Just for Fun... #54: Another Mixed Bag...

Quiet times around here…
Brother Scott requested a sign a while ago for his new cottage up in Maine… “Can you make me a sign, with shamrocks, that says, Peg’s Place?”... Simple enough, right?
Simple, perhaps, for someone with an ounce of Artistic ability!! But for those of us with none, like me, patterns or templates become necessary… The lettering is pretty straight forward, and I’m on familiar ground, so I began with that, developing the words from an alphabet of cursive letters…

I then make a “booklet” out of the mock-up, a sheet of carbon paper, and a blank sheet to create an actual pattern… been here, done this…

Happily, I had made the word “Place” a few years ago, there was no need to revisit that…
I transferred these onto some Cherry that was kicking around… All set, right?...
Maybe… I’m not completely satisfied with this, because I’m thinking, feeling, that this sign should be a bigger-than-usual one…
Scott and Peg’s Cottage is set back from the road some, and while I don’t want to make a bill-board, it’ll look silly if it’s a little tiny thing too…
The Shamrock in the picture was one I down-loaded and I wasn’t all together pleased with that either… The size is good, but it doesn’t seem very life-like… What to do?...
Enter a Kleenex box of tissues!! Debbie had bought a box and I spotted something in the floral pattern…
Do you see what I see?!
After making a quick matte and scanning the thing, I simply enlarged the image, taped a piece of graph paper over my screen, omit a leaf, and I had something I can believe in… a four-leaf clover…
I’ve got a pretty good idea of how I want this thing to go now, but it’s been a sort of bogged down development stage… There’s also this, when I actually get to cutting on these signs, it goes very quickly, and I’d like to have something(s) lined-up to do afterwards…

In other news, I took my first test cuts with the newly adjusted, newly bladed band saw… An 1 1/2” into the cut and I found out the lighting is all wrong… The saw is next to the window, but the sunlight is almost blinding in my shadowy shop!! So I had to add another string of light… literally…
A few years ago, I put up a clothes line over the most used machines…
With varying lengths of coat hanger S-hooks, I can illuminate anywhere I need with a handy fluorescent drop light… They’re carefully attached with a small nail to the top of the door and window frames…

Anyway, I attached a new run (from the closet door), that can be used for the band saw, table saw, and any floor work I might get involved in…
It probably seems ridiculous, I know, but this would work great in an auto shop!! If you had a grid system set up overhead in a garage, I think it would prove itself useful…
I got the cuts made finally, with the band saw, removing a couple of approximately 3/8” strips and revealing the heart of another cribbing block…
This is crying out to be made into a box…
Ahh, boxes…
I never really thought much about it, but upon reflection, I’ve been consciously or unconsciously copying a box I received when I was about ten years old!! A small Chess set I got for Christmas came packaged in this fashion…
A small sliding-top type, I still can remember my desire to make something like it… I still want to, and haven’t yet…
I’ve seen a number of fine pencil boxes here recently and have been pondering making one… Between the Chess box and this old example here I should be able to come up with something…

Distractions come in many forms… I’ve obviously done very little in the way of woodwork lately, besides lining up a couple projects. Debbie and I are preparing to go on vacation Labor Day week and that’s been fun…
I’m also re-reading a few gems from my Dad’s book collection…
I cannot recommend these books, or any of Eric Sloane’s work, highly enough!! They are not how-to books exactly, but any page can be opened to find interesting things about the way life (and woodworking) used to be lived (and done)... For those of us who just like to look at the pictures, they are delightfully illustrated on almost every page with Mr. Sloane’s own pen and ink drawings…
Regrettably (and shamefully!) these are now out of print, but they can still be obtained on Amazon… Well worth the price too, as they’re fairly reasonable…

I can’t hardly wait ‘til vacation!! We’re going up to Maine for a week and I’m really looking forward to getting my batteries recharged… It’s been almost twenty years since I had some proper time off…
tick… tick… tick… :)

-- Mike in Concord, NH---Unpleasant tasks are simply worthy challenges to improve skills.