Carving with a Six Year Old and his Four Year Old Sister.

 On the weekend two of our Grandchildren were here for a visit. My Grandson loves to work in Opa's shop and his little sister is not going to miss out on anything going so she is right there too. Both of the children love to be helpful and always spend time sweeping and cleaning the shop, I got them small brooms and whisks to make helping easier. Oddly enough the shop always needs to be swept, always, even after I have spent sometime cleaning, there is always room for improvement.

 Aside from sweeping Kieran likes to make things and this weekend I hit on something that he (and she) can do that lets them work without my having to hold their hands.

 This weekend we were carving, soap carving that is.  I had a box of Ivory soap cakes that the kids carved into boats, mostly.

  

  The knives they used had been pate knives before I sharpened them a little bit, and they shaped and carved the soap cakes pretty well. I made the sail boat using the wooden tools as a demonstration and then let the kids go to it.

  Kieran's boats turned out not bad, Clara's were pretty good for a four year old. These are the boats that are left, the other efforts were used at bath time. Just a point of interested, a bar of Ivory soap has grain just like wood.

the left over soap chips, I plan
to melt them down and they can be
carved again.

  The other on going project is a large scale glue up for two segmented vases.

you can never have to many clamps.

  I put the plastic bags onto my K Clamps to keep glue off the bars. Once glue dries onto the bars it is a real pain to slide the clamping jaw up and down.

F-clamps and K-clamps are always useful

 It took David and I two hours to cut, joint and plane all these pieces of roasted maple and poplar. Once planed there was coffee to drink and the the glue up stage. Later in the week we will glue both pieces together and then cut the block in two pieces. 

Shop supervisor walking past on an inspection tour.

One Bowl Done, One to Go

  Today David embraced his inner middle school self and turned the segmented bowl to completion. The end result is Okay.  We both learned several important things on this project that we will use in the next one.

  We were pretty casual with the glue up stage and that showed in our results. More careful fitting and clamping is called for next time. In spite of poor preparation the mini lathe makes a good little bowl with a minimum of fuss.

  If you look closely you can see that some of the glue joints needed help from glue and sawdust. We also didn't knock ourselves out with the finishing stage, the bowls just got some wax. However, David and I decided that it was a good time and that we will be doing it again, more seriously this time.

 The other thing that has been happening in the shop are my annual Christmas ornaments.

   This year's tree ornaments are six, slightly silly snowmen. I think the next line is five stolen rings. It actually took longer to stain the aquarium sand black and carve the noses then it did to carve the heads, I think.  It sure was more fussy.

  For a carving project like this all you need is a sharp knife, a folding knife or a smaller fixed blade knife or a utility knife will let you whittle up a storm. I have been making some sort of tree ornament for nearly ten years now, and my Grandchildren may never have to buy an ornament for their trees ever. Oma and I are supplying their needs. 

Cheers, Ian W

maybe one like this next time. isn't it amazing.

  

Turned Segmented Bowls Part 2

 Today we cut our segmented glue ups on the band saw and attached one to the lathe face plate using a paper glue joint as explained in the video;

paper glue joints 

  Strictly  speaking you don't need a band saw to be a wood turner, we could have knocked the corners off the blanks with a hand saw,

ignore the date stamp on the photo,
 I changed the batteries in my camera and forgot to reset the date.

  We decided to use a paper glue joint because our little bowls are not very deep and screwing the face plate into the bowl would reduce its depth further. 

  Since I only have one face plate I decided to initially turn my bowl between centres. I will mount it on a face plate later and hollow it out,or maybe just drill it out with a huge Forstner bit. My bowl  will hold my caked shaving soap. Once I hollow it out I think I may make a lid for it too.  

 The finish on my bowl is bees wax applied with my home made polissoir.

 As David and I were talking the morning after making some saw dust in the shop it became obvious that a person with and a mini lathe, few chisels and wood can have a pretty good time and make a significant mess.

Segmented Turning Projects

  With Christmas just around the corner the internet is flooded with projects to make in your shop for gifts. Recently Linn at Darbin Orvar produced a video making segmented bowls.

Bandsaw bowls 

 Recently a Facebook friend shared a video of a segmented bowl being turned on a lathe.

  Yesterday David, a real friend of mine and I were suitably inspired by the internet that we cut up some wood and glued up blanks ourselves.

You can never have to many clamps.

 

 Since David hasn't used a lathe since middle school shop class, (many years ago for both of us) we decided to make our first bowls rather modest. We glued 16 2 1/2 inch pieces of contrasting wood together and then clamped the living daylights out of the whole thing.

 This type of project doesn't require high skill, or expensive tools weights, strings and rubber bands could replace the clamps. We used a table saw and planner to prepare our wood pieces but that is only because we started with some rough lumber.

  

  One of the reasons that we decided to try our hand at a shop project is that David and I have known each other for 20+ years and have thought, discussed and solved all of the world's problems, over and over and it has become boring knowing the answers and being ignored. So now we are going to spend our time doing stuff and the world can look after itself.

Another Christmas Gift Idea

M12 Speaker

cheers, ianw