In My "Spare" Time: Year 16, Week 45, Day One (week 876)

Year 16, Week 45, Day One (week 876)
(January 17, 2000 was my first carving day.)
11-12-16 Saturday

68 degrees at down, Mostly blue sky early morning, high streaks of feathers with misty milk splashes. Very light breeze all day long. 77 at about 10 in the morning with some light puffs and it stayed about the same all day long, possibly up to 83. They sky was bright, but the sun was not up when I headed to Mom’s house. When we headed out to breakfast half an hour later, the sun was well to the south of us. We don’t seem to remember the sun being that far south, though we have had a month of cloudy weather where we never saw the sun in the morning, and I figure that explains a lot. This weather report is brought to you by the City Of Pompano Beach Department Of Tourism.

Here in Florida, we have a lot of Vanity Licence plates. There is a joke that says “You can tell it is fall by the changing of the color of licence plates. Because of all the vanity plates, it is sometimes hard to spot the other states plates. Traffic nearly doubled in the past few weeks.

A local church was having a craft sale. It started at nine, and we were finished with breakfast at eight, so we decided to check out some yard sales. There were several yard sales side by side and a few almost within view of each other. That made it enjoyable. We only followed the Northern part of our loop as the church we were going for the craft sale was on a road level to Mom’s house.
Near the top part of the loop heading north we found our first yard sales. One yard sale was visible to the right, and signs pointing to the left. We went left first and found two yard sales side by side. I picked up some cookie cutters and a clamp-on desk lamp at the first one and almost missed the one next door. We then hit the one we saw before we turned to see the first two.
As we headed south and found four more yard sales In quick succession, some with two side by side. We saw signs for, but could not find, two other yard sales.
It is common for close neighbors to “double up” for yard sales. The same sales signs for both, and yard sailors love it as there is more selection between them.

The craft show is fun to look at. There was lots of knitting and crochet, sewing, beading, decorated items just to name a little of what they had. One woman made clothes for Barbie style dolls, another made manger scenes using cloth wrapped doll rods, and pine cones for a tree behind them.
One thing I learned at last year’s show, was to look closely at the ornaments on the Christmas trees they have set up around the place. One can get interesting ideas from what they have. If you are not up to making your own ornaments, they are great selections.
The ornaments that caught my eye this time were angels. One type was made of shells. One shell for the dress, and then two shells for the wings, with a bead for the head. They added a gold decorative trim material down the front and wrapped around the neck of the “gown. The face was painted on and a tiny bit of separated yarn wrapped around to be hair or a bow. Another kind was a tiny bit of lace or fabric made into a cone and a a pair of silver silk leaves for wings and again, a bead for the head. There was a tiny bow for the hair. A third was the same style but a crochet dress and wings. There were other crafts that were nice to look at and if I had no ability to make things, I might actually buy.

I have an arm style lamp at home over my keyboard of my computer. I aim it at the ceiling and it gives good bright, but diffused light, onto my desk. This week, the switch died on me. When I saw a lamp at a yard sale and grabbed it up. After I got home, I partially disassembled the lamp to see what the connections were on the light socket. I was a little disappointed that the wires were soldered instead of attached by screws. I saw that I would have to bring my light with me tomorrow and see what I had to do to swap the sockets.

I addressed my lathe by removing some boards. One shelf board, I figured out, was added during the assembly of the stand. I had purchased the lathe and stand from a friend, ages ago. I essentially had to bend the board to get it out.
I could not quite figure out how I had attached the stand to the wooden base. I removed a couple screws in a block and it would still not move. As I was playing around, I realized there was little holding stand to the rotted end of the board. I decided to use brute force to solve my problem. I brought out the scissor jack that I had gotten three or four vehicles ago. And put that on the base with the head beneath a rail. I cranked it up and the wood complained before a screw gave. One side didn’t want to move even though the jack was centered so I moved it next to that leg and cranked. It finally gave. I was right, there was nothing holding the other end up or down. The delaminated layers of plywood on that end were bent down and supported nothing.
I learned I had screwed a block to the plywood from above, and then put a screw through the metal of the leg into the side of the block. That side screw was what I could not see when I attempted to remove the base. I left two “Rails” on the lathe frame, one with a bunch of PVC pipe pieces screwed in to hold the tools. They were in good condition and did not warrant moving them.
By this time, I had formed a blister in the palm of my hand from the screw driver. I Then popped it when I placed it against the corner of a board while pushing my tool cart under cover. It had been a very long time since I had to work with so many screws with a small screwdriver and I seem to remember I gained a blister then too. The drills and power screwdrivers are still buried in the shed.
Having the base off, I had to drag the empty lathe bed and frame a bit farther in and saw instantly I was not going to use the lathe without wheels. I was already feeling my day, so I chose to end it then and there.

Other than going out to feed and give lots of attention to Momma kitty, I stayed inside and relaxed the rest of the day.

Tomorrow’s plans are up in the air. If my brother comes up, I will do some work at mom’s. If he does not, I might head home early to do some work at home.

I will see what I do tomorrow.

Year 16, Week 45, Day Two (week 876)
(January 17, 2000 was my first carving day.)
11-13-16 Sunday

68 early morning, 76 mid morning and 83 in the afternoon, light breeze. Some tiny well spaced puffs soldiered across the sky, not effecting the sunshine. This weather report is brought to you by the City Of Pompano Beach Department Of Tourism.

My brother came up so I had both the lamp I picked up yesterday, and the one from home. The lamp I picked up was a higher quality lamp, but it was far too short and would not work for my desk situation, so I stripped a good lamp to fix a cheap lamp.
My brother gave me some help. He was replacing some boxes that had tiny parts and screws so he was sorting their contents as he moved them from the old box to the new box.

I disassembled my old lamp and was disappointed that it was also soldered. I asked my brother and he said we could cut the wires and splice them together. That solved my problem. I cut the wires for both lamps and swapped the socket. I learned something about electricity today. I had noticed that there was a large prong and small prong on the plug. He had me find out which wire, using a meter went to the small plug. He then had me place the meter to the center contact in the socket and which wire went to that. That went to the center small prong. He said that if we got it backwards, one could get shocked when trying to change the bulb.
He used wire-crimps to connect each wire and then a shrink tube (which he had me use a torch to shrink and I almost burned it as I was too close) over the connection. The lamp worked and is now giving the light that my desk badly needed.

I still had time so I decided to strip the lathe base of the hardware. The wheels were my first requirement. My brother put them on using a pair of pipe hangers and some wood block to hold their side to side position in place. Other than one bolt turning through, I removed them easily. About the time he put the wheels on, he was using a hole saw to drill out some holes in metal. He used the metal plugs as fender washers to give the heads of the bolts something to grip into the wood with.
One of the blocks was still on the board and that needed to be removed and that used hex head screws. The bolts were useful. I removed a few other items bolted on and now had what was a mostly stripped board going out into the trash.

Mom does not want those shelves on the lathe as it collects sawdust even when I have protection to misdirect the dust. What I am thinking is to get a pressure treated two by four, and attach them to the legs length ways. I then put the pressure treated blocks and wheels across sideways. The base will simply be a frame.
The design of the wheels are to be able to be lifted out of the way and drop the lathe down on the blocks so it will not move anywhere. I found so far that I have not done any project where I have had to drop it down onto the blocks. That is used for really out-of-center pieces Because there was a lot of weight on the lathe shelving, it did not need that additional staying power of the wheels down.
If I am not having shelves to put weight on the lathe, I am going to need to drop the lathe down on the blocks more for stability. I do expect, though, that it will roll a lot easier.
What I will need to do is to get a pressure treated 2x4. One thought is to get some diamond mesh and make the shelving with that so the sawdust will pass through, but could have storage on the lathe. I am not sure if I have the tools to cut mesh. I will have to see what is available and what I have to work with.

I have plans for next weekend. Some stuff are going to be moved under the awning that had not been there before. I guess I will have a very busy weekend tomorrow.

It looks like there will be a Turning Club meeting Thursday. Something I wanted to bring to the meeting was put away for the storm and I cannot find it. I might have to empty out selected sections of rooms just to see if that is where it is.

I will see what happens next weekend.

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