Lovely Fall Day

  Lets face it, beautiful motorcycling riding days are winding down and there will soon be plenty of time to work in the wood shop.  So today instead of burying myself in a wood working project I went for a long, (all afternoon) motorcycle ride.  The day was lovely, the bike ran like a new watch and the miles (kilometres) rolled away by the hour.  When I am riding the bike I ponder world issues sometimes, but mostly I think about what I want to make and how to make it.  Today I was thinking about a tricky repair to a sheesham box from 10,000 Villages, I can't take the box apart to make the repair and that is what makes the repair difficult. I have formulated a plan, I think.  That will be a job for tomorrow or the next day, or soon since the box has sat on my bench for a week. 

  A wood working related project is shown below, so I haven't been completely away from wood.   I started taking a ten week course on Pyrography two weeks ago and this is the result of my first serious effort. 

 

  In the past I have used the Razor Tip Wood Burner that I inherited from my Dad.

  to add hi-lights to some of my 

smaller boxes and a couple of other projects.  By taking a course I hope to add some more skill with Razor Tip.

  You can see that first I outlined the leaves, as I have done before but next I used a fine tipped nib to add small dots to the leaves creating a shaded effect. There are many possible textures that can be achieved, practice will be required.  After I finished burning I put on water colour paint in a transparent wash.  All that remains is to give the project a couple of coats of spray varnish and I will be done.  I think the piece, which is 5 x 8 inches will become a lid or a panel for a box one of these days.

  *A foot note, 

 If you are going to be cutting plywood on a regular bases it is a good idea to bite the bullet and buy a saw blade specific for cutting plywood.  Steve Ramsey has a good little video on You Tube: Cutting Plywood: how to break down sheet goods, that is worth checking out. He uses the KREG Rip Cut while breaking the sheet stock down.  I know that there are woodworkers that have sworn off plywood, and I have really tried to use it less but there are some jobs that sheet stock makes easier, once you get it down to a manageable size.

  cheers, ian