In My "Spare" Time: Year 16, Week 48, Day One (week 879)

Year 16, Week 48, Day One (week 879)
(January 17, 2000 was my first carving day.)
12-03-16 Saturday

75 degrees early morning, 80 at ten, 79 at three. Mostly clouds but with a tiny bit of sun. A comfortable breeze most of the day. These are the temps I love most. This weather report is brought to you by the City Of Pompano Beach Department of Tourism.

You sort of hope there are Wall to Wall yard sales at times, but they tend to be spaced out, which is nice that you get to rest in between them. We did find a few where several families were involved or side by side yard sales. These are always more fun. During this period of the year, you have people making room for new stuff they might get for Christmas, and you have people trying to get money to buy presents. Many yard sailors are after Christmas gifts.
Yard sales Friday, Saturday and/or Sunday. The people who visit yard sales on Friday tend to be referred to as Dealers. They are gathering items cheep to resell them elsewhere. In our county, we have a drive-in movie theater that doubles as a swap shop. A lot of the dealer are getting the stuff to sell at the swap shop. Also, people who are not working, like house wives shop on Thursdays.
Saturday is the main yard sailing day where most people who could not go on Friday are out. Dealers tend to start very early in the morning and many people say they were bought out early in the morning. Regular people and those that work on Fridays, go a little later in the morning and on till closing. Most yard sales pack up between one and four O’clock, if the weather is good.
Sunday yard sailors tend to be opportunists. I, for example, drive toward’s mom’s house following a portion of my yard sailing path just in case someone has a yard sale out. Most people don’t go yard sailing or put out yard sales because of football games or church or other activities. The people who look for yard sales on Sunday tend to be opportunists. They just happen to see the sales.
Mom had to make a couple stops along the way so she drove the entire loop. We do have different driving techniques and cut some areas off for different reason. Two yard sales we visited, I have been to before, and they recognized me.
At one yard sale, I found a set of long BBQ tools and decided to get them. This was an excellent set. Mom is suggesting that we do a BBQ Christmas rather than the normal turkey. These will be useful if we do.
I almost picked up a container of beads and stuff, but Mom talked me out of them. She then pointed to cookie cutters and I got them instead. It was a good cookie cutter set.
I had my hands on many items during the different sales and forced myself to walk away. It is sad, at times.

Back home, I went out back with the intention to do some wood working. There was a lot of playing around in the process.
I pulled my lathe out and mounted one of the platters I made into the lathe. I took my drill and put a sanding disk in it. I then spun the platter at the lowest speed and sanded the surfaces. I cleaned up a lot of bad tool work, but they still need more. I then mounted a second platter onto the lathe.
When I first made some of these platters, I found they were warping while I was making them as I removed the excess wood. Wood, by nature, is under stress. As you remove the thickness of the wood, the remaining wood relaxes. If it remains thick, the relief will be minor, If you make the piece thin, there might be a lot of bending because the material holding it in shape is gone. Some wood are more stable, with less flex, than others. Also different parts of the wood will stress more than others. The platters are from wood right next to the center, and a few have had the center pass right through the wood. The wood around the center has a different stress than the wood on the far edges.
I learned on the early platters that It is best for me to shape the inside/top of the platter first, as not much wood comes out of the project there, and then do the outside/bottom of the platter second. One can correct for some flexing while removing the excess wood. Also not many people look at the bottom of plates.
A few of my platters are in sad shape as I could not cut them cleanly. One part of the platter curves up into the tool, and then another part pulls away from the tool. The tool then catches air before it hits the surface again, and then digs into the area where the surface is rising again. It makes for a really sloppy surface. Watching the piece spin, the amount of out-of-flat was more than the thickness of the platter.
The warped platter was a real challenge to sand. I finally gave up as both platters need more work and I was getting tired of standing. I did make a big difference on both of them.

I sat down at the table with my paints and painted the crowns of my angels. The bright yellow passes as gold halos. There is no face on these. I decided no face was better than any face I could possibly add.
I started these angels back in January and then got sidetracked. The first few have butterfly wings as I could not remember what angel wings looked like at that time. Then I remembered that they were supposed to look like bird wings so I made a bunch more with the right wings.

I then addressed my paint brush ornaments. My plan was to have it look like the brush was dipped in paint and then decorate the brush body. The examples I based this concept on was with real paint brushes where they painted faces and Santa Belts and other things on the brush body. I decided that I would paint the handle and the dipped paint the same color.
Once I had added the paint, I talked with Mom and she suggested I just say Merry Christmas on them. Her idea was Christmas on one side and Merry on the other, rather than doing the faces and other things that was my original design. Since it was too late to do anything, I decided to save that part when I get back to work.

I have a collection of ornaments from over the years that I add my new ornaments to and show them off at work. People love looking at them. I tend to bring them at the beginning of December and I am on time for these two sets of ornaments. Many of the new ornaments end up being gifted. I have made extras of some designs which is why I have extras of some designs.

I really wanted to do a couple other ornament designs. I don’t see starting them until after the first of the year. I am thinking that a set of the platters would be a good present for someone. I have to get them properly sanded in time. I basically have two weekends to get them done.

Sundays tend not to be spectacular for working, but I will see what I do tomorrow.

Year 16, Week 48, Day Two (week 879)
(January 17, 2000 was my first carving day.)
12-04-16 Sunday

Unbroken clouds, mainly individual grey puffs stuck together in a sky wide traffic jam. In the afternoon, they fixed part of the traffic jam and blue sky started appearing between some of them, and I actually saw a bit of sun. I also had to turn my wipers on twice for tiny accumulating dots while on the road home. 75 degrees early morning, 80 in the afternoon. Light breeze. This weather report is brought to you by the City Of Pompano Beach department of Tourism.

I decided to unload my truck of some items that have been in there for over a year. I have more to do but I removed a lot of stuff. I tended to have to take an armload of stuff and then come back for more. Lots of walking. It adds up quickly.

I helped mom with a quick project, before I sat down and finished my brush ornaments. I wrote Merry Christmas on them. The first one I made had one of the words on each side. I then decided to put the words on the same side, both sides. I like that better. There are many other tools to use, but I used a Stabillo to write the words where the metal part of the brush would be, and also put the date and name on the side of the handle. I sort of wished I had taped each one off and hit the metal part with silver paint. It would have made them look a tiny bit nicer. There sometimes is never time to do things perfectly.
I choose designs that are simple. One design I experimented with back in January was a frog. It quickly showed to be way too much work for the design I was after. I try to do a dozen of each type of ornament and also try to do four different designs. Some years I fail at making four designs or a dozen of some designs. Last year I did not make any. I am happy I do have two designs, but do wish I made more.

Next weekend, I should do more sanding on my platters, possibly get all eight to closer to an acceptable finish. I still have the posts in the middle of the platters that will have to be ground off, cleaned and sanded. I am making use of the posts to do the sanding of the outside of the platters. The more finishing I can do with power, the better it will be.

I will see what I do next weekend.

1734