Year 20, Week 43, Day Two (week 1083)
(January 17, 2000 was my first carving day.)
08-23-20 Sunday
90 degrees, 68% humidity, stiff breeze off the ocean helps, when in shade, to handle the heat. This weather report is brought to you by The City Of Pompano Beach department Of Tourism.
We had a storm pass through a few weeks ago. I had warning so I moved the big stuff from mom’s house to the neighbor’s house over a few evenings. I had the lathe as the last thing to bring in. That Saturday morning, move the last big stuff and Mom and I were just picking up the small stuff, when my brother and my nephew came to take down the awning. Quickly, it was all done. I relaxed the rest of the day. And did nothing that Sunday also.
The weekend after the storm passed, which was not bad, we put everything back that Saturday so everything was back to normal. I meant to take a before and after picture but forgot. The are was swept of the big stuff by the wind, and mom cleaned up the remaining sawdust that was glued down by the rains. It was kind of nice to start clean. Once I get seriously working, that won’t last long...
Mom had one of those furniture rollers she got ages ago from Harbor Freight. Bugs got into it and because it was out in the weather, the wood took a beating. I decided I would replace it. Harbor Freight was out of them. I took her old one and disassembled it. The construction was simple. The glued on carpet came off easily, exposing the bolt heads used to hold the wheels on. I removed the nuts that held the wheels on, along with the washers, and then drove the bolts out. Because of the bad condition of the wood, they came out pretty easily. Some pieces broke apart easily.
I then picked up some pressure treated one by four wood. I later found out I needed one by six wood. I saw some fencing boards that might work next time. They are thinner but I am not sure that would make a big difference.
Now there was a whole lot I could have done to do this right. Instead, I depended on my training given to me by the Three Stooges and Laurel & Hardy. They taught me their style very well....
I did not cut accurately, using a saws-all instead of a table saw or a circular saw. The length of the boards were too long for the band saw. I have some furniture movers under my lathe and I used their length as my measurement and made these square. The ends were not absolutely square.
They used two nails in each corner to hold the boards in place. Before adding the wheels. I used one short screw in each corner to hold them together just long enough to drill for the wheels. I had to do it several times, resorting to getting one drilled and pegged with the bolts before I went to the next corner. I never did check to see if this thing is square corner to corner.
I found quickly that the boards were too narrow. The bolts were too long so they stuck out and would catch on the wheels when they stuck down. Since I had some board left over when I cut the pieces to length, I ended up making small blocks to fill the space. Two bolts disappeared. I had to locate two lag screws that appeared the right length and size. The lag screws gave me some problems. I drilled about the right diameter, but the small blocks kept splitting as I was screwing them in. I used a cutting bit on the dremel to remove the ends of the lag bolts as they would have caught on or scratch whatever was put on them.
I had the wheels finally on, and decided having the two lag screws on the same wheel was not a good idea, so I cut two more blocks and moved a bolt from one wheel and a lag screw in its place. I finally got it where I considered it done. I was really disappointed with my work but it was what it was going to be. Later mom saw it and said it looked good. I looked at it and it was not near as bad as I thought it was.
I’ve been exploring some ornaments. I’ve explored guitars, banjos, drums, bugles, and birds, two ornaments I decided were good were pianos and dolphins. The pianos are completely done, and the dolphin basically need to be signed and then varnished. There might be a little touch-up paint needed. I will decide later.
The pianos are mostly done by band saw, and then just a little carving. I cut in for the keys and I carved the face of the piano back so sheet music stands out. With the first batch, I carved in the keys but once painted white, I decided to ignore them and drew black lines for the keys and thick black lines for the dark keys. The second batch, the keyboard are was simply flat and I just drew in the lines. I painted each batch a different color. The first batch was originally a yellow, then I changed them to tan. The second batch was a pinkish red.
The dolphin went through several stages. I had found a card with dolphin on it and it was two sided. I cut out what I thought was a good dolphin, traced it and cut out on a larger board the shape. I made three of them. Looking at the shape, the lower fins, which are supposed to go out the side, while the pattern had the fin sticking down. I ended up cutting off the lower fin and the tail. The second batch I took a two by two and just did the body and was able to get two shapes on one stick of two by two. I band sawed out the shapes, then cut them in half to give me four bodies. I did that with a couple more sets.
On the first set, I shaped them with the dremel. I took some hard wood from a tree that was cut from at work early in the year. I split it to make the fins. I used a dowel to attach the tail, which I had shaped on the bandsaw, and then made basically sticks for the lower fins and made a tenon on the end that fit the drill bit I was using. With lots of glue, I drove them in. Once all the fins were dried, I used the dremel to shape them for the fins I wanted. That worked pretty good. The last four I made (for a total of ten) cut from a two by two. They went fast. I did make the mistake on two of them when drilling for the bottom fin, by drilling out the side of the body. I stuck a skewer into the hole with some glue. I capped the hole, after dremeled flat, with a little glue.
I painted the first batches of dolphins blue, and was not satisfied with the results. I decided to see if I had some grey paint. I found some called “dolphin grey” who knew? I painted the backs in dolphin grey, then the belly with white. I had a sharp line between them. Today I mixed the white and grey and went over the line to blend the two colors some.
Three of the last four were painted grey and white and then the blend color all in one day. The fourth one is made for a friend. She wanted an Orca. There is a design difference between dolphin and orca besides the colors, is mainly on the head. The Dolphin I am making, are actually known as Bottle Nose Dolphin. They have sort of a beak. The orca’s head is a continuous curve to the tip of the snout. I painted the orca black, then added the white bottom and blobs of white on the upper body. I then added white dots on the dolphin and orca for the eyes. The last thing I did with them was to touch the white of the eyes with a big stabilo to give them pupils. I have to sign them and I might do a little touch up on the color before I hit them with varnish and they will done. I did add eye hooks to them and to the pianos today.
I will explore some of the other ornament designs but a few just don’t feel good or are coming out as hoped. My idea is to have four designs of ornaments and near a dozen of each for Christmas. That I am way ahead of schedule is great. I can come up with other designs that catch my eye later. I am usually just coming up with an idea for an ornament in October and struggling to get them done in November. It is hard to come up with new designs that can be made easily and fit within the material I like to work with.
Yesterday, Space aliens kidnapped me, dragged me into Harbor Freight, and forced me to buy a bunch of stuff I did not need. I forgot I had a gift card and paid cash instead.
I got one of those little tire pumps for mom. The first thing we did when I handed it to her was to dig out her wagon with inflatable tires and pump them up. This pump is not designed for auto tires. There is no cooling fan and it will over heat long before it gets to the volume and pressure a car tire needs. Back in the 90s, I picked up a tire pump and still use it. I gave one to my brother and he tried to fill his 80 pound truck tires and burned it up. For car tires with this new pump or my brother’s tires with the old one I use. You have to stop and let it cool down completely before you continue on. They say they can go with high pressures, but it is the time running that makes all the difference in the world. With mine with my normal truck tires, 40 pounds is all right.
While walking the store, I got a great idea. I would buy a cheap set of drill bits, machine the shafts of even the biggest ones of the set to fit in my dremel. I was mostly looking at $17 to $20 drill bits, but I found a $4 set of carbon steel. That would be perfect. When I got home, I found which bit fit my dremel, then next one was too big. I then tried to machine on my little lathe the biggest one for the dremel. I was having a problem with the motor, and the bit was not cutting. Carbon steel is hard. Drill bits are hardened to the max. they shatter easily because of it. Basically, I embarrassed the metal with the lathe. Today I was showing my brother the project. He sharpened a bit to get it to cut but the motor was having a problem. He took the motor home and is going to see if he can fix it.
I picked up a set of needle files. I use them on the metal lathe all the time. Right now they are in the dremel box. Where they end up I will see. I can see uses with the dremel, and with other projects.
I got rolls of sandpaper in three grits. It is like 25 feet of sandpaper about three inches wide. I will put them on a peg a bit later, but decided not to open them just yet.
Now I have no idea why I got them, other than the fact they were $15. Even that was not a good excuse. I got an 8 piece turning tool set. They could use longer handles and I know they are not quality metal, carbon steel at best. Definitely not speed steel. They will do the work in skilled hands, though. A couple are cut to something I can use. A couple I can reshape to something much more useful. If one is beginning and have no clue what to get, this will do the job. I’ve seen vids of people using worse tools to make something. The very first thing one must do when you open the box is to sharpen them.
On Wednesday, I had expected to deal with another storm. It was said to reach here Monday. I figured I would drag in all the big equipment on Saturday. Friday night, it was still questionable. I got up Saturday morning, and saw that we were out of the path. It was only a few weeks ago that we took everything down and then put it back up. We lucked out this time, not expected to get even strong winds. Maybe 20 or even 30 mph gusts, but nothing serious. The awning is only designed to hold under normal strong gusts from thunderstorms, though some of those can be serious.
I will see what happens next weekend.
2247
finished pianos
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