ALMOST

            This has been a week of “almost” events. I was Almost a professor. The local Community College needed someone to teach anthropology to 7 students. The problem(s) was that they needed me in 3 days! And to top it off, they wanted me to commit to teaching through May. The catch, besides not being able to take a full time job out of the area, was they only pay per credit hour or a total of $1754 from now through May. Hardly wages that I could live on and not have another job. Too few archaeological jobs that are based out of Kalispell is the issue. Oh well, teaching has never been on the top of my “to do” list anyway.

            There are more darning eggs listed on my Etsy page, the Juniper heart is ready for finish but I’m waiting on warmer weather so I don’t fumigate myself by spraying lacquer in the shop without being able to open the doors. Have 8 bowls and one party platter ready to list on Etsy as well (today’s task).

            Besides the projects left from last week’s blog I have added a rough cut slab of Oak to my list. It’s about 18” wide by 3” thick at the base and tapers down to a thin edge at the top, about 6’ high. Was thinking of putting a heron cutout shape on it, but am letting it stand where I can see it for a few days while I wait for inspiration to see if that is the “right” subject for this particular piece.

            I am taking over as the local wooden toy coordinator for the Toys for Tots group here in Kalispell (well for a few guys, not everyone) and have a meeting tomorrow with the 86 year old who has been doing such a great job for the last 10 years. Not planning any great changes, he just said it was time for him to step down and has been asking me for a couple years to take over. That’s one “almost” as well, I’m Almost someone important in the group.

Have been doing a “mentoring” session once a month for the local turning club with less than spectacular turnout, but keep getting one or two people asking me to help them with one aspect or another so I guess I’ll keep offering that for a bit longer. A friend of mine comes to help and if nothing else it gives me a couple people to have good conversation with. This coming Tuesday we are going to have a session on making and sharpening tools for turning. One person is brining steel to be made into bead cutting tools and another is bringing his grinder so we can get it set up correctly for him to sharpen his own tools at home.

The meeting with the person that wants some mold parts made for his casting business went well, but we are still on hold while he casts up some acrylic for me to try turning rather than the wood. There will be no movement or warping with acrylic but we need to know what the finish will be like before we commit to the process and price. Another Almost, in that it’s almost a job, but not quite yet.

And on that note, I’m done with the blog for this week, need to get bowls listed on the Etsy site and get busy making some other items from the list before I make it Any longer! Thanks for stopping by!

            

Focus!

            This has been a full week, but yet I don’t seem to have accomplished all that I wanted to accomplish. This morning while I was filing away some plans and photos that I have found from various wood working magazines, and web sites advertised in magazines I started thinking about how that might have happened and how to change it.

            Perhaps it’s the curse of a creative mind, perhaps it’s just my own personal lack of focus, I don’t know and frankly, it won’t make much difference in the end, the projects are not getting done. I start on a project and it gets to a stage where I need to let it dry or where my back says it needs to wait for another day. I move on to a different project and the process continues. Pretty soon I have 4, 5, 10 different projects in the works and None of them are getting finished.

            Add to that, projects that are long term, like the making of our own turning tools. What was metal cut to length is now back from the machine shop and ready for heat treating. That means either firing up the forge or sending it out to a commercial outfit. Not liking the cost of shipping the tools out I started looking for a local person. That took a chunk of time, but one guy came to light. He is now treating two of our tools as a sample. That means that project is on hold again for at least a week, maybe more.

            Trying to promote the business via the Etsy page https://www.etsy.com/shop/RockRabbitEnterprise The Flickr page, http://www.flickr.com/photos/rockrabbit/ my Twitter account @RockRabbitEnt and of course this blog and the Tumbler Blog http://www.tumblr.com/blog/rockrabbitenterprises takes a big chunk of time as does Pinterest, both “Pinning” my own work as well as looking for ideas from others.

            Ok, so now we know why I’m not getting projects done, but how does this connect you to you, my reader? If you will simply reply with what projects you think I should finish next you will have done your good deed for the day and can go about your day feeling better about yourself for having done so… Think of it as a “pay it forward” kind of thing.

            The list below represents a majority of the projects in the “works” at the moment. The one that gets the most votes by Monday morning will get moved to the top of the list and get finished before I start even one more project. Here in random order they are:

1. Double Decker bowls (started in the last blog)

2. Seven turned bowls of various woods

3. Darning eggs

4. Rolling pins

5. Niddy Noddy (used for winding yarn into skeins)

6. Carved heart sculpture out of Juniper

7. Pea pod legged dish out of Walnut

8. Alder carved bowl

9. Carved horse head bowl

10. Leaf pattern carved on Cedar bowl.

Double Decker!

This idea came to me a year or two ago. It has taken me this long to get it started. Already am thinking on the follow up to this one as well, but first to finish them version.

After my last blog I had a request for photos of my tools. The red disk is my King Arthur’s Holey Galahad. The Red means it’s a medium or 70 grit wheel. The smaller version on the second grinder is the same grit, only flat and half the diameter.

Here is a front view of the Oak log rough cut with the chainsaw.

And a side view.

I started by using the chainsaw bit on my grinder to make groves in the side of the log and a hatchet to cut those chunks out.

I also used it to start cutting the bowl part in the base.

With the neck thinned down I moved the base of my carving stand and fastened the bowl to the back with the ratchet strap. The back hose is to my dust collector. It helps a bunch, but there are still a lot of the heavier chips that get spread all over the shop.

The top bowl is starting to take shape.

As you can imagine the chainsaw blade on a grinder tends to throw out a lot of chips and create a lot of dust. The leather welding sleeves and apron protect my body and the Trend air shield keeps the dust out of my eyes and lungs by putting filtered air over my face.

The limiting factor seems to be that my grinder will only go so deep with the handle in place and it’s “not recommended” that it be ran without the side handle in place.

I am now ready to switch to the finer bits and start smoothing out the rough spots. It was here however that I hurt my back doing another job and it will be another day or two before I return to this project.

Look for photos of the finished product to show up next week.