Well, this weekend I finished up several things.
First, I finished the window ledge in the bedroom. It had been a piece of 3/4" plywood that was painted white.
I was only partially successful in my goals. It does have the same pattern as the top of the dresser and end tables, but I've not quite matched the colors. It was interesting - my initial testing came out pretty close, but during the processing of the boards I had an accident. I managed to drop a full bottle of thin CA out of the cupboard and it managed to break the lid off when it hit the counter. I had CA on my hand, up my arm, in my beard and hair. As it turns out, also splashes on the boards. I didn't discover that until I tried to put the next layer of color on - then I had multitudes of dots that didn't take the dye. So I sanded it all down and started over.
Since I bought the dye powdered and mixed it with water I didn't think that a freeze cycle would have any effect. Unfortunately when I put the brown dye over the yellow I ended up with a grey powder on top. I wiped off the powder but when I put the finish on it picked up the color and it ended up really dark. When I installed this I first took out the old plywood. I should have replaced it with a thin layer (1/4" or 3/8") before I put the wood down because, in spite of my shims, it doesn't lay as flat as I would have liked.
There is still some touchup paint on the wall and a 1/4 round to install, but this is a great upgrade from the white plywood.
Secondly, I finished up a bespoke bowl commissioned by a guy I work with.
It's a stack laminated bowl from beetle kill pine. It started as an 8/4 board. After cutting the rings and stacking I put it on the lathe to finish it up. It has a hefty rim - normally I cut even the outer ring at an angle, but by cutting it straight I got a nice thickness that gives a little undercut to make it easy to hang on to. It's about 9 1/2" in diameter and about 8" high. I cheated on the bottom though - I parted it mostly off the glue block, got nervous about catching it if I parted it all the way off, so at about 3/4 of an inch remaining I took it off the lathe and split it. Then I used a ROS to finish off the bottom. Much easier than trying to reverse chuck it and get it straight :)
And the third thing that was almost finished was a replacement Christmas gift.
The first one I made (before Christmas) was a little heavy on the epoxy. It flowed more than I thought and I glued it all together. The second one I made worked just fine. Until it finished drying. Turns out that you shouldn't use 'green' walnut for pepper mills. They dry, and shrink, and are impossible to turn. *sigh*
I have to glue in the crush-grind mechanism to finish it off. I use PVC for tenons and this mill is in 3 pieces. I don't like the look of the through hole on top with some sort of lid on it, so my mills are in 3 pieces. The normal bottom that they'll all have, the center section for pepper corns, and a top section. Between the center and top I use another PVC tenon but I drill matching 1/4" holes in the sections and put walnut pegs in, gluing one side. This provides a snug fit and lets you use the top to turn the grinder but will still come off to refill it. By putting the pegs a little off center the top will only fit one way and that preserves the grain match when it's reassembled.
Well, that's what I did in my shop this weekend.
Pics or it didn't happen, right? Glued up one, cut staves for 2 more.
(I see a pile of beautiful pieces that just might work well for gluing to the fronts of little drawers on jewelry boxes, etc, lol!)
Perfect timing because putting stuff away in the garage had come to a grinding halt due to a lack of any place to store tools.
