In My "Spare" Time: Year 19, Week 19, Day One (week 1009)

Year 19, Week 19, Day One (week 1009)
(January 17, 2000 was my first carving day.)
05-18-19 Saturday
Mostly blue sky with some puffs periodically. Some towers appeared over the everglades but they did not build much. 72 early morning 83 late afternoon. A nice breeze helped with the 68% humidity. This weather report is brought to you by The City Of Pompano Beach Department Of Tourism.

THURSDAY

The turning club meeting met almost out in the Everglades again. I was testing one of my Garmin Trackers attached up near the upper corner of the window. There is a section where you get past the trees and the civilization. All you have is a canal and dyke on one side and the main highway on the other. The tracker I was using is not the brightest of my trackers. It is also not the loudest. I got into that area and the glare coming from everywhere was so bright. It was a lightly cloudy sky. I could not see the screen. I even partially shaded it with my hand and still could not see it. While shading it, I thought I had hit the wrong button turning off the tracking. As I got closer to my turn,it proved it was still working as it warned me to continue past the next exit and then directed me where to turn. That is not a place I go to often so I will not be able to test another tracker there for a while.
We had a pretty good group at the meeting. The demonstration was on finishing the bud vase started last month. He had glued the plug into the base where he had hollowed the interior before. He was tuning away the wood on the neck when the glue gave way on the plug and the vase came off the lathe. It did not fly off, just bounced off the lathe and onto the floor. That happens to all of us. I doubt any of us will be shocked when we get the same problems.
I had brought my tea pot to the club meeting. I was surprised that everybody loved it. A couple of the “masters” complimented me on it. One said that “because it was not symmetrical, it was like something you would see in Alice In Wonderland.”
A couple people said they are going to try it.
The safety tip given tonight is DO NOT LET ANYBODY STAND DIRECTLY IN FRONT OF THE WORK YOU ARE DOING. If it blows up, which will happen periodically, they could be hurt. The bowl I was making would have done damage to someone standing there. The guy doing the tip said that he was working on getting the walls thin on a vase and another turner stood right in line of the piece. When told don’t stand there, he said, “I know you won’t blow it up.” You never know when it will happen, especially when turning at high speeds. Some lathes I’ve seen the club use has a screen on the back side that reduces the flight of debris during a disaster. That one was used during demonstrations to the public like at some of the shows we did.
We have what is called the instant gallery. You set your pieces out before the meeting and people can examine the work check them out and appreciate the quality. We then have a show and tell where the maker explains about the kind of wood and finish and any stories involved. I told about my tea pot and how I did it.
One guy had a giant salad bowl and eight small serving bowls. He explained that one secret of hollowing is to “Never make the inside bigger than the outside. When that happens, the piece comes apart....”
They were talking about not having another meeting during the summer, but we realized the only reason we previously were not having them was because the school we were meeting at was closed. We will have meetings each month again.

SATURDAY

We found two yard sales in the morning leaving the restaurant. All I got was a couple small power strips. There was a lot of stuff I wanted a few years ago, and a lot of stuff I have too many of....
We had gotten enough rain and sun since Christmas that the lawns needed mowing. I dug out the electric mower and mowed the front yard. That did me in for a while, but it made a difference. I will see when I can do the back yard, which is what Mom really wants done.

I dug out a piece of wood from my stock. It was a section of log that had been on the lathe and apparently it split apart. Almost Half of it was gone. The wood also had a twist in the grain. I tried flattening the twist by splitting some wood off and the crack followed the twist in the grain. It was not helpful.
Instead, I carefully measured the wood to find the center, and then did a circle on the “flat” side. (I am using a compass you get in the toy section of the store where they might have school tools. These usually come with the compass, protractor, a couple angles pen and maybe a pencil sharpener.) Using my drawn circle as a guide, I sliced off a piece off the end so the block was closer to square, then lopped off the corners so I would save time on the lathe.
I then located the center and poked the drive spur into it. I then flipped it over and visually found the center of the rounded side. I poked that spot with the drive spur also.
After I mounted it in the lathe with the flat side to the tail stock. I flattened the whole flat area, then formed a tenon for the chuck to grab onto.
Once that was done, I flipped it around and removed the high spots as it was spinning until I had a nice shape of a bowl. My sharpening skill do show signs of improvement I thought I had, which allowed my tool work to be better. I only had a couple spots of tear out. More sanding or more cutting would clean that up. I created a foot on the bottom that will also act as the tenon in the chuck. I flipped it around and almost needed to put it back on the lathe the other way as the foot was almost bigger than the chuck could grab. Another turn on the chuck jaws and it was able to slip in. I stopped there as that was enough for the day. I have to clean up each time and that takes time.

Last night I took some of the mango my mom gave me and some boneless chicken thighs and crock potted the meat in the mango over night. I took it out of the sauce in the morning and we had it for lunch. Very little flavor got into the chicken. I now know that a strong sauce does not help meat when you cook the meat in it. It is better to simply add some water and seasoning and leave it at that. If you want a sauce, add that on top of it when you serve it. I had noticed that most recipes for meats with a sauce, they only add salt and pepper when they cook the meat . The sauce comes either from the drippings or something you prepared separate. I won’t be doing that experiment for a very long time. I learned something.

Year 19, Week 19, Day Two (week 1009)
(January 17, 2000 was my first carving day.)
05-19-19 Sunday
79 early morning, 87 middle afternoon. Mostly blue sky with a few puffs showing up now and then as they crossed the sky. A nice breeze that helped with the heat. 62 % humidity was not helpful. This weather report is brought to you by The City Of Pompano Beach Department Of Tourism.

I saw a couple yard sale signs but none were out. I saw one where they were considering putting out stuff and since I stopped, they decided to get set up. I had to go, and never got a chance to come back.

I got home and after setting up, I hollowed out the bowl. I should go thinner, but decided today was not the day. I have no idea what I did, but my back was bothering me. It felt like it was stiff. It did not bother me while sitting and I kept forgetting about it until I got up again.
My intention for making this bowl was to carve it into a swirl of leaves. I did this years ago, but the wood then was Camphor. It is not the strongest wood. I am not sure what kind of wood I am working with here, but it seems stronger than the camphor. While thicker wood allows you to build more depth in the carving, it also takes longer to pierce the wood. I will have to sneak up on the thickness I am after. I already have a little chip missing on the top but don’t want to damage it any more.

My brother and I talked about projects we wanted to do. I need to retire and work all day on my projects in order to catch up with my ideas. We keep looking at the little machine lathe and wanting to get into that, but other projects keep getting in the way. I am excited about making sawdust so that is my main project right now.
One project I would like to try is to make a quick and simple branding iron. Make my logo, carving it into a piece of metal and then using a torch to heat it up so I can burn a logo into my pieces. What I want to do would work, in theory, but I have no idea if it will work in practice. I should try it in wood first, but likely would go directly into the metal I am planning to use.
I also want to make more points for my tail stock. It has interchangeable points and some disappeared. There are some that would make some work easier.
We also discussed the repair of my tool rest. That will be a long project to do it right. I did use a file on the top of it for a while and made headway of the corrections. It is a nice feel when the file actually starts cutting metal.

After my brother left, I went out and mowed the neighbor’s back yard. I did not mow all of it, just the parts that gets the traffic. I also picked up a whole bunch of mango that fell overnight. This is one of the better years of production.

We were planning a BBQ next weekend so Friday, I hit the Gordon’s Food Supply. They serve restaurants, parties, and food trucks but you don’t need a membership like you would for Costco. If you know your prices and your volumes, you can get good deals. I picked up some dogs, brats and hamburger for our BBQ. Tonight, I sliced up the ten pound roll of burgers. I used my meat slicer and had it set for the thickest setting. I ended up with 32 burgers when I was done.
What I used to do when I was just slicing them for myself, would be to slice them extra thin and get as many as 60 to 80 patties. I did not need a lot of meat to have a good meal. I had a few burgers left over from last time so that gives me 40 patties for our gathering. That will leave some for leftovers that everybody loves. I am using the last slicer I had picked up and is quite satisfied with it. The only thing that I don’t like about it is that the switch on the motor is too small. I just thought of something. Maybe my other motor will fit on it. I might check that during the week.

I had decided not to do the repair on the tool rest today. I had some epoxy out. I knew I had some JB WELD but could not find it. When I brought the epoxy in and dropped it on a counter and it landed next to the JB Weld. I looked there several times and could not find it. Oh, well.

I hope to work a little Saturday before I set up for the BBQ and I think we have Monday off and I might be able to work then too. I have lots of non fun projects to do also. We will see.

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