(January 17, 2000 was my first carving day.)
05-01-15 Saturday
69 degrees before sunrise, 85 late afternoon after things clouded up. I forgot to check the temps at the heat of the day. Early morning were some towers over the ocean that blocked the sunrise, but they moved off very soon after sunrise. There were a few spots of mist heading south, but they were gone by the time we finished breakfast. The wind was strong, with a few good gusts. One pulled my hat off, but I caught it before it reached the ground. This weather report is brought to you by the City of Pompano Beach Department of tourism.
Mom was in the mood to yard sale. She combined several of our favorite pathways to make it a whole morning thing. I quickly lost count of the places we stopped. Most had nothing, but we had to look.
At one yard sale, the guy was selling some things he got from his grandfather. I was able to explain to him about the key thing he had, which he had no clue what it was.
A drill has a chuck that you rotate the ring and the jaws close down onto the drill bit to hold it. When you buy Dremmels or other motor tools, they have a collet system where there are jaws with specific sized holes. You choose a jaw that has a hole just a tiny big bigger than the bit you are going to hold, and when you tighten the ring, it squeezes the jaw onto the shaft. If the shaft is smaller, you choose a smaller jaw. These motor tools are using what is referred to as a collet system.
What the guy had was a collet system for machining. He was missing the sleeve part of the system, but he had a lot of the collets.
In machining on the metal lathe, one is working with round rod stock. Usually, one uses a three-jaw chuck. The collet system is another jaw system for holding work. This collet set went from a chuck that could hold an eighth inch rod, stepping up to nearly an inch in diameter. There was likely a dozen of them. This set would have held most any size project one normally would have worked with.
I explained the best I could what they were and a little about how they were used. I considered strongly about getting them, but I remembered I have a collet set at home that I have not used. My brother used them and had a poor experience with them. I think he was using them wrong, but since he had a better system for holding work, He gave them to me. I have not used them nor have given thought to use them. If I got the jaw set this guy had, I would have to manufacture a holding system for it. I am not up to that right now.
I showed the guy what to look for on the packages of the collets and he said he would go on line to research them later. He was happy I helped him.
I picked up a tiny vice that I am sure is for tying flies.
At one place, a woman had some electronic devices. I did not realize what they were when I glanced at them. A man tried to talk the woman to go half price on a Palm Pilot. I had one, but it was a much older model. He worked hard to get her to go down, but she stood firm and he ended up buying it. Mom got one of those turn by turn guidance devices. It is the same model as what she has. I left empty handed. There are times when asking what things are, helps, but I am leery of getting second hand electronics.
One woman had nothing interesting. I then noticed a cast iron fry pan that had seen better days. I asked, out of curiosity, how much. I grabbed it up instantly. I have learned how to clean and season cast iron. I have more pans than I need, but I have an idea on who to pass one of my pans off to. This was a cheap pan, no name brand, thinner metal than my better ones, but I know it will clean up well.
I picked up a tiny ceramic Chinese Dragon at a yard sale. I happen to have a coin in my pocket to get it. I happen to love dragons.
At the last yard sale we stopped at. A woman had a box with baggies of jewelry. I asked the price. And it was per baggy. I saw a few things I could use. I asked for the whole box and I snatched it up. She said she had sold most of her jewelry before. This was what was left. When we got back, I told Mom to pick out what she wanted or needed. I am not totally sure what I will do with the rest of them, but I will figure something out.
At home, I relaxed and recovered for half an hour, then we went out for lunch. We like to talk during meals so we that took us deep into the afternoon.
I went out to the fence in the back yard and accidentally flushed out a wounded pigeon. Momma kitty saw it and rushed up stopped and watched, then zipped out of view. I heard rustling of the leaves. I finished what I was doing and then did a quick search. I found Momma kitty smugly lounging next to the bird, who was on its side. I went inside, and a bit later, went back out. The bird was gone, other than some fine feathers scattered around. I have no idea where Momma kitty took the bird.
This is not the first time she has caught these pigeons. The pigeons will walk around several feet away from me when they don’t see the cat around. Before we got Momma cat, they would even come under the awning and raid the cat dish. I figure once in a while, one would miss seeing momma cat and get caught. We would usually see feathers, and sometimes a piece of wing.
I do not know if this bird was injured by the cat in the first place. I thought I saw a bloody spot on the wing that was on the back.
The wheel of my basket came off. With out closely examining the axle when I had slipped the wheel back on to get it to Mom’s, I considered many ways to I could use to repair it. There was a groove in the axle and I figured it took a spring clip to hold the wheel on. I thought I could drill it and put in a while as a cotter pin to hold it in place. I had a bunch of stuff in the basket so I emptied the basket (way too much yarn), and turned it upside down. Examining the axle, I saw a hole in the axle just before the groove. I looked at the other wheel and realized it used a cotter pin. The pin had disappeared and the wheel came off. It looked like everything was there, so the job suddenly become easy. Those spring clips are a royal pain and I figured I would have to buy four, to make sure I would have enough spares for when they went flying.
I quickly found a wire about the right size. I cut a piece off about the right length, and bent it over. The two wires side by side was slightly too big to fit into the hole. I straightened the wire to 90 degrees.
Holding the wire on the vice so one end went straight down, I tapped each leg of the wire with a hammer, slightly flattening them. When I put the two ends back together, they slipped into the hole nicely.
I added lithium grease to each wheel since I figured they needed some extra lubrication.
While I had a load of projects I could work on, the desire to relax and recover from my day came over me. I decided it was late enough to call it a day.
Tomorrow, I have a number of projects to work on, which includes making a new post for my second food processor.
I will see what I actually do tomorrow.
Year 16, Week 15, Day One (week 751)
(January 17, 2000 was my first carving day.)
05-02-15 Sunday
85 Degrees, A breeze good enough to take individual hairs loose and tickle your face with them. Mostly sunny but lots of puffs everywhere. This weather report is brought to you by the City of Pompano Beach department of Tourism.
I started seasoning the fry pan. It is not all that hard, and I am learning little tricks and techniques to make it easier as I go. I am wiping the hot pan with shortening, using a paper towel, then letting the pan get really hot. It already has a good coating on it after three applications. Now the pan needs to be used for a while to really set in the seasoning. I tend to use a smaller pan as I am the only one eating. I will just have to use the bigger pan to give it a good workout.
On the way to Mom’s, I stopped at the Dollar Tree store for two items. This is almost like yard sailing, but with new things. Everything in the store is a dollar. I got some ideas for projects I would love to do but don’t have time for. They did not have the two things I was after in the store. If they had those items, I likely would have picked up other items also. I left empty handed. I did have a nice comfortable walk, though.
My brother was already at Mom’s house when I arrived. While we talked, I took some sea grape wood and split some pieces off as stock for the food processor shaft I want to make. Each time you make something, you learn how to do it better. I tried to split a little more off the piece I was working on, and the split took off a piece of wood it was not supposed to remove, making the piece un-square. I kept working with it, shaving with the knife, then using the disk sander. I got it about square, except for the missing corner on one end. I need to use the disk sander some more to reduce it to the right size to fit into the square hole. After I do that, then I can work on rounding the other end. I am thinking I will take another piece, which is bigger and start over and get the piece nice. I had split off far more than I needed so I can do other projects with the wood pieces.
Splitting the wood gives me the strongest grain. When you simply saw wood, you don’t always follow the grain exactly as the grain can wander in the wood. Since I am trying to replace a piece of plastic, I figured that having the grain straight will reduce the chances of breaking.
My brother and I started talking about some expected repairs on my truck. I put away my wood project and dug out the repair book for my truck and my brother went through the book, then looked at my truck to see what it had. He said that he had to repair his truck the same way and there was no room to do it, everything was so tight. My truck is wide open. He even figured out that he can avoid disconnecting one tricky part just by how he jacks it up. I now have to get parts. That may take a while.
Other than the feathers where the cat caught the bird, I have not seen any sign of the bird. I barely saw the cat. Because my brother was near the food, she stayed in hiding.
Mom had gone through the box of jewelry last night and I took the box home. A quick glance through several of the bags, is interesting. My guess is that she made jewelry as there were decorations in some of the baggies that were still in their store display packages. I have a gallon baggy of just Mardi Gras necklaces. Along with that gallon baggy of necklaces, I have eleven other baggies of jewelry and pieces. It will take me a while to go through all of them, and even longer to sort them out as to type. There are things I have plans of using, but I have no clue what to do with the rest of them. They likely will end up being gifts. If I can figure out how to make something quickly and use up the excess, it would be really nice. I am beginning to think that Jewelry is going end up a new type of hobby for me. I have plenty of beads to add to the projects too. The big problem is that I don’t have time for my other hobbies as it is.....
I hope to finish the food processor post next weekend. Beyond that, I have no idea what is planned for next weekend.
I will see what happens next weekend.
Fly fishing vice, closed
Fly fishing vice, open
Cast iron fry pan
Repaired basket wheel.
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