(January 17, 2000 was my first carving day.)
02-28-15 Saturday
64 degrees early morning 78 afternoon, off and on showers, early morning and late late morning. Mostly cloudy with a few spots of blue. A brisk wind at times. This weather report is brought to you by the City Of Pompano Beach Department Of Tourism.
During the week, I was adding white around one of the eyes of the first teddy bear. Mom saw it and said No, too cartoonish. She even thought the fact that I had enlarged the eyes on it make it look bad. I removed all the white (it is harder to remove stitching than it is to add it). I decided I will leave the first two teddy bears as they are for now, at least until I can get around to making clothing for them.
One of people in the turning club was culling his wood supply and offered it to the turning club. My throttle leg twitched at the idea of getting some more quality wood, then it dawned on me that I have a whole lot of wood already that needs to be used up. From the picture I saw, many of the pieces were beyond the weights I can lift right now. Those are always the best wood to get if you can. Either as big pieces or cut up into chunks, one can do a whole lot with them. I closed the E-mail and went about my business a bit sad...
We got a late start in the morning and there was a heavy downpour before we headed to breakfast, an hour late. After breakfast, we stopped at one yard sale. They got caught by the shower and many things were wet. They had their moving yard sale last week where I got the sharpening stuff. They said they are about to be moving. That is good to hear. The man of the house looked at the weather and started packing up as a storm South of us was approaching.
We then went to a church yard sale. This was in a play field with lots of tree roots. They did not have near as many tables out as they had back in January. I grabbed a few decorative baskets and knick knacks. I was surprised at how low they were selling the stuff I had. Since it was a church, I rounded up and told them to keep the change. Except for some eyes and noses for stuffed animals, everything I got was presents. They had gotten caught by the early morning storm as many of their stuffed animals were damp.
I went out back and was petting the kitty cat when Mom suggested we go to Walmart. I got my stuff under cover and we headed out.
I walked several of the grocery isles, then went directly to the craft section. That is always dangerous. The yarn is so pretty. I already have a life-time supply of yarn and don’t need more. I went to the button section and looked at the buttons they had on display. I grabbed some black buttons, the ones that attach on a post in back. I also picked up some waterproof wood glue and some GOOP brand adhesive. It said it was waterproof and good for woodso I decided to give it a try.
The store has skylights and the storm hit and the skylights roared. Mom later said that people would be heading out and stop at the look at the hard downpour.
I visited several isles in the camping and tool isle, got to the front, then went all the way back again to the craft area. I decided the buttons are way too big for the teddy bears I am doing. I put them back and looking a bit closer, I found some tiny red buttons that are supposed to be lady bugs.
I got back to the front, went through the Easter section and then sat down at Pharmacy where they had some chairs. I was wore out. I called mom on the cell and found she was just a short distance away. The storm had stopped and I was glad to sit down in the car to head home.
We all napped for a short time, me about half an hour, then I went out back and set up the table and my tools. I took the knife handles I made last week. The blades came out easily. I took the handles to the disk sander and sanded the sides of the knife handles nice and smooth, making sure nothing was there to prevent adhesion when I glued it again. I made sure they were perfectly smooth.
When the outsides were exactly what I wanted, I popped them in half. My attempts last week were rather poor so it came apart easily.
I made a quick stop at Ace Hardware to get a rivet that would be perfect to hold the blade in. I make a point to try to find it myself since one never knows what else one might find. The rivets were too short. I could have used them but was not ready for that. I finally asked for help. I had already found a screw that was the right size, and he showed me the nuts. I only needed two but knowing how things drop and disappear, I got an extra pair. These steak knives are not even worth the sixteen cents worth of hardware, but it is a project I had decided to try. I figure what I learn here will help on a real project.
When the outsides were exactly what I wanted, I popped them in half. My attempts last week were rather poor so it came apart easily. I then marked the where the tang of the blades go into the handle and this time used several dremmel bits to cut deep into the wood so the blade was below the surface.
After I had both sets exactly the way I wanted for the blade to fit, I applied the GOOP glue. I realized quickly that it was not really what I wanted to use. It is a bit more rubbery. The waterproof wood glue would have worked better, I think. I had committed myself to it so I used it. I found that somehow I broke the tang on one blade right where the screw would hold the blade in place. I ran a shaft through each hole to line them up and got the handles the way I wanted them and applied clamps and set them to the side.
I worked a bit on the crochet of the blue teddy bear. I am now working on the second half of the body, about to finish the first leg. It won’t be too long before I can start stitching this teddy bear up.
I plan to work more on the knives tomorrow. I will have to see how the day goes with other plans that might crop up.
Year 16, Week 06, Day Two (week 752)
(January 17, 2000 was my first carving day.)
02-29-15 Sunday
74 degrees early morning, 85 afternoon. Dry air, no humidity, Some wetness to the south as I drove to Mom’s but the rough clouds disappeared into mostly blue sky and sunshine. It was nice. There was a brisk breeze that would blow around lightly filled plastic bags. This weather report is brought to you by the City Of Pompano Beach Department Of Tourism.
I started the morning with a small project. I dug out all the beads and buttons I could find and sorted through them. I consolidated my beads into one place and put them in a place I will totally forget about later. I did not have any beads that were good for teddy bear eyes. I can live with that. There is a Bead and Bauble show on Public Television and I catch that periodically. It has given me some ideas about projects. I never will do them, but it is nice to have ideas.
I then went through all my buttons. I found the buttons I had purchased years ago as eyes for my duck, chicken, and turkey bowls. These are brown with concentric lighter rings, perfect for eyes.
I had a jar of buttons I got at a yard sale many years ago. I dumped it out and searched through them. I first removed the really big buttons and put them back in the jar since they were only good for teddy bears that an adult could hug. I sorted down the sizes of buttons until I had mainly fairly small ones. Finally, I picked out the buttons that attach by a post in back rather than through holes in the surface. I found I had quite a few buttons that would pass for eyes in black and in white. There were a few that were interesting which included a blue cloth center. Those would be good for larger teddy bears.
Back mid last year, I had visited a yard sale where the woman had about six jars of buttons. I was proud that I had walked away from them, not getting them. Seeing what I have for eyes for teddy bears, I am suddenly kicking myself for not getting them. I have enough buttons for eyes of several dozen teddy bears, but if I keep making stuffed animals, I will run out. Now I wished I had all those jars of buttons to give me even more options.
I took the button eyes to Mom’s house to have a better look at what I have. I have a good selection. I separated them out a little bit so the ones I want will be easier to find.
I took the knife handles I prepared and started preparing them for the screws. The head needed to be set in, and the same for the nut. I had to cut part of the hole larger so the nut would be set into the wood. I was a bit lazy and chose to use several of my dremmel bits to make the holes bigger. The proper way to have done it was to go to the drill press and use the correct sized bit and drill it that way. The way I did it, I had to make some adjustments to get the screw and nut to fit. After I started the threads on the nut, I drove the nut into the wood so the wood would hold it, then I cinched the screw and nut tight on both knives. I finally used a chain saw sharpening bit to grind the end of the bolt down to the nut. I have a little more to do on one of them. I decided to put a pin into the blade of the knife that had the broken tang to help keep it in the handle. I learned something. That metal resists drilling. My brother later told me that what he does is to stick a rod in to that kind of metal and just drill it until the metal turns blue. Then he uses his bit to drill the hole. Blueing the metal takes away the temper which makes it strong and hard. I have more work to do that to this blade.
I mentioned to my brother that I still had a leak in a fitting on my heater hose. He decided he would fix it. We got some hose of roughly the right length and diameter. And he then took out his copper fittings and built a T fitting that my hose has. I found out that the leak is a fine crack at a impressed marking on the plastic Tee. My brother’s work deals in high pressure fittings so this was easy for him. He had to step down one part of the Tee quite a bit so he got pieces of copper pipe that would fit in to each other until it got to the size that the small hose would fit on. He soldered them, taking the same kind of time he would use for his work. He measured and cut the hoses to fit, and had to use the same small hose as the one we purchased was a bit too big. I sat and watched while he was working with the fittings and handed him things that were out of his reach.
We put the hose into the truck and with some adjustments, it fit. I had to give him a hand on fitting the hose in, but that was nothing. He could well have done it all himself.
We spent about forty bucks in parts for something that would have cost a paycheck if done professionally. It does not look like it is leaking. I will know a bit later in the week for sure. I also found out that a little suction hose that goes into the air intake had come loose and was causing my engine to run rough. It is nice to have a brother who has rebuilt several engines when needed.
I will likely finish up the knives next week. I do hope to finish the blue teddy bear by the end of next weekend. I have loads of wood that are begging to be used in some project or another. Many times, Mom’s plans trumps mine.
I will have to see what crops up next weekend.
The buttons selected as eyes. Ones on the cards are specially purchased, used in my bird carvings. They have light colored rings in the dark brown or black backgrounds and pass well as eyes.
The steak knives so far
No comments:
Post a Comment