Year 16, Week 14, Day One (week 848)

Year 16, Week 14, Day One (week 848)
(January 17, 2000 was my first carving day.)
04-16-16 Saturday

The sky was just showing a glow when I headed to Mom’s house.  76 degrees early morning, 80 degrees in the afternoon. Blue skies in the early morning, with a slight tint of haze. A few high plates and spilt-milk clouds to the far south and very far north very early.  A light breeze made it nice.  The wind picked up in the afternoon. Puffs started to appear around ten and filled the sky the by three. Some took on a grey tone, showing they were getting pregnant, but none gave birth near us all day and into the evening. This weather report is brought to you by the City Of Pompano Beach Department Of Tourism.

I headed out alone to yard sale this morning. My dad was not feeling good. Mom wanted to stay with him, possibly to entice him to take another nap.
I took the whole tour of the local yard sale circuit. It does not take long when you are not constantly parking, walking to the place, looking around at what they are showing, and then walking back to the truck, turning around and backtracking to the main road all the time. 
I hit two yard sales for sure. I cannot remember if I hit a third where I did not buy anything. I just cannot remember. I do know for sure I hit two sales. 
One was where the woman’s daughter was moving and a bunch of the stuff inside the house was for sale. I found some quality card stock that can be used for greeting cards. I now have a life-time supply of stock. I almost got some bamboo skewers which I saw at first, but decided against it. I later realized I should have gotten them, but, well, one lives and dies with snap decisions and bad memories. 
Another yard sale was someone just trying to reduce what they had in storage received from family and friends. They had a yard sale yesterday and got rid of a lot of stuff and said anything over a dollar was half price. I found a miter guide that fits into the slot of a band saw or table saw. It had a clamp on it, so you can clamp the piece down, keeping it at the right angle when running it through the blade. I found that this miter fits the bandsaw perfectly. My brother might end up with it, but for now it is with the bandsaw. I have some ideas of projects where that might help.  Even so, I would not have gotten it without the clamp. I have enough miters as it is. I picked up a bag of pens and clips. Just a few of the pens did not work. One can never find a pen when you want it.  I got some hose hardware with several good spray handles, Mom got those.  
I did have a good, leisurely drive, along pretty landscaping and nice houses. 
I think the big reason there were so few yard sales today, was that last night, we had a torrential downpour come through. In Sunrise, where I live, we got very little. In Pompano, where Mom lives (possibly 10 miles by the way the crow flies), it did not take very long to fill one of her bird feeders, which is three inches deep, and it kept coming down after that. I think most people assumed there would be showers during the rest of the night and into the morning.  Because of that fear, most people held off on their yard sales. 
We have several terminologies down here for sales. In practice, they are completely interchangeable. In Theory, a YARD SALE is a sale where the stuff is laid out in the yard or driveway, not under cover. A GARAGE SALE, is where the stuff is under cover of the garage, within the garage. I am told that up north, they have TAG SALES. I think I have seen Tag Sale used once.  One of the sales I visited today said “Yard sale” but it was inside the house, which a purist might have used garage sale instead.  It does not always work in practice, but a yard sale is dependant on the weather. Everything is out in the open and can be damaged if the weather comes, especially if it comes early. A garage sale, at least in theory, can be held in any weather as everything is under cover. A most of the time, garage sales are also yard sales, where half the stuff is out in the open. I am not a purist. And it does not matter what they are called as long as they have interesting things to see, and much better if they have something I want to buy. 

After I returned and settled in, I headed out back to do some work. I was in the mood to try some wood turning, preferably something big. I pulled my lathe out, and looked at a basket on the tool cart for possible platter blanks I had there. 
The first blank I pulled out was a disk that was made from a two by twelve yellow pine. I think it was 10 inches in diameter (which is usual). I saw that it had been on the lathe once already and had some double sided tape on it so I might have used it to hold something in place while I touched it up. I looked at the tape side and it looked great. I flipped it over and saw a thin crack running down the middle in the direction of the grain.  I took it by the edges and bent it. The disk snapped in half. It went directly into the garbage. I am now thinking I could have glued it back together, but it is better to start fresh. Glued together, it would have been workable. One does not think of everything at one time.

The next blank I pulled out of the rack was a 3/4 board I had knocked the corners off of. I have made many thin plates from this kind of board. I was about to ready it for the lathe, then I noticed it was bowed. When I checked it with more care, I found the bow was really bad. It was enough that it would not work for a standard turning. Once I got the lower edges to shaped, the high edges would be too thin or even gone. One way to shape it is where I follow the bowed shape. The platter would not be round, but more like an oval with high edges at the high point of the bow, and fade down to flat at a narrow waist. 
If I want to use it as a standard platter, I really need to put a weight in the center and let it sit there and straighten out. Maybe some other time.
Another thing I could have done was to make it into a saucer. With a little imagination, there is always a way to make use of any piece of wood, however bad it is.
One reason I love yellow pine, is that the knots look good. It adds interest to the work. Other wood workers want pristine stock to work with. It is all a matter of taste.

I then noticed a platter I had started. The edge of the rim on the bottom where it sits on the table was all broken up. Back then, I had stopped working on the inside. This platter was being made between centers as I had a knob where the tail stock rested. 
I decided I could finish that up.  It looked like it had plenty of thickness to work with. I mounted it on the lathe with the intention to finish up the bottom  before working on the inside. I saw it had a bit of a bow, mostly because it was out of round now, and I could not get rid of all the wobble,  but figured there was enough wood left to work with. 
My first job was to make a good rim for the platter to sit on. If I could not do that, the platter would not be worth working with. After I was happy with that, I aimed at evening out slope to the outside to the rim. It was getting close to where I could do the final clean-up on the surfaces before flipping it around. When I turned the lathe off,  I saw some tear-out, and then saw that I had gone through the wood right at the tear out. Darn. I don’t know of a worthy way to save that. (Possibly make it into a saucer) The bow was worse than I thought and, at least at that spot, the wood was thinner than I expected. I must not have been accurate when I made it the first time. It might have had something to do with why I stopped.  That piece went into the garbage too.

When I first started wood turning, I had the idea that I could save anything, no matter how bad it might be. Break a piece? Glue it into a different shape, or carve it to make it look like it was supposed to be that way, or turn it into an amphitheater for little carved men. It just was a matter of a little work. 
I then realized I was not working every single day, all day long at wood working.. It dawned on me that I just did not have time to save every bad piece of wood. I could only work on a couple projects at a time, and it had to be a project I was excited about at the moment. That was when I learned how to throw things away. It hurt a little at first, but then I got used to it. 

I was not in the mood to clear the area in front of the bandsaw to cut some more blanks, or cut on something else that needed bandsaw work, so I decided to go with plan B. I cleaned up, put everything away.

I dug out the angels ornaments I had started making. I have four where I accidentally made them with butterfly wings and those are painted. I already made body-blanks and wing-blanks with the bird wing shape. They were flat cut and over thick. 
I first needed to reduce the thickness of the wings. Just flat wings is no fun. It is better to reduce the thickness in a way that looks like they have some detail to them. 
I started on the first set of wings using my knife and dremmel, After someminutes, I realized I was doing this the hard way. I took that set and the others over to the disk sander and sanded off the thickness on an angle, the tip being sanded away on one side, while the top of the wing was sanded away on the other side to give the wings an angle compared to where they meet at the body. A rapidly sand paper disk eats wood fast.
Once that was completed, I sat and shaped the wings with the dremmel. I rounded the outside edge in one direction, and the inside edge in another, to give it the illusion that it is thinner than it really is.
Then I cut a slot with the knife in the bodies for the wings to fit into. I don’t want them coming off too easily. I placed the slot at the edge of the grain. I figured it would be less likely for a layer to pop off that way. 
Once I had the inset where the wing would fit, I globbed a lot of water-resistant wood clue glue in to the slot, and fitted the wings in, and then filled the gaps around the exposed surfaces of wings with more glue.  As each one was done, it was set in the sun to dry. 
With one set of wings, the tip had snapped off one of the wings. I have the grain running side to side through the wings rather than up and down. It was a tactical decision. Up and down, the whole wing could break off. Side to side, just part of the wing could break off. This is whitewood or white pine, which is not known for strength or hardness.  I had made the decision for the direction of the grain when I was doing the butterfly style wings. I am not sure if I would do it differently next time.
I decided I was not going to use that set of wings. Later, I was shaping another and one of the wing tip also snapped off. Working with the last angel, I needed one more wing set I had two broken wing sets. I cut both wings in half where it meets the body,  and glued the two good wings together. Once they set a little bit, I did more shaping, during which I snapped the wingitip off one of those wings. In this case, since I had the glue at hand,  I glued the tip back on, let it set for a short time, and then continued to finish it up. Now all the angel bodies have wings. 
I still have to clean up the wings and bodies, removing the excess glue where it is globbed up, making the whole shape look good. Then I can then paint them to hide all the mistakes and repairs. 
I found out that the paint I used on the first four angels is not a permanent paint. It will smear onto other things.  All the angels need to be varnished to seal the paint in place. They will also need eyelets so they can be hung.  I will have eleven angels done and that will be enough. It won’t be worth making the twelfth. If I found I needed some more, I could make several at a time with no problems as they are best done in batches, but just one is not worth it. 
I have other ornament designs in mind. One design will require spending time on the bandsaw before I can do any carving. 

I went to a wedding in the evening. My digital camera died. I am not sure why. It could be that it fell off the chair onto a carpeted floor. Everything works except the image is broken up. I only got a few pictures that were usable. My tablet also is acting up. I don’t use that camera hardly at all. It is now stuck in SELFIE mode. No one wants to see that, that is for sure!!!!! (too frightening for even a horror movie).

I have no idea what I will be doing tomorrow. 
I will have to see.






Year 16, Week 14, Day Two (week 848)
(January 17, 2000 was my first carving day.)
04-17-16 Sunday

High spilled milk and feathers, a few widely scattered lower puffs. A strong wind that threaten to pull hats off a head. My brother was not coming up to Mom’s. We decided to go to BRANDSMART and replace my camera. I found the exact same camera, in a different color, for only a little more than I bought my old one. All the old accessories work with it.
I went through the kitchen and housewares stuff that Brandsmart has. It is a lot of fun to see what new items have come out, or what items I have seen at yard sales actually cost when new. I got some ideas for a wish list. One or two things I saw, I have, but cannot remember where it is buried. Need to dig them out and use them.

That pretty much ended my day. 

The turning club meeting is this week. I have no idea what is planned for the weekend. It would be nice to finish up the angel ornaments. It would also be nice to work on another kind of ornament. I should cut out some more blanks for turning platters. I had considered some goblets and should turn a few also. I am not hurting for wood if I choose the project to fit the wood I have. 

I will have to see what happens next weekend. 


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the miter gauge with clamp on my bandsaw

The inside of the incomplete platter

the back of the incomplete platter.

Showing the daylighted tear out from the back

A better view of the daylighted tear out from the front

Showing the bow in the 3/4 board I planed on making a plate from.

Another view of the bow in the 3/4 board 

front side of the angels 

back side of the angels.

showing a "good" picture of what the camera was dong. Looking at the pictures I took during the day, I see signs that the camera was failing before this. 

Year 16, Week 13, Day One (week 847)

Year 16, Week 13, Day One (week 847)
(January 17, 2000 was my first carving day.)
04-09-16 Saturday

68 degrees early morning, 72 degrees after breakfast, 78 degrees as the high. Blue skies with smeared chalk marks across some areas. Light breeze in the morning, becoming stronger late in the day. This was a perfect day to be outside and doing projects both out in the sun and in the shade. This weather report was brought to you by the City of Pompano Beach Department of Tourism.

During the week, I picked up a new toaster oven. The oven in my stove is broken, but the burners work all right so it is not worth replacing yet.  I’ve used a toaster oven for a few years to bake casseroles and bread, roasts, chicken, and such, and I like using the toaster oven. While my old toaster oven works fine, I decided it was getting quite old. I have no clue how much life is left in it.  When the new Walmart opened nearby, I had seen a bigger one that has a rotisserie in it among other new features. I decided I had enough spare change accumulated and picked one up. 
The first thing I found when I took it out of the box was that my shelf, that the old toaster oven is on, is too high. It has to be lowered possibly 3 inches. I decided to wait on dealing with the shelf as I knew it was going to be a project. 

After breakfast, I headed out to yard sale by my self. I had a limited time in the morning, so I only hit two sections of my possible yard sale runs, which was basically out and back loop. I found five yard sales, which is not many for the distance driven. I did spend money on some items I did not need. 
One guy had friends who buy at estate sales. What he had was items that they classified as junk. If I was starting over on decorating my place, his stuff would have been nice. They were oriental collectibles, fine design dishes, quality items one would seen on display shelves. Because I am not starting over, I did not get any of that stuff, though they were pretty. I got from him one of those battery powered TV, Radio, Flashlight, flourescent lamp units. I was mostly interested in the radio since over-the-air TV broadcasts are no longer done that this kind of TV could pick up. Also the lights might be useful. It was in an unopened box. I gave it a try when I got home and have not quite figured out how to get it to work. I have to play with it a little more.
Another woman was an artist and had some craft stuff out. I picked up a fishing tackle box with some shells and jewelry and a little item drawer unit on wheels. In the jewelry, One piece had three black stones with dozens of dangling bead strings below it. Mom saw the picture I took of it and said it looked like a dog. She has that now. She is going to check to see if the drawers will work for her. I got a little device to amplify sounds through jugs and stuff. When later trying to get it to work I found there were corroded batteries in it. I do not know if I can get that to work. I will say that the hunt, at least, was fun. 

Mom had reservations for the CITY OF PLANTATION WOMAN OF THE YEAR AWARDS. My dad is sick, something he caught when they went to a seminar out of town last week where one person was sick. Now five people who attended are sick. No fun. Mom spent a lot of money for these awards tickets and did not want to waste the money. She kidnaped me to go with her. 
Mom was one of the Woman Of The Year last year.  There are like 10 woman’s organizations that are involved and they select a person, usually a member, who is worthy of the title. These gatherings are attended by the city’s rich, famous, and well connected. 

The gathering went twice as long as Mom expected and once we got home, both of us laid down and slept until it was time to get going. 

I am sad that I had such a good day and nothing got done. I don’t really expect to do anything tomorrow either. I would like to replace that shelf, as along with being lower, it really should be a lot wider. The instant I choose to take that on, I am committed as I have nowhere else to put my toaster oven.  And it would be in the way no matter where else I put it.

I will see what I do tomorrow. 



Year 16, Week 13, Day Two (week 847)
(January 17, 2000 was my first carving day.)
04-10-16 Sunday

74 degrees in the late morning, 78 degrees in the afternoon. The sun played tag, using evenly spaced puffs that strolled across the sky to hide behind now and then. A light breeze made this a perfect day to be outside and having fun or working. This weather report was brought to you by the City of Pompano Beach Department of Tourism.

On a lark, just before I was ready to leave, I took down the shelf that the toaster oven was on and took it with me. I had plans on how to cut the material, exchange the brackets. 
My brother was there so he insisted on doing the project right, rather than the way I was going to do it. 
I could not find the circular saw. He had a battery one so we set up the particle board for cutting. We took a long board and he got out his little saw and used the board as a guide. He had me do the actual cut, but the setup was the important part. He also did the measurements and drew the lines. Once we got the board cut, I then matched the brackets to the board and marked the hole locations. I put the screws in myself. 
My brother said it used to bother him to watch someone like myself doing this kind of work, but now he takes it as entertainment. I got the shelf brackets installed and it was ready to take home.
When we were all finished and had put everything away, then my brother saw the circular saw, sitting on the work bench among all sorts of stuff piled up around it. I later put that where it belongs. 
He also found that the board I was using to guide the circular saw had a bow in the edge (like missing wood) that caused the cut to not be straight. In this case, it is not horribly critical a thing and we never noticed the bow until my brother accidentally looked down the edge of the board. 

My brother would have really had a kick out of watching me install the shelf on the wall. It goes over a pass-through in the wall.  When I took the shelf down, I knew I would have a project to put it back up. It was a penalty of my decision to take it down.
My place has metal studs in the wall instead of 2x4s and near the edge of the pass-through has metal in it. 
I will just say that the Three Stooges or Laurel and Hardy could not do it as funny as I did it. I kept having to get different tools, different parts, stack stuff to hold the shelf up, then try to put screws in (which was at the point where regular vision, no glasses and reading glasses did not help to see the hole clearly), and then go with plan D when plans B and A failed. The battery powered drill I tried to use first was not charged up enough and was not strong enough anyway. I found a powered drill, but it has a short cord. I had to find a longer cord, then had to find the right bits, and then some more screws as a couple fell out of reach. I then had to find a drill bit of the right size to start the holes so the screws could go all the way in. That plus getting the screw bit onto the head while keeping the screw in the hole and get started. About the only way I could have been more funny to watch was if I was standing on a rubber ball while balancing plates on long poles and singing opera.
  I did better this time than when I put the first shelf up. It is fairly level and seems reasonably solid. I have three shelf brackets below, two on one side where there is room (on the side the refrigerator is located) and one between the passthrough and cabinet. I also had a shelving bracket going up the wall from the top of the shelf on the short side. Since I was not using anchors, I figured the more places to hold it would be enough. While I was putting these up, I added another bracket going up on the long side just for added support. Since the brackets are hidden by stuff on the shelf, it is not bad. 
ANYBODY could have done it better than I did, but I did get the job  done and the new toaster oven is in place and ready to use.  I am proud that I actually did it. I am sure that if I remember what I did, I will be able to do a whole lot better next time. A little more set up before I started would have saved me a whole lot of effort. )I think the professionals put the brackets up first, then put the shelf on it.  Screwing up from the bottom would be tough to say the least.)

I am hoping to do some woodworking next weekend, I have a number of projects in mind. It really depends on what comes up. The 7 day weather report is not as good next weekend as it was for this weekend. If the weather is halfway decent, I do plan to drag the lathe out.
I am considering making another platter in yellow pine, and also would like to make another goblet. I broke, again, the one I made a while back and lost the piece that broke off.  I have some Christmas ornament ideas I want to explore and have some in process that needs to be finished. Some of that work can be done if the weather is not horrible, but not good enough to get to the lathe. 

I will have to see what happens next weekend. 

1832

Year 16, Week 12, Day One (week 846)

Year 16, Week 12, Day One (week 846)
(January 17, 2000 was my first carving day.)
04-02-16 Saturday

76 degree before Sunrise, 94 on some gauges, strong breeze that cause loose hats to almost leap into the air and cause light things on tables to try to run away. The clouds were a mix of solid cover and broken cover with some later sunshine. This weather report was brought to you by the City Of Pompano Beach Department of Tourism.

Last week, a friend told me he had a treadle sewing machine he was going to sell. I gave him a bid on it before even seeing a picture of it (used, but mint looking condition). A woman came to buy a bunch of his furniture as he is moving and the sewing machine went with the stuff. He had warned me about that. If I had that, I would have forced myself to learn how to sew.  It was just not to be.

Yard sailing was sparse this morning. I breezed through five of our six areas of yard sailing and saw six yard sales. One in the second area, One in the third, two in the forth, one in the fifth. Since it was basically one continuous loop, going through the different areas was not bad. The scenery is always nice. What really surprised me most, was that I did not come home with anything. Several places had teddy bears. I was able to dodge fast so they did not tackle me and force me take them home. One place had a lot of children’s stuff which included craft items. I did not see anything there that I could not live without. I have some of the same craft items I have not gotten to in a very long time.
Two places I visited was by people I have visited before. One of them, I recognized a box of foreign coins, I knew I had seen that a few months back, then I saw one of the recognizable people involved and knew I had been there before (I did not recognize the house or the street). He has an anvil in his garage and last time, half a dozen people asked him about it, but he was keeping it. He had a sewing machine motor, but I chose not to get it.  I have a sewing machine motor that is hooked up with a buffing wheel (somewhere). Seeing his motor reminded me of the treadle sewing machine I was not getting. The other recognizable sale was a condo that sometimes had sales, but this time they did not have anything in the club house, just outside.

I got home, petted and fed the cat, she really needed attention. I removed a bunch of stuff out of my truck cab, and took my truck to the dealership for the 30,000 checkup. I ordered the super-duper 30,000 mile check up package that including cleaning the injectors and replacing the brake fluid. I likely did not have to do this, as I got the truck when it was 25,500 and it likely got that treatment from the dealership, but I wanted to make sure it was in the best condition. It might never get this again, as it was a lot of money. I was told, when I got the truck, to have the first service with the truck’s dealership, then I could go anywhere else after that. 
They said it would be about two hours. It took nearly four as they had lines of people, some getting free car washes, others getting different kinds of services. It took them a bit to get to the truck and they had a lot of work to do on it.

I started out with crochet. I am working on a roll case to contain a bunch of crochet hooks. The design I started with is where there is a strip down the center creating a series of loops. The strip would not be very wide. The hooks would hang out both ends and it would just keep them contained. It was pointed out that a better design is where the fabric folds up to form pockets at the bottom for the hooks to slip into. The difference is how wide you do the fabric. The one with the pockets goes about a third to half the width past what you want. 
Now, I have to say, that I had been working on a case where I was working side to side. The width is fixed and the length goes until I stop. WELL,,,, I have done that off and on for a while, sometimes part of a row, sometimes several rows. I looked at it this week and saw that my stitch count changed several times over the short length I had done. I then remembered that I have always done better when the length is fixed and I work the width, simply because there is not as many turns at the ends of the rows. It is easier to make a mistake on the stitch count if you are doing several hundred turns, as opposed to just a few dozen turns. 
When I saw my error, I considered unraveling it to the first mistake, but then decided to start over with a fresh yarn. Before today, I  had about four or six rows in a twelve inch wide piece. While at the dealership, I think I may have done something near 15 rows. The ends look straight so my stitch count is doing well (No, I am not actually counting, I am just not skipping stitches or adding stitches accidentally). 
I am making the fabric really tight. I am using a single crochet stitch and a 3mm steel hook. This is usually with thread rather than yarn. I would have gone with a smaller hook, but those hooks were just are not quite big enough to catch the thick yarn. Being tight, my stored crochet hooks will be less apt to poke through. 
It was in my last half hour there that I took out my tablet and on a lark, looked to see what WIFI was available. It turned out that the dealership had free WIFI. I would not have used the tablet even if I had known about it before then, as there is nothing that is worth spending four hours on the internet for, but it was nice to know that I could check the weather and the news while waiting. 

I got home, fed and petted the cat (she acted like she had never seen me today and was starving), ate lunch, and then laid down for a nap. I had gotten a little drowsy at the dealership. I considered taking a nap before going to the dealership but decided to get it over with. I zonked out and it was near time to leave before I had any urge to get up. I kind of felt guilty for not going out to work. At one point when I rolled over to a new position and checked my watch that I gave a strong consideration to working on something but I realized that I had time to get set up, and time to possibly make something, but would have no time to clean up after. One does not leave things out over night.

Other than yard sailing and crochet, I got nothing done today.

Tomorrow is a do nothing day also. I am going to a “Fish Fry” sponsored by a nearby Elks club. There is usually a limited selection of food items, but you can go for many servings, and  there is usually some music by some musicians. I have some friends that show up sometimes. The weather should be fairly good by the reports. No projects will be worked on tomorrow so there won’t be a post. 

I will have to see what I do next weekend.
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A dishcloth I stopped working on about a month ago. I really need to decide what color edging would go best with it. I have ot looked into my stash to see what I have available. I did this corner to corner and it cups because I did not quite get the stitch count right.

the first attempt at the crochet hook roll case. As you can see if you look closely, the sides weave in and out as I got the stitch count wrong in many places.

My new attempt. I did not flatten the curl when I took the picture. I agree with someone I showed the picture to. It looks like bacon. That is a little over 12 inches long.