Year 21, Week 04, Day One (week 1098)
(January 17, 2000 was my first carving day.)
02-06-21 Saturday
72 degrees as the low 80 as the high. Sky ran from partly cloudy, to overcast, and around three, we got some liquid sunshine. Mom does not have to water her plants for a day or two. This weather report is brought to you by The City Of Pompano Beach Department Of Tourism.
I started the day by sleeping in a whole lot. I stopped and talked with a friend, and when I got to Mom’s house, it was near lunch. After lunch, I laid down and took a nap. After I talked with mom, making two crochet hearts, I headed home to go take another nap.
Last week, I told a little bit about sandpaper. Since I did little today too, I thought I would talk about tool marks this time.
There is a skill to using tools properly. If you work it right, you almost don’t have to sand when you are done. Masters might only give it a light sanding to even out the surface and then turn to finishing.
An example of using the tools properly, For the table saw, carefully aligning the fence so it is parallel to the blade, using the blade with the right number of teeth for the job you are doing, and making sure your blade is sharp, all goes a long way to coming up with nice clean edges that almost don’t need sanding. There is also skill and muscle memory necessary when pushing the wood through the blade. Push it wrong and you will get twisting, uneven edges, burning, chipping. There is a right way to do it, but a lot of us either don’t work with it enough or don’t know about it.
With Wood turning, sharpening the tool just right, handling it rotated on the right angles to the center, with the right pressure and the right angle to the length of the lathe bed and the right angle up and down, along with sliding it along at the right speed, and you can create surfaces that don’t need to be sanded at all.
I kid with people by saying I woodwork like Godzilla. When I am done with the machinery, I need two grit sandpaper to knock down the tool marks. I will admit, that I am not quite that bad, but it is closer to the truth than it should be.
The experts in our turning club will spend hours each day making projects, learning how to handle the tools how to sharpen them, how to move their body with the tool in the right position for the cleanest cuts. I likely spend one weekend a month at the lathe.
There is a saying that says that if you spend 10,000 hours doing something, you can become a master. That is about 8 hours a day, five days a week, 50 weeks a year, for five years. I am not sure if I have that much time in either my wood carving or wood turning combined in my 20 years experience.
As I was saying, each tool you use has to be used properly to get the most effective work out of it. If it is done right, later work is kept to a minimum. To use the tools right, one generally have to develop muscle memory and build a knowledge of the tool to an instinctive level. You have to be able to be thinking about the results you are to get, rather than each step of using the tool.
It is like writing a note. You don’t want to be thinking. “A ‘T’ has a down stroke, and then a stroke across it. Oh yes, across the top. The ‘H’ has a down stroke. Oh, Yes, two down strokes. There is something missing, Oh yes, a stroke in the middle. The ‘E’ has a down stroke. Now a stroke leaving the top. Another leaving the bottom then a stroke leaving the middle.” “Ok I wrote THE. Now the next word.” Instead, you want to have the letters and the spelling of the words in memory so you can just write your note. Thinking of the PROCESS is what you have to get beyond, so you can accomplish your task smoothly and effectively. Sometimes, getting past the process is the hard part. Developing an understanding and the muscle memory makes for quality results.
In wood working, which ever machine you are using, you should get to where you can concentrate on the end result, rather than the process. The touch typist has muscle memory, where the fingers know where to go to hit the right key the instant the person decides on that letter. The wood turner has the muscle memory where his arm and body knows how to move to get the effect he is after, which includes nice clean surfaces. The guy at the bandsaw will know how to set up the saw right, with the table at the right angle if necessary, and turn the wood to get the curves he is after. The guy with the sander will know which sandpaper to use and how to move it on the surface to get exactly the effect he is after and know not to tip it on the wrong angle and whether to follow the grain or go across it.
These are really true if you are using a handsaw, a chisel, a hand plane, a router, a dremel, or a drill. I cannot drill a straight and centered hole to save the universe. Other people could do it blindfolded. You develop muscle memory to do things exactly the way it has to be, without having to think about the process. All you have to think of is the results.
To develop the muscle memory needed, one has to do it often, and do it right each time. How you hold your hands, turn your body, place your feet, can make all the difference in the world in the final results. You come to that position automatically and you move just the right way and you have quality results. It all takes practice, all muscle memory.
One thing you must realize is while you are developing your skills, you are going to mess up often. Pounding a nail in sounds easy until you have to do it. Bent nails are common until you learn to hit it the right way. That takes muscle memory. That takes bending a lot of nails until you get it consistently right.
For me to get where I need to be in my wood working, I really need to spend hours a day every day working on projects. I don’t. It would be nice but I cannot. I do what I can with the time I have involved and the tools at hand. I tend to accept the results as is.
I will see what happens tomorrow.
Year 21, Week 04, Day Two (week 1098)
(January 17, 2000 was my first carving day.)
02-07-21 Sunday
72 degrees as the lowest temp during the night, 85 as the highest. We had mostly bright, broken overcast, with some bits of blue showing. Some showers to the north and south of us, but while outside, was dry all day here. This weather report is brought to you by The City Of Pompano Beach Department Of Tourism.
I thought I was starting late, but got onto the road a little early. After gassing up, I went to Harbor Freight for a worship service, I mean to shop. I got out of there at less than 30 bucks. That is good, as it could have been much more, for I hand my hands on a dozen other things and had to talk myself out of them. I got a couple things I really could live without, but it was fun drooling, I mean looking for anything really interesting.
One interesting thing I picked up was a saw-bit set. It comes with an arbor, and five different sized saw blades. They had two kinds of these saw sets. One had a shaft that would fit the dremel and the other had a shaft that would fit the drill. I almost bought both, but just got the dremel bit since that is my number one tool. The main drill I have is also a screw driver and does not get up very fast. I showed it to my brother and he said he might get that for at work.
I stopped at Walmart and picked up a Ninja brand air fryer. I had gotten Mom a large one for Christmas and she loved it, so I decided to get a small one for me. Hopefully it will get some use later in the week.
My Christmas tree is still up. I took my copies of the ornaments down and put them away, before I my new Valentine’s day ornaments. I had the painted little hearts with a red background an a white center. I also have the Camphor hearts with pink around the edges and bare wood in the center. I have a few crocheted hearts and am adding more as time goes on. I also stopped at the dollar store and picked up some pink and white paper doily hearts, some necklaces with heart shaped beads on them. Them, with the red bows that came with the tree, made it fairly good looking. After Valentine’s day, the ornaments will come down and the tree will be tossed on Garbage day. It has seen better days (I got it used) and next year I will replace it with a new one.
With my ornaments off the tree, I counted them, photographed them and then packed them away. I have 73 ornament designs that I have made over the years. There are a few repeats, but even 70 ornament designs is pretty good for 20 years of wood working.
There are a few I might try making again. I made some three legged stools, and some buckets. I might make more of them. I do have a couple left in the briefcase I take them to work in, but I know I can do better. One year I made some lady bugs and some mice on the lathe. They might be kind of fun to make also. I might expand on my designs to other critters.
When I got to Mom’s house, I was not really in the mood to do much work, though I had a lot I could do. I set up the table with all my stuff, then sat and sanded on the little tea pot I had added varnish to last week. There were a number of things that needed correction. I had glue on the wood near the handle where it slid a little while aligning it. I used a little drum sanding disk on the dremel and ground the varnish, then the worst of the glue away. There were a few other spots that needed “horsepower” to correct.
Then I sat and sanded with 400 grit sandpaper, using some 100 grit for a few spots that showed up as I was sanding. Like I had mentioned last week, you are supposed to sand until all ridges and divots are gone. The problem with this tea pot was that some of it is the natural surface. I folded the sand paper at a few spots to get the corner into the deeper areas so that when I was done nearly the whole surface was sanded. Some areas needed more work than others, but since I was not in the mood to do much, I sat and sanded. I wiped it clean with a cloth and gave it another coat of varnish. It now has a nice gloss. I should sand and varnish it a couple more times, but this week, it made a nice improvement. When you spray varnish something, you get little nibs on the surface. A light sanding cleans the surface so the next coat is smoother.
I noticed I have another piece of wood with a branch that is similar to what my tea pot was before I started. I am thinking I might take what I learned from this tea pot and make another one with all new mistakes. Will have to see.
At work, I broke the handle of a cheap pair of scissors. I picked up a cheap replacement, quicker than having one ordered. I got the idea of replacing the plastic handle with wood. I was reminded of something very important. Those cheep scissors and cheap kitchen knives are made of good stainless steel. I tried drilling a hole in the piece the handle goes on but instead I only put a pock mark in it, and burned up two drill bits and dulled a third. That was not going to work. I then got an idea. I will make knives of the blades. They might not be spectacular knives, but they would be interesting to make. I used a grinding bit to grind down the rivet holding it together. I had to punch the rivet out of the hole.
One half is fairly straight to the handle. That will be easy to make into a knife. The other one, the handle is at a strong angle. I can make that into a knife but there won’t be as much metal going inside the handle, unless I grind some of the blade back also.
My favorite way to make knives is to have them taper from the back to the edge in a single angle. These might have a second angle right at the edge. I will decide that once I start making them. I might do the angled handle one first so that if I mess up royally, the other one can be done right. There is also a slight bend to the side of the blades so there is a constant pressure against them as they cut from back to tip. I will likely simply bend them the other way at the time.
I had made handles for some cheap steak knives and that was a challenge as the drill bits would not go through the metal either. I won’t be trying to drill these for anything. I will use a tight fit and strong glue to hold the handles on.
Thinking on it, I will grind the cutting edge flat, then shape the blades properly. That will allow me to make them properly.
Beyond that, I made a crochet heart while talking to my brother about videos we saw. It was nice when we saw the same ones. We could remind each other of details within the show.
I really need to get some projects done next week.
I will see what I accomplish next week.
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