Year 19, Week 32, Day One (week 1032)

Year 19, Week 32, Day One (week 1032)
(January 17, 2000 was my first carving day.)
08-17-19 Saturday

It was in the 80s with feathers and milk in the morning puffs appeared in the afternoon, but it did not look like any showers came after I went to bed. That front that is stalled over central florida has two spots that look interesting to the hurricane people. One is in the golf, the other is off the Carolina.

THURSDAY

The club meeting was good. We had a large turnout, someone counted 40 people. The demonstration was about the urns we make for the Fallen Soldiers project. 
The funeral homes have ashes of hundreds of people unclaimed by family. The military has developed a system where they search the funeral homes and identify soldiers remains. They go through investigation to verify who they are, then at the national cemeteries, they inter them in groups of 25.
At the South Florida Woodworking Guild  http://sfwg.org/  They became involved with making wooden urns for the soldiers being interred. Otherwise they are interred in cardboard boxes. The urns they make has the name of the soldier and the branch emblem on it. It is an impressive ceremony they do when they inter them. The cemetery they serve is the South Florida National Cemetery in Lake Worth, Palm Beach County. My dad was buried there. 
I am working from a weak memory so I may get some details wrong. 
The demonstrator discussed the steps that they go through on making them, from buying or obtaining the wood, to the final project.  Some wood is donated, some they purchase. They try to have each batch look about the same each time. If possible, they use the same kind of wood for each batch.
The first few they made, when they started, were square. Then the people most involved in making the square urns left.  They got the idea of using the turning club to help make them. It takes less skill to make round urns than square ones. The original urns were supposed to look like the Jefferson memorial, but they simplified the design to require less skill to make them, as beginning wood turners are also making them.
They build them using staves. They are using a 12 stave design so the least amount of wood is lost.  You can get a kit in a thin shipping box with all the wood you need, all cut for use. He didn’t use glue in this demonstration, but he showed how they are assembled and then the steps to turn them, though he did not do any turning.
He first touches up the wood with a bit of sand paper to make sure they fit as close together as possible. He then makes sure they are the same length as cutting errors or different boards might be involved in the set of staves. He then uses a band clamp and fits them together to make sure they will all fit together without any gaps. 
He starts gluing them up in the band clamp and tightens it so they cannot slip or move. He makes sure they are all flat on the table so one end is even.
I am trying to remember the sequence. He mounts it on the lathe makes sure the exposed edge is flattened true. He then glues the top wood (stacked boards) on top. He rough turns the wood. he ends up flattening the bottom and then cutting a light reveal on the inside edge with a few screw blocks glued inside The reveal is used for the bottom he cuts to fit and tapers the edge so it fits tight.  He screws on a temporary bottom that the chuck can hang onto and shapes the top. They have templates to follow to make them close to the same look.
The way he explained it, it looks easy. They will be having some turning sessions for making them over the next months as the National cemetery is doing several internments this year.


SATURDAY

After lunch, we stopped at one yard sale. I almost picked up another of those four pronged canes but decided I did not need any more than mom and I already have. 

I went out back and worked on a number of projects. I cut out two more blanks for rocking horses. I am not too happy about the blanks, but I will make use of them. I am glad I have a good three months to get them done. 
I sanded one of the hearts so it was a full tapered round. I did not like the effect. I did a light radius on another, and decided to try using the knife and cut the corners at an angle (chamfered). I like that effect a lot better. I need to do some cleaning but I like that effect better. These would have been better if I had cut them half an inch thick rather than an inch thick. I could shape them better with less wood to work from.

I borrowed one of mom’s shovels and dug at and pulled out a bunch of the weeds in the front planter. I got out a rake and scraped up some more of the weeds. I’ve been dumping the shavings from the lathe in mom’s sand pile. I brought a bunch of the saw dust from the sand pile and dumped them into the planter. There is some more I need to get, but mom said I could take one of her mulch bags to fill up the planter. I want to try to bury the remaining weeds. When I attacked them last week, they were more than knee high. 

The front yard could use another trimming. I need to finish the back yard first.

There is a palm tree mom in her neighbor’s yard that really needs to go. He agrees.. The tree is close to the fence, is a dirty palm tree and the seeds sprout everywhere. I started digging around it, in hopes of undermining it. Mom says I should just get the saws-all and cut the top off. Since palm trees grow from just the very top, that should kill it. 
I intended to keep going until I could get to the roots of the tree, but three times today, I stepped wrong and had to work to keep my balance. At the tree was the third time and I decided that was enough.

Tomorrow Mom and I are going to visit my sister who just moved into the state.

I emptied out the yarn bag that I keep in the car. The bag needed to be washed. I grabbed that last box of yarn I purchased and picked out some interesting colors to put back in the bag once it is washed. I am taking that bag with me tomorrow. 


Year 19, Week 32, Day Two (week 1032)
(January 17, 2000 was my first carving day.)
08-18-19 Sunday


My sister moved mid state and it was fun seeing them again.
Our gathering was good. My nephew and his mother-in-law also came with his two daughters. The older girl (about two or three years old) was a bundle of cute. The little one has not quite gotten to crawl, but she is so close to it. 
Their house is brand new and the neighborhood is still under construction. There are some more things that have to be done on the house by the contractor. They are still in the move-in stage. My brother and her husband looked at some of the houses under construction. There are problems with some of them. My sister and her husband checked on the house several times during construction and made corrections. There will be some things they will have to do after everything is closed out to make it better. 
I spent a lot of time listening to my sister and mom. While I sat there, I crocheted two dish cloths. On the way home I did another one. I still have a little of that cotton yarn left. I brought a set of four cast iron pans with me as a gift, 6",8",10",12". My sister was really happy about getting them. There are some things best cooked on the grill and these will be great for that. She mentioned she needs a big cast iron pot so when she comes down for labor day, she will leave with some more cast iron. 
My sister is an excellent cook and having been in the Mid-East for a few years when she was younger, she fixed an arabic dish she learned there that went really good.
It was a two hour drive from here and we left there at six. I was tired.
Thursday I got to bed late because of the turning club. Friday I got to bed late because a meeting, I just napped a little bit on Saturday afternoon, mostly just laying there waiting for sleep to come, Saturday night I got to bed late, Sunday, I got up early, half an hour later than I normally get up for work and got ready to go. Sunday I then got to bed late. 
I did well today but won’t count on it tomorrow.

I will see what all happens next weekend.
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two dish cloths I made for my sister

turned another way, two dish cloths I made for my sister.

the last dish cloth I made on trip home, with remnant ball and a new ball for comparison. 

champhored hearts and shaped books

a close up of the rounded heart and champhored heart.

Year 19, Week 31, Day One (week 1031)

Year 19, Week 31, Day One (week 1031)
(January 17, 2000 was my first carving day.)
08-10-19 Saturday

82 degrees early morning 94 degrees as the high, humid, sky filled with feathers and spilt milk. This weather report is brought to you by The City Of Pompano Beach Department Of Tourism.

After breakfast, we stopped at a yard sale. The woman, if I remember right, is a cleaning lady. The customers give her stuff and when she has enough, she has a yard sale. Everything she had was a dollar. Mom found a complete set of metal crochet hooks for me. I also picked up ANOTHER cast iron fry pan. I have a picture of my cast iron collection from a couple years ago and showed them that. I got a wow from them. 
Last week I got some stainless steel bowls and I dug out all my bowls, and I have like 20 of them. I want to separate them into sets. 
When we got home, I had to go to a couple stores so I drove most all the yard sale route. I found two more yard sales but there was nothing I had to have. Some interesting stuff, but did not need it. 
At Lowes, I picked up a stand-mounted fan for $20 for under the awning, and two sticks of wood, a half by two furring strip and a two by two. I decided I needed some wood for the ornaments I am making. I found that the fresh wood from the store is much easier to carve than the stuff that has been laying around all year. I have some serious carving to do.

At home, I went out back and tried to make a book ornament and a flying bird. The first book was too small. I made a bigger one. Mom likes it but suggested a little change in the book. That is minor. These will mostly be power carved. 
I made one bird with the grain running down the wings. I knocked off the tail. I made another with the grain running up and down through the body and broke a wing. I glued the wing back on but am not going to go any farther with it. If I made the flying bird, I will have to use a stronger wood. Yellow pine might work but that will force me to power carve it more  than with the knife. There will be some knife work but most will be done with the dremmel. 
I roughed cut another rocking horse. I will rough cut all the others I started last week before I will even bother carving them. 

The day was thick in the morning. We got out of the car and our glasses fogged up. The windows on the restaurant was fogged up with drops. When walked out of there and our glasses fogged up again. The sky was fairly clear. As the day warmed up low clouds showed up. We got a couple very light passing showers but the results were gone almost as fast as you noticed it. 
The fan I bought today really made the difference. I had forgotten that years ago when we were doing work heavily, we used to use fans on the thickest days. I would aim the fan on me when I was out in the sun, turning wood to help stand the heat. It was enough to keep me going. I was looking for them in yard sales recently but had not seen them. Maybe in the winter. This fan was easy to put together. It is easy to disassemble. It only needed a screwdriver to work the screw that locks the head to the stand. Everything else is worked by hand. It has three speeds and can oscillate. I never use the oscillate feature. What is strange is that it starts in low and you turn the knob up. Most start on max to get the blades moving and you back it down once it is going. 

I will see what I do tomorrow.


Year 19, Week 31, Day two (week 1031)
(January 17, 2000 was my first carving day.)
08-11-19 Sunday

90 degrees, 68% humidity. Puffs built up, some later ones had showers and later ones had actually thunders. This weather report is brought to you by The City Of Pompano Beach Department Of Tourism.

Mom handed me the trimmer. I got the message. I dug out the lawn mower and mowed the front lawn of mom’s neighbor’s house. There was a lot of the “grass” growing over the edge of the pavement. I pushed it back onto itself with my foot and a rake, and then mowed them. It needs more but that was quite an improvement. The whole front yard was mowed and I was done in from that. I need to mow the back yard but did not have what it took. 

I worked on Christmas ornaments today. I figured out a real quick and easy way to make hearts. I took a stick of two by two, that was about 12" long, and drew on one end a heart using as much wood as I could by placing the tip in one corner. I then removed the top corner, and then removed wood, mostly with a knife to form the gully where the two circles met. Some shaving on the side and some sanding and cleaning, I got it to where I thought it would be nice. I then sliced the pieces off the stick, coming up with a dozen of them. I sanded them, squaring them up. Now I will round the edges. I need to figure out whether to make the edges all rounded, or just slightly rounded while keeping the sides flat. 

I cut a bunch of blanks for books. I may need to make more as some are not cut the way I was after.  I tried one more flying bird. I used some of that tree I got pieces from at work. It is strong enough but won’t be fun to carve. I think I will skip that design until late in the year or next year. 
I have an idea of how to do the boats fairly quick. I will wait on doing that one until I get more of the others along.  The rocking horses will be a bit of work and will take some time. Even the blanks will take time. I sort of intended on roughing out the blanks today but the other projects got in the way. And it is hard to work while talking with my brother and working noisily at the same time. 

Mom had mentioned her air conditioning sounded strange. I found out that the sound was from the disk sander. Yesterday I tried to get it to turn on and it refused to move. I lost track of what position the switch was off. I had left it on. It finally decided to start and ran all night. I turned it off and mom’s air conditioner stopped making that strange sound. Her air conditioner is on the same side of the house.

Everybody sat outside and talked with the fan going. It was nice. It made a big difference. My niece is not used to being out in the heat so it was too hot for her. I learned long ago that some people believe that any perspiration is too hot for them. A lot of people live in temps 76 and below. I made a point to make myself able to handle the heat. 80 is a nice temperature for lounging around.

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first two books, bird and rocking horse blank

first two books, bird and rocking horse blank

the start of the hearts, top corner cut off and knife rounding on side corners.

another bird attempt with stronger wood.

another view of bird. more wood has to go. harder to carve.

the heart blank rod almost done.

almost done heart blank rod

cut out hearts. just sliced off rod

the day's work, two rocking horses daylighted, three birds, one missing tail, other with broken wing later glued back on, and the third really roughed out. 

the hearts and rough books. 

Year 19, Week 30, Day One (week 1030)

Year 19, Week 30, Day One (week 1030)
(January 17, 2000 was my first carving day.)
08-03-19 Saturday

The weather report said 90% showers. We were between two bands of showers, one out in the ocean and one over near the west coast. We had high feathers and spilt milk overhead, with a few puffs heading north. At about 12:30 we got a two minute shower. At about four, blobs came on us fast, bridging the two bands and we got hit with a nice shower for about ten minutes. Tomorrow says 80% rain. Will see what it looks like. 

The day turned out to be nice. I had to go to a few stores so I drove my yard sale route in sections. I went to the grocery store first and got some stuff I need. They did not have one thing I was after. One of the several ice cream experiments I plan do tomorrow is going to be with Lindt 70% chocolate. I found that.
I then went to Lowes and walked several of the isles, and from one end to the other. I ended up picking up a 2x4 that will become rocking horse ornaments. 
I went to a drug store for some items I needed.
I was going to give a food processor to some one.  I happened to notice some food processor blades in the “junk” room. I got them, and found they (sort of) fit the food processor I was going to give away. I brought outside at mom’s house and, with some adjustments with sandpaper, I got the blades to work fine in that food processor. I now have a grater, slicer, a plastic blade (sort of like the metal chopping blades, that I think is for whipping) and two slicer blades. I am keeping that one and giving away the one I used for a couple years. It works nice. Just has the chopper blade. I have three others of that design

When I purchased the 2x4, I was actually after 2x6s or 2x12s but Lowes did not have any. I found a fairly clear 2x4 white wood. I checked when out back and it is a good size for the rocking horses. My plan for the wider boards was to slice them down the middle or even in thirds. The whitewood boards of the larger sized wood tends work as a quality carving wood. Whitewood is soft enough, but it does tend to split when you are dealing with small details. My carvings have lost a lot of noses over the year.
I traced the rocking horse on the wood and went to the bandsaw. I did a lot of cutting with the bandsaw, then drilled out the hole formed by the body, legs and rockers. I broke the leg off the first one I made, and had a good number of cutting errors in it, but it proved the concept works. I then made a second one. I showed that to Mom and she says it is good, it will pass as a horse as it is. I will do a lot more. She suggested using bits of cloth for the ears and yarn for the tail. I will give it thought. I am not that far yet, though I have wood for a carved tail already in the design. I “think” these will be fairly easy to make. I FINALLY HAVE A START ON MY ROCKING HORSES!!! it has been about 4 years since I had the concept!!!!!!

I did not expect any yard sales considering the weather report and I was right. It was a nice drive. I was following behind some cyclist at about 18 to 20 mph.

When I went to Walmart the other day, it dawned on me about how wonderful and colorful the yarn and cloth look in those stores, but if you look at your stock, your stuff is so pathetic in comparison. Of course, the lighting makes a difference, but you usually just don’t have much, or any, of the glorious colors that you saw at the store. 

I was thinking, (I knew I was thinking as I could smell burning wood) what I really need to do is cover my walls with shelving. Nothing but shelves. Then I might have a place to put things where things that need to be at hand......  I might do that for the craft room once I get to that point. Mom has a nice small work bench in the garage she said she would give me. I am strongly thinking that I need that in the craft room. Then build the shelving all around it. One long wall could be just for yarns. Of course, one problem with them being out in the open is they will get dusty and dirty over time, and while it might look pretty good, there are better things I could do for the yarn. 

I will see what I do tomorrow.



Year 19, Week 30, Day One (week 1030)
(January 17, 2000 was my first carving day.)
08-04-19 Sunday

The weather early morning was blue skies with a few lonely puffs. It started getting thicker after noon. Radar showed a thin line coming towards us, then thickening really wide after it got to us. We are still in the path of feeder bands for the storm that headed north of us and into the ocean.  It was about 80 in the morning with almost no wind. The wind really picked up when the storm arrived. The highest temps was 91 at about noon. The humidty was as low as 50% at one point but jumped to 90% after the really heavy stuff passed but we were covered with only a light drizzle. 

I did my yard sale route. After I gassed up, I changed my normal route, I would usually take the first turn after I hit the road and head north from there, on a zig zag. This time I decided to head west a bit farther and found a yard sale by surprise. She was unloading her stuff. I got some stainless steel bowls, a keyboard and speaker, a laptop shelf, and on of those trays to carry food or drink. I gave her $5 for all of that and could have asked for change if I wanted. She had a bread maker and talked about it. She said that she was moving to a smaller place and have to unload a bunch of stuff. She said that if the bread maker does not sell, she will keep it and continue to use it. She loved making bread for someone else but her problem was she would eat it too.....

Today, I cut out eight blocks of wood and drew on them the rocking horses, and then drilled the holes to help daylight the space between the legs. I decided it would be much easier to do this drilling before anything else is done with the wood.  When I finish making the design, the sides are angled which makes drilling straight tough. 
I spent most of my time talking to my brother and decided not to run the noisy bandsaw to cut out the rest of the rocking horse bodies.
Next Saturday, I should roughly cut them out and then have a bunch of blanks to work on with the knife. 
I am kind of excited about getting these started. I tried many designs to make the rocking horses and none seemed to work.  I looked at trying to carve them out of a two by two, and they looked better as dog laying. I was going to build them up using slats or edge molding and besides not getting started, it felt like it was not going to look good.  I considered larger pieces to glue up and time and situation said no. 
Having gotten a start on these is really something. These will work. I still have the balloons and the steam engines to make a bunch of, but I need to come up with one more design. The steam engines are not the most easy to do, though the wood I have right now seems to be softer than what I was playing with last month or so. Starting now was big. Other than the first year where I started very early in the year, I don’t remember getting started before mid September. 
I am finding that as whitewood weathers or gets old, it gets harder to carve. It resists the knife more. 


I made four kinds of ice cream today. I made the Lindt-chocolate ice cream, some rocky road ice cream, some strawberry ice cream, and strawberry ice rocky road cream where  I added nuts and marshmallows (part of rocky road) 
I had made more strawberry than I planned and that is why there were two kinds of strawberry ice cream. I used a larger pan for the rocky road, but used small loaf pans for everything else. 
I nuked the Lindt chocolate then mixed it with fresh bananas. It mixed quite well
The Lindt tasted sweeter with the banana. 
I nuked semi-sweet baking-morsels (chocolate chips) for the rocky road ice cream. I used too much nuts and marshmallows and chopped them way too much while the ice cream was in the food processor. What I should have done is kept them in larger chunks and used a spatula to mix them. Either that or use just a small amount
I chopped some marshmallow alone with the idea of just using them and it became a couple globs that stuck to the blades, since the insides of marshmallows  are sticky.  I gave up on that idea. Tasted good anyway.
I had a 13 ounce jar of jam and used about half of that for about six bananas. This became the strawberry ice cream. What did not fit in the container got nuts and marshmallows and that went into the freezer.
These ice creams were frozen, then cut into chunks so they could be tasted in small quantities. I use them mainly for a way to eat bananas when I have leg cramps at night from over-doing it. Flavoring the bananas makes them easier to eat and they go faster. 
The Lindt chocolate ice cream was very good. The banana added enough sweetness to make it delicious. The strawberry ice cream tasted like strawberry, the rocky road was good but a bit too much crunch, and the strawberry rocky road just tastes like. There was way too much of them in there. Textures of the ice cream was good. 
I will do this again when I run out, but will cut down on the nuts or even go without them. 
If I really wanted to do this right, I would have a container to put them in and scoop the ice cream out into a bowl. Of course if I had an ice cream maker, I could make it really good, high quality texture. But these are coming out is good enough for me.

I hope to work on the rocking horses next week.
I will see what really happens next week.
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rocking horse blank bottom

rocking horse blank

rocking horse blank

mostly cut out blank

rear foot broken off

broken and second design

board blanks drilled for the space between the legs