What did you do in your shop today?

You get an A+ for effort ! Busy man, I like the first key chain in salted oak. What a cool way to use up the little bits.
 
It's interesting Clay... kinda grows on you. The big patches of blue dyed stuff on the bottom end are kinda, well, I don't know really, kinda look like old faded paint. It definitely gives it a unique look on that end, and some will no doubt find it absolutely beautiful.

The top end of the pen, the blue has all sorts of things going on, there are streaks that are dark blue in places, streaks that are pure white, they're side by side. Wide streaks, narrow streaks, little patches of streaks, big patches of streaks, knot on the top end has a little chatoyance running through it and the blue runs from light blue to dark blue in that when you turn it in the light. I have no clue what went on with this dye job! If the whole of the pen had turned out like the top of the pen, I'd have been much happier with it, because it is really cool in places. But by the same respect there is some admirable quality to the bottom half as well if you're into antiquities.

Grabbed the wrong pictures this morning in my half asleep state, better pictures... There is a lot of interesting stuff going on in this pen, it no doubt has desirable traits, I will certainly give it its due, but being the irritating POS it has been, I am relatively certain that they'll never again be duplicated! :sorry:

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woodtickgreg said:
You get an A+ for effort ! Busy man, I like the first key chain in salted oak. What a cool way to use up the little bits.
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Hate to waste the wood, and I figure it's something cheap to put at the front of a booth that someone without much money might buy. Lot of folks might look at a $100 bowl or a $30 pen and say no, but they might find a $10 - $12 keychain to their liking. Time you figure boring the blank, gluing tube in, turning, finishing, assembling, I've maybe got 20 - 30 minutes in making one tops, and all those little chunks of wood that pile up go away.
 
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rocky1 said:
Hate to waste the wood, and I figure it's something cheap to put at the front of a booth that someone without much money might buy. Lot of folks might look at a $100 bowl or a $30 pen and say no, but they might find a $10 - $12 keychain to their liking. Time you figure boring the blank, gluing tube in, turning, finishing, assembling, I've maybe got 20 - 30 minutes in making one tops, and all those little chunks of wood that pile up go away.
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I do a lot of keychains and whistles in acrylic for that reason, keep a pail of cutoffs and every couple months make a big batch of them.
 
8* this morning, and a storm is on the way. Had a backhoe with a peculiar transmission problem.
Through all the muck and mung, I get underneath and slowly drain the oil out.
After I removed the suction screen, this is what I found.

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Brink said:
8* this morning, and a storm is on the way. Had a backhoe with a peculiar transmission problem.
Through all the muck and mung, I get underneath and slowly drain the oil out.
After I removed the suction screen, this is what I found.

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One of those new fangled water cooled transmissions?
 
Brink said:
8* this morning, and a storm is on the way. Had a backhoe with a peculiar transmission problem.
Through all the muck and mung, I get underneath and slowly drain the oil out.
After I removed the suction screen, this is what I found.

View attachment 124194
Click to expand...
Ya think that tractor went swimming at some point? Or condensation?
 
Schroedc said:
I do a lot of keychains and whistles in acrylic for that reason, keep a pail of cutoffs and every couple months make a big batch of them.
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Hey! You're experienced at this, I gotta ask... Do you sell a lot of keychains, because they're one of the cheaper items in the booth? Or, am I barking up a wrong tree turning all of these?

Assortment I have going I'm looking $12 to $25 on them ($12 on the cheapy scraps like the spalted oak posted above, $25 like the Toothpick Holders in primo woods I'm fixing to go finish in the shop.) I'm in redneckville, not worried about the Bullet hidden Compartment, I sell 5 of those to 1 of all the others combined, I'm sure.

Is there anything in particular seems to be a better seller otherwise?

Now that I think about it, I could probably open a keychain booth! :blush:
 
rocky1 said:
Hey! You're experienced at this, I gotta ask... Do you sell a lot of keychains, because they're one of the cheaper items in the booth? Or, am I barking up a wrong tree turning all of these?

Assortment I have going I'm looking $12 to $25 on them ($12 on the cheapy scraps like the spalted oak posted above, $25 like the Toothpick Holders in primo woods I'm fixing to go finish in the shop.) I'm in redneckville, not worried about the Bullet hidden Compartment, I sell 5 of those to 1 of all the others combined, I'm sure.

Is there anything in particular seems to be a better seller otherwise?

Now that I think about it, I could probably open a keychain booth! :blush:
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Keychains, 12.00 each
Whistles 15-18 each depending on the show location
Toothpick Holders 18.00

I sell probably 50-60 whistles and 100 keychains a year, toothpick holders are up and down in sales,, some years a ton, some not so much. I don't use any primo stuff, just decently figured woods from the cutoff pail, and acrylics. Sometimes a really nice piece of stabilized dyed stuff but usually because it was too short for anything else.
 
Schroedc said:
I don't use any primo stuff, just decently figured woods from the cutoff pail, and acrylics. Sometimes a really nice piece of stabilized dyed stuff but usually because it was too short for anything else.
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I don't typically do anything too fancy, but today I did, just because... Typically do quite a few in Spalted Red Oak, since I have a virtually unlimited supply of it. Wanted to do a few in something different, and these weren't anything real expensive. With exception of the Spalted Red Oak, I raided a mixed box of pen blanks from the :old: , so although they weren't expensive, they appear to be! :cool:


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Why we don't throw anything away...

Back there before Christmas I picked up a couple Olive Wood cutting boards at TJ Maxx, as some of you may recall. Well the larger of the 2 afforded me a cut down the center of the handle for a pen blank, leaving the curved edge of the handle off each side a 1/4" - 3/8" or so at it's thinnest point. They laid on the bench for awhile, until I got into casting mode here recently, and decided to cast several scraps I had laying around and turn them into pen blanks. Tossed the edges of the cutting board handles in the mold with contours opposed to each other to see what we might get.

For some reason this batch of resin got funky and turned opaque all the around looking like the one below. On top I could see, air forced out of things rising, resin setting before the bubbles dissipated; all the way around the edges, is tough to explain...

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Decided to turn it anyhow, just because...

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And, that gentlemen is why we never throw anything away!!

Save this post to favorites so when your wife asks, you know where to find it!
 
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rocky1 said:
Why we don't throw anything away...

Back there before Christmas I picked up a couple Olive Wood cutting boards at TJ Maxx, as some of you may recall. Well the larger of the 2 afforded me a cut down the center of the handle for a pen blank, leaving the curved edge of the handle off each side a 1/4" - 3/8" or so at it's thinnest point. They laid on the bench for awhile, until I got into casting mode here recently, and decided to cast several scraps I had laying around and turn them into pen blanks. Tossed the edges of the cutting board handles in the mold with contours opposed to each other to see what we might get.

For some reason this batch of resin got funky and turned opaque all the around looking like the one below. On top I could see, air forced out of things rising, resin setting before the bubbles dissipated; all the way around the edges, is tough to explain...

View attachment 124411


Decided to turn it anyhow, just because...

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And, that gentlemen is why we never throw anything away!!

Save this post to favorites so when your wife asks, you know where to find it!
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Well done my friend! A shining example of why we should be called "efficient " instead of Hoarders! Tony
 
@Blueglass - I love using it Les! Although that one through me for a loop; normally it's black and white, and that piece was very prominently black and white on the outside. Bored it for the tube and the dust was dark in color, and I thought, "Cool! This one is gonna have lots of color." Turned it and it was brown on the inside. Haven't seen that in one of those blanks yet; it was a new one on me! But it's still pretty man!!
 
Cleaned up and sprayed some shellac on some blanks that I'll be selling.

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Started to turn a chunk of Walnut Burl that @manbuckwal sent me some time ago. Finally felt I had the skill to start in on this piece. Outside is pretty much shaped and I filled in the cracks with some epoxy mixed with silver Pearl-Ex. Plan for the bowl to be natural edge.

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Even though my wife had no problem with me using the kitchen oven to do a final dry down on wood prior to stabilizing, it was getting old. And she didn't like planning to make something in the oven for dinner, only to have to change dinner plans because the oven was full of wood.

So I was wanting something that wouldn't take up a ton of space, runs on 120v, and can sustain temps of at least 220+ but also could do lower temps for some drying of wood that wasn't fully air dried. With my wife's agreement, this followed me home earlier today. Will have to figure out a permanent home for it though. Electric smoker with digital controls - real easy to control temps. Am hoping my wife gets me another one of these for Father's Day - would be nice to have one to smoke meat in. I'll do a bit of a review of using this as a kiln/drying oven after I've used it some. I'll be loading some wood into it in the morning.

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