Updated site & Toys for Tots.

            It’s been a fun week, depending on how you define fun of course. The Etsy site https://www.etsy.com/shop/RockRabbitEnterprise now has over 50 items listed and I continue to add a few more each day if possible. I have a few more of the mid size bowls to list and then I’m moving on to the bread troughs. Mostly made out of Walnut but there is one made from Russian Olive. Once those are up it only leaves a few of the individual pieces.

            Yesterday I spent the whole day doing cradles for the Toys for Tots program. I have enough sides cut out and trimmed to size for 50 doll cradles and 45 of the rockers. I’ll cut the rest of the rockers from scraps that are left from making the 25 tool boxes or the 25 block trucks. The 15 bulldozers don’t take much 1” materials so they won’t have enough scrap left to make the rockers. For those that have not seen them before I’ll post photos of each toy below. Last year the Toys for Tots program had over 1,800 families come though and they gave out just over 9,000 toys. Only a small percentage of those were wooden thank goodness! Our group of 5 guys made right around 500 toys and there were airplanes and helicopters made by a couple of local high school. I don’t know how many. One branch of the local hardware store, Western Building Center, made a big batch of rocking horses. The rest of the toys were those donated by kind people from all over the area and gathered up by the Marine Corp (active and retired) here in the Flathead Valley.

            Should anyone in the area want to stop by and help me make toys, just let me know. I’ll find something that needs done to put you to doing! Did I mention that I took over the coordinating of our group of 5 for the Toys for Tots? It’s now up to me to make sure everyone gets the materials they need and get the toys made on time to deliver by the end of November? The man that was doing it just turned 86 and decided that he was ready to slow down just a Bit he said.

            Anyway, here are photos of the stuff I’m making, I need to get back down to the shop and get to making them! 

Direction!

            Well, for good or bad, I have decided on a direction for my business. Forward! Ok okay, I know that’s more than a bit cliché’ but it was either go forward or Stop. This seems like the better choice.

            The task over the next couple of days is to organize my shelves of turned and carved items. I’m finding that I have far more bowls than I thought I had and not at many plates or boxes. Once I have them organized, I’ll make up listing sheets for each item and then make sure I have photos before listing them on my Etsy site. https://www.etsy.com/shop/RockRabbitEnterprise

            I’ll also put notice out via email and twitter https://twitter.com/RockRabbitEnt

And ‘pin’ them to the board “my stuff” on Pinterest. http://www.pinterest.com/llamanter/

            After a conversation a few days ago with a nice couple that sell their stuff on Ebay, I decided that my lack of sales was not because I was not making a quality product, but because I was not pushing my sites enough and not getting word out to the right people. With your help I’ll be able to reach more people and then if they spread the word as well, even More people. Word of mouth is the best system I have available to me at this time so Please help me spread the word to the sites above and to my new website as well. http://rockrabbits.wix.com/rockrabbit

            Then just because I think it helps to have some visual aids in all this, here are some photos of my work to help inspire you to help me spread the word.

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. 

A Bowl, Carved, not turned.

My last blog described the steps involved in taking a log and moving through the process to make it a bowl on the lathe. This time around I’ll show how to take a section of that same log and make a bowl by carving.

Here is the log strapped down to my carving stand and the first section rounded off. The top here will end up being the bottom of the bowl when it’s done.

This cute little tool is what I use for roughing out my bowls and sculptures. There are 14 chainsaw teeth on this thing and the power is from a Dewalt grinder. Impressive to use and not as intimidating as it looks.

Here is the outside of the bowl roughed out and ready to be turned over to start the shaping of the top.

The first half of the top is shaped as well, now to turn it around and do the other end.

All the rough work is nearly finished, I just need to cut through that wonderful grain to make the handle portion. What a shame, but it has to be done.

The handle is showing its basic shape and the ‘dish’ part is starting to take form as well. For in here I have a smaller and less aggressive disk on another grinder but I forgot to get photos of it. I also used chisels and rasps for some of the tighter places. They give me a bit more control as well. 

Fastening the bowl to a board after I sanded the bottom flat allows me to clamp it to the carving stand and keeps the strap out of my way.

The grain in the bottom of this is going to be Gorgeous!  

And here is the rough sanded product. It needs to be set aside to dry for a few months and then I can finish sanding and add the finish. I’m thinking this will make a great “Easter” basket for someone.

If you like my work, please comment below and share the link with All of your friends.

Thank you! 

Branching out a bit

While my main product line is going to continue to be bowls, both turned and or carved, I am also adding smaller items to the mix. Production allows me to use the smaller pieces of wood that are left from the bowls, thus making my whole product line more “green” by increasing my motto of Reuse, Recycle, Reclaim.

So, what am I adding? Well to start with I am adding darning mushrooms and eggs. I’ll start out with the a variety of woods and move on to combined woods if the market tells me they are desirable. So, you tell me, are they? Below are a couple of examples for you to view. The first one and the last one are Walnut and the middle two are Oak. 

You can find them for sale on my Etsy page: http://www.etsy.com/shop/RockRabbitEnterprise

Do you, my loyal followers on this blog, have any other items you would like to see me offer for sale? Leave a comment below and I’ll see what I can turn up, so to speak. J