In My "Spare" Time: 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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