94 degrees, blue sky with feather and streaks, with some thick puffs zipping by mid morning. The puffs then congregated over the everglades and stayed there, leaving sparse feather and streaks in the sky. The breeze was light, really only moving leaves all day long.
FRIDAY
I have a bunch of plants on my porch and I also do sanding and varnishing there. It had been a while since I last cleaned the porch up so it had gotten bad.
I took everything out of the porch except two chairs and a folding table, swept and bagged the debris, then put the plants back. What a difference it made. I re-arranged the plants so if the rare angled rain comes in from the east, rather than the west it normally does, the rain can go in through the screen and water the plants.
In the process, I emptied a couple pots that the plants had died in, and pulled dead stuff from other pots. Saturday I brought fresh dirt from Mom's house with compost added and will top off the pots with the dirt
messy porch long side
Messy porch short side
Cleaned porch long side
Cleaned porch short side.
Another finished granny square, the red center was what someone else did.
SATURDAY
Mom was out of town so I went directly to the restaurant we eat at. Then I went to Mom's house and fed and petted the cats, several times.
I also fed the curly tails. the squares are twelve inches across
I have a turning club meeting this week and had nothing to show for it. I decided I had a couple projects with shrinkage cracks or worm holes in them that could be filled in. I brought some super glue and colored sand with me.
One coin cup is made of oak and I had turned beads all the way up the piece. I had started filling it and got interrupted on it. Somewhere, I cannot remember where, I have another one just like it. Anyway, I finished filling it with purple sand, super glued into place.
I turned it some to clean up the grooves between the beads before I applied finish.
Oak Change cup with inlay
A Sea grape vase had some big shrinkage cracks. I decided to use yellow sand as inlay for the cracks. Again I use super glue to glue the sand in place.
Once I filled all the cracks, I mounted the bowl on the lathe, using the chuck to open up inside the mouth to hold it in place. first used the tail stock without a point to ram the piece in place while I trimmed the sides so they were clean and smooth. I remove the tail stock and finished the bottom and then sanded the whole piece on the outside.
I turned the place around, again using the tail stock to ram the piece in place, but this time with it inside the bowl. Since I had a rim on the bottom, I was able to open the chuck on the inside of that and that held the bowl in place. I have a hook tool with a round bit in it to scrape the inside of vases. I used that to work the inside of the vase walls. Once I had them cleaned up. I took a chance and removed the tail stock and was able to work the bottom of the vase inside and blend that with the walls.
I had to fill in some gaps in the inlay and hand sand those clean. I then gave the vase a couple coats of varnish.
I now see that yellow is not the best color for inlay. It really does not do much for me. Oh well. I could route it out with my dremmel and re-do it, but I will let it stay. this sand is not the best inlay material.
I have more sanding and varnishing to do but that was enough for the day.
Sea Grape vase with yellow inlay
Between petting the cat and making phone calls, I tried to attach the strap to my crochet bag. I quickly figured out it was not going straight and was not looking right anyway, so I removed the stitches I used. I will have to start that over again later.
I need to sand and varnish both pieces I worked on, and want to get to the lid, handle and spout of the tea pot I had started. I need to work on the dragon, the five faced face vase. Of course I have loads of wood to use up.
I have the turning club meeting this Thursday and will work hard to have something ready to display then.
I will see what I do tomorrow.
Year 11, Week 35, Day Two (week 609) (January 17, 2000 was my first carving day.) 09-11-11 Sunday
84 degrees early morning, 94 in afternoon, light breeze, mostly blue sky with a few puffs along with high feathers and streaks. It was nearly all sunny all day long. This weather report is brought to you by the City Of Pompano Beach department of Tourism.
ALERT ALERT!! Someone stole the beast of the back yard and left a CAT in his place. This cat wanted to be petted for long periods of time. If his personality wasn't so different, I would have thought it was the beast of the back hard. He was being sweet today, setting me up for some other time. He even came out while my brother was here and accepted some attention.
Beggar, Beast of the back yard not happy about having his picture taken.
I decided to work on my tea pot. I finalized the design of my handle, and cut it out on the band saw. I have a lot of shaping to do, but the basic design will work. I also started the design of the spout. I cut the mating surface for the tea pot, and drew on it how the hole will be run. and how the spout was to go. I never went farther on that.
Tea pot handle roughed out.
The hardest part of mating something to a bowl is to get it to fit the curves up and down and side to side. From experience, I had wanted to mount the work in place and let the spinning form shape the mating surfaces.
I could not figure out how to do that. I got the idea of taking some emery cloth and attach it to the work. I decided I needed to glue it on. I stuck a few pieces on and realized it was not going to work at all. since I had glue on the pot already, I slathered glue on it, then scraped up some of the sand in mom's yard (she is in an area where it is a white sand. the sand I got has some nutrients worked into it from years of gardening so it is not exactly white) and globed that into the glue. I put it on really thick. I then let it dry without touching it. After the glue set a while, I brushed off the loose sand and set it to the side to dry thoroughly, until next week.
I will hollow out the mating surface of the handle so mainly the edges will be rubbing on the glued-on sand. I have no idea how long it will last. If it lasts long enough, I will do the same to the mating surface of the spout.
Tea pot with sand glued on so I can match the handle to the curves of the vase.
I sanded on the bead cup and vase and added more varnish to them. I have more to do before the turning club on Thursday. They are looking pretty good.
when my brother came, we talked and he scroll sawed a piece for a clock he is making. We went out for lunch and then when we came back, he looked at some catalogs before we cleaned up and left.
I won't have any pressure to finish anything next week. I have the tea pot to work on. I have the dragon, a face vase, a vase that will have flowers carved into it, Christmas ornaments to carve, wood to make something out of, Christmas presents to make. I have a little metal lathe that is hungering to taste metal again. I can also use it on wood projects.
On Thursday, I have to run the video camera as the guy who normally runs it is out of town. It will be interesting to see if I remember the instructions I had totally forgotten about it until this weekend.
I will see what I actually do next week.
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