kolwdwrkr's Blog at LumberJocks.com

Stained Glass: "A How To" Series #3: Using a glass grinder

kolwdwrkr — Mon, 22 Nov 2010 05:02:26 GMT

This segment discusses how to use a grinder. You don’t have to have a grinder to make stained glass, but it helps to make a better product. It smooths the edges and makes them square, so when the pattern is put together the pieces fit tightly together. Whereas if you don’t use a grinder the edges won’t be smooth, and there is more of a chance of gaps. If you can make decent cuts though, most gaps will be filled with solder, so it may not be a huge deal if you don’t invest in one.

Stained Glass: "A How To" Series #2: Practice cuts

kolwdwrkr — Mon, 22 Nov 2010 04:08:56 GMT

Before we begin making a stained glass project I want you to take the time to practice using a glass cutting tool on inexpensive clear glass. This will help you get the feel for your cutter, and get a decent feel for how to score a piece. When scoring, listen to the cut. You can hear whether or not you are making a clean cut. Once you are good at scoring glass you will be ready to move on to the more expensive stained glass.

Stained Glass: "A How To" Series #1: The Tools of the trade

kolwdwrkr — Sun, 21 Nov 2010 08:05:27 GMT

I appreciate that people showed interest in this blog. I have been wanting to do something like this for quite a while, but never put an effort towards it. In this series I am going to discuss Foiled stained glass, and the methods involved in the making of a lamp. I am not a professional by any means at stained glass, so if you have any input or suggestions it’s much appreciated. I am merely a hobbyist that is self taught. Here is the first video. Sorry that I am not an actor or good at being on camera.

Firefighter Carving

kolwdwrkr — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 00:58:36 GMT

I am posting this here because I suppose this isn’t a finished project and I don’t feel like getting attacked by the site police today. This carving is inspired by a painting from www.fireart.com. The painting is a very cool painting done by Veteran Firefighter/Artist Allan Albaitis. If I had money I’d love to buy some of his work. Please visit his site.
The wood is Mahogany. I’m not 100% sure what I am doing with it, but the end result will be donated to my local fire station as a thank you for putting out my dryer fire. Had they not come I could have lost everything, which isn’t much, but it would have been tough none the less.
I don’t think our local emergency services get 1/2 the recognition they deserve. I want to thank all the firefighters, police officers, paramedics, dispatchers, 911 opperators, and anyone else who is involved with our direct safety. They are truly heros.
As always I welcome constructive criticism, positive or negative.

I've got crabs

kolwdwrkr — Thu, 23 Sep 2010 06:36:23 GMT

Yep, you heard it right. I’ve got crabs. Well a crab, and it’s form. I was doing a glue up with some resin glue

and decided to put some of it into a form. The form is a crab, and not really a form. It’s a sand toy. You press it into wet sand like a cookie cutter, lift, and low and behold you have a crab that crumbles apart as you lift the plastic off. Yippie. I love the look of frustrated children as they throw a crumbled crab. LOL

I let Heidi press it into the form. My fingers are way to manicured for that crap. After allowing my little project to dry overnight, I removed the crab. It was still damp when I removed it, as well as flimsy. I don’t have pics of that, but this is the result after 4 days.

This thing is harder then a honeymooners you know what on a friday night. Nearly brittle to the point of glass. It also shrunk like a polar club swimmers you know what after a fridgid dip in the arctic.

I guess the cool thing is that it kept its shape. I’ve been toying with the idea of using sawdust and making sculptures in the same fashion. Hasn’t happened yet, but it will. It’s a good thing that the can didn’t say “will not shrink or crack” like most glues.
Anyhow, that’s all I have to say about that.

Gracie lectern #9: July 4th weekend progress day 3

kolwdwrkr — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 06:00:01 GMT

As I said in the previous blog, I had today off. It made for a short 3 day weekend. I have to say that my weekends always go super fast. I think it’s because I have a ton to do, so I always end up getting busy doing things I don’t want to do. For instance, I had to drive to get my daughter today and she lives 1 hour away. It took almost 3 with traffic. It’s not that I didn’t want to get her, it’s that I didn’t want to drive. Plus I wanted to go a lot earlier then I got to, but her mom had things to do.
Anyhow, I got the inlay done today, and all the color applied. I clamped the inlay on right before I left so that it would be ready when I got back. When I returned two of the clamps had fallen off and one of them damaged the cabinet. I was madder then a wet hen and almost lost it. I did throw a couple clamps down in frustration, but felt like kicking the crap out of everything. I don’t know how these things happen. It seems like every project I do, when I am almost done something happens. The last project I did for them I had the top half of it leaning against the garage door and like an idiot opened the door. It came crashing to the floor and caused damage. Everything always gets scratches somehow, even when I don’t go out there. I think the garage is cursed.
Here is the Damage. It will be a challenge to fix.

Here is a slideshow of the rest of this weekend work. As you can see I redid the patch last week. It wasn’t good enough before, and still isn’t as good as I would have liked. Those little letters are a PIA to cut out and inlay. I’m hoping to have this project wrapped up within the next week and will post it in the project section. This will be the last blog on this project. Thank you for reading. As always I welcome constructive criticism, positive or negative.

Gracie lectern #8: a little progression

kolwdwrkr — Sun, 04 Jul 2010 05:17:06 GMT

Today I got back onto the Gracie project. It’s been awhile since I really spent time on it. I was able to sand everything and started the staining process. Today I stained the belt black, as well as the letters accross the chest. It’s very tedious work. In case your wondering about bleeding into other areas, it turns out that the glue holding the inlay in helped prevent it pretty good. My hands aren’t as steady as they used to be, but I still was able to keep between the lines. I wiped off the color in order to see the grain. It won’t be black black, as you can see the hugh of the bamboo. But I didn’t want it to be either. I want the viewer to see the grain of the bamboo.
This project has taken forever. I still need to figure out what I want to do for the fighter inlay on the chest area. But I need to make some progress while I think it out, so I’m going to continue staining and will start the white tomorrow, and hopefully have the inlay in and the color done by monday as I have the day off.
I hope everyone has a Happy and Safe fourth of July.

Get away sometimes (Sorry NON WOOWORKING)

kolwdwrkr — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 06:05:36 GMT

Sorry about this post. It is a non woodworking related topic. Please remove it if I am breaking any rules.

I have to say that I’m not one for getting out and about. I do get away on a hike from time to time, but not as often as I should I suppose. I make it a point to get into the garage shop as often as possible. If I wasn’t able to I would never advance my skills, and would just be a cabinet maker building boxes. There isn’t much pleasure in that, unless it’s the very rare job that takes some enginuity, and is thought provoking. Otherwise it’s all just a little basic and keeps me from exploring my talent. So the garage is nearly a heaven for me, so long as I am doing my own thing, and not something for someone else like commission work. I like to explore woodworking, and learn by doing so. Most of the things I make are kept in a cabinet in my entry way, and really are just artifacts of my education. It’s an adventure and one I hope to do for a very long time.

But from time to time you need to step away from it. Woodworking is all I do. It’s my day job and my hobby. So getting out on a hike somewhat clears the mind, and actually allows your mind to breath. On this little hike I wasn’t expecting much. In fact I was expecting a desert atmosphere. The farther along we went the more enjoyable it became. We hiked on some limestone rocks. Went into a little cave that is said to be a hiding place that robbers used to frequent. We also came accross some critters. I saw a scorpion for the first time in the wild. A rattlesnake with a full belly, a crawdad, and some other creepy crawlies. We also saw some nice trees and plants I haven’t seen before. One of the rocks has some little caves that make it look like an elephant. There wasn’t a ton of people either, which is rare to find here in SoCal.

All in all it was a nice little afternoon adventure. Not to mention the excellent BBQed chicken I cooked up to follow. I figured I’d make a little slideshow to take you guys there. Enjoy.

Gracie lectern #7: fighter progress

kolwdwrkr — Sun, 06 Jun 2010 04:40:54 GMT

Here is this weekends progress. I won’t have any time tomorrow to work on it unfortunately so once again the project gets pushed back. I’m glad I don’t have a deadline. I’d have to have a year lead time LOL. There just doesn’t seem to be enough time for this type of project. I started at about 9:30 this morning and it’s 7:30 now. It literally felt like I was out there for an hour. Amazing how these little pieces can take so long to put together. When this part of the project is complete (I still have to make it look like it’s a picture on a shirt) I will post the inspirational picture that this transpires from, that way I can get some feedback on what I should have done different or better.
As always I welcome constructive criticism, positive or negative.

Gracie lectern #6: Marquetry 1

kolwdwrkr — Sun, 30 May 2010 04:15:31 GMT

After posting Sandy I was hard pressed to post here again. I didn’t think posting a funny project among “friends” was such a big deal but apparently some people just can’t have it. But that’s the kind of forum I have enjoyed for almost 2 years, and now with so many people, can’t.
Never the less, I started this project here and figure that I should, for my true buddies here, post the progress until the project is done. I will also post the Jewelry box Heidi carved the rose for, as she had mentioned us doing so.
This is the start to a sparring match between two fighters, and so far, has taken about 6 or so hours. I expect to have at least 18 more hours before completing this part of the project. Then it will be on to the finishing stages, which means a ton of sanding. It’s a shame there isn’t a little sanding fairy that takes care of that at night while we are all sound asleep. Maybe if I hadn’t have thrown away Sandy she would have taken care of that for me. LOL.

As always I welcome constructive criticism, positive or negative.

Gracie lectern #5: drawer and knob

kolwdwrkr — Tue, 18 May 2010 06:21:50 GMT

Well it seems like this project is taking forever, and I still have forever to go. I’m glad it’s been fun. Here is the dovetail drawer and the knob. The drawer is hand cut and the pull is turned and carved. I thought the “G” would be a good addition to the knob to go with the theme of the cabinet.

Gracie lectern #4: 3rd degree black belt

kolwdwrkr — Mon, 03 May 2010 06:33:13 GMT

This weekend I put a pretty big dent in the progress on this project. I inlayed the patches and also carved the belt. For those of you just tuning into this project the materials are Natural Bamboo, Amber Bamboo (belt), maple (inlay on padauk patch) and Padauk. There’s a ton of sanding left to do and a whole section of marquetry. After that the belt and letters need dyed black and the box needs to be dyed white. That will be quite the project in itself.

As always I welcome constructive criticism, positive or negative.

Gracie lectern #3: More Progress

kolwdwrkr — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 05:21:39 GMT

The patch is just taped on. I still need to inlay it. I also need to attach the lapelle sections. The box is buiscuit joined together. It’s coming along nicely.

Gracie lectern #2: Progress

kolwdwrkr — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 05:13:52 GMT

Got the sides pressed and cut to length. I taped the scaled template to the sides to show the concept. The back will be layered and have a carved belt. The Logo I am working on (red circle) will be inlayed in the top left corner. I still need to cut the parts for the back and lay them up. Then I can inlay the circle and the letters you see drawn. Then on the chest section there will be an elaborate marquetry pattern, and is meant to look like a shirt under the gi. I have many more weeks left, but it’s going well so far. On the front side there will be a dovetailed drawer and possibly a door. I may leave it open with a shelve or two.
Thanks for looking.

Gracie lectern #1: The patch

kolwdwrkr — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 06:20:27 GMT

Uh Oh, I seemed to have started yet another project. What was I thinking? Anyhow, this project has been somewhat of a priority that I’ve been waiting on material for. It is going to be a lectern for Gracie Barra America. The back of the lectern will look like a Gi (lapelle) and this is one of the patches I am inlaying into it. This patch is made out of Paduak and Maple. Stay tuned. This project will be something else.

lidded bowl #3: progress teaser

kolwdwrkr — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 06:39:14 GMT

Little bit of progress. The marquetry is done and it has 2 coats of sealer. I may or may not turn a lid and finial. As always I welcome constructive criticism, positive or negative.

lidded bowl #2: UH...There's something growing on your bowl

kolwdwrkr — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 07:16:38 GMT

Made some progress…..

And was given a nice vice….....

I like free stuff ;-)

lidded bowl #1: It's turned

kolwdwrkr — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 05:38:04 GMT

Well I started this turning some time last week to go with the dozen other projects I have going. The idea is to inlay some marquetry around the top boarder and to also make a lid and finial. The marquetry will be leaves and branches and will be an assortment of material like wenge, cocobolo, and maple.
Here is the bowl. The rest will come in the following weeks, months, years, who knows.

As always I welcome constructive criticism, positive or negative.

Entertainment Center #7: Finally complete

kolwdwrkr — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 03:07:44 GMT

Well I finally got the installation complete and a final payment. Last saturday we installed the unit, but the base moulding didn’t match the existing (one number off). So I had to purchase some new base. I had my brother, neal, and Heidi with me on the initial install. Neal delivered it in the van, Jeff helped with the main installation, and Heidi helped clean, hand things, and look purdy. Today I went back and spent an hour to complete the base. Heidi went with me and helped clean up. So now it’s done. All in all this was a nice little build. The painting was the crappiest part. My gun broke and I had to have a friend finish it. The paint seemed to stay tacky forever, and the cheap plywood had blead through that we had to fix with Kilz primer.

As always I welcome constructive criticism, positive or negative.

Neals Plane #2: Found a name

kolwdwrkr — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 06:44:49 GMT

Well I barely started some rust removal on the blade and found that the plane is a Mohawk Shelburne. I don’t know much about it, but know that it was made by Miller Falls, and was a less expensive model. I don’t know the date, but from the sounds of it, it is old. Any information on Mohawk Shelburne is appreciated. I will post pictures as time permits, but I’m just barely tinkering now. Thanks for the help.