Year 20, Week 15, Day One (week 1060) 05-04-20 Saturday

 Year 20, Week 15, Day One (week 1060)

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

05-04-20 Saturday

Blue sky, light breeze loads of sun. warm but not humid, which was nice. If it stayed like this all year long, I might think of myself in heaven, though we would need some nighttime rain to water everything....

I set up out back and decided to work on two projects at the same time. I really wanted to turn something but had no idea what. With one project, I grabbed some wood I got at work last year and cut it to size, mounted it on the lathe and started turning what is supposed to be a natural edged bowl. I shaped the outside and then started hollowing. I have a lot more to do, but the results so far have been good. I chipped up the edge at a few spots and that will require clean up, but not until I am finished with the hollowing. The outside needs cleanup but I might do that off the lathe with a sander. 

My other project was to take some two by twos and shape them into the hulls of boats. I made six this time, five of them were out of a two by two and I made them the sailing ships with the high front and rear and low middle. The other one I used a strip of molding and I made it more like a rowboat. All will end up with masts. I likely will add sails to them too. 

I sanded them with the sanding disk on the lathe to square them up and give me a clean surface to work from, then used the sanding disk to start shaping the blocks to look like a ship. I had learned in my previous attempts that there should be some straight wood below deck before it curves in. I tipped each block on an angle and sanded the bottom, rotating it toward the bow of the ship to give that curve. 

I then took them to the bandsaw and cut the center of the ship down so the ends would be higher. I removed what wood I could with the bandsaw, and then resorted to the knife. White pine, which these are made in, can be brittle along the grain and on a couple of them, I chipped off a bit of the wood and had to cut them down more to get past the damage. 

What I did to make them nicer was to use the dremel to set the deck down below the edges of the ship to give it something like a rail. They need clean up but they don’t look like shaped blocks of wood any more. I will make a bunch of boats from the molding, to give me something that looks different. They will get triangle sails while the others will get square sails. I have to put the sanding disk back on the lathe to clean up some surfaces on the ship. I likely will do what I can to finish or destroy the bowl I am making first. It tends to be bad luck to remove a piece and put it back on. Something is never quite the same.

During the day I would do some turning or bandsawing, then sit down and carve a little, then get up and do some more standing work. I got a lot done that way without wearing myself out. 

Next weekend I expect to work on the ships some more next week. I have a lot of cleanup on them to do before I paint them. I will add the mast before painting, but after the clean up. The sails will be the last of the project. 

I figure I will try to finish the bowl. I also need to use the disk sander on the lathe, which will require the bowl to come off. I might try to finish the bowl first. 

I will see what I actually do next week.

679

the bowl when I stopped turniing

the boat hulls. the far right one will have triangular sails



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