There are 28 Journal Items in 6 pages and your are on page number 4
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| Dull Stuff |
OK, somebody needs to start teaching woodworkers / woodturners / Bodgers how to sharpen their tools. The level of sharpening ability in this country is pitiful! Overall, generally, and in the most widespread way, people just don't know how to sharpen. And I don't mean just getting things sharp or pointy. That's just part of it. Anybody can make something sharp. Rub it until it comes to a point. A point that makes you bleed just by looking at it. That's easy. But to make it sharp and useful is a whole different thing.
Students coming to class, purportedly with years and decades of experience many of them, with tools I wouldn't use to butter my morning grits! And they wonder why they are having problems. I'm starting each class now with an expanded section on tool sharpening. Looking at each tool from each student and getting that fixed first. We can't continue like we have been ... discovering after a few hours or a day that their tool just isn't fit for the work.
Isn't ... hasn't ... there been anyone teaching this sort of thing regularly? I firmly believe that every single woodworking, woodturning and Bodging class should start by teaching sharpening to some degree. EVERY one. Pen classes. Making a jewelry box. Turn a bead or a cove. Everything. How can you expect to turn out excellent (or even any) work with tools not ready for the job.
I'm amazed at just how many people don't sharpen their own tools. Friends, mentors, guys down the street and sharpening services are doing a lot more than I had thought. And they're waiting weeks or months to sharpen! It's not just an east-coast thing either. People from all over here.
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| Posted by Andrew Hilton on Tuesday, November 07, 2006 at 18:38
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| I'll be back |
| Won't be doing much on the Bodgers Blog for April or much of May (hopefully). I'll be gone for awhile (not as in .. "I'll be on a business trip for a few months little Johnny. Take care of Mommy and send me packs of smokes regularly so I can buy toilet paper in the ... ummm ... hotel." HA! ) and quite busy. I should have lots of stories about Bodging, Woodturning and Bodgers-in-the-making having a wonderful time when I get back.
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| Posted by Andrew Hilton on Tuesday, November 07, 2006 at 18:37
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| Delivery and some rest |
This was delivery day. I managed to coordinate several orders to be delivered today down south of me in Arkansas and Oklahoma. That's not always easy! I really enjoy driving and especially down south. Lots of hills, small roads, rivers and lakes. There's quite a bit of that right here but it gets more extreme just a few miles south of here. Oklahoma isn't much fun to drive for the most part though. It gets flat but there area few pockets of hills and good scenery where I'm going that it should be enjoyable anyway. And you can drive faster (legally) there too!
So, I started out early today to deliver wood, goblets, handles, art pieces, and some chair / table turnings. I figured I would have to wait on people to show up or I wouldn't be able to find places so getting an early start was important. I knew that a planned 5 hour tour through Arkansas and Oklahoma would turn out to be 8 hours or more.
It's always interesting to see new places and people. You get to see their shops or places of business and learn new things. Most of the time, they are all too willing to show you what they're working on or hobbies, etc. This delivery trip was no exception. For example, I learned about how traditional Indian and Japanese drums are made from one fellow. Quite interesting.
Amazingly, this trip couldn't have been planned out better! Everything and everybody was where they were supposed to be. Each stop was quick, easy and hassle-free. I love that. Nobody was "out to lunch right now. They'll have your money with them when they return" and directions were clear with no "oh, that should have been a left turn instead of a right" sort of thing. I was back at the shop in record time (thanks in no small part to some nice ladies in Oklahoma that let me pass them ... thank you) wondering what I was going to do with the rest of the day that I figured was going to be either on the road driving or waiting on someone. It took me 4 hours! Now, as those that know me, know I have plenty to keep me occupied. But this day was just too good to mess up now with broken tenons or rails that won't steam bend right.
I called it a day at 2 pm and left the shop. Sometimes, the best days are those that you leave behind early.
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| Posted by Andrew Hilton on Tuesday, November 07, 2006 at 18:37
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| Commission of the Holy Grail |
I got a call a couple of days ago asking me if I would like to make some cups ... well, goblets actually ... for a church in Northwestern Arkansas. They are needing 12 of them and they're suppose to look like those that might have been used during the Last Supper. Historical replica's. Apparently, the church is going to be putting on some Easter programs during April and would like some goblets that are period appropriate. Or at least as appropriate as we can get!
I gladly accepted this commission and set out to find more information on this period ... at least from a woodworking / woodturning goblet perspective. I do plenty of medieval period turning / bodging but this commission takes me way back before that time period. There's lots of paintings of the Last Supper from religious books and texts although you don't see much in the way of people actually drinking from these things. I guess it's much like how you never see a bathroom in Star Trek? (Wow, there's a stretch of time period to make a comparison, right?) It's just not something all that special for the story-lines depicted in paintings. So the artist just leaves it out. Anyway, I did manage to find some pictures of a few styles that should work.
For this project, I want to be as period-accurate as possible so I'll make the goblets not only in the style of that period but also, as closely as possible, how they probably made them too. This means that I'll use my home-made pole lathe but use a hand bow to drive it instead of the pole. The church didn't care too much about the process but they thought it was interesting none-the-less. I believe the woodturners back then would have used a bow and not a pole. Of course, I'll be using local domestic woods but, amazingly, they aren't so different from what might have been used back then and at that place either! Sycamores, White Oaks varieties, Hickories and such woods were probably used and we have them around here too. So, that's what I'll use. For a finish, since this is going to be period-appropriate and will only be lightly used (meaning, I wouldn't finish them this way for modern, utilitarian use and still expect them to stay beautiful for very long), I'll finish them with some natural oil (walnut oil) and beeswax mixture. This will be easily re-applied for the church but still give amble protection for the goblets for what little use they're going to get this April.
So, off I go to add my own humble sentence to the great story of the Last Supper.
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| Posted by Andrew Hilton on Tuesday, November 07, 2006 at 18:36
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| New Store Sharks |
That's what I call those new, overly anxious and ambitious employees of a new store. Everything is new. New and sparkly floor, displays, cash registers, parking lot, and carts. Love that new store smell in the morning! I had to get a few supplies for some upcoming bodging projects so I thought I would try out the new Lowe's store about 15 miles away. Yeah, I've been to Lowe's many hundreds of times before but this one was actually somewhat close-by! It just had to be broken in ... by me ... or it wasn't official.
From the very first moment I stepped foot in there, I was nearly run over by one of these Sharks. I can only imagine she was wanting to ask me about how I liked the new store ...some kind of survey type of thing. But before she could spit out more than a couple of words of her pre-canned script, I turned a sharp right and ran as fast as I could to the other side of the store (not an easy feat .. these things are big!). Unfortunately, with every isle there was a bright-eyed Shark ready to swarm all over me with those scripted, fake, please-don't-really-say-yes-to-my-question-so-I-can-get-some-work-done questions of wanting to help me find something. I can understand that they are eager. They want to help. They want to put on a good show for the supervisors and managers.
They'll get over that soon. It got to the point that I shifted from looking for what I needed to wanting to get out of there just so I didn't have to tell the 30th Shark that ...
1) I didn't need their help
2) I WAS finding everything I was looking for
3) I WAS (past tense) having a nice day
4) I DIDN'T need another free sample
Here's a clue new-employee Sharks.... Leave us alone unless we ask for help (in which case you better be tripping over each other to come to our aid) or look so pitifully hopeless and in need of help that we're, literally, crying in a puddle of our own tears in the isles.
Maybe I was looking pitifully helpless. I think I'll wear a hat next time that says .. "NO, I don't need help!"
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| Posted by Andrew Hilton on Tuesday, November 07, 2006 at 18:36
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