Year 17, Week 11, Day One (week 897)

Year 17, Week 11, Day One (week 897)
(January 17, 2000 was my first carving day.)
03-25-17 Saturday
   
    74 degrees early morning 79 afternoon. Threatening clouds to the north very early clearing to light mid level puffs the rest of the day. Nice breeze sometimes gusted enough to move items propped up. This weather report is brought to you by The City Of Pompano Beach Department of Tourism.
   
    We had family coming mid morning, so I had to rush my yard sailing. It helped that there was nothing in the northern part of my loop, which made for a quicker drive. At the first yard sale, I picked up some tools and a wheel borrow for Mom. Mom was really happy when she saw it. She had considered buying one new.
    I picked up a few other items at other yard sales. At one I got an alarm clock. It turned out to have problems. I paid a dollar for it so it was not a big loss. That is a chance you take whenever you buy something at yard sales. Most of the time I do very well.
    At another yard sale, I picked up some STARBUCKS coffee bowls and saucers. “My doctor told me I can only have two cups of coffee a day so I got cups I can now follow his instructions.....”
    I also picked up some CDs for recipes. These will work on windows 95,98, 2000, XP. I found they also work on Windows 7. I learned there was a web site and it is still there and you can download the software or search for recipes. This software is sort of like a card file, you can add your recipes or download some once you register it.
    I dropped one of my knife blocks and broke it on a corner that was not repaired. I guess I will have to fix it the right way, and on all corners.
   
    Family came some time after I got home. Mom did most of the cooking, and I fried some bacon and made coffee. I tried something I saw on line, where you start with a cold pan and a little water and let it heat up. The fat renders out and the meat comes out crisp. It worked nicely. To save time, I put some in the toaster oven on cookie sheets the same way and they came out good too. The place smelled great all day...
   
    After lunch, they left, and we napped. I was trying to recover from a rough night.
    For lunch, we got together and all went out for Chinese food. When we got back, they left again and we napped again. Of course, None of my projects got done.
   
    SUNDAY.
    I napped almost as soon as we got together. We then went out for lunch, which eliminated any chance of working on any project. It was at Cracker Barrel so we walked the isles, drooling over the old stuff they have hanging from the ceiling. There was a couple items I am not totally sure what they were. I also left a puddle of drool at the cast iron display. There is nothing there I care to buy, but it is fun to look at them anyway. They have pans with pie shaped sections, pans with round pockets in them, pans with corn shaped impressions in them. (I have one of those somewhere but have no idea where) They have tiny pans for single eggs or melting butter (I already have a set of three).  They also had lawn and garden art, toys, preserves, books records. It was hard to leave to go to eat, and then leave to go home.
   
    I do have some projects to work on and do hope that I will get to them next weekend.
   
    641
   
   
    

 tools, clock and software I picked up at a couple yard sales.

 the STARBUCKS soup mugs and saucers

wheel borrow mom now has

Year 17, Week 10, Day One (week 896)

Year 17, Week 10, Day One (week 896)
(January 17, 2000 was my first carving day.)
03-18-17 Saturday
   
    64 early morning, 75 in the afternoon. Mid level runways of clouds over the ocean with blue sky over the Everglades early morning, the clouds slid across the sky soon after. Sunny much of the day in the afternoon.  We had temps well below our 56 frost temps during the week. The canals were not quite frozen enough to drive on as it got into the 70s each day, but it was cold enough to bundle up and shiver all morning. The glacier that lives on top the highest point in the county, 29 feet above sea level, did get onto the flats(17 feet above seal level)  around the ancient sand dune it lives on, and tried to move to the sea, but the weather was warm enough to knock it back to the slopes of the mountain. It withdrew to the protection of the summit later in the week. This weather report is brought to you by The City Of Pompano Beach Department Of Tourism.
   
    THURSDAY
   
    The wood turning club meeting was good. We had a good turnout with plenty of projects on display.  We have started mini demonstrations, tips and techniques as an addition to the club. One guy talked about using strap wrenches or even filter wrenches for cars, to grab hold of stuck chucks and forcing them off. They also use them to hold a project in place while decorating a piece.
    Another guy showed a plywood chuck for finishing the end of a bowl. One piece of plywood is attached to a face plate or held by some chuck. He has a drill bit and threader that matches the end of the head stock that the chuck screws onto. He glued a block of wood to the plywood mount, drilled and tapped it. He then had a set of second plates that have different sized holes in them to match the bottoms of various bowls that he might make. He then has a set of three screws to hold the two pieces together.
    I made one of these not long after I got into wood turning, but I had some threaded rod and they were too long. I was short on money and imagination and did not want to cut the rods. When the thing spun around, those rods were out there ready to grab skin or anything else that they could grab. I decided it was not safe to use. I had the rods so I could do works that were very long. What I should have done, was what was recommended in this demonstration. Get bolts of every size they have at the hardware store, and use the shortest bolt that will hold the piece in place. My brother says in his business, he carries threaded rod and a lot of nuts to fit, and will braise a nut on the end and cut it to the length he needs. He could make a bolt whatever length he needed. I have not been making pieces long enough to where such a method needs to be used, but it reminded me of some interesting ideas.
   
    The main demonstration was embedding items in resin. He used colored pencils, nuts, and other items. I forgot the type of resin he used, but there are resins that will only work thin, and those that work thick. He uses the thick stuff.. The thicker it is, the quicker it will set. He used a hole saw to cut his blanks, and would glue a piece on the bottom to hold the resin in, as it will leak out and go everywhere. That will be turned off later. He would fill the piece up half way and let that almost set, then do the rest, poking between the spaces to make sure no air bubbles are in there. He sometimes glues cardboard or thin plastic around the outside of the piece so he can go above the surface of the wood, since the resin sometimes shrinks as it sets.
    He would then turn them, using a jam chuck, to hold it and finish both sides. With his jam chuck, he sometimes had to wet the wood to make it swell, or add a little bit of wet toilet paper to hold it so he can finish it. It does not take much to hold it. He cut a groove in the edge so he could stick a probe under the piece and pop it out when done.
    One thing he did was used small cups and stick a dowel through the rim. When he used the little ketchup cups to pour his resin he could let it sit on the dowel to finish dripping out instead of trying to hold it and dropping it into the resin as sometimes happened. He also would measure in the mixing cup, ahead of time, the hardener, which he put in first, then the resin, marking it on the side of the cup. He then simply could pour out of the containers how much he needed, rather than measuring it in cups. Of course, after using the cup for a mix, those marks are no longer good as some resin always stays in the cup setting hard, so you have to either throw the cup or re-measure it.
    I don’t plan on pouring resin any time soon, but I can use some of his concepts in projects I might work on.
   
    I showed off the bowl I made two weeks ago. No it is not finished, but I was glad to have something to show. We have several people who demonstrate at national symposiums and could compete in national competitions. I asked one of these masters about the design of my bowl.  He said I need to reshape the bottom some, but otherwise it is good. He also told me that to superglue the bark on, Mango is a wood that absorbs superglue and will show. He gave me some suggestions on how to protect the wood when I glue the bark on tight.
   
   
    SATURDAY
   
    I headed out after breakfast on my own. I had nearly finished the North segment of the yard sale route I take before I found my first yard sale. She has had it a couple times this past year. We have not gotten to recognize each other on sight, yet. She had high quality items and the prices were fair. I cannot store decorative stuff so all that was out. I did find a device to pit olives and cherries. It works like pliers. You stuck the fruit in the cup and squeeze the probe through the fruit and the pit goes out the other side.
    I did not find any other yard sales until I got to a squiggly area near the bottom of my southern route. When I get to the end of this section, I head west before heading north. That area seldom has anything. Many times I skip this section quite often if I am not in the mood or in a hurry.
    I had to search for one of them, but I found two yard sales there. One was a teacher who was going to move to a retirement area. She was getting money for a new grandchild in another state. She had a lot of craft stuff and books for children that she used in the classes. I picked up some little boxes that had magnets that held them closed. Years ago, I had made some earrings out of wood, both carved and turned, and used ring boxes to display them. These boxes might be good for larger items. They would be good as gifts if decorated.
   
    I found nothing again until I got to the area just south of my mom’s house. I stopped and talked to a friend of mine who was having a yard sale. I got a book on gardens around the world which I gave to my mom. Some of the gardens shown in those pictures need more room than the neighborhood my mom lives in.
    I found some other yard sales and did buy a polishing-grinding disk that fits on the drill, a pipe cutter, and a strap wrench. I did a whole lot of driving to find six yard sales. It is nicer to find one in each section rather than finding a whole bunch in two sections with nothing in between. At one point I wondered if there was going to be any sales at all, considering the weather was guaranteed to be good from the beginning of the week. I do love to look at the landscaping people do to their yards, but that is supposed to be an added benefit rather than the main reason....
   
   
    During the week, I was near Mom’s house in the afternoon so I stopped over and removed the clamps from the knife blocks I worked on last weekend. Then, I had glued the edges and tacked some thin aluminum to the cracked edges.  Today, I finished the assembly by adding stops to keep the inserts from sliding and adding the rubber feet to them. Then, I decided to test them by filling them up. I must say, there is a little space in them. I think I can get some more knives....... I put mostly kitchen knives in one, and steak knives in the other. Not all the knives I have are in there. My cleavers don’t fit. Wrong design to stab in. The three knives I use all the time are not in there either, and I picked out a fourth. I might pick out one other a bit later.

   


 Year 17, Week 10, Day two (week 896)
(January 17, 2000 was my first carving day.)
03-18-17 Sunday
   
    61 degrees early morning, 84 in the afternoon. Mostly blue sky with some clouds and plenty of sun. a nice breeze helped carry excess heat away. It was warmer outside than inside so we opened the house up to warm it up to something more comfortable. Mom had used heat all week (just high enough to keep the chill off, not high enough to warm the place) and this was the first time she was able to turn the heat off. It helped a lot to let the place air out and warm up.    
    My brother was at Mom’s when I arrived. We started talking about the day and projects, and I told him about the club meeting. Lunch became ready and we ended up talking and got into reminiscing about the old days. Mom told about when she was the child, the farm she visited. It was really interesting. By the time my brother had to leave, it was late to work on any real projects.
   
    I headed home and took a long nap. I needed to recover from several long nights this week.

    During the week, I had seasoned the tortilla pan and used it, and it worked well for some breakfast wraps. I found that it fits in my toaster oven, and decided to make pizzas.
    A lot of my cooking is what I would possibly call BACHELOR CHEF. That is where you don’t have ANY of the right materials, but you try to make something similar that is tasty too. The idea is to make something that looks similar, and is edible.
    For a pizza, I have nothing that one is supposed to have. I used flour tortillas instead of pizza dough, ketchup as the tomato sauce, American sliced cheese, hot sausage (ok, that is allowed), and diced onions (that is also allowed).
    The first one I made I baked, and it was not quite cooked enough. I ate all of that one and it was good. Not great, but good. I then set the oven to broil and cooked the second one with mixed veggies also on it. I had the time a bit long and it blackened slightly, but the piece I had actually  tasted good. I was full by then.
    I will try that again, but this time try to cook it the right amount. It would be nice to have better ingredients but I never have that in the house...
    I have an urge to make some bread, but the time and conditions have not fallen together. I make it from scratch and by hand, not a bread machine. If I had the bread dough available, I could have used that for the pizza dough. When I do make bread, most of the batch will go into the freezer for later, so the hard part will already be done. As I said, I used what I had available for the pizza. And that pan worked nicely as used.
   
    I feel a little sad that I did not do any wood working this weekend, other than working on the knife blocks. I will have to add metal pieces on the other corners so it won’t look repaired as it does not. That will be done when the opportunity arrives.
   
    I hope to accomplish something next weekend. I have more than enough projects to work on.
   
    2212.

 strap wrench, pipe cutter, and buffing/stripping wheel.

 little boxes with magnetic latches

threaded pipe and olive/cherry pitting wrench

 repaired knife blocks. the black is a couple thousand tiny rods

 

 filled knife blocks. right side are kitchen knives, left side are steak and small knives. 
It looks like I need to get more knives,,,,, don't you think????

some of the jewelry displayed at the turning club meeting and part of the demonstration that was given on making resin jewelry. In the center is a pendant and bracelet made of colored pencils. to the right are palm nuts. below is walnut shell with in-lace. Above is also palm nuts and to the right of that is sticks cut up.

Year 17, Week 09, Day One (week 895)

Year 17, Week 09, Day One (week 895)
(January 17, 2000 was my first carving day.)
03-11-17 Saturday
   
    68 Early morning, 81 late afternoon. Mostly blue skies though some clouds slipped in a few times, light, almost unnoticeable breeze. This weather report is brought to you by the City Of Pompano Beach Department of Tourism.
   
   
    I ran most, but not all the full route of yard sailing I follow. I only found seven yard sales, stopping at six, (one has it all the time and never has anything I would want, mostly children’s clothes) even though the weather was predicted to be good all the reports during the week.. I saw signs for one but could not find it as they were missing a sign near their house. I learned later that it was next to a friend’s house,, which did not help me other than to know it was there..
    It is political election season in one area I drive and they have yard signs up. It makes it kind of tough when yard sailing, as you have to look with a bit more care at the signs to make sure they are not political signs. It is helpful that political signs look all the same, blue for one candidate, red for another, so one can pick those signs out easily. Open house signs and rent signs sometimes throw one off, but one soon picks them out quickly also.
   
    Your sign design helps shoppers a whole lot. These are tips on how to get more traffic to your home. The main thing is the house number and street. An arrow helps and also, a date sometimes helps if the sign is left out after you are done. Also write it big and clear. Walk to the other corner and if you cannot read it, it is too small.
    The problem with some people who use arrows, is they leave off the one that actually points to their street. More than once, I have followed arrows and never found the place.
    Some people set their signs out at night, and then decide not to have the sale or set out later than most of the traffic is out so we search for it and it is not there. 
    Put your signs out on nearest high-traffic road. In some communities, there are sign post sites where people are always placing their signs. That is where regular yard sailors will look first for signs. It also helps to put it on the side of the road that people are to turn.
   
    Two of the yard sales were people who have had sales periodically and we knew each other. I did not get anything from them. The more a person has yard sales, the more likely their best stuff is sold off over time and there is less choice in the offerings.
    At one yard sale, I saw a book on pasta, and was going to pasta the chance to get it, then I saw a dispenser for drawing paper with a nice thick roll on it. I asked the price and that sounded good. I then grabbed the pasta book (decided not to pasta the chance to get it) and a book on dressings and marinades. I then grabbed up two beany baby teddy bears. I do intend to crochet clothing for my beany babies and give them out as presents so a couple more won’t hurt. At that point I decided anything more that I could find, would be getting carried away.
    At another yard sale, which I had some difficulty finding, I picked up a GAME BOY hand held game unit. I have a whole bunch of games and several players but it was a weak moment and I got it because it was available.
    At a third yard sale, I picked up what I think was a closet rod,. It was two inches in diameter and about six feet long. It might be Mahogany or similar looking wood. My woodworking mind took control and I was sticking it in the back of my truck when I realized I had purchased it. That yard sale had other things of interest, but I am not ready for those items. Maybe in six months. Will have to see.
   
    After I got home, I grabbed a couple knife blocks that I had disassembled previously to clean. When I tried to assemble them again earlier, they cracked. There was too much bow in the plastic rods.
    I worked some water proof white glue into the joints and clamped the joints tight. The first clamps I found were really long, three footers, I think and were cumbersome to work with as they stuck out so far. The blocks are six inches square at most. I found some the right length about the time I was about done and put them to work.
    I will leave them over night and check to see how the bond worked. I am not sure how strong this glue will be on that joint, and how much glue I actually got into it.
   
    The reports are questionable as there is supposed to be some weather coming through this week. If the weather is poor, one will not be able to work outside.
   
    I will see what happens tomorrow.

Year 17, Week 09, Day One (week 895)
(January 17, 2000 was my first carving day.)
03-12-17 Saturday
   
    74 degrees early morning with threatening skies to the south and to the east over the ocean. None of it showed after morning. Blue skies and patches of high puffy clouds most of the day. Good breeze to carry any heat of the 80 degree day.  Can’t wait until summer comes and it will warm up....... This weather report is brought to you by the City Of Pompano Beach department of Tourism.
   
    After lunch at  family started showing up and that took my time. I was also involved in helping with a couple computer problems. That killed any real projects.
   
    I removed the clamps on the cutting blocks and had to re-glue them and re-clamp them. I doubt a lot of glue got into the joint. I also found a couple of the plastic rods in one joint and figure that was part of the problem with it not closing properly. I re-glued both cracks and reinstalled the clamps. Mom and I are thinking of taking some sheet metal and cutting bands to put around the blocks as a decorative item but mainly to hold the crack shut add strengthen the rest of the block. I figure there is a whole lot of force on the sides when the rods are filled with knives.
   
    I accomplished little else today, especially not doing any wood turning.
    I have a turning club meeting Thursday.
   
    I will see what I do next week.
    1147
   
   

 two books, two teddy bears and the paper roll and dispensor

 The paper roll dispenser has a rod that sits in two notches. a bar on the front is to help cut the paper.

 The disassembled knife blocks with the two rod inserts.

 The drum I made the drum sticks for last week. the upper ones were the ones I made.

I cleaned the tortilla pan using wire brush and sand paper. Water and scrubbing will finish the clean before I season it.
   
   
   

Year 17a, Week 08, Day One (week 894)

Year 17a, Week 08, Day One (week 894)
(January 17, 2000 was my first carving day.)
03-04-17 Saturday
   
    Super herds of sheep like clouds migrating across the sky. Lows in the high 60s, highs just over 80. Nice breeze to make the temps comfortable. This weather report is brought to you by the City Of Pompano Beach Department of Tourism
   
    Hit several yard sales after breakfast. One was an estate sale where they were selling things out of the house. I saw a spinning wheel. I have no room for it and Mom has my other one in the living room as part of her decorations.  I did not even ask for a price. That is the first step of avoiding temptation. If you ask, you might give in and get it anyway.... the same thing for small metal C-clamps.
   
     At another yard sale, I picked up some hot pads for the kitchen, a book on fixing things (oh sure, I will ever use that...) and some solid core golf balls.  These golf balls say they are recycled rubber.
    Back in the 80s, Dad and I did a period where we would cut half the cover off of golf balls and carve faces in the solid rubber cores inside. The only problem is that most of the golf balls have a rubber-band style winding inside. It takes some skill and effort to cut the core covers straight, clean, and square and not cut into the rubber core beneath it. It is frustrating to do all that work and then find it all windings, which are not usable. We don’t know types of golf balls to know which are useable before we start.
    The idea of the carvings inside was, the uglier the face was, the more the ball had been beaten around the links. I purposely carved a number of the faces not looking straight out, but instead to the side or have the top of the head. My story was that dad was a master carver and knew how to cut the golf ball to find the face where it was facing straight out. I had not developed that skill.
    Anyway, I saw that these were solid core golf balls and decided to get them in case I decide to carve them.
   
    At the house, one of the awning style windows refused to open. One side just would not budge. I took the screen off and worked with it. I found out that there are little plastic pins that catch on hooks on the mechanism.  They are supposed to be able to be slid up and down. Well, these refused to slide. I figured out that I had broken a couple of them on another window. I am going to have to see if I can find those at the hardware store. It is a good security thing, if only I could have slid them down out of the way when needed.
   
   
   

Year 17, Week 08, Day One (week 894)
(January 17, 2000 was my first carving day.)
03-04-17 Saturday
   
    I forgot to look at the temps or look up at the sky. I know it was cool in the morning, possibly like 68. I doubt it got over 80. I don’t remember seeing the shade of clouds during the time I was outside, but since I was concentrating, they might have passed in front of the sun from time to time. This weather report is brought to you by the City Of Pompano Beach department of Tourism.
   
    I was someplace and saw a wooden drum. It had ropes zigzagging up and down. Their drum sticks were two dowels. One was thin and long, the other heavy and short.
    When I got to Mom’s I located a dowel the size of the long drum rod, that was about two drum sticks in length. I mounted it in the lathe and instantly was reminded one of the problems I have with the lathe. I don’t have anything to stabilize a rod. It bent and wobbled badly as it spun. I shaped the drumstick heads in the middle of the rod and they came out oblong. I ended up taking them to the disk sander to correct their off center look. I used the disk sander to clean them up. They are not spectacular. They are “toy” drum sticks, but are better than what they have.
    I would have done a whole lot better if I had taken out my knife and carved them rather than use the lathe. I simply thought at the moment that the lathe would make it quick and easy.
   
    I had the lathe out and wanted to do more while I had the chance. I still had the knob of the branch I made the goblets from last month. This tree had been trimmed often so there were a lot of branches coming out of the same place at the end of the branch.
    Looking over the piece, I decided to turn it so the most knots would go around the outside. Essentially turning it with the ends of the branch spinning around. It took a few tries to get the piece centered so I could remove the least amount of wood to get it round. I had it between centers, a drive spur in the chuck and a flat point on the other end to hold it in place.
    I rough rounded it first, then created a tenon for the chuck to grab it.
    The style of chuck you have, will dictate how you create your tenon. Some “teeth” of the some chuck jaws are dove tail so you put in an inward slant. Others are flat so you turn it flat so the maximum surface meets it. My chuck has a ridge at the very end. One is supposed to cut a slight groove into the tenon. I decided to be lazy and turn the tenon so it could be the foot of the bowl and just grabbed it by the chuck jaws.
    I did a little more shaping of the bottom before I turned it around and then, after shaping the top quite a bit with the tail stock in place,, I dug into the piece around the tail stock before moving the tail stock out of the way. It became a simple act of hollowing. I would start at the very center, removing the nub, then work out to where the mouth was, then work in from the mouth and work back to the center. Each time going deeper.
    As I got near deep enough, I concentrated on the outside walls, thinning them out, then blending the bottom with the sides. Once I got it to where I thought it was thin enough, I looked at it and decided it needed a neck. I had plenty of wood to work with. I am still working thick as a precaution.  I am excited just to be able to make something and am not ready to handle a failure.
    With making the neck, I would make a pass with my bowl gouge and then check to see how much wood I had to work with and then made another pass until I had a shape of a neck that was acceptable. I sanded inside and out with a course sand paper just to clean it up a little.
    I had left some of the bark showing. I am going to let it dry and see if the bark stays in place. I might need to super-glue it in place, but will see how it does when it is completely dry.
    I mounted the mouth of the bowl in the chuck, opening the jaws until they had outward pressure on the wood.. One has to be careful. There is a fine line between enough to hold and enough to break the wood. Ask me how I know.....
    This allowed me to clean and finish the bottom of the bowl. When it was satisfactory, I sanded a little and took it off.         
    When I was done, I found that I needed to end my day. I had just enough endurance to clean up and no more. That ended my day.
    My tactic at this time is to get things made. I will worry about finishing later. I am working with a balance of time and endurance and opportunity. Since my work shop is outside, I cannot leave stuff on the lathe. It is usually easier for me to bring a piece back and finish it further in another session.
   
    I tried to reassemble  those cutting blocks I took part and clean last week. The rods had enough bowing shape to crack the wood case. I will have to glue the cases back together and May have to run dowels or pins into the joint to make sure they do not come apart again. Not this weekend.
   
    I will have to see what I do next week.
   
    1501

 book, golf balls and hot pads

 inside of book. this page showing nails was what caught my attention

 toy drum sticks

 One view of the original wood I started with

 Another view if it, rotated around to show what the wood looks like.

partially rounded

 bottom rounded and shaped.

 the start of hollowing. the tail stock already pulled away

inside hollowed and lip being shaped.

 the bowl turned around on chuck, ready to clean up the bottom

 The finished bottom of the bowl

 One side of the finished bowl with the drum sticks in view

the other side of the bowl, showing the bark patterns.

Year 17, Week 07, Day One (week 893)

Year 17, Week 07, Day One (week 893)
(January 17, 2000 was my first carving day.)
02-25-17 Saturday
   
    Lows in high 60s, highs in high70s, puffs of clouds with bright blue sky between them. This weather report is brought to you by the City of Pompano Beach Department Of Tourism.   
   
    This week, I finally finished the scarf I mentioned last week. I got a chance to re-ball the yarn while ripping the edging out to where it started, and then had to  restart the edging three times before I got it right. When you are stitching a project, you choose how many stitches tall it is going to be. A single stitch is one stitch tall. Double stitch is two stitches tall, and Triple stitch is three stitches tall. There are also half stitches possible between those, if you choose. I made the rows of this scarf all double stitch in height. What I was doing on the first attempt to edge it, was to have four and five stitches between each row of the yarn. They don’t fit. It forces the fabric to curl.
    What I ended up doing after all the failed attempts, is following the rules and having only two stitches of edging between rows of double stitch. It came out nicely. One really doesn’t notice the multiple colored edges. One can see if it one were to look at it, but very few people will bother to do that. I like the way this scarf came out. Mixing colors of rows really makes the red show. The black edging topped it off.
   
   
    I went out yard sailing after breakfast.
     Electronics of any kind are a gamble to buy second hand. Just about anything can be wrong with them. I picked up a laptop just on a chance that it might work. They said it was wiped and they had the installation disks. I assumed that even the operating system was gone. I was wrong. It has Windows XP, which is quite usable, but it has a few little problems caused by some missing software. I just need to do some work on it and it will be good enough for showing video for a group.    
   
    At another yard sale I picked up some face shields, which I can use with the lathe, and wire wheels that fit an angle grinder. We could have used that not long ago.
   
    I found a really nice cast iron fry pan. This is heavy, well made and well designed. It has a good season on it.  I said a while back that I don’t need any more pans. That, is very true, but I had a weak moment. At another place, I found a tortilla pan that is really rusty. They are easy to clean up. Remember the wire brushes for the angle grinder? I got it for a song. Since I can’t carry a tune in a bucket, it was a good deal.
    I have a couple lamps that need new shades, so I found a couple that are in good condition.
   
    Several of the yard sales were of people who have had them before. One of them was a friend I developed by visiting her often.  Many people have one yard sale, possibly a year, others have them every few months. There are a few that have yard sales every weekend that has good weather. You get to know who they are and develop a comradery with them over time.
   
    I was found a wayward bin that was laying around, left by someone else at one time. I found it contained , among other things, a set of really fine dishes. I think I counted 54 pieces. Now all that is needed is a situation where bringing these out is worth the effort.....
   
    I will have to see what I do tomorrow.




Year 17, Week 07, Day One (week 893)
(January 17, 2000 was my first carving day.)
02-25-17 Saturday
   
   
    I did not notice the weather. I’ve been fighting my computers all day. Little glitches cropped up and it is taking time to figure out what the problem is.


    I have two knife blocks I picked up years and years ago, and have used heavily ever since. They are a design where a space the knives go into  is filled with tiny plastic rods. One just stabs the knives into it and the rods move around the blades and hold them in place. I decided I would disassemble the blocks and clean them up properly. I expected rods to fly everywhere. Instead, the rods are in a bundle glued in a plastic base. That makes assembly easier. I cleaned everything up and intend to put them back together later this week.
   
     I will have to see what I do next week.
   
    803

 The finished scarf I just loved the red and had to add the other colors to show it off.

 The rusty pan is a tortilla pan. easy to clean up. the black pan is high quality. It had to have been expensive new as it is heavy and solid.

 face masks wire brushes along with a few other things I picked up.

 lamp shades. now I have my hats for the next party......

Dish set I found in a bin.

Year 17, Week 06, Day One (week 892)

Year 17, Week 06, Day One (week 892)
(January 17, 2000 was my first carving day.)
02-18-17 Saturday
   
    68 degrees early morning, 83 in the afternoon. Nice breeze, patchy clouds and some sun. This weather report is brought to you by the City Of Pompano Beach Department Of Tourism.
   
                   
    THURSDAY
   
    We had the February Gold Coast Wood Turning Club meeting. We didn’t have as many people there as we normally do, and there wasn’t as much on display in the instant gallery as we normally have, but the meeting went well.
    The demonstration was by a gentleman who, when young, had nearly died from Carbon dioxide poisoning, then was a fire fighter and fire inspector. His presentation was about wood working dangers to your lungs.
    His first demonstration was he gave out coffee stirrer straws and then had us try to breath through them. He then explained that there are people who get only that much air in a breath. He said that by the time you get to that difficulty breathing, it is too late. One must protect the lungs long before you get to that point, and it is best from the very beginning.
    He showed us relative sizes of particles and what dust masks really capture. Masks that capture .3 microns of dust is only partially good enough. A whole lot of the particles we produce when turning and sanding wood, are much smaller than that.
    He explained that there are also chemical reactions that happen as the turning tool rubs on the wood and some of those chemicals are really dangerous and they get into the air too. A lot of dust remains in your environment, especially  if you are working inside, and if you are working outside, only a really strong breeze that is blowing the dust away from your face will work, otherwise you are not as safe as it looks.
    He then showed where certain particles of dust get caught by the body. Larger particles get caught in the throat and gets caught-out or swallowed. Smaller particles get caught at the start of the lungs and is driven out on mucus by the cilia. It is when the particles go into the air sacks that the danger really happens.
    He had a great big ring, about four foot in diameter, and that is the individual air sack. He then showed a softball sized object and said this is the size particle that can enter the sack and get stuck, and showed that it could well block the ports that the oxygen and carbon dioxide is transferred to the blood. He then took out a broken piece of wood and said “these particles don’t look like a ball, but instead like this piece of wood.”
    He suggests using masks that have air hoses either from behind you or even pressurized air from a clean source.
    He emphasized that efforts you take now to protect your lungs, will help you when you get very old after damage accumulates from normal living.
   
    A couple guys are involved in a project in making Urns for the ashes of soldiers that had not been claimed by their families. This is in association with the South Florida Woodworking Guild. The guild does the glue-up of the urns, and then the wood turners round and shape them. They were very nice. One of them said that the fact they were having problems pointing out who made which ones, showed they were doing well at making them the same.
   
    I showed off my goblets. I was happy that I actually created something and was able to show it off, no matter how bad they were. I figure I will wait until they dry and then finish them, thinning them out and correcting any thickness or shape problems they have. That will take a few months.
   
   
    SATURDAY
   
    Although the weather was good, I stayed inside and worked on some indoor projects. I had to sort through some papers and helped mom sort some craft stuff. It was just one of those lazy days to do as little as possible and take it easy.


   
Year 17, Week 06, Day Two (week 892)
(January 17, 2000 was my first carving day.)
02-19-17 Sunday

    66 degrees early morning 77 late after noon, blue sky and a light breeze. This weather report is brought to you by the City Of Pompano Beach department of Tourism.
   
    When I arrived, Mom asked if I wanted to go out for lunch. I said Yes.
    When I got home, I napped for a short time, then decided to try out that Mr COFFEE coffee grinder and grind some Turkish coffee I have had for a lot of years, that someone brought back from Israel. I mostly keep it in the freezer.
    I had a little bit of work done in my home and I plugged in the coffee grinder and nothing happened. I was thinking that the people got rid of it because it worked sporadically.  I tried both outlets, then grabbed another coffee grinder. It did not work either. I then realized they had flipped the breaker for that outlet. Then it worked.
    The coffee grinder has several settings.. How many cups one is grinding and how fine a grind one is after. Peculator grind is courser than drip grind. I chose the setting I was after, and held the button down and it ground until it stopped. The grind was even. 
    The coffee had an interesting flavor. It is more like Espresso than anything. I made it at normal  coffee strength, not concentrated, so it was not overpowering, just strong in flavor and interesting after flavors. Not bad for many years old. That is a special occasion coffee.
       
    
    I have worked on a scarf since well before Christmas. I had gotten some yarn at a yard sale that had a really pretty red yarn. I knew that a red fabric was not going to look like something interesting, so I added yellow and green yarn in stripes, making it a Christmas scarf. Well, it is well past Christmas and I am still working on it. I have finally started edging it with black yarn. I went down one long side, across the bottom, and up about a food on the other long side, and realized it was warping and twisting. It would never lay flat. It dawned on me that I was adding well too many stitches along the sides. I was trying to cover where I run the different colored yarns up the sides.
    I had started with Red yarn and created three rows, then wove a yellow yarn to start and did three rows, then added green and three rows. Each time I came to the end, I would have to carry the yarn color up the edge until it was time to use it again. The edges looked horrible because of the multi colors running up it. The black edging covered it nicely, but because there were more stitches in the edging than the stitches that I was supposed to go, it kept wanting to bend and warp the fabric.
    I am going to have to rip the yarn out and start the edging all over again. I will just have to find time to first, rip out the edging to the start, then wind the yarn into a center pull ball like I prefer to do. At one time, I thought everyone should learn how to wind balls like I learned.  I found out that people with arthritis cannot use my method of winding center pull balls. It cramps the hands too much.
    I do see that the black edging works really great with this color combination. My second choice would have been a brown, but black is much better.

    I will have to see what next weekend looks like and what I can accomplish.
   
    1322

The two goblets as  seen at the turning club.

The funeral urns made by members of the club.

Year 17, Week 05, Day One (week 891)

Year 17, Week 05, Day One (week 891)
(January 17, 2000 was my first carving day.)
02-11-17 Saturday
   
    Mostly cloudy, lows in the high 60s, highs in the high 70s. This weather report is brought to you by the City Of Pompano Beach department Of Tourism.
    The neighboring house had the Mango tree trimmed. I would have trimmed it differently, but I was not the one making the decision. As a favor and by request, they left several pieces of wood for me to work with.
   
    I started out with Mom, after breakfast, visiting four yard sales and walked away empty handed. One was an estate sale where they were unloading the stuff they had in there. Much of the stuff could pass as antiques.
    In the four yard sales, I saw stuff that had me drooling, except I don’t need a crank powered meat slicer when I have two powered meat slicers. I don’t need another cast iron pan, though I likely could have gotten it for little, I don’t need travel or regular irons (for ironing clothes), or another coffee grinder since I already have four. I also avoided several craft books which I really never have time to check through anyway. I also avoided a folding work bench which I already have one and have access to one or two more... 

    Later, I headed down to a  friend’s house. I passed through a couple yard sale areas and there were none. I had the address for the house and rough directions, but my instructions missed one key bit of information (taking a similar named road for a block then turning left on the road I was really after) and I wandered quite a bit before I even got close to his neighborhood. The third person I asked directions gave me a clue where to look and I finally found it.  I got to see some really choice homes. They were big, beautiful, and nowhere near the ocean too. My company built the pools in that area and I did the drawings. First time I ever saw one.
    My friend had offered me a “lathe stand” a severak months ago, back when I was rebuilding the base for my lathe. It took a while before we could get together for me to get it. It turned out not to be simply a lathe stand. It was a cast iron lathe bed with a metal stand that attaches to it. It was unopened by the looks of it. Cast iron is heavy, to say the least. This was for a large lathe. The head stayed in one place (compared to where the head on my lathe can be slid everywhere), but there was stops gaps on the motor mount where you could rotate the head to fixed angles, along with whatever specialty angles needed. There was a space for large platters or bowls to spin, and then the ways where the tool rest and tail stock slide.
    I have it stowed away safely for now, but I am thinking about what I can make to make use of it. I keep thinking of a treadle powered lathe but this is almost too heavy for that. I see on line where they make lathes out of wood so IN THEORY it would be easy. I wonder if I could power the lathe I build with a 454 Hemmi engine.....

    I stopped a couple places on the way home, then rested until it was time to get going for the evening.

    While little actually got done, I did have a good time doing it.

    I will have to see if I am more productive tomorrow.
   
   
   
Year 17, Week 05, Day One (week 891)
(January 17, 2000 was my first carving day.)
02-11-17 Saturday
   
    Lots of clouds, but a whole lot of sun. light breeze. This weather report is brought to you by the City Of Pompano Beach Department of Tourism.    
   

    I got as early a start as I could and took the straightest looking piece of Mango branch I saw, and after trimming the ends straight, I mounted it in the lathe and tried to center it. It was not as straight as I had hoped it would be. wood is naturally bent and is under stress. It will warp at times because the weight was taking off of it and it no longer has to fight gravity. Because of the slight bend, more wood had to come off the diameter to get it round so I could use it.
    I removed the knotted end which I have some ideas for later, and then cut it in half after I had a tenon on it and then mounted one piece in the chuck. I really wanted make something today since I had not done so in a long time, so I started on a goblet. I started by shaping the outside of the bowl, leaving a lot of waste wood on the stem. I then worked some of the inside with my tool next to the tail stock. When satisfied with a start, I removed the tail stock and started serious hollowing.
    This was green wood, just a couple days old and looked white. Removing the inside wood, I followed the curve of the outside and worked the bottom to where I was comfortable with it. I touched it with course sand paper. This could well be 32 grit. The wood was feathery at the edges of the layers so my sanding was more cutting away the feathery ends and removing tool marks than anything.
    I then worked the outside, running my fingers inside and out, to feel the thickness until I had the walls even all the way. You can tell when your fingers move away from each other.  I shaved down the stem more and more as I went, making sure I was even in thickness on the bowl.
    I was excited about just making something and did not want to go too thin on the stem in case it broke. The pith of the branch was near the center so I was worried that would cause the stem to be too weak so I left the stem two to three times as thick as I usually go, just to make sure I had something to show for my efforts for the first time in months that I could really do some turning.
    I sanded the bowl and then continued to work down the stem, sanding it when I had plenty of the proper diameter exposed so I would not have to touch it again in the project.
    I created the base and worked that into shape, sanded it, and finally parted it off the waste wood, which was a little tricky as a slight twist and you can chip the base and have to even it out, it becoming smaller in diameter. (Ask how I know and how many times it has happened in my life). That was done enough, and I was in a really good mood, so I started on the second goblet the same way. I was having fun.
   
    With goblets, the taller they are and the thinner the stems, the more popular they are. A turner can make the stem ink cartridge thin and really tall, is a sign of true skill as those are the types that break easily.  Of course, those are in really hard wood. Not in green wood like this, though mango is a hard wood when dry. It is never with the pith near the stem either.
    It takes even grater skill to make several of them exactly the same. Only once did I do that, and I had to make five of them to accomplish a set of four that resembled each other.
    The bowl of this second goblet was a little bit shorter than the first. The stem and base ended up about the same
   
    I decided I was going to turn the knotted part into a little cup, but as I did a little cleanup from the goblets, I saw that I would never been in condition to clean up if I did make the third piece. It turned out to be a lot of work to clean up. This is the first time I used my lathe for anything other than sanding since I put it on the new stand. Sawdust piled up on all the wood I had on the shelves so clean up took longer than I expected. I previously had an angled board to direct the wood chips to the ground rather than into the lathe. It was not perfect, but it helped a lot. I guess I should put that back in place again.
   
    We have a wood turning club meeting on Thursday and I will actually be able to show something off at the meeting. That will be a rare sight.
   
    I will see what happens next weekend.

    1500

 The branches of the mango tree right next to the trunk Two pieces are missing

 

 The two goblets next to the knotted top.