In My "Spare" Time: Year 16, Week 30, Day One (week 862)

Year 16, Week 30, Day One (week 862)
(January 17, 2000 was my first carving day.)
08-06-16 Saturday

86 degrees at dawn, 96 past noon. Nice breeze in the afternoon. We got some heavy showers at about nine and then that cleared out and the rest of the day was pretty good the rest of the day, until dusk when some more showers passed by. This weather report is brought to you by the City Of Pompano Beach Department of Tourism.

We hit two yard sales directly from breakfast. I then went out on my own. I visited three yard sales. I had headed North to start the great loop like I have done previous weeks. While there was nothing heading North, on the way south, I hit a couple yard sales. When I pulled into the last one, the sky was dripping. I then skipped a yard sale I saw signs for, about four blocks away, becuase the sky opened up. I quickly got back to Mom’s area and headed home.
What I saw the most of was kitchen stuff. I saw several cook books. I always wanted to learn how to cook a microwave or a blender, but have not bothered looking at the recipes. I wonder what a microwave tastes likee.....
One woman had a device that is supposed to heat English Muffins and cook an egg at the same time for a breakfast sandwich. I handled it a little, but realized it was too specialized for my needs. She also had a food processor with two heads. One had a grating blade in it and I think it might have been a juicer. The other head had a chopper. Cute, but I chose not to get that either. There was a French Fry chopper with two sizes of blades. I handled it, then realized I will never make French Fries, let alone that way and I am good enough with a knife to do the same thing with less clean-up. I might even have a fry cutter somewhere. If I do, it was one mom gave me when I moved into my place.
I had seen other interesting devices but walked away without them.

After resting a while, Mom and I went to Walmart. I visited different sections, like the electronics section for a memory chip for my tablet. I remembered I had one already. In the Grocery sections, the three things I was after, were unavailable. And everything else I considered, I already have at home I ended up not buying anything. It was a good walk. The cart makes it easier.

After a bit longer rest, I finally went out back. I had made a pair of Mahogany drum sticks some time ago. Early this year, I broke one. I decided I would try and make a replacement. I was not concerned that the wood might match, just wanted a second stick What I found was all the sticks that might be used, were too short.
I did find another piece of wood that was slightly longer than needed. It was also wide enough to get two sticks. I had dug it out for a different project that never happened. If I cut it right, I likely could have gotten four, but I was not that ambitious today so it became only two. More room to correct for errors.
I cut it on the band saw and was reminded I still have that meat-cutting blade in the saw. The teeth on a normal saw is bent slightly to the side to make for a wider kerf and less chance of binding. The teeth of this blade is not bent to the side as one wants the thinnest cut when cutting meat. It is surprising how difficult it is to cut straight with that thing. The blade develops a wander and does not correct easily. The kerf allows for corrections.
After I cut the board into two pieces. I used my knife to knock off the corners. That saved me about three passes with the tool on the lathe.
Now the wood is rectangular. It did not fit properly in the chuck. What I did was to find the rough center of the wood, stuck the tail-stock point in place. I started the lathe and rounded the first two inches of the wood. I had learned that even if the piece is at a bad angle, if you round just a tiny bit of the wood on the end of the tail stock, that will be centered and there is not enough angle to throw it off. I then flipped the piece around I was able to stick the rounded part into the chuck and rounded the whole length, creating a rod. I had to flip it again as there was a part near the chuck I could not get.
There is a little bit of bounce in the center of the rod, but that will be corrected when I start reducing the diameter and shape it.
There was a thunder tower over the Everglades that was giving a free watering for people’s plants. It looked very close. I watched it carefully in case a it reached out to my area. That was also why I was not working with a platter. I wanted something fairly quick and easy as when I take my lathe out, there is a lot of stuff that has to be put back, as they were pulled out to make room for the lathe to come out.
I finished with both rods roughly rounded. Next time I pull out the lathe, I can make these rods into drum sticks.

Note on Sunday:
My brother had come up to Mom’s but he had to leave because of an emergency job. A steam pipe on a dry cleaning boiler broke. I was able to give him some tools I got several weeks ago. I had forgotten what was in the bag. There was a double ended crescent wrench. A pipe cutter, a small sledge hammer to be used for drilling (the head is designed to focus the impact through the center of the hammer’s mass). There was a couple items he did not need. I am not feeling at my best so I decided to go directly home after we ate..

I will see what I do next weekend.
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