Year 16, Week 28, Day One (week 860)

Year 16, Week 28, Day One (week 860)
(January 17, 2000 was my first carving day.)
07-23-16 Saturday

78 degrees at dawn, 86 at ten, 94 after noon. Mostly blue sky with towers and streaks around the edges in the morning, a line of puffs suddenly appeared starting just before the Everglades, becoming thicker until thunder rolled at around one. One cloud’s diaper leaked a little at that time, but just a little leak. No breeze early morning, with high humidity, then the wind started picking up as the day bore on, and became almost useful after the thunder rolled. This weather report is brought to you by the City Of Pompano Department Of Tourism. 

Getting my computer back is nice. It is hard to catch up though. A lot of stuff I do each night did not get done. It ended up being a loose memory card. Maybe I should go to the doctor and see if my own memory card is loose. It would help if I could remember more.......

I hit one yard sale as I left breakfast. You don’t realize how much stuff are out at some of those yard sales until you do a yard sale yourself. The ones that look like there is nothing, is a lot of work. To set up those big yard sales where they almost cover the front yard is a real test of endurance and determination. At this yard sale, I picked up two of those cast iron pans like what Denny’s uses for their skillet dinners. I also picked up a small muffin pan. No I did not need them, but I do like cast iron. I have seen some interesting techniques for non pastry dishes using muffin pans. 
I was driving, so I followed the great loop. I hit all the places I ever normally hit. For all that driving, I did not see too many yard sales. Some areas were vacant of yard sales. There were a few that were interesting to look at. I try to notice patterns in what is in several sales. At first, I saw curling irons at two, then I saw knife block sets at two. In the end, there was no pattern as to what was being offered. 
I did find a handful of ladles. Mom was looking for some last week. I then got a little tub of stamps. This goes with all the ink I had gotten previously.
It looks like the woman who had all the art stuff either has moved, or is about to move. It is always sad when someone runs out of stuff to sell......

I was really tired when I got back so I napped for a couple hours and laid, relaxing for a little longer after. 

I had fed and petted the cat when I got back from the restaurant, and then did it again when I went out back after my rest. She inhaled my attention. 
A year or two ago, I had picked up a chair someone was tossing. It was missing a rung in back and I intended to make a new one. That never happened. Well, the curved wood of the back came loose and several of the rungs were dangling loose because of weathering. 
Fixing that chair became my project for the day. It looked easy. (Usually if it looks easy, it is hard, if it looks hard, it is nearly impossible) It was not as hard as I thought it could be. The way this chair was made, was the tenons of the curved back went through the seat and had a screw holding it in place. The wood that the screw was going into on the tenon broke off. 
I first figured out what the cause of it coming loose which was easy. I then decided it would be easy to run a couple screws through the seat wood and into the tenon. Now they had used a square slot screw. Phillips screwdrivers don’t work on that. Last year I picked up a set of screwdriver bits. There is like 50 or 60 bits in the box running from square, hex, phillips, flat and so on, with different sizes of each. I just had to find the right one. The first one I found, which looked right,  turned out to be too small. The one I thought was way too big, fit right. I had not noticed they are tapered. That got the screw out. I removed the broken pieces out of the hole. I decided that running a long screw into the wood of the seat, up into the wood of the back would be the best way to go. A lot of wood would have to give before it would come loose again.
My original plan was to drill a hole bigger than the screw so as the screw got tight, it would pull the wood down into the hole. Instead, I drilled a tiny pilot hole with a small bit and then drove the screw into it. The original plan would have been better but I got lazy. I would have to dig out more stuff to get to a drill bit the right size. While this chair could be made to look nice, It never will. It is simply to sit on when outside and we let it weather. 
I globbed a lot of water-resistant glue into where the holes the rungs fit into the back as a way to help hold things together. I also globbed glue in and around the tenon of the back. Of course, it dripped. Since this chair will never get a finish, I did not bother to clean up the drips, at least this weekend. Anything can happen in the future. 

That was a quick and easy project. I was surprised at how easy it turned out to be. I decided to accept that as an accomplishment and call it a day. The weather at this time was kind of questionable and I decided it would be nicer to relax. 

I went out a little later to feed and pet the cat. I put her on my lap, which does not happen often, and petted her for a whole eight minutes, which is saying a lot. I think the longest she ever let me pet her while she was on my lap was 12 minutes. She is an outdoor cat and is very flighty. Many times she will dash off with just a wrong move of a foot. 

I have no idea what I will do tomorrow. I am not expecting much. My brother won’t be coming up. 





Year 16, Week 28, Day Two (week 860)
(January 17, 2000 was my first carving day.)
07-24-16 Sunday

76 early morning 86 in the afternoon. I am not used to this frigid weather we are having this weekend..... Blue sky overhead ringed with clouds early morning, Some puffs with a little leaking out west before noon, then really high feathers and blobs after noon. This weather report is brought to you by the City Of Pompano Beach Department of Tourism.

I was actually intending to accomplish nothing today, but then got an idea to take a Cigar box and make it to take donations. I first had to dig into Mom’s garage to find the cigar boxes I knew were there. I found some, but they were not the big ones I remembered. Two had slide tops and were all wood. Another had latch and lid with hinges, but was covered in paper on top and the corners. I chose that one. The paper on the corners looks good, but on the lid, the paper field with the artwork should be removed.
Since I was going to remove the paper, I first drew on the slot the money would go in. I then used my carving knife to cut into the paper and wood on my lines. I made several passes on the sides and ends, then levered some of the wood off. I saw that this is a fine plywood, not solid wood. Part way through the thickness, I saw that this was going to take some effort, so I pulled out the Dremmel and put a cutting disk on it. It cut the slots quickly, but they were not straight. I do not know if that was from something I did originally or it happened in the process. Likely the idiot doing the work...
Once I had the slot cut, I started removing the paper on the filed. I cut along the border and then started pealing the paper up. It tore, of course because they used a pretty good glue, I got the worse of it off, I searched for an easy way of removing what was left. I tried 32 grit sand paper and while it was going to do the job eventually, it was not fast enough. I then took out the dremmel with aa worn flap sanding bit on it and that ate the paper off. 
The hole was not straight so I used my carving knife to clean up the corners and where one side wandered, thicker in the middle, I shaves with the knife the ends until it was square. It still needs work.
There was paper on the inside of the lid and had to clean that up some while I was at it. Finally I sanded the whole area with 100 grit sand paper, and used it on the edges of the slot to help clean that up.
I cannot remember where I put my varnish, so I gave it an oil finish. Most of the box is varnished. The oil finish can be the final finish, or it could get a can of spray varnish. I will decide that next weekend. 

I decided that I had done enough for today and headed home. 

I will have to see what I do next weekend.


1668

The loose rungs

the tighted rungs

A look at all the tools and stuff needed to fix the chair.

cast iron pans

stamps. the pictures show what they are

the cigar box as I found it

The cigar box with the slot cut in

The cigar box with paper removed and a light spray of oil.

Year 16, Week 27, Day One (week 859)

Year 16, Week 27, Day One (week 859)
(January 17, 2000 was my first carving day.)
07-16-16 Saturday

86 degrees early morning, 95 late afternoon, Blue skies overhead all day long, towers and puffs all around throughout the day, some high feathers overhead late in the day. A brisk breeze helped with the heat, but never enough. This weather report is brought to you by the City Of Pompano Department of Tourism.


Just wanted to report that I had to take my computer in for service last week. It became a NASCAR race car and was crashing on me every time I turned it on. A new computer is not in the works as the new computers won't run the vast amounts of software I have. My software runs on 32 bit computers and the new 64 bit computers won't run them. The newest ones might have something to make them work but I have not heard if that is yet true.
My emergency computer is a WINDOWS 98 computer and the browsers cannot handle a lot of the places I go on line. If I don’t go on line, there is little it won't do, as long as I have some patience. It is slow than I have gotten used to. but that can be easily ignorable. Nice thing is that it has some DOS programs that I can run also.

It is a little disappointing. This year's weather has not followed any normal patterns. We had a really wet winter. Usually, by May, they are complaining about fire hazards. We did not get that kind of fun this year. 
Also at this time of year, I am making fun of how much hotter it is up north than down here. Usually, we drop down into the mid 80s and stay there, while New York and other Northern areas are in the 90s. The different weather pattern down here sure takes the fun out of bragging about how good the weather is down here. 
Another change in the weather is that in the mornings, we have dots of showers coming off the ocean and they really don't stop. Normally we would not get those. It is hard to predict what the weather is actually doing and that makes it hard to commit to projects that can be ruined by weather. 

After Breakfast we hit several yard sales. One was a house in the wealthy district. Everything is being sold, including the air conditioner. The house will be gutted and completely rebuilt in a different design. This is common down here. The living room was bigger than Mom's house and the kitchen was bigger than mom's living room. 
There was a screened porch out back with a pool. The screen area was about the size of Mom's back yard. I liked some of the features in the house such as the living room ceiling being 3 stories high and really helped to add to impressiveness to the living room. I mean really it felt big and spacious. I liked how they used white paint everywhere so your accessories would be the color. For their decor, they had large glass topped tables and coffee tables White chairs with clear materials built into the back was representative of what furniture I saw in the lower floor area.
The one thing I would love to have is a kitchen big enough to have an island. It won't hapen any place I will ever live.  I just like that feature. Cabinets and drawers were everywhere in the kitchen. It ALMOST had enough room for all the stuff I would love to get if I had any room. 
Thinking about the house, I can see why it is being rebuilt. The angles of the walls everywhere made the house look a little strange. Other than the kitchen and screened patio, I did not care that much for the design of the house.

We did hit a other few yard sales. One had great decorator items that I just could not justify bringing home. In one expensive home, they had a bowl of stone eggs. I really wanted to them, but once I got them, what to do with them? I have no place for them or any other use for them other than displaying them. Thinking about them, I decided that I should go through all my various woods and make some wooden eggs. I then remembered years ago I had carved some hatching eggs. That would be an interesting project to do again. It is, though a lot of work if you don’t have the right wood. I walked away without the stone eggs. 
A another yard sale, I did get a kid's guitar. It is missing two strings, which could be easily replaced. I did not need it. I have a guitar SOMEWHERE in my house that is better. Just needs a tiny repair and would be perfect. At that same sale, I got a travel easel where you put the paints in the box and when you open the box, you use the lid to hold your canvasses to paint. Mom snapped that out of my hand when we got home. I have a big one that opens up  legs to stand on. I have never used it. it is usually a choice of working wood or going some place to paint.......

We got back and I had to relax, rest, and cool down. After lunch, I headed out back. I set up to make some more platters. 
Last weekend, I developed a theory. If I worked the inside of the platter first, I might be able to control the bounce of the wood caused by warping while I am working with it. I needed to test this out. 
I knew there were two little problems of doing the top of the platter first and I saw them as I worked. One, it is harder to judge how deep you are going when you are working the inisde. The second is that it is harder to follow the angle of the face as you are making the backside. I am always working to the right of the platter. When working on the inside second, the angle is facing you. Because of the spacing of your eyes, you can see both sides of the platter when looking down the edge. When the platter is flipped around so the backside is facing you, and the edge is away from you. You are looking at the surface you are working with rather than the edge. You cannot as easily gauge the thickness or the angle. In order to get to a position where you can see the angle, it is wrong for making your cuts.
When making the backside first, I simply stay as shallow as possible for the base and then shape up to the rim. When working the inside first, I have to kind of guess, or do measurements, as to how deep I am going. Cutting the inside of the plate first does give challenge, but it is an easy one to deal with. 

By working the bottom second, I also tested my theory about handling the warping of the wood. As the tension is released from the wood, it bends and twists. This causes bouncing of the tool on the wood. It makes it difficult to get a clean surface, but instead creates ripples in the wood. 
It has been a problem when working with the inside of the platter second as there is not a lot of wood to work with at that point and one is trying to work with the final, viewed, surfaces. 

What I found in this experiment is that while the ripples do form while working the backside, like on the inside, the wood warps sooner, while the wood is still thick. It is easier to compensate for the ripples by lightening up the cut and just let the high points pass until the surface is even. The end result is that the final product is not quite as bad as working on the inside last. 
I made two platters, the second one proving the results and I was impressed with the results. 

I plan to make a bunch more blanks before I attempt to finish some of the platters. One thing I want to do is have pieces at each step of the process to show during the demonstration. This will allow me to pass out different stages to the people so they can see what each stage looks like while I do them. I also need to practice every stage to get the process down so they know exactly what is going on. I might not do any finish work during the demonstration, but should have something to show anyway. 

I ALMOST felt like I could make one more platter, but I decided that it would be wiser to clean up while I had a little energy and then rest while I was not hurting bad. Mom was out when I was cleaning up and she saved me trips out to the sand pile where I am dumping my sawdust. That helped. It is not a long walk, but every step makes a difference. I had made a wise decision.

One problem with the wind is that it is sneaky and sly. It will steal some sawdust and hide it in secret places. A day or so later, it will gather up the hidden sawdust and sprinkle it out in the open to make things look a mess. It will also move the sawdust to places it is not supposed to be. It can do this several times after you clean up that little bit each time. It is sneaky in that way. 
Some sawdust got into the sitting area of the awning and we had to clean it up. When Momma kitty lays down there, she gets the sawdust into her hair. Since I was the one sweeping, I had to sweep that area up also. Mom helped me by dumping the dust pan for me. There was still more sawdust there. We really needed a blower or a vacuum to clean the area properly. Not worth the effort. This is outside. 

I don't plan to do anything tomorrow. My brother is not coming up. 

I will see what I do next weekend.

1741

A demonstration of my centering technique with a regular ruler. I pick two numbers that can be divided by two easily, in this case, 10 and 20, which is 15.

I move the two numbers so the marks inside or outside them come out even, which in this case is close to three lines. the finer the lines of your scale, the more accurate you can become. I visually center the ruler up and down and then mark the center as I measured. 

I turn the disk and set the ruler on that mark and do another center and  this one should be extremely close. One can do that again to verify you have the center. 

The disks I have made to date. the lower right hand disk is one I finished a while ago and one disk had fallen out of the bag in the truck, which I found after I took these pictures. These are the top view of the platters

this is the bottom view of the platters.

Year 16, Week 26, Day One (week 858)

Year 16, Week 26, Day One (week 858)
(January 17, 2000 was my first carving day.)
07-09-16 Saturday

86 degrees early morning, 96 degrees as a high. Blue ridge mountains with strange growths on them over the ocean at sunrise. They faded away. At about ten, a line of puffs formed at the edge of the Everglades and they stayed, growing taller, then a lot later slowly leaving to the west The blue sky had a slight haze to it so it was not a deep rich blue. This is normal. We get a lot of dust from Africa which is why we could never meet the Environmental clean air regulations. Humidity was thick in the morning but a good breeze picked up after noon which helped dry the air out.  This weather report is brought to you by the City Of Pompano Beach department of Tourism.

I got the idea that each time I see a really good looking cloud figure, I should take a picture of it. I saw a cloud of an old lady on the way to Mom’s house. It was ahead of me when heading North. I had passed one off ramp when I saw it and was going to take a picture when I got to the next off ramp. By the time I went the couple miles and turned the corner, all the details of the old lady was gone. It looked just like a tower of clouds. That was just like three minutes. I have seen such cloud pictures change radically in just a minute. 

Our first yard sale stop was nearby. She didn’t have anything I could not live without. She had several pictures of some goofy guy. It is always embarrassing when they tell me it is a mirror. 
Our second stop was a the woman with the art stuff. Mom was picking through some drawers of a bin and I asked how much the whole bin was. Cheaper than the individual price of just the things Mom really wanted. Mom is holding that for me and someday I might actually get some of the stuff in there...... I got some MAD MAGAZINES. It had been a while since I had read one. I also got some tools I don’t need. 

We hit a couple other yard sales. Nothing memorable at them EXCEPT.
One yard sale had a roll of leather, likely 30 or 36 inches wide. It looked like quite a few yards of it. It was a thin pliable leather, likely for furniture and there were some seams in it. The price he asked for it was a steal. It hurt, but I decided I would rather spend the rest of my life kicking myself for not getting it. It is a trade-off. If I got it, It would likely never be touched. If I don’t have it. My imagination will go wild for all the things I want to do with it. Because I don’t have the leather, I cannot make the bellows for a forge. Because I don’t have the leather, I cannot make all sorts of ornament animals with leather ears and tails. Because I don’t have the leather, there is a whole bunch of other things I cannot make. Of course, that is assuming they would ever get made should I have gotten the leather. I doubt they would, so I am not storing it. 

Even with the car air conditioning, the humidity was oppressive. One problem I run into on days like this is, when we got out of the car, the thick part of my glasses fog up, they being cold and high humidity outside. 
When we got home, we all decided to relax and cool down. For me, it extended until lunch time. After lunch, which was about two, I headed out to get to work. 

I can see an efficiency in my wood turning on these platters. It is not taking near as long to make them as it first did. That helps. 
These boards have that kerf from the saw that cut them. The kerf is off center so the tail stock point I am using (which has a sharp  ring around a tiny center point, so it does not bury itself into the wood as a single point would do) is on solid wood at the thinner part of the board. If the kerf got into the area of the point, I would just use my knife to flatten just at that area. 
My first step was to round the board, removing all corners as it spun, then to remove the high wood on that side. I then looked at the growth rings to decide which would be better as the bottom of the platter. I chose to have this side as the bottom. I made the bottom of the platter, sat down and rested while I marked the center on the other side. I mounted the platter and turned the inside. That went pretty good. 
I was feeling good so I started on the second one using the same procedure. Now when I flipped the platter around. I did not get it quite centered. As I turned it, there was a bit of a wobble and when I got the inside done, I found that there was an obvious thick and thin around the edge. To solve that, I flipped the platter back around again and touched up the backside. 
Both platters are still rough, but I am getting a better feel for making these.

It dawned on me that I am missing some lessons in the process and am making some mistakes as I am working. One can be too concentrated in the act of making to notice things in the process. 
For one thing, when I do the bottom, I thinner than I should. I am left with a only a small room for error on the inside. Each cut, even a very light skim of the surface to clean it up, removes some wood. I think the platters would be better a bit thicker. 
Another thing is that I run into problems with warping when working the inside of the platter. I am thinking that if I do the inside first, any problems I run into on the bottom won’t be as noticeable. One simply does not look at the bottom when using a platter. 
One problem I see with this is that it is very easy to go too deep with the inside. After I do the bottom first, I follow that angle and that dictates how deep the inside is going to be. A much more care will be needed on the depth when working the inside first. 
I want to see if working the inside first will effect how the wood reacts when the stresses are removed.  I have seen that the vast majority of the wood is removed on the back of the platter. The platter is a whole lot lighter when the back is done. The wood that comes out of the inside is nowhere near as much, possibly a quarter of the wood overall.
This is a learning process. So far, I really have concentrated on the shape and the basic process, along with developing muscle memory. Now I need to work on problem solving skills. 
Next weekend, if I do some work, I will be working differently to see how it effects the process. 

After I finished turning I did a rough clean up. One nice thing about working outside, is that a fine cleanup is usually unnecessary. Some of the fine stuff gets into the cracks and gets blown around. Usually to settle elsewhere unnoticed. Also, another nice thing about working outside, is that clean air is not a problem. A breeze carries the fine dust away for the most part. 
I sat outside under the awning with a fan blowing on me for a while. I was not quite ready to go in. Other than the heat, it was nice out.

I went inside and relaxed and cooled down with my feet up and napped a little until it was time to leave.

My brother is not coming up tomorrow and I have some running around so I won’t be doing any projects tomorrow.

I will see what I do next weekend. 

1398

Year 16, Week 25, Day One (week 857)

Year 16, Week 25, Day One (week 857)
(January 17, 2000 was my first carving day.)
07-02-16 Saturday

77 degrees at dawn , 88 at ten and 95 at three. We have a sort of a front over us sending Morse Code radar blips, dot, dot, dash, dash, dot, dash, dot. Humidity was so high, I considered that swim fins would make moving around a bit easier. This is because of the hot sun shining down with a vengeance right after the short showers. Sunshine came down most of the day in spite the roving towers and puffs. After about ten, our little area remained dry with the towers going on both sides of us. They disappeared by about noon and a wall formed over the Everglades and remained there.

After breakfast, Mom wanted to visit the lady that has had the craft and art stuff for sale because she is moving out of state. We got there and picked up a few things. While we were there, a cloud had a slight embarrassment and we had to help the lady get things covered. She had someone to pick up furniture and could not put the tables back inside until that stuff was gone and they had not arrived before we left. She did not have a lot out at the time, so I was kept under control on my gathering. Mainly I got some more ink for pads or possibly an air-gun spray-painter mom has. I also got some artists crayons (much more pigment than normal crayons) and oil pastels (pastel powder bound with oil, almost like a crayon, but a crayon is bound by wax). On the radar, this cell was a faint green smear that appeared and disappeared. 
The very first thing I saw was a doll. She was very pretty and had a wonderful dress. I have a few dolls, but only get them if they are especially pretty. Most I see are not. This doll threw herself into my hands and hugged my arm. I had to take her home with me. She is now in a special place on top of one of my shelving cabinets. I think that because of her long hair she is supposed to be Rapunzel. 

We headed directly back home. I decided that yard sales in the area were likely already picking up because of the threatening weather. Instead, I decided to go to Home depot and do some shopping. 
I picked up a 2x12 by 10 foot board. I likely should have chosen another board, but this one had interesting knots through it. It is kind of difficult to dig into the stack for other interesting boards. The problem with this board was that it was cut by a circular saw and they made  two passes about half way down the board. The blade cuts were not quite in line. I assume the tree was big and this was at the center of the tree as part of the center is in the board itself.  That little difference down the center makes for interesting design opportunities on making the projects I intend to make them out of. The inset cut shows the quarter circle cuts of the back side of the circular blade. I had always assumed they used band saws to cut logs.
They had what looked like a 20 foot board on the bargain rack and I gave it long consideration. It would have been real cheap, but I decided there was no way I could handle it, either at full length or cut. That was just too much wood. Thinking back, I think I saw some green tint to some of the wood which would indicate that it was pressure treated, which is not proper for what I am doing. 

When boards are cut, they are rough cut to the named size. The sides and faces are not finished in any way and you can see the rough saw marks on them. When you buy exotic woods, they will be first offered as unfinished. A one inch thick board is referred to as 4/4, which is 4 one-quarters of an inch. A two inch board would be 8/4s. 
Now to finish a side, some wood has to be taken away from the dimensions as they plane away the surface roughness. They must go below the deepest gouge. They have a nomenclature for how many sides are finished (I forgot what that is right now) that dictates whether it is finished on one face, two faces, and/or two edges. On projects, you might only want one sided finished as something to base the rest of your measurements and cuts on, and leave the others rough as they will by necessity get different treatments. 

I had wondered how I had gotten eleven pieces of square turning-blanks out of a ten foot board. I also wondered how my lathe, which can take 12" diameter maximum piece, can turn a 2x12 without requiring a perfect circle to start with.  I decided to take some measurements before I started. I found that the board was just a hair wider than eleven inches, and about an inch and a half thick. And the board was 110 inches long. This board was finished all four sides and the corners had a slight radius. 
To finish these surfaces, some wood has to be removed and that accounts for some of the dimension difference from what it is called and what it actually is. 
Now I thought I heard somewhere that with construction materials, they allow for half an inch covering such as plaster board, for final construction dimensions, so a four inch wall will be 4 inches finished. A twelve inch wall will be twelve inches finished. At least that is what I thought I had heard. In that case, the dimension difference from what it is called would be understandable. 
On the length, the 110 inch length is equally divisible by eleven ten times. Because the first measurement of eleven inches start at the far end of the first blank, one ends up with eleven blanks in the end.

I used eleven as my measurement and marked the whole length with the tape measure on both edges. This is actually easier than using the criss-crossing method I used the first time. I used a square to draw a line across at each point. The center of the board is much cleaner.
I then dug out the Saws-All and cut the blanks apart. Some were not cut quite straight, but that is not really critical. They were within the tolerances I chose to use. If it required accuracy, I would have used a circular saw or a table saw. 
Once the blanks were separated, I sat down with a rule and marked the very center of each board on the rough side, and drew a radius. I would start with the finished edges and in three places to locate the center of the board and draw a line over the marks. I would then measure along that line and mark the center there. 

I happen to have a center rule where zero is at the very center of the rule and then it is measured out from the center. On the other side is a standard rule running from one end. With the center rule, you simply match up the numbers on each side, then the half, quarter and individual marks so they are the same on each side. I think mine is to the sixteenth of an inch, and one could go to half the spaces in between the marks if more accuracy is needed.
If one does not have a center rule, one can do a similar thing. Find a number that is divisible easily by two. When the marks are similar on the beginning and end marks on the sides of the piece, the center number is in the center.  No real math is required. 

I am using a cheap plastic compass that uses a regular pencil for the stylus. I put the point on the center mark and then went to one of the cut sides (which tend to be a hair shorter than the finish sides) as a measurement and drew a circle around on the corners. Again accuracy is not critical as you will see why below. 
The kerf caused by the two saw passes was off center from my mark which was on the thinner part of the wood. I was marking on that side as, at the time I was doing this, I had not figured out how to use my mounting system with the step in the wood like this. I am simply placing the board against the face of my chuck and using the point to hold it in place. With the kerf, the board would not sit against the chuck properly.

After I finished marking the corners, I went to the work bench and put each square into the vice and used the Saws-All to cut the corners off. I was able to do six blanks round. I have four more to do.
One of the boards has interesting knots in it, which brought this board to my attention in the first place. I put that blank away.
On a few of the corners I had the blade tipped sideways so the cut was on an angle. I simply ran the saw again and removed that high area. 

I am running the Saws-All with the blade upside down. The Saws-All has a handle and most of the machine’s foot  is on the handle side of the machine. If you put the blade upside down, The blade is then closer to the top of the machine and there is a lot less machine beneath the blade. This allows you to get to a flatter angle to the work. It makes it easier to start a cut if you are cutting on the surface and also to cut straighter with the blade and machine aiming more in line in the direction you want to cut as you lay it down.  If in normal, the saw has to be mostly perpendicular.
On these corners, I am cutting straight up and down, but I found that if I follow the line with the crack caused by the two halves of the machine’s casing, the blade does a pretty good job of following on the line you are cutting.   Since all I am after is to make the corners small enough to spin in the lathe, If I am even near the line, I am good. Since the boards are eleven inch in diameter, I have a whole half inch extra space to work with on any corner.

About the time I was finished with my rounding of the six blanks, It dawned on me I have two possible ways of removing the step in the surface of the wood so I could turn it with that side against the chuck of the lathe. One way is to run it through the surface planer. The problem with that is that it is buried near the back of Mom’s garage. 
Then I realized I could mount the work on the lathe, round the edge, true the surface with my tools, then I can easily flip it around for the surface I am after. 

With this board, the pith of the tree runs through the center of the board at one end and rises to just above the surface at the other end. With the pith inside the wood, I will likely get an oval pattern when I turn them whichever side I choose as the top. I will get normal patterns where the pith rises above the wood. I expect rather interesting patterns out of these boards. Some surfaces have some cracks in it. It will be interesting how the wood will react as I remove the surface. I will plan to remove wood to eliminate the worst of the crack when possible.

I was surprised there was no weather on us, in spite the towers all around. I finally cleaned up and headed inside, to rest with my feet up. I really needed it.

While I went to Mom’s on Sunday, I did nothing other than cutting off one corner of a blank. Because of the high humidity, I decided that sitting in the shade and talking and nothing productive was more interesting than accomplishing anything.
I am staying home on Monday the fourth, and have some projects around the house to do so nothing worth mentioning will happen then. I might look out the window and watch some fireworks, or go to be extra early. I will have to see.
Next weekend, I hope to do some turning. I figure I will make another platter or two. If the weather is kind of questionable, I might leave the lathe under the awning and finish some of the platters I already made. I had picked up some finishing disks (sandpaper disks and a holder) that I can use in the drill. When you hold a sandpaper to a spinning piece of work, it will leave long scratches. One usually moves the sandpaper side to side real fast to even the worst scratches out.
With the plate spinning and the sanding disk spinning, the swirls of the sandpaper gets blended in, Some are going up, some going down, some going left and some going right and some on angles. They even out until they are unnoticed. Some of the platters I have made so far need some extra cutting to clean them up and get them right, before I even consider sanding. One does not want a whole pile of sawdust under the awning as cutting a whole disk would create. That sawdust gets beneath everything and one has to move other equipment out to get to it. this light type of work won’t create a lot of sawdust. 

I will have to see what I do next weekend.

2351

one side of the 2"x12"x 10'-0" board

The other side of the 2"x12"x 10'-0" board

showing the curf caused by the second pass of the saw blade

front view of the Rapunzel doll

side view showing long hair

rear view

showing her ceramic feet

the interesting knot pattern in the wood

the back side of the knot pattern

a couple other knots on some board

the squares of the wood.

the interesting patterns in the wood I have collected

The round one looks like the grey alien

The upper square has a rabbit drawn on it.

the lower square is the new board. It has possibilities.