In My "Spare" Time: Year 19, Week 07, Day One (week 997)

Year 19, Week 07, Day One (week 997)
(January 17, 2000 was my first carving day.)
02-23-19 Saturday

70 degrees early morning 85 afternoon. Blue sky with large puffs herding across. A few needed diaper changes but that was not at Mom’s house. Most of those were north of us. Early afternoon, one watered mom’s plants while we were having lunch. Cars left a shadow where they were sitting. A nice breeze tried to move little plastic bags off my work table. This weather report is brought to you by The City Of Pompano Beach Department Of Tourism.

THURSDAY

The wood turning club meeting was very good. We had a nice attendance today. The work in the instant gallery was excellent. The instant gallery is where people bring stuff to show. You can examine the pieces in detail if needed. Then later in the meeting we have a show and tell of the work we placed in the instant gallery. One guy gets cut-offs from someone who stacks different colored woods and he makes them into jewelry. One girl is just learning and she puts my work to shame.

I had my cane and my gnome home on display. A couple women looking at the gnome home said “cute”. That’s good enough for me. I had dropped the gnome home early morning and lost the side rails on the ladder, but it really did not need them. I will add them next weekend so it will be complete. During the week I had touched some paint on the ladder to make them look more weathered and less like they were new.

While the presenter was getting ready for his demonstration, he showed a tool he picked up. It is a shaft that has the morris taper that fits in the drive pipe in the head stock (most lathes have a pipe for the shaft. The outside of the pipe is threaded for commonly available chucks and face places, and the inside is sized for morris tapers to slip into and hold). You can put a grind stone on the shaft, converting your lathe into a grinding station. He said they have shafts available that you can put the multiple buffing wheels on the lathe also (known as the Beall Buffing System). Most lathes at their fastest are not near as fast as grinders so less heat is built up when grinding things with the lathe. You can even slow down the lathe even more for really slow grinding. The slower speeds is great for touching up the tool rather than trying to remove metal. It also reduces “bluing” which happens when the metal gets hot. Modern high speed steel are not softened by the bluing, but with carbon steel tools, this can remove the temper of the metal, making it soft and require a lot more sanding. His stone he showed was not round, because he had not dressed it yet, but the sides were spinning dead true.
I then showed my sanding disk and explained that the lathe spins slower than the sander, and the size I made the disk used a sanding disk that was easy to get. This is great when I have to use use them on materials that mess up the sandpaper. I also said that I could square the outer edge and add emery cloth to aid in sanding.

The demonstration was on making ornaments from sea urchin shells. He sometimes was able to get the spines and use them as the finials of the ornaments. He explained the shells are fragile and have to be stabilized they are in lightly bonded sections. He told where one person uses construction foam to fill and glue the shell, some use super glue on the inside. he uses a hot glue gun to bind the shell segments. He tries to keep it away from the openings.
He then uses a dremmel-like tool to round the opening slightly to make the fit of the finials better. The bottom of the shell has a large hole while the top has a small hole. He usually makes a cap for the large opening that the long finial will usually go into. Because the shell is delicate, he likes to have a dowel or skewer connecting the top and bottom caps so the shell itself is not holding the weight of the whole ornament. A light twist can break up the ornament so that is why he uses the dowel between the caps.
He then showed how he turns the top and bottom finials to a size that is proportional to the shell. It takes sharp tools and a steady light hand to make the finials he makes. “Any two year old can do it with twenty years experience.” He showed off some shells smaller than a normal button, and some your thumb could fit into. He loves demonstrating fine wood turning.

We may have to get another location than meeting at this church. When you change locations, it is not uncommon to have to test several places before you find one you can stay comfortably at for a few years.

I worked on my zig zag scarf at the club meeting. It is coming along. It is made of small balls of yarn I had laying around and the color combo is coming out nice. I will have to dig out some more yarn soon.

SATURDAY

Right after breakfast, we went to a church yard sale. They did not have near as much stuff as they usually have. Usually the stuff they have is well used. I was looking at some beads and forced myself to walk away. Little else caught my attention.

I had brought a duffel bag I knew had SOME beads, but I was not sure how much. Back to Mom’s house, I took to the back a duffel bag I have of my beads. This duffle bag is designed to have those plastic trays with moveable sections in them. I emptied it out and took the beads I got at a yard sale a couple weeks back. I had more beads than I thought I had. I am not even doing bead work. I am glad I did not grab the ones at the yard sale. There is always that thought that you should get some item if they were to be tossed, but if someone else wanted them, it was best to leave the item for someone else. I have to work harder on fortune telling.
The bead kits I got a couple weeks ago were for kids. There were letter beads WWJD (What Would Jesus Do) and two hearts and a disk with a cross printed on it, along with a cord and a key ring with each kit. The Ws were in two colors. What they were supposed to do is to put the cord onto the key ring, and then add the beads and connect the ends of the cord. There were a number of the kits some missing stuff and a lot of beads free. I placed the beads, and the fittings into separate compartments of the tray.
I then examined everything else and did some separation. I had a package of wood beads of different sizes and shapes. They got separated in the trays. When done, I consolidated most of my stuff into the trays I had and got rid of a bunch of bags. If I remember to look, I can find a lot of stuff easily. I likely have more beads somewhere, I just have to figure out where they are.
My main interest in beads is to decorate something else that I have made. I have used the tiny beads as the “rocks” on light house ornaments, as an example.

One always waits for the perfect project to use a special piece of wood. One does not want to “waste” it on something lousy. This weekend I came to the conclusion that when one gets a special piece of wood, one should use it, even if it is not for that perfect project. Otherwise it will eventually go to waste through various forms of damage.
I had a piece of wood branch with all sorts of knots in one section of it. I decided to cut it into pieces and convert most of it to sawdust. I first used the saw-all to cut it into three pieces. Two pieces have no any figure, but the center piece has all the knots.
I tried to mount it on the lathe and turn it using a spur drive. It fought me because the angle the free handed end cuts prevented the spur from holding it. I took it off and went to the bandsaw and tried to get the ends matched by cutting off some angle from one end. It was not cutting well. The last time I went to the last surviving SEARS store in the county, I picked up 9" sanding disks and a bandsaw blade.
The blade I had on the bandsaw was a meat cutting blade. I had used that during an out-of-money experience and never removed it. For cutting meat, they don’t add any set on the blade, which is the slight angle of the teeth used to clear the space a bit better. You don’t want to lose any meat in the saw cut so there is no set. Also, this blade was likely very dull after all this time. I took the blade off and put a brand new blade on. When I tried to cut the wood with the old blade, it was just barely making its way through the wood. With the new blade, it took only two seconds to cut through the wood. What a difference. That new blade was hungry.

I mounted the wood back in the lathe and rough rounded it and then added a tenon so would fit in the chuck. Once in the chuck, rounded it some more, getting past the last of the bark. I then ran out of time and put everything away.

Mom’s neighbor had his garage door open to air out the house. I took the push mower out and mowed the worst part of the back yard. Grass (or weeds) are not growing much this time of the year so I only had to hit the spots where certain types of weeds were doing really good.
The electric mower requires the cord and you have to plug it in, unwind it, move it out of the way when you are mowing, making sure it does not hang up on anything. When you change yards, you have to gather up the cord and move it to a different outlet. You then have to deal with the cord again. Finally, when you put the electric mower away, you have to wind up the cord and put it away. The electric mower has the advantage that the blades create a suction to cause the grass to stand up to be sliced when the blades pass. The push mower does not create that suction.
I am finding that the push mower is just as easy to push around as the electric, and while it does not do really good with some weeds, such as the stiff stemmed ones, it does a good enough job over all. As this is a quality mower, it is almost as easy to push as the electric.

We stopped at home depot. I got some glue and Mom got some mulch. The employee put it in my truck for me. I will deal with the mulch tomorrow when I am more rested up.

I likely will likely work on this piece of wood tomorrow.

Year 19, Week 07, Day One (week 997)
(January 17, 2000 was my first carving day.)
02-24-19 Sunday

70 degrees early morning, 84 late afternoon, nice breeze kept things comfortable. I hate this deep winter weather... This weather report is brought to you by The City Of Pompano Beach Department Of Tourism.

I decided to test a concept I had wanted to try. I am commonly making crochet hooks from toothbrushes. There are times where the handle gets thick very quickly past the brushes. It would be nice to mount the brush in the lathe and turn the shaft back exactly to the diameter it should be. I had a used tooth brush I located and a couple Dollar Store brushes that were still in the package.
I stood at the lathe and tried to line up the tooth brushes so as much of the shaft would be straight as possible. I tried several positions and found that it was not going to work, even if I used a jig or something to hold it in place. The nature of the curve was not going to give me enough straight using the lathe.
I then decided to shave the width of the brush head off with my knife so I could keep more length. I had not tried that before I always simply cut them off. I found out that those bristles are held in with little metal staples. That is not good for the life of a knife’s edge. The brush head had to be cut off because of that. A couple seconds at the band saw solved that. I tried cutting in the hook with the dremmel-mounted blade. I learned something.
Most of the crochet hooks I have made to date were with brushes I got from the dentist or otherwise fairly expensive ones. The brushes I love best for making crochet hooks are the clear plastic It is a good sturdy material that sands nice. This was the first time I used the dollar store brushes.
The plastic they are made with is soft and weak. I would get a hook cut into them and with a just a little pressure to the hook to test how it would handle the yarn and found that I could break the hook off. I tried a few times, then threw away both dollar store brushes. The other brush did was not the best I have done. I will test it out but might toss it too. I don’t think I went deep enough but it is already not good. When rounding the shaft, I may have removed too much material. It is also rough. I have to spend more time sanding it. The soft rubberized plastic does not sand or otherwise clean up well.

I remounted yesterday’s wood on the lathe and shaped the outside. I made a wide lip and then a rounded body. I kept feeling a bump at one spot. I stopped the lathe and found that the core of a dead branch had came out. I will figure out what to do with that a bit later. My thought is to drill it clean, and turn a dowel to fit into the hole.
Anyway, I started hollowing out the piece. I found I have to spend serious time to sharpen my tools. I was more gnawing at the wood than cutting my way in. I got a good start on it anyway. If the tools were sharp, I would have had it mostly hollowed out by now. I left it on the lathe (the wood is dry because it is several years old) and will try to work on it next weekend.

I then sat down and carved while my brother was going through a steam engine book. My Gnome Home really needs a Gnome on it so everybody will know what it is. I decided to try to carve a little man. I made several mistakes from the start. I wanted a pointed hat, but started the shoulders too high in the little piece of wood. I have him sitting and the legs are also way too long. I did came up with a figure to look at anyway. My carving skills were off enough that other mistakes cropped up. I can correct most of them, as long as it is not going to be a gnome, but just some person. I will likely prepare some more tiny blocks of wood and try them again. Carving little people was something I was starting to do anyway.

Mom’s neighbor had his garage open so he could air out his house. I got his push mower and mowed part of the front lawn early on. Later in the day I mowed the rest of the front yard. It really only removed the tops of some of the grass. The lawn is filled with little white flowers that are near the base of the plants. At least the lawn is under some control for now.

Mom had a tree that had gone into the ground, going through the hole in the pot. My brother had released it from the ground during the week. Mom and my niece cut away the pot and then butchered the roots, and removed all vestiges of branches and leaves from the trunk (three inches in diameter and about four feet tall) and repotted it. She considered tossing it but the neighbor said she could put it in her front yard with a bunch of other trees she has put there. It is now a thick stick in a pot sitting out front. We shall see if it recovers or dies. Either way does not matter.

Next week I hope to finish that vase, sharpen some tools, and I am sure I will come up with some other projects also.

I will see what I actually do next weekend.

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