In My "Spare" Time: Year 19, Week 21, Day One (week 1021)

Year 19, Week 21, Day One (week 1021)
(January 17, 2000 was my first carving day.)
06-01-19 Saturday

77 early morning, 91 late afternoon some clouds passed over early, blue sky for part of the day, then clouds built up in the afternoon, towers built up over the Everglades but only a few dribbles hit my windshield in the late afternoon. This weather report is brought to you by the City Of Pompano Beach Department of Tourism.

I found about 5 yard sales today. Most had nothing I really wanted to put money out for. It is fun to see what they have, though.
I ended up getting 4 cast iron pans for $5. A 6", a 8" a 10" and one of those Fajita pans. They need just a little clean up as there is a tiny bit of surface rust near the handles. I do not need cast iron pans. It was just that the price asked for them caught my attention. It was the price of what just one pan usually goes for.

At another yard sale, there was a box of power cords. On the box was marked $5 each, then the man said, $2 each, then he said, “take it all for $5". I already put two of them to use today.

At one yard sale mom and I went to right after Breakfast, was a church fund yard sale. They had a meat slicer. It was the same kind of motor that my expensive slicer had, which has tiny switch on the side. I forced myself to walk away. I thought about it all day long, but did not go back for it. I have three bodies and two motors. I don’t need another slicer. I hope someone who really wanted one, got that one. I have no idea if stuff is carried over from one time they have the yard sales to another.

Earlier in the week I did a test and took my other motor and put it on my new slicer. It fits perfectly. The difference was that the old motor has a great big toggle switch on the end, while the other one has a small inset switch that is hard to find and flip when you cannot see it. It is common to turn the slicer off and on many times while working. You turn it off when you need to stack the meat, you turn it off when you grab another chunk of meat to slice, etc. you always have meat juices on your hands so that tiny switch is not the most sanitary. The big switch can be flipped with the side of your finger. Even if you are slicing something else like bread or cooked meat or some veggies, it just is a mess to reach that little switch.

A couple years ago, I had picked up a Craftsman brand drill press where you put your hand drill into it for power. Plans to use it got set aside and then it got buried. I located it this week and brought it with me to Moms. I looked on-line and found that this one had a modification the original did not have. The original had a “bail” a shaped rod to hold a drill in place and a little table that slides up and down on the post that can tip side to side for angle drilling. Those were gone. What this one had was a “can” attachment where the bail would go.
I decided the can might hold a dremel. I sat down at the work bench and stuck one of my dremels into the can see if it would fit. It was close but not quite right. The dremmel was not going all the way in. Then I noticed that screws holding the can in placewere sticking into where the dremel slid in. I backed them out, got the dremel set where I can push the locking pin that keeps the shaft from turning while changing bits, and I then knew it would work.
The unit I was first testing was a variable speed dremel. I took that out and put in a spare single-speed unit I have. There was no way I could adjust the speed anyway, unless I cut the can about where the switch was. One of the extension cords I picked up today had a big button on the wire. I learned this was an on-off button. I got that, plugged the dremel into the cord and after testing it, I coiled the cords together to reduce the length. I have not done th is before but saw videos about it. I then spent the effort to set the dremel straight up and down, from side to side, and front to back and cinched in tight.
There is a metal piece at the top designed to hold the drill in place with down force. The screw would not go in far enough to hold the dremel place. I figured it really was not needed, but I decided it would be one more thing to keep it from moving. I grabbed a cut off piece of wood and after drilling a hole, I sanded it until I had a wooden spacer so the bolt holding the metal in place would apply pressure to the dremel. I now have a dremel-based drill press. We can use that for the fine holes in scroll saw work among other things. There are times where we want to move a piece against the dremel bits rather than the dremel against the piece, and this will allow us to work that way.
We have a similar drill press (a slightly different model stand) with a regular electric drill in it. We can handle most projects. We do have a big drill press in the garage but have to move stuff around to get to use it. I squared up that drill the best I could. The bail is made for a slightly different model drill so it is not doing the job perfectly.

I intended to work on drawing patterns on some things to carve them, but that never happened. Instead I decided not to take that time. Basically my yard sale route took me to ten, then dill press took me to past twelve. I then went and got tacos for lunch and that took me to time for a nap.

One of the yard sales I stopped off at, is one who has had craft stuff before. They had a bead loom kit. I gave it a long thought but knew I would never do beading in the near future. I see I can make a loom like what they had in a short time. It was just some dowels stuck between some sticks of wood. The line would be wrapped multiple times between the two dowels, and then the beads would be added to the line that would woven through the lines on the loom. It has given me ideas of making a loom for regular weaving. Another hobby I will not be doing for a while.

My brother and I got HARBOR FREIGHT gift cards for our birthdays so we are planning to go there tomorrow. I will see what all I actually do tomorrow.

Year 19, Week 21, Day One (week 1021)
(January 17, 2000 was my first carving day.)
06-01-19 Saturday

77 early morning, 92 degrees after noon. 99 under the metal awning in spite of a light breeze flowing beneath it. Blue sky for most of the day, then towers built up over the Everglades. The sky got covered with clouds and some storms crossing the state arrived very late to water mom’s plants. It was gone as quick as it arrived. This weather report is brought to you by the City Of Pompano Beach Department of Tourism.

It was hot. One uses the air conditioning to recover from the heat, then go back out again. I intended to do some carving on some pieces I have. I even found an interesting leaf form a low growing weed and drew a few of them on the bowl. I did not like the spacing or the effect, so I set that to the side.
My brother had to work today so I was on my own. My niece came but I said it was best not to sit out in the heat.
I had the cut chunk of the end of the wood the bowl came from ,and decided the tea pot needed a handle. I think it is the same wood so I drilled a hole into the piece of wood. One of the tools that comes with any chuck you buy is a WORMWOOD SCREW. This is a screw with a head designed to be held by the chuck. The screw has a wide and flat thread with sharp edges. You drill a hole the diameter of the shaft and then drive the wormwood screw into the hole. The threads cut into the wood and hold with a lot of force. I was driving it into end grain, which cuts the grain as it goes in. It is not as strong as side grain where the threads fit between the grain of the wood with minimal cutting.
The hard part was to drill the hole straight in from the face I wanted to use. This piece was more like a wedge. I tipped it up with something beneath it until it was ROUGHLY level. I did not try to get it exact. I figured close was good enough.
About this time, my niece handed me the crank for the tail stock. It was braised. I need to paint it to protect the metal. But it was useable.
I cut off the worst of the corners on the chunk of wood from my drawn circle, worked the wormwood screw into the hole, and then mounted it to the lathe. After it was spinning nicely, I moved the tail stock on and set it to the wood to hold it in place. I then worked with the angled face of the wood looking at me, flattening it, and I also rounded the piece. After it was flat enough and round enough it was smaller than I was after, but decided to go with it. I started hollowing the inside.
I smoothed the corner on the front and the back and then cut into the center. I was intending to leave a ring that I could cut to size for the handle of my tea pot. I had it almost through when the piece came off the lathe. It broke into two pieces with the ragged center still on the lathe. I found the large piece first and when I moved the tool cart that was beside me, I found the small piece.
I cleaned up, put away the lathe and sat down with the tea pot. The size was about perfect. I had to adjust the ends to match the curve of the pot, but It was the right size. Mom suggested that I cut into the pot surface so the ends of the handle are below the surface to give more glue surface. It does not matter how accurately I try to fit something, it always ends up too big. I first put sandpaper against the surface of the vase and slid the handle ends on it back and forth to level the ends out. I did some grinding with a dremmel and then sanded like that some more.
I just about had it right, when I started cutting holes into the surface to hold the handles. I kept fitting it, grinding some more and fitting it again. When I had it about right, there was a lot of space around the handle ends.
I put glue on the ends of the handle and into the holes and stuck the handle in. I globbed more glue around the handles and then pressed fine sawdust in around the handle ends. It was not quite the right color sawdust but it would do the job.
Once I had the handle in place, I carried it to a place inside where it could sit with the handle up and it won’t be touched.
I cleaned up and called that my day. I accomplished much but not as much as I had hoped.
I will see what happens next weekend.

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