(January 17, 2000 was my first carving day.) 01-16-21 Saturday

  (January 17, 2000 was my first carving day.)

01-16-21 Saturday

Temps starting with a 59 low and rising to  71 high. The sky filled with high feathers with pulled cotton. Periodic sun felt good. This weather report is brought to you by The City Of Pompano Beach Department Of Tourism. 

Before the year of 2000, I was writing stories and building scale houses for a model railroad layout. Over about a year, Dad kept asking me to take up carving. At the time, I had no interest at the time. Finally one day I decided to try it. I borrowed one of his knives and a piece of wood (likely shaped to make shingles for some bird houses he was making) and carved a man with his arms down his side. The brim of the hat was supposed to go all the way around, but the brim kept breaking. It ended up looking like Charles De Gaulle, a famous French leader near that time. My second and third carvings were from boards so I could not really get full movement in the form. My fourth carving, I knelt to see how things were positioned. My carving came out pretty good except that I did the arms, across the knee, wrong. Also I started sanding it and realized I hate sanding. My forth carving was a copy of a famous painting. It was an angel sitting on a rock with her feet up. I attached wings and it came out well. While I could point out many carving errors, it was a very good carving, one I am still proud of (I had to replace to wings a few years back because I broke them).

Dad had gone through a period in learning to carve where you could see the shape of the block of wood he started with, as if he was doing relief carving on all surfaces rather than shaping. I had made the decision that I would dig deep into the wood with my carvings.

Dad did a carving style popular at the time where you have tall cowboys, their legs straight and arms at the side. The head was made separately and stuck on, turned to a different directions. I wanted the appearance of movement from the beginning, legs bent, arms crossing the body, in almost any position except standing straight.

Dad had a really good way to teach me carving. I would finish a carving and he would pat me on the head and tell me to do another, is the best way to describe it. Other than having his stuff as examples and showing me how to make my own knives, Dad really never taught me how to carve. I had a good feel for form.

It was not until the last couple years of his life that I saw how good a carver he really was. Every summer he and Mom would travel the country and visit national symposiums along their way. Dad had taken classes at national symposiums around the country from some of the best carvers in the world. I never saw how good he was as I was remembering his early stuff. 

He made some clay platters with 3D faces of my nieces and nephews. He had planned on using them to go-by for some carvings, though that never happened. The faces were instantly recognizable as to who they were. On the other hand, with my fairy carvings, I as lucky they looked female.

In 2000, Dad had a Craftsman mini lathe. I saw some ornaments in one of his carving books and decided to give it a try. Soon after I started turning, the lathe would die. I would have to wait a while and then try again. After several attempts, I decided I could carve these ornaments  by hand. Early summer, I decided I could do 12 of each ornament. By mid year, it dawned on me that I was making 48 pieces. I had bells, trees, snow men and sleighs. The sleighs were an interesting idea that turned out to be a lot of work. By December, I had the dozen of each ornament done. I took them to work and offered them for sale, which I do every year and then gifted some to friends and family. I always have some left for the next year.  By mid month, I had to make more Christmas trees and snow men. It happens that I sold my last sleigh last year and still have three bells left after 20 years.

In 2003, I got a used Harbor Freight Chicago Electric lathe and that took up a lot of my carving time. I would turn for many weeks, then carve for many weeks. Each time I swapped, it felt like I was returning to an old friend. In later years, I have done more turning that carving. I did a series of vases with faces carved into them, usually using the dremel for that carving. The last few years, I have carved only Christmas ornaments.

In my carving, I concentrated on the knife. I avoided chisels because you had to have so many of them to do anything and you also had to know when to use each one. I had no clue when to use each one.  I figured if I learned the knife I would  fully understand what it did and when it just would not do the job. I did find that in some cases a chisel would solve a few of my carving problems.

Dad was in a carving club for retirees and one guy would come in with a different, brand new, chisel every time they met. I later concluded that they had the belief that if they had the right chisel, it would allow the figure to come out of the wood, rather than the actual act of carving creating the figure. If you just had a couple chisels, you could do a whole lot of carving. The real need for all the different radius and shapes of chisels is if you were doing architectural design (scroll work), where you match the chisel to the curve you were creating. Most of the people in the carving club were there more for the social atmosphere than to do the work or learning. It later dawned on me that people accumulate all sorts of tools when beginning, then eventually concentrate on one kind of work where all those tools are unneeded. Concentrating on the knife allowed me to learn how to get results from one tool and only one tool and my type of work ended up fitting the knife anyway. 

I also use the dremel or band saw, sanders, and other power for some portions of my carvings. I have also used chisels on some projects. I am not a purist, where “all work must be by hand” or “Only use specific tools.” I have always worked from the idea that whatever gets the job done is to be used since the final project is what is important, though my first thought is to use the knife.

Wood working as a hobby has been satisfying, even when something was not going right. I am glad I learned how to do it. The cool thing about most crafts and hobbies is that at the end of the day, you have something to show for your efforts.

It was in the low 60s when I got outside at Mom’s house. A couple months ago, I purchased a couple black chef’s jackets from a restaurant supply store that offered to let the public come in for a short time. They normally only sell to businesses. I had been watching for the jackets at a place where membership is not required, but they only had sizes too small for me. I snapped these up just for my woodworking. I used them only a couple times during the hot part of the year. I decided I was going to do a lot of grinding with the dremel, so I put the jacket on. It helped with the cool weather too. 

I decided to make a bunch of valentine’s hearts. I searched my wood stock and in the shed, found a block that looked right. I marked it to make it square, then took it to the bandsaw. When I cut off the piece to square it up, I realized it was Camphor. That block I stuck in the shed to deter bugs for a while. I decided to go with it anyway. I will paint the edges, but leave the body of the hearts raw wood. I stuck the cuttings back in the shed. 

I then took a junk piece of wood that bugs got into portions of it years ago. I cut a piece off of it also for the hearts.

I draw the heart on the end, using one corner for the point, and making sure the heart touches the outside of the block. The radius went from the point to the side, repeated on the other side. Then I did a pair of circles at the corner opposite the point of the heart. I found that the circles half the width of the square worked best for the indent of the heart. These blocks were short enough that when I put them up on end, they fit my bandsaw when the top guide was held high. This allowed me to cut the heart shape out of the block. 

Once the block was shaped like a heart, sanded and corrected a little, I then laid it down and cut it into slices. The hearts from the Camphor did not cut straight. Operator error. The junk wood cut nicely.  I got 9 camphor hearts and 8 junk hearts, which was smaller than the camphor. 

I took out some tile adhesive and used it to plaster the flaws in the junk wood. I should have done another coat but it was not too bad. I then sprayed them with red paint. I cut some paper hearts and tried to use it as a mask and spray paint white hearts in the middle of the red hearts. I likely did not shake the paint can enough, but not only did the paint come out poor, it was sloppy. Before I left for the day, I sanded them on the sander, then sprayed them with two more coats of red. They look good. I will hand paint the white hearts in the middle. I know I should have painted them pink, but I did not have pink spray paint. 

I took the tea pot I worked on last week and took out the dremel. I ground on the inside to help clean it up and make it little bigger inside, It was hard to remove the slop as I had to go by feel rather than by sight. I also shaped the outside of the vase. I have more to do but it made a difference. This grinding covered me in dust. 

After rough sanding with the sanding disk, I hand sanded the camphor to get them cleaned up. Note, the this is very old camphor wood and the smell is not strong with it. Green camphor wood would have a strong scent. 

I have a lot of projects left to do, so I will see what I will do tomorrow.

Year 21, Week 1, Day two (week 1095)

(January 17, 2000 was my first carving day.)

01-17-21 Sunday

51 degrees low, light frost since it is below our area’s 56 degree frost temperature,  68 degrees was the high mostly cloudy to overcast with some blasts of sun. This weather report is brought to you by The City Of Pompano Beach Department Of Tourism. 

I stopped at Harbor Freight tool store after gassing up. I had a couple grinding bits that looked like they would be great to use on the dremel. I decided to try to get another set so I would not care if I messed them up in making the shafts smaller. I could not find the ones I was really after. In the air power tools, I found a rotary rasp set and decided to get it. I half thought they were what I was looking for.  

When I got out back, I dug out the mini lathe and then found that I had a set of that rasp set. I also found the bits I was looking for were smaller, but still would not fit the dremel. I put one of that set (three bits) into the lathe and quickly found I don’t have cutting bits that could do more than remove dirt from the surface.  They are really hard metal. Talking with my brother, I would have to use a grindstone in the dremel to cut these shafts down to size. Maybe in the future. Other projects have priority. 

I took the rotary rasp that had a ball on the end. I tried to hold the ball in the lathe chuck to machine down the shaft. I quickly learned that the rasp points would not allow me to set the rasp center, nor would they let me hold the rasp in the chuck tightly. I ended up holding the shaft in the chuck and only machining a portion of the rotary rasp shaft. When I got it down to the right diameter, I cut it off using a file while it spun. The final shaft was half the length I was after. I tested it out on the bottom of the little vase and it did a very good job on evening up the bottom. 

There are some burr bits that you don’t use when they have a chance to slip and hit your hand. I have used quite a few of them last year. I would go to work on monday with sores on the backs of my fingers and scrapes on my finger nails where the burr dug in and then dashed across my hand. This new burr I created is going to be the worse of any of them as the teeth are comparatively big. Lots of surface to dig in and then run.

A couple weeks ago, I made it so some of the little stuff that was in the lathe box are now in cases. That turned out to be a really good move. I would never have been able to find anything without emptying the box each time. 

I had bought some router bits for machining aluminum. I have not used them yet as the project I was going to use it on first,  never happened. One router bit case had a lot of empty spots. I had an unopened package of router bits that was always in the way. I opened the package and was able to put them in that case, which made for more room in the cases. 

I am thinking I will try to machine another one of those rotary rasps to fit the dremel. Because I bought another set, I might try a different way of machining the ball rasp. Also there is another one of those that might work on the dremel. The other bits are too big. They would have to be used in the drill. 

My brother and I talked about some videos we watched on line, and when I packed up everything, it was near time for us to leave. 

I will see what I do next weekend.

My first three carvings. On the left my very first carving. the middle carving is from a cedar board and the third carving was from a larger board I found. 

wood hearts are in camphor. 

One side of  the little tea pot. I had to patch the top of the spout because of punky wood.

another side of the little tea pot. 

The machined rotary rasp next to the original one. I wanted a longer shaft but this was what I was able to get using the method I worked with. It works.