Custom Project

Did two in sycamore today. I know that some wiseguy would say "Why dont you make a wine bottle stopper that looks like a wine bottle?" so thats what I did. As for the other, I thought that it may be important to have some short ones so that if someone wants to put their bottle in a refrigerator, the shorter size will help.

Over the last 8 months I have been slowly setting up my back room work shop to function just right for my ever aching back. I need good work surfaces great open storage and the ability to sit while Im painting. Now that we are in the colder months and most of my painting is indoors this space is definitely on the list to finalize.

I excersize alot but I am not a memeber of a gym or anything like that. I dont want to have to spend the money on a gym membership when I can get a better workout at home.

My older sister has moved out of the house and I now have the upstairs to myself. I have turned her old bedroom into my excersize room, how great! My personal gym consists of; 7 dumbells (2 45lbs, 2 35lbs, 2 10lbs, 1 40lbs), a basic weightbench that can be adjusted to various inclines, a balance ball (the big beachball thing), a pull-up bar that hangs in the door-frame, and an eliptical machine. Other than the eliptical, everything is pretty cheap. The only reason I have the eliptical is because my mother wanted to start excersizing so she bought the eliptical but NEVER even go on it, so I have it now.


With this meager bit of equipment, I think I get a great workout.

Freeweights (dumbells) give you a better workout than the gyms fancy excersize machines. The machines kind of "assist" you in the movements, the guide and balanace the weight. With free weights however, your muscles have to work harder to balance and steady the weight which gives you a much better workout and builds a wider variety of muscles. With machines, specific muscles are targeted rather than a large number of different muscles.

So, if you want to start working out without having to spend much money, then dumbells are definately the way to go!

I dont drink a lot, I dont use any illegal substances, heck most of the time I even drive in the vicinity of the speed limit. I really only have two vices, (the naughty kind, not the attached to my bench kind) that occasionally get in the way of being an attentive husband, father, and employee. One of those is woodworking, the other is studying medieval history.

I gathered from the article that while one sector is functional, a pair of them can be very versatile. One about twice the size of the other. I chose a width for the larger sector and proceeded to rip the width from the narrow stock after marking it out with a marking gauge.


As I worked along I made myself pretty happy, a couple years ago when I started changing my game plan to hand tools theres no way I would have been able to pull off ripping a half inch off a board with a D-7. Now it really didnt seem like a big deal. After sawing I planed the edges first with my #6 for flatness followed by my #3 for smoothness.


Now I had a good ol pair of sticks to make the longer sector.


The shorter sector could be thinner dimensions so I ripped the two sides from one shorter section of stock.


Toplins sector puts the hinges on the endgrain. I know hes probably smarter than me and theres gotta be a reason for it, but I had to go with what felt right to me and that was sinking the screws into side grain. This meant creating a little recess so the hinge will lay flush once installed


Then there comes the knife work breaking the sides into 13 equal sections. I cheated a little and used inch measurements for both sectors, The smaller sector has 13 divisions spaced at an inch and the larger has them at two inches. I measured them out and knifed the lines both on the top, then on the inside of the legs.


A very fine Sharpie pen was put to work darkening all the knife lines.


While I was working away I got to thinking about the layout squares I started building about this time last year and the decorative molding cut outs on the Roubo Square and English Layout Square and how they help make the tool attractive and increase the pleasure I get working with them. I decided to repeat the experience here with these sectors. I cut these ovolo silhouettes on the distal ends of the legs on both pair.


Towards the hinge end of the smaller I rasped out these simple covetto silhouettes.


And the hinge end of the larger sector received this bead detail.


Then came the time to number them one to thirteen. One the smaller I used standard Arabic numerals.


On the larger I decided to change it up and use Roman numerals. No particular reason, a little romance thats all.

Hi Everyone,

Well the sun finally came out today and the temperature has warmed up to a whopping 38 degrees so Im going down to the wood shop-wood turning weather has arrived.

Working with partially decomposed wood

I live in a wooded area that contains a lot of tree limbs and trunks that have either died or fallen as a result of storm or winds. That leaves a lot of potential turning wood laying around that can be used in your projects.

Ive done a very limited number of turnings using this type of wood and Ill share some of my observations with you:

• This wood has been dead for a while and laying out doors in the weather so its partially decomposed. The wood fibers, both visible and invisible, are beginning to break down as the result of the activities of microorganisms and insects. So even though the wood appears solid, it can be fragile. My point here is to treat it as a potential accident waiting to happen. Dont turn this at high rpms, wear lots of protective head and face gear, and if you have a turning cage on your lathe, use it. Dont use badly cracked wood and if you can, use turning tape or duct tape around the blank to keep it intact while its turning. 
• The end grain of this wood easily tears, living a pitted surface. Youll need very sharp tools to cut it with and even with sharp tools, its difficult to achieve a smooth surface. Plan on this when youre contemplating designing something out of this type of wood.
• Smoothing the surface of this type of wood can be challenging. Since a lot of the fiber has decomposed away, it tends to have a finely pitted surface. Its difficult to remove turning scratches so turn carefully and slowly. 
• Oils dont seem to be the best way to finish this type of wood. The wood is spongy and it tends to absorb the oil unevenly resulting in a muddied finish.

•  Im going to experiment with some polyurethane and lacquer and see how this works out.

Having said this this wood has a lot of possibilities. Its available in large chunks and its either partially or completely dry so its useable and you can leave the pith-center in the wood and turn it. And since its round in shape, its super easy to make a box.
I think if youre careful, this can be a very fruitful source of wood for the more experienced turner.

Small Project-M&M Box

I decided to see how a box would work with a piece of an elm tree that was on my property. I sawed off a 4" piece off the end of a large branch, prepared it for mounting on the lathe and proceeded to turn it.

Ive removed the bark and brushed the surface of the blank. Then I turned the lathe on to about 100 rpm and sanded the surface with a green nylon kitchen scrub pad to remove any dirt and to smooth the surface:


Next I drilled out the center of the box to aid in hollowing it and to establish a depth:


Now Im hand turning the blank. Ill widen the opening and deepen the bowl:


Here is the completed turn.Notice Ive left a thin rim for the lid to sit on. Im going to make this a set in lid:


Next, I cut a small blank out of some scrap red oak and mounted it on the lathe. This became the lid for the box and since it was a thick piece of wood, I was able to cut the knob out of this blank without having to laminate another piece of wood to it:


Here is a photo of the finished lid and the box together:


And this is the finish photo after Ive oiled the lid:


Now that will hold a lot of M&Ms.

The photograph from above is a flower vase that I began before this box and it has a number of problems-oily finish, chewed up end grain. Im going to come back tomorrow and fix those and see how this works out.

Its getting cold and Im going to come it and warm up a bit.

See you tomorrow.

VW