Finishing Tip For Small Projects - Carved or Scroll Saw

   

Snowman in toque, tree ornament.

  This is the first two of my 2015 tree ornaments. I whittled them from bass wood using a limited assortment of very sharp knives. There will be small black bits of wood for eyes and a tiny carrot for a nose to finish off the faces.

  If I get the figures carved properly they don't need to be sanded before painting. I give the projects at least two coats of shellac to seal the wood before painting. When the wood has been sealed it takes fewer coats of paint to get good coverage. As you know, between coats of shellac the wood needs to be sanded, easy on large flat surfaces, a pain on little things like this. 

 My solution when dealing with small carvings or scroll saw pieces is a wire brush instead of fiddly bits of sand paper.

                   

or a stiff bristle brush.

 

  I am careful not to be too aggressive while brushing and I have found it much easier to get into the tiny cracks and textures of small pieces with a brush than with sand paper.

  It is nice when a solution is easy and cheap.

cheers, ianw

   

Shop Work, but not Woodwork

  If you know enough people, and ask around amongst them you will find all sorts of things laying around, looking for a new home. A friend of mine has many leftovers from his days raising two kids, and several of their old toys have found new life with Kieran and Clara. The latest is this Follow Along Bike, seen here all cleaned up and ready to go.

 The bike came to me pretty dirty and covered in surface rust. My shop is mostly a woodworking shop but as a home owner and an Opa I sometimes find myself working with metal, leather or plastic. Whatever the project I really like to have the right tool for the job.  

  If you are building up a small home shop there are a couple of tools that I strongly recommend you add to your general tool box.

FAT MAX 110 inch Adjustable Wrench

 I know that serious mechanics hate adjustable wrenches, but for my purposes I have three wrenches, an 8, a 10 and a 12 inch. These save me from having to imagine whether the nuts and bolts are imperial or metric and since I almost never work on a big mechanical project these three are my go to wrenches. 

  Another group of tools that get lots of use are my wire brushes.  I was able to clean off nearly all of the surface rust on the bike with out driving myself crazy trying to do it by hand. There was some work with polishing compound and 000 steel wool, but not much, thank goodness.

brass wire brush

 I used a brush like this to sneak into the spots around the spokes and so clean up the rims to almost shiny new. 

   The workshop is certainly a favourite place to be but if you've been following along you have seen that our garden gets attention in its season too.

This is a photo from our garden yesterday.  That bee was so stuffed with pollen that it didn't care how close I got with my phone to take its picture.

 Get out and enjoy the nice weather, we sure waited for it for along time.

cheers, ianw 

Sixth Day of Christmas

  Six geese a-hanging around??

Today's Christmas gift is a wire brush.  There are all sorts of sized and types of wire brushes and they are all useful in a wood working shop.

wire brush

  This sort of brush gets used in my shop to knock off bark from fire wood that will be re-sawn or turned on the lathe.  I also use both a large and small version of this type of wire brush to clean dirt off barn boards.  Over time dust, dirt and other stuff collects on barn board and I use a wire brush to clear that away before I plane or saw the wood.

http://www.thetoolstore.ca/viewItem.asp?idProduct=6835

  I have used a wire brush like this one chucked in to a hand held drill or my drill press to aid in cleaning up stained metal on tools.  I have a few tools that I've purchased from flea markets or "antique" dealers, elbow grease, bee's wax and serious time with a wire brush has made some of those purchases wise choices.  (some of the purchases, not so wise....)

http://www.thetoolstore.ca/viewItem.asp?idProduct=6881

   A wheel like this can also help clean up neglected tools.

  I suspect that there are really six different wire brushes to choose from  actually there are six pages of wire brushes to choose from in the toolstore.ca on line catalogue.  You can even use a wire brush to add texture to wood in a wood working shop.

cheers,