helps that I destroyed one mushroom while making it, the tool slipped, and the mushroom cap shattered and scattered. I just turned the mushroom around and finished that cap on the other end, then made a second mushroom where that one ended.
I put together my fairy scene. I had already glued the big mushroom on the log. I drilled and doweled the king frog and then glued him in place on the big mushroom. A bit later, I glued the log and fairy down. I waited a while and drilled for the mushrooms and glued them in.
My brother saw the carving when it was almost done and said it was the best one yet. I agree. He said the face was also the best.
I will see if I want to add a name plate to the fairy next week, otherwise, other than being signed, it is done.
Fairy and the king frog, front and back.
I dug out the little lathe and took everything out of the box again. I had brought a small cardboard box for my scrap metal since the metal was cutting through the plastic baggies. For the first time, I saw exactly what metal my brother brought. I can do a whole lot with what he gave me. I just have to work out which projects to do and figure out what will do the job best.
I can see it will be much like my wood working. If I have a project in mind, I will not have the right materials. If I choose the project based on what I have on hand, I have plenty to work with.
I carved on the face vase. I remembered that young men have narrow chins and lower half the face than older adults. I tackled the young face first, adjusting the shape to look younger. I worked a bit less on the middle aged face but got that to come along. I touched on the old face but that has a long ways to go. This is all dremmel grinding work and it creates a lot of sawdust that finds ways to get into one's clothing.
I have to get the two older faces into better shape, then start working my way into some details. The eyes are always my weakness, but they are coming along a bit better than normal.
Unless I get all the wood working done on this piece next weekend, there is no way it is going to be available for the art show. That is not really a problem. It would be nice to have it finished. I will see if it happens.
Young, Middle Aged and Old faces on my face vase.
A couple months ago, I purchased stick-on sanding disks for my disk sander. I took one sheet out and I have no idea what happened to the rest of them. Today, I checked at Sears for the charger and also picked up another package of sandpaper. Maybe I won't lose this package. Maybe I will think to put it away and find the other package right there...
I went to Woodcrafts. They will be closing in a couple weeks. I looked around at what they had. There is one thing I am really after, which I decided on after I looked around. My brother said that woodworking router bits will work on mild steel. I want to get a couple dovetail bits. I have some small straight bits, but some dovetail bits will complete just about anything else I need to do. Next week I might have the money to get them.
I have next week as a full week to be ready for the art show. I am thinking of going to Mom's house Friday and work some, just to get some extra work done.
One project is to get all my woodworking, carvings, turnings, and such, to Mom's house and do a "mock-up" of the tables and see what looks good together. It will also give me a chance to look over absolutely everything in case repairs are needed. A tradition I have is to sharpen every knife I have before the art show. I might do that next weekend. Other than the face vase and pretending to set up my table, I may work on something fun I have thought about.
I will see what I actually do next weekend.
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