Painted the alley doors to the main gym at the old circus school. i need to redo the red. the roller i used was not suitable to the task and left an uneven texture. but for now it will have to do. red doors keep ghosts from getting in according to our former Chinese acrobatics master teacher. i just think red and black look great together. and it is the color of my heart. doing the same for the doors in the theater.
Got the first coats on. There were more colors, subtle but really beautiful, but I got impatient and applied the second coat before the first coat cured. So when I applied the second coat it caused the colors to blend. I still like what came of it, but I especially liked what I had before. Won't do that again. Also the ferrule on my next tool handle sit flush with the handle. You can see that there is a gap between the two. Best to make these mistakes now on my own tools!
I got this twca cam knife blade a around the start of lockdown. I made a handle for it but the handle was not very well done. In fact, it was shit. I was at the beginning of working in wood. A crapsman if you will. The handle was too short and poorly shaped. I make better handles now so I took the old one apart, made a longer blank from ash, and then roughed it out with the rasp, cut a ferrule from some copper pipe, and finally epoxied the blade and ferrule.
I got the arms shaped and smoothed, dyed them black, then sanded off some of the black and dyed them red. The red looks more magenta-like in the real world but in the photo not so much. I then applied the first coat of finish. Next I will make the knobs and toggle. Then I will hurry up and wait for the metal before I can move any further along on this project. I need to have the blade installed so I can measure for the stretcher.
The arms are roughed out and mortises are cut. After a break fresh air break in the park I am going to shape the arms with a rasp. I did have to modify the template at the bottom where the pins go through to match the length of the hardware. Even so, I think it looks nice with the curve going all the way down instead of ending in a block as in the original design.
Got both blanks for the arms hot glued together, drilled the holes for the pins, and glued on the template. Letting the template dry and then I will rough it out on the bandsaw tomorrow. Could be a few months before the blade and hardware arrive. The maker is backlogged according to the website. Hopefully, that is not the case.
The No. 7 jointer plane restoration is now complete and ready to make some shavings! I did make the foot of the tote unintentionally a bit thinner than it should be so the small machine screw that holds the toe in place sits a bit proud of the foot. You can see it sticking up there in the photo. I will replace that with a shorter one tomorrow.
Happy World Circus Day!!! Celebrated by juggling and stretching, painting a training room, and working in the wood shop. Got the knob mostly done. First coat applied. Several more to go. You can see how laminating several pieces of the same board makes a mirror effect. I laminated four pieces for the knob and two for the tote.
Got the tote shaped, smoothed, and first coat applied. I used the bandsaw to rough out the blank and then took the rasp to shape the that. First time I used a rasp. What a great tool for removing material and shaping the workpiece. I need to expand my rasp collection of one.Tomorrow I will shape the knob.
Oo la la le file is done. All black did not do the wood of the handle justice so I added a couple more colors. Looks even trippier and when the handle is moved around there is a 3D effect going on. Or I am smoking too much weed. This file is about the size of a short sword or long dagger. Has some heft to it and can be used in battle in a pinch. I either did not drill the hole straight or I failed to fit the handle on straight so the handle is a bit cock-eyed.
A collective of cells that works in wood, juggles, dances, and dabbles in music.