WoodWorking (Week 365)

Year 12, Week 9, Day One (week 635)
(January 17, 2000 was my first carving day.)
09-23-12 Sunday

 
I forgot to check the temps, cloudy with some blue sky, threatening gray to the south of us, This weather report is brought to you by the City Of Pompano Beach Department of Tourism.

 

DURING THE WEEK

 

I went to the doctor and learned that I have several squished disks in my back, a vertabre where the "buttresses" that hold them in line is broken off, and of course my tail bone is broke. I will be going for therapy starting Wednessday to strengthen the muscles in my back to reduce any damage and to work on other parts of the body.

 

SATURDAY

 

The weather was rough in the morning so yard sales were not out. I did go to WALMART and get some more cotton yarn.

One wash cloth I made was of ends of balls of yarn. I used the granny square stitch for that one. I then started a second one but have to wait formore yarn ends to finish that one.

I picked up one ball of yarn with long spaces between the colors. I did a standard design washcloth to see what the pattern was, then wrapped the remains of the ball around the fabric I made, and started a different kind of washcloth on the other end  I won't get that color patterned yarn again for small projects like this. The spacing of the colors never come out right.

 

SUNDAY

 

Last week, I picked up some +2.5 diopter reading glasses. I decided to try them in my wood working. It worked out pretty good. distant stuff is out of focus, but stuff to arm's length are all right when the reading glasses are over my regular lenses.

 

During then night, I got an idea for a possible Christmas ornament, a running or scating figure. I got outside and cut a length of two by two and started carving. I found my right wrist is not strong enough to hold the wood while carving. It hurts. I have some strained muscles in the wrist, I think mostly from the improper use of a walker. I got off pain pill about the time I got off the walker and that was about when the wrist pain started to show.

I ended up not doing much carving.

 

We have several scroll saws and my brother decided to swap machines on the home-made carts they are on. One cart is higher than the other. Some machines have front to back movement on the blade, while others go up and down without rocking. My brother likes the tall cart and put the better machine onto it. While working with it, he broke several blades. He figured out that the tensioning knob was slipping. He will have to disassemble the machine to fix that.

 

I do need to start making Christmas ornaments soon. There is a way I can do the carving to reduce the pain, mainly by flipping the wood around a whole lot more so I can be cutting from the easy side.

 

I will have to see what I do next week.