T.Rob
I make stuff with code and with wood. Just, you know, not at the same time.
#actuallyautistic #cybersecurity #woodturner
Joined Oct 2022
I kinda feel bad for whoever had enough English to put DIY + AREA together as a brand name for their company, but not quite enough to realize it also parses as DI-YA-RE-A.
My first time turning deer antler produced a nice looking Vesper click pen. The antler was incredibly hard and even sharp carbide cutters bogged down a bit. The biggest surprise was that it gave off a smell of over-crispy barbecue. Now I understand why people charge a lot for these - lots of work and now I need to air out the shop for a week!
We are only two weeks away from closing on our house sale so I do a walkthrough every day or so, just to make sure no major issues develop to kill the deal.
Today it seems there's a serious leek under the kitchen sink. It's always something.
This dragon pen is in my Top-5 faves of all the pens I've made. The burnt bronze fittings and Poly-Ag stone barrel match so well. Plus, it's a hefty pen with good balance. Not for writing War and Peace longhand but great for signing the deed to your castle keep.
The camera meter likes the presentation case a LOT better than the black velvet background. I may have to start shooting all of them in a case.
That pool cue pen is devilishly hard to manage. At 8 inches, no pen box or display fits. Normal pen pots tend to tip over. Something had to be done so I figured why not manage it like any other pool cue and make a cue stand for it?
Voila! #HotOffTheLathe today are the two cue sticks used as the uprights for the stand divider. The rack is 3D printed. The base is #shapermade and the divider is laser cut. Used all the toys on this one!
#HotOffTheLathe tonight is a gold Vesper pen with black palm barrel. The wood is so dark I had to reduce the contrast drastically to show it against the gold.
I love the Vesper pens for their weight, balance, and solid click mechanism.
Next completed item from the #woodworking / #woodturning queue is a cue.
Well, a pen made to look like a pool cue, anyway. Pen is 8.5 inches long with the cap on.
Although challenging to make, the hardest part turned out to be finding a gift box for it. Ended up using a bracelet gift box.
Must have done a good job getting MIL's house ready for sale because it was under contract before the week was out. Now I am *finally* able to get caught up on some projects in the queue.
First up were these crochet needles for a Fediverse acquaintance who does amazing things with yarn. She said these are for a machine that she makes hats on. Cool!
All this time I thought I was being lazy using a pressure washer to wash the cars. I was today old when I discovered they have brushes that automatically rotate the car for you.
I feel like it's worth the $18 just so I can contact the vendor's tech support to complain that I can't get it to rotate my car.
Wife waits until the paneer is made to tell me she needs something to press it with. Stat!
Naturally, I go out to the shop and return with half a dozen clamps, angle irons, a 5 gallon bucket and two lids with about 100 holes drilled in each.
"Problem solved," I announce.
"You're an idiot" she says, then builds this. "Clamps? Paint buckets? We're making FOOD here."
I protest "To be fair, you don't know where those 2L bottles have been."
I'm not wrong. But apparently I'm still an idiot.
Was about to clean out the newspaper tube under the mailbox when I noticed some cedar needles from trimmings I'd done just a day earlier. Grass clippings often blow in but the cedar was at the other end of the lot so must have been deliberately gathered and put there. Took a closer look and sure enough - we've got babies! I postponed the cleanout.
Getting MIL's house ready for sale and pressure-washed the front porch and steps today. This included two decorative columns that were full of bird poop, top to bottom. The nest looked empty at the time But I didn't have a ladder so I didn't blast it.
An hour later the column was dripping with poop again and when I asked who did it, I got a chorus of unapologetic "not me" from the poop squad.
I say if they are old enough to fly away while I'm working, they are old enough to relocate tomorrow.
#HotOffTheLathe today are a Longwood style pen in olivewood with gold trim and a Vesper style pen in canarywood with gunmetal gray trim. These are both commissions so I took extra care with the finishing and buffing and they turned out great. The Longwood kit is great for showing off a great blank and this olivewood lives up to the promise. The Vesper is one of my favorites for balance and reliability.
My wife chose the colors when I cast this blank and I promised it to her. I chose a Rockler Longwood component set because the extra-long 1-piece barrel lets the burl/resin blank shine.
I admit to a hidden agenda here. A while back I caught her using a cheap plastic pen. I thought I'd made enough custom pens that she'd get rid of all the crap ones. Maybe now?
Thought about doing a photo essay on this but pens are quite technical and it came out to 13 pix.
5/5 After all the sanding and polishing, it's finally time to put a finish on the bowl. Rather than use a film-forming finish like shellac or varnish, I use Danish oil. This penetrates and cures.
Tomorrow I might tweak the finish. Once it is final I'll remove the tenon on the bottom that is holding the bowl to the chuck, then go through most of the same finishing steps where the tenon was.
#woodturning #woodworking
4/5 After applying the abrasive paste it's time to...apply finer abrasive paste. Everything that was done in the previous step is repeated with this white paste that is closer to a polish than an abrasive. It is cleaned with denatured alcohol between every step at this point. Proper ventilation is critical!
3/5 After sanding to 1500 grit, there sre still some very minor sanding lines visible. Sanding paste is a mix of beeswax, oil, and diatomacious earth. The grit of the paste is actually more coarse than the last sandpaper, but it breaks down and getrs finer as it is worked in. A generous amount goes inside, then the bowl is spun and the grit worked in until it is smooth. Then it is removed with more denatured alcohol and the whole process repeated on the outside.
2/5 The bowl was sanded inside and out from 60 to 120 grit before the sealer. Now I'll sand at 220, 320, 400, 600, 800, 1000, and 1500. Sanding is by hand with the bowl rotating slowly (250rpm). Between each grit, the rotation direction is changed. At 400 grit and above, the bowl is cleaned with denatured alcohol because at that point the sawdust from a lower grit can scratch the surface. This is the first time we get an idea of what the finished bowl will look like.
1/5 Yesterday the bowl was coated with sanding sealer and left to dry. In this case, the wood is freshly cut so "dry" refers both to the sanding sealer and the wood itself. My hope was that the bowl would be thin enough to flex rather than crack as it dried. This was mostly true but several cracks are visible radiating from the center of a spot that had been a branch. If these do not sand out, I'll need to repair them. Fingers crossed at this point.
T.Rob
I make stuff with code and with wood. Just, you know, not at the same time.
#actuallyautistic #cybersecurity #woodturner
Joined Oct 2022