Busy Day

I finished these first thing in the morning, then made a bandsaw jig to hold them steady to cut them in half lengthwise. But now I'm not sure if they are going to be used. There seems to be a discrepancy in the interpretations of this decoration on the drawing.

I can always use them as cup stock if they don't.

Then I got passed a new project, a pair of bathroom vanities and a sink stand. I'll know more when I get done with the rocking chairs Monday or Tuesday.

Now that I've gotten home, I found a package from Grizzly on my doorstep. After setting up the lathe on Monday, I started poking around for faceplates. Through Amazon, Grizzly had a few aluminum faceplates for $6, where everyone else seems to be in the $20-30 range. At the same time, I ordered a live cupped center, and found that they had a 4 jaw chuck for under $50, so I got that as well.

They were back ordered on the live center, but apparently shipped the chuck and faceplate right out.

I also found my new glasses in the mail today. Last week I got a new prescription, and ordered a pair of safety rated glasses online. They have shatter-proof lenses (which I've had for the last 15 years or so anyway because of my prescription strength) an ANSI rated frame, and come with removable side shields for extra protection.

So now I'm all tricked out, and ready to turn, and be protected, and such.

Turning For Work

Now that I have the lathe, I decided I should get out and turn every day after work. Hone my skills. Create things.

Day one, lathe setup day, I did turn something. Day two, I failed. Yesterday was one of the worst pollen/allergy days I've had. I couldn't venture out to the store without having a sneezing fit. And while I wanted to turn, and even made a couple of improvements to the bench, I couldn't stand being outside for any length of time.

Today was shaping up to be close to yesterday. Not as bad, but if I stay outside too long I'm bound to be miserable for the rest of the evening.

But I did get my turning in for the day, at work and for work. We have this interesting and ornate panel bed/wall unit type thing. And on the drawing it calls for these decorative pieces mounted on the left and right. They are rolling pin looking things. A 3" round barrel 5" long, with 2" round ends 1 1/2" long. They will be cut in half lengthwise when finished, and be mounted flush to the upper and lower sides of the wall units.

Not terribly difficult, but this will be my second turning for work. The first were little feet for some cabinet. They came out fairly consistent with each other, but not perfectly matched. I'm not great with duplication, or really measuring when it comes to the lathe, as I have more of a turn by sight and feel type of method.

I got one completely finished, and the second one ready to sand and part off, before the shop closed for the day. I'll make a third one in the morning, so they can do with them what they will.

Maybe I'll have a photo for the visually inclined tomorrow.

Some Assembly Required

From all the looking at lathes I knew that there would be some amount of assembly when it arrived this afternoon. At the very least, bolting on the headstock/motor assembly and attaching tailstock, and figuring out how to bolt it down to the bench.

But I was unprepared for the heavy square box accompanied by a long narrow light box. The heavy box contained all the cast iron pieces, headstock, tailstock, motor, toolrest, and brackets. The narrow box just had the 2 tubes that make the bed of the Record Power lathe.

The mounting brackets bolt straight into the bench (one bolt each). The tubes lay in the brackets with a brace bolted across the top to hold them in place. Since the bed assembles so easily, and is just simple tubes, I could conceivably get a pair of longer tubes to extend the bed length if I was so inclined.

Everything else bolted on easily, and I had it all up and running in less than 30 minutes. So I took it for a spin.

Since it didn't come with a faceplate (something that I overlooked, and now regret not getting the slightly more expensive Rikon lathe), I turned a little something between centers. It looks a bit like a cherry Light Saber handle.

There are a few things to get used to with this lathe as opposed to the Conover we have at work. The first is the motor size (slight small than work) with I expected for a mid-sized lathe, but I have to be careful how much I can take off without stalling the motor.

Second, the pulleys. Works has a variable speed control on it, so you can change speed while the stock is turning, where I'll have to stop to change speeds.

Third, the tailstock and toolrest are not on quick release/adjust levers, so I have to get a wrench out to adjust them. I'll have to look into how I can do that.

Lastly, the stock attachment points (faceplace and centers). The spur drive is sort of tiny, and the tail center isn't a live center. The live center will be on the top of the list to get. And not having a faceplate is a little disappointing, as that is most of the work I'll be doing on the lathe, cups and bowls.

A few adjustments to the porch are also going to be necessary. The flat spot on the porch which is still under cover is on the west end, with the setting sun half blinding me. I'm going to get some screening/netting and hang it at the top 3 or 4 feet on that side of the porch. That should let enough light in to keep me working, but give me some sun protection as well.

I've already got a cover for it, and now it looks like we have a grill on the porch.

All in all I'm happy with it, but I'll be even happier when I get everything just right.

My Fist Power Tool

It has happened. I've purchased my first power tool. A lathe.

I got approval from the roommates, and the landlord. I've got a place to put it, albeit just on the back porch. What I need is a stand, as it is only a mid-sized lathe. As much as I would like a nice cast iron lathe stand, I'm not quite willing to spend the same for the stand as I did for the lathe.

I was toying with two ideas. Build a 8/4 birch base for it, or just slap some 2x4's together and call it good. As fortune has it, work has been re-building a section of the shop, and there are a bit of leftovers, enough for me to put a lathe stand together.

It's big, and stable. And all it needs now is the lathe. It should be here on Monday, and then I can start turning in the evenings and weekends without having to go into the shop. It should be nice.

Baptismal Follow-up

I've been lax. The Baptismal stand has been finished for a week. I've taken a few photos, as well as getting a copy of the photo Lois shot for work. Here they are.

Entrance Bench

One of the difficulties with the blog is the upkeep. Its easier to keep up to date with my current projects as they come in. It's the past projects that are unique and I've enjoyed that I have difficulty finding the time to write about. The entrance bench is one of those.

At first glance, it appears like a bench (photos down at the bottom). Arms, back, storage space. The back slats were drawn kind of strangely, but pretty straight forward. As it turns out, the construction and parts were all over the place.

It seems as though we had made one of these once before, but only one as far as I could tell. Fortunately one of the guys remembered the name of the customer who bought it (from 8 years ago) so we could go pull the folder and look at it. The back slat drawing was actually specified there, so we were able to get the exact slat pattern and spacing.

Then I started to examine the structure of the piece. There were the back legs, cut down versions of our Hampton legs. Front legs were pretty much standard Hampton. Arms, Hampton arms, but since Hampton chairs are wider in the front than the back (not so with the straight sides of the bench) I had to modify those as well. The backrest fit over the top of the legs as a cap, not between as most of our chair construction. The back of the bench was to be finished, along with the sides in our Craftsman style. And finally, they wanted the storage space to be accessed via fold-up doors.

So, I had to learn the different styles and how those parts are normally made in the shop (jigs and measurements and such) and then adapt them to fit this particular piece.

One of the more interesting things was the seat and the arms. With straight sides, and those arms, the accepted procedure in the past was to leave one arm off, have the piece finished, attach the seat, and then attach the last arm. They wanted to avoid this for re-upholstering down the road, as you cannot remove the seat without removing the arm. I had to create a seat blank with kerf cuts in the bottom to be able to flex the seat in and out around the arms.

I believe I ended up with a few random construction techniques through the piece, and looking back I don't know how I would have changed it, but I do remember it being awkward to assemble.

The bottom of the storage space was a 2" fixed shelf (2" hardwood strips afixed to a sheet of 3/4" plywood). The center post on the front and back was mortised into the shelf and the bar above. The shelf was glued and screwed to the legs, but the top bar was mortised into the legs. The sides were created as an entire piece, and then splined into the front and back legs.

The worst part of the whole thing was the storage space with the fold-up doors. I would have voted drawers over doors so that nothing could get lost in the depths of the bench. We were able to use our pocket door mechanisms (we normally put them on entertainment units) to get the doors to fold up and retract out of the way.

If I were to build one without restrictions, I'd have a divided space with drawers, no arms, and hope I could come up with a simpler construction method.

In Honor of Earth Day

Happy Earth Day everyone! On this particular day I plan on doing nothing out of the ordinary. This just happens to be one day out of the year where the rest of the world's actions lines up with my own.

I recycle, conserve energy, am in the process of planting my own garden, try to get roommates and others I know to follow my example. Now that the weather is nice, I'll be taking the bike in to work instead of the car.

The area where I fail the earth is work. My chosen profession is directly linked to the world's deforestation. We also create a lot of sawdust, with is particulate matter pollution. And we aren't the most energy efficient shop either.

All of these things are hard to change in an automatic shop environment, especially one as large as ours that has been running for so long. For myself, in my future endeavors, I can change that. Running equipment only when needed and turning it off when not in use is easy with a one man shop. Moving from power tools to hand tools can cut down on the amount of sawdust created. Harvesting local trees has less impact on the world's forests, and making sure to replant or working with mills with replanting programs helps renew the forests.

Until then, I'll just keep doing what I can.

Baptismal Stand

When a Presbyterian Church in NW DC wants a Baptismal Stand built to fit in with their Stickley furniture (apparently), they come to us.

I heard about it as it came into the shop a few weeks ago, and it came to me last week. Since it is for a church, Mark has been dealing with a committee, with all that entails. His only guidelines were: he wanted to double check my template for the legs before I cut them, and just to "make it perfect".

Structurally it has a lot in common with the copper coffee table I build in February. Cross braces under the top and shelf, outer skirts at the top for extra rigidity and style. The unique parts are the 1 5/8" thick octagonal top, and 1 1/2" thick octagonal shelf. The top is also getting a route to center and stabilize the bowl.

I spent some time in the computer room programing out the CNC to cut out the top and shelf, which is interesting work. Since I don't do programing often, I'm going to have one of the regular programing guys double check my work.

I'm finding that the center route for the bowl to be the hardest part to the whole process. I imagined that it would be some sort of ceramic bowl with a foot that would be easily measured and duplicated in the top. However, it is a swirly glass bowl without a foot, so I get to play the guess and check game until we find the diameter and depth of the route that match the contour of the bowl bottom.

Pictures thus far:

Before and after the upper skirts were attached

the bowl, and lower arched braces detail

Tomorrow we get the route figured out, then cut out the top and shelf. Then after it gets stained and shot, I'll have another round of photos.

Weekend Wrap-up

So, good weekend. Not as much sleep as I would have liked, nor enough spoon carving. I worked on a few spoons that are nearly complete, started the bowls on a couple, and worked a bit on my ladles. The rest of the time we spent reminding teenagers to turn off lights and close doors, and to try and not kill each other.

There was a bit of boating (canoes and kayaks), some bicycle rides, and some rock climbing (an Eagle Scout put a 30' rock wall up last summer, so I had fun climbing it 4 times).

Spoons at the Eastern Shore

We are off to the Eastern Shore this weekend. Mostly to help out on a
youth retreat, but really just to be outside and carve spoons.

I'll update with some photos of what we get done after we get back.