79 degrees, strong breeze with hard gusts unbroken medium high clouds with lower puffs that gave birth to liquid sunshine a few times, sometimes really hard. Between hard cells of showers, was a steady misty drip that faded out to nothing after noon. All of this was coming off the ocean in random dots. This weather report is brought to you by the City Of Pompano Beach department of Tourism.
I had plans to work on a number of things, including sanding on some almost finished pieces, but instead of working half a day as planned, I ended up working the whole day, actually working fairly late. It will look good on the pay check, but a whole number of things I planned to do was never done.
We figured out that I had stopped working on Fridays about three years ago, in August / September. Other than a few times where we worked Friday because we were off Monday, I have not worked Fridays for three whole years. It will take some doing to get used to it, if it lasts long enough to get used to it.
Because of the weather, there were no yard sales. That worked out pretty good as I did not have much money on me. The pin that holds the band to the Watch I picked up last week, broke, so I spent three bucks to have it replaced. I paid a dollar for the watch.
I had found one of those water containers for use with those drinking machines. You upend the bottle and the suction within the jar and the water below keeps the jar from draining. This one had some tape on the bottom. I added some super glue over the crack I found and now the cat has fresh water again. Will see how long that jug lasts in the sun. I dropped the old one and it broke. Mom was thinking of using it for a planter.
I got my equipment out. I did not bother dragging the big lathe out because of the wetness. I did bring out the little lathe. I wanted to look for something that turned out not to be there. I cut some black walnut and mounted it into the lathe and machined it down to a small rod. It was something to do while other things were not likely to be done.
A bit later, I decided to make a part for the little lathe. I wanted to make a point for the tail stock. I have two, but decided to see if I could make a new one. My first project was to make the part that fits into the tail stock.
This rod is made of stainless steel so it is hard to cut and hard on the cutting tools. My lathe uses belts and they slip. The lathe is not really all that powerful. Because of the dull tool I was using, it struggled to remove much metal. I got the part about half way to where I need it. I might work it some more tomorrow. I might give it o my brother to finish since he mentioned he might do some machining.
The rod end finished and starting to part it off the stock rod.
The weather prevented me from trimming on the palm tree also. I am still looking at it. I will be using an electric SawsAll, and was figuring out the best place to plug in and run the cord and toss the debris. it will require some creative tossing.
Tomorrow, I will do something on the dragon. I really need to dig out the clay and make a model of the dragon to solve some position problems I am having. It will be quick and a lot easier to do than guessing on the wood. I think I will bring the clay and do some shaping.
I got a list of things that shows how a cat loves a person. The flexing the paws while petting is something that the kittens used to do when nursing to get more milk out. An adult cat does that for pleasure. A cat is vulnerable when they sleep. If they sleep in your lap or at your feet, it shows they are comfortable and trusting with the situation.
Reading that and thinking about how Beggar sleeps at my feet, really impressed me. He has really come a long ways from when I started taming him.
Scarface and Beggar got into a fight and Scarface was really after Beggar. Mom broke up the fight, taking Scarface out of the yard. She is a bit hesitant at feeding him now. She thinks he is beginning to think he is the yard cat, not Beggar.
What I do tomorrow will depend on the weather. if the weather is anything like today, I will set up under the awning and work on stuff that requires me to sit. If the weather is nice, I will do the spout of the tea pot. I need to start making Christmas ornaments. I have a bunch to make from previous years that I am out of, and I need to come up with something new. I can use power tools to remove the worst of the wood but these are hand carved items.
I have some other ornaments to make that can be turned for the most part. I want to make some tops that can be used as toys, or hung on the tree. Some will be carved or otherwise decorated, while others will be purely turned work.
I also want to make some drop spin bobbins for making yarn. It is like a top, but it has a hook at the top. You spin some fiber into a string and then hook it onto the hook on top, then set it spinning while it dangles and work the fiber out so it twists into the yarn. After each bit made, you wind it around the shaft and do it again until it is full. It is basically made like a top. It would also make a good Christmas ornament.
I will see what I actually do tomorrow.
Year 11, Week 39, Day Two (week 613) (January 17, 2000 was my first carving day.) 10-09-11 Sunday
79 degrees in the morning with strong winds and almost continuous drizzles and some heavier sessions. 84 degrees in the afternoon and the solid clouds broke up into broad puffs with blue sky showing in between. This weather report is brought to you by the City Of Pompano Beach Department of Tourism.
Yesterday, I paid to have a new pin put into my watch band. This morning, I put the watch on and a short while later, the pin gave way and the watch fell to the carpet. I ended up replacing the band to something that was a little longer and replaced one of the pins. I think it will stay on now. I wanted to swap the clasp as the original clasp was a better design, but it would take more effort than I decided it was worth at the moment.
The weather eliminated some plans. I got my equipment out under the awning. When Home Depot opened, we went and got ten bags of mulch. They were on sale, and we got it even cheaper than expected as the price by the stacks was lower.
While in the store, the wind really kicked up the Liquid sunshine, but when we went out, it was barely a mist. I helped load the bags into my truck. I hated handling the wet bags. I don't like that kind of wet on my shirt. We got home and there was just a few dots of mist so I got the wagon and made two trips to get the bags into the back yard where Mom wanted them.
Christmas stuff is already on display. LED light strings are cheaper than they were last year.
I had to wipe the table off as a strong gust left water on the table. I set up the little lathe and returned to the process of machining the piece I was making. I had decided I wanted a different kind of point in the tail stock. I had a choice between a cup, where the work fits into it, or a longer point. Because of the stock I chose, It became a longer point. I also wanted to test out doing something with an angle to it. The cross slide I want to make will do this better, but for this, I decided to do it with the design of the lathe as it was.
After making the shaft that fits into the tail stock, which I accidentally made a little smaller than it should have been, one too many cuts, I then parted it off. I worked until it bent because the metal was too small. I then put the piece in the vice and a couple pulls snapped it off. In this case, it was not a critical thing. If It was critical, I would have worked it down part way, and then cut it with a hack saw. My brother said that most people use the hack saw as the part tends to go flying in any direction if you simply part it off.
I mounted the shaft into the chuck of the lathe, and then turned the head to work on an angle, something I have not done before. I can see that the length of this short piece was long enough to not give me the angle I was after. I moved my tool rest back as far as it would go, then turned the head so the tool rest just missed the part. I then slowly brought the tool rest in and worked it back and forth, nibbling off metal from the edge.
At one point, I stopped and straightened the lathe out and machined the end of the pont. I should have done that first thing before I set up the angle, but did not think of it. the end of the point needed to be clean and square.
When I re-set up the angle, I got the piece as close to the tool rest as possible which changed the angle to something more blunt. Not much more, but better.
I finally worked until I ended up with a point. I then took a file and made some passes with it while the machine was running to clean up the surface. I then called it done.
My brother suggested a pont that fits all the way across my tool rest assembly. That might be a project for the next rainy day.
My new point with an original, and my new point in place on the tail stock
My nephew showed up and he showed my brother some gaming dice, four sides, six sides, ten sides, twenty sides, He and my brother discussed how to make them in aluminum. They first discussed the process to get the angles right when they are machined from stock materials. Some are really tough to do. A couple were nearly impossible to hold down. IN the end, they were discussing lost wax casting, which would give them even the embossed numbers that are on the dice. My brother has a number of the things needed to do that. He is just not set up to do it.
They will give thought to the process and see what they can come up with. It will be an interesting experiment. With the lost wax process, you make a mold of the original, then you use the mold to make a wax copy of what you are making. You add sprues and a fill spout, and set it in a special sand, and compress it fairly well. Not as tight as for sand casting, but enough. then when the hot metal is poured in, the wax melts and burns away, the metal taking its place making a perfect copy. One only then has to cut away the sprues and do a little cleanup.
Scarface decided to adopt mom's back yard after the fight with Beggar the other day. he hung around all day long. I did give him a little food, but he wanted more and kept trying to entice me to feed him more, by climbing into my lap and having me pet him. He had suddenly become my best friend. I did not see to much of Beggar today. He kept looking at Scarface suspiciously.
I brought some clay with me and shaped it like the dragon carving. I need to work out how the legs will go. While it is not an exact copy of the dragon it is enough to give me a good look at what I have and what I need to do. I will play around with it during the week to see if I can solve the problem of the design of the legs.
clay model of wooden dragon.
I had a very lackluster weekend when it came to wood working. If the weather was a little better, I had plans to start making some blanks for some Christmas ornaments I ran out of last year. I also need to come up with new ornaments for this year. I need four new designs, preferably out of two by two white wood.
I will see what I actually do next week.
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