Forge day – new projects on the forge

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Had a forge day last week (actually two of them) and started making things out of railroad spikes. I met someone a few weeks ago who owns a railroad salvage yard and now I have a huge supply of railroad spikes!
Sorry for the bad pictures, I used my cell phone to take them.

Here is a pic of what left of one of the buckets that was full.

Before I got started working the spikes I dug out and made a stand for my leg vise. I also put a 100 pound piece of steel on the back of the base to help stabilize it.

here is a shot of my forge setup.

Heating the spikes up

Here’s a sht of the forge with a few spike in there after I had added a twist to them

A shot of the finished products. The bent spikes are coat hooks and the straight ones are bottle openers

at the end of the two days I had made a couple dozen of each and now I’m selling them. If you are interested contact me by email or comment here with your email and I’ll get in touch. Please help support my forge habit!

Family Names

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20 years ago when Michele and I got married we were given a simple wall hanger that was made of 2 boards with our first name routed in each one and then connected with a couple pieces of dowel rod. Many years ago in one of our many moves they got broken and in figuring out the best way to repair them we also decided to add to them since our family had grown. I decided to remake them entirely and here is the results.

First I started with 2 oak boards
boards

The following steps were done with the help of my Friend Scott, who I am helping out with the Starcastle project.

The boards are taped with blue tape to help prevent tear out
boards taped 2

The were then mounted to the cnc router and cut after I decided on what font to use.
km cut

am cut

The boards after they were finished cutting
finished cut

Before removing the blue tape I cleaned up and sanded the names then painted them black.

Blue tape removed, cut to size, sanded, and waiting for the clear coat to dry.

Once they are dry, I’ll attach them together and hang them, then post a photo of that
Thanks for looking

Cut the Cord!

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Last month we finally cut the cord. No more cable tv. It’s not as bad as I thought it would be. Instead of all of the channels with nothing on we pretty much watch what we want when we want.
Here is how our setup is done.
We have a Digital antenna to receive the free over the air channels (did you know that there over 50+ channels available that way?)
Hulu+ and Netflix to get movies and tv shows
Apple tv 2nd Gen. so we can view the shows on the tv and stream content from the computer
iMac for organizing the content and to stream stuff that is not on Hulu+ or Netflix. things like Big Bang Theory, Elementary, Burn Notice, Covert Affairs, etc… using airstream

I have to say that this setup was extremely easy to figure out and setup. We actually have less remotes and less boxes with blinking light in the entertainment center. The only drawback is that there is no way to really watch sports (well, there is but I leave that up to you to figure out) legitimately. Some of the other issues that needed getting used to is that you have to do a little research on what you want to watch. Basically you will find yourself missing the on screen tv guide with the program info from the cable company. Once you get your favorites on Hulu+ and your queue on Netflix setup you can pretty much always find something you’re in the mood to watch.
Right now we don’t have a way to pause live tv or to dvr anything, but, I’ll figure that out if we need to do that. so far it hasn’t really been necessary.
The cost savings are huge and it has been a pretty painless and kinda fun experience. I’m definitely watching things I probably wouldn’t have otherwise.

First piece of furniture

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I just finished the first piece of furniture for the house up north. I made a little table for wherever Michele wants to put in the house.
This is my first attempt at any type of “real” furniture and also my first attempt at fretwork with the scroll saw. I made this out of maple and it has a clear poly finish. this was a lot of fun and I did a LOT of sanding by hand. I didn’t take any picture of it in progress other than this first one.

Here are some shots of the finished table

A shot showing the fretwork a little better

Now to build the rest of the house worths of furniture. A bed, dressers, dining table, chairs, buffet, kitchen cabinets, china cabinet, coffee table, end tables, night stand, etc…

Collar Display project

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a couple weeks ago one of my fellow vendors at the Farmer’s Markets asked if I can make a display for her to display the dog collars that she sells.
She wanted it to look like a dog bone. She gave me a collar to help determine the size and here are some photos of what I came up with.

Since I couldn’t find my jigsaw I used the scroll saw to cut it out.

Here is a shot of the bone cut out

I wanted to make the display collapsable and ended up using pvc pipe and dowel rods to hold it up.

A shot of the finished display and one of it at the market on display

Forge Day

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Last Saturday I had a Forge day. This is where I fire up the forge and beat on pieces of hot metal to try and make interesting things out of them.

Here is a shot of my forge while it’s getting up to temp

Here is a shot of my anvil and stump with some metal bar blanks on it waiting to be made into Kogas.

Once things were warmed up, I made a bunch of Kogas (or Kubotans) for a local Karate school, I’ll post pictures later when I get to take one.
I also made some more of the Candle stands for use with the candle holders I made glassblowing. Started on a couple of knives too, those take a lot more work but I’ll get pics of where I’m at with them and as I progress.

Ice cream update

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The results of the ice cream making on Sunday are in. Monday evening I tried the chocolate ice cream and I have to say for a first attempt is was really good. It was very chocolatey, but it seems that not all of the chocolate melted so it has random size bits of chocolate.

I made more ice cream last night, but this time I made Chocolate ice cream with chunks of peanut butter in it. It’s freezing up right now and will be eaten tonight probably after Amanda’s play.
I think this last batch will be better that the first one because I got a better base. The chocolate seemed to have melted better this time.

The next flavor will definitely be Mint Chocolate Chip.
List of flavors that I want to try are:
Chocolate Almond Amaretto
Cinnamon
Guinness
Vanilla (with real vanilla bean)
any other suggestions?

I’ll update either tonight or tomorrow morning. In the meantime KCCO

New Toy – Ice Cream Maker

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Yesterday we had to get some costume pieces for the girls’ upcoming play and the best place to do that is Goodwill. While the girls were looking for their costume clothing I tend to browse the housewares section.
Who knows I might get lucky and find a Chemex or Vacuum pot coffee maker. I did find a Donavier manual ice cream maker for $3. Now I’m planning on different flavors of ice cream to make. I’m planning on making chocolate ice cream for the first batch. My second batch I’m torn between making Mint chocolate chip or Cinnamon. I also plan on making Chocolate with peanut butter.
Here is the recipe I’m using for the first batch. I’ll be getting the ingredients later today when we head out for Nicki’s birthday.

Very Chocolate Ice Cream
3/4 cup sugar
1 cup milk
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoon unsweetened cocoa powder
3 egg yolk lightly beaten
2 ounces semi-sweet chocolate – chopped
2 cups heavy whipping cream
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

ice cream is in the maker now and I’m cranking it while I write this.
I’ll post tomorrow with the results.

Update!
I couldn’t wait until tomorrow to taste it. as I was transferring the ice cream into a container to put into the freezer I snuck a spoonful. WOW! VERY chocolatey.
I can’t wait until it’s ready after work tomorrow to have some.
I think the next flavor will be Cinnamon and Michele and I think that ice cream made from my chocolate covered cherry cordial would be good. Also a Chocolate Amaretto with almond is on the list too.

New Project – Funhouse Mirrors

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In the glassblowing studio we use a lot of mirrors. One night after one of our classes we got to talking about how it would be neat to have some funhouse type mirrors.
I decided to make a couple for the studio.
Here is the first couple of steps completed. Using 1×4 “propeller” boards for the frame. As Scott said the boards looked more like propeller blanks than boards. For the mirror I’m using some flexible acrylic mirror from work.
Step 1 – Deciding what style of mirror to make. I decided to make one that will show your reflection short and fat and then the other on where the top of the reflection is stretched and the bottom is squashed.
Started with making the mirror paths in Autocad and sent them to my friend Scott to cut them on his homemade CNC router.

Here is a pic of the setup on the router, the boards were cut one at a time for accuracy (and mounting issues, but Scott is learning. In his defense the boards were pretty warped, thus the term “propeller boards”)
Router setup

Once the mounting issues were addressed the cutting began.
The cutting begins!!

Another view
First board almost complete.

Here is a shot of the four finished boards. there are two different profiles with the profile mirrored to make a matching set.
The completed boards

The next step is to assemble the frame, paint and then add the mirror.
The next post will cover the assembly of the frame and painting. Hopefully I may get some time to work on it this weekend since it’s supposed to be nice out.

UPDATE 4/22
It has been a while since I had a chance to work on these. Since the weather was really nice this morning I decided to finish them up. Part of the delay in making these was the fact I didn’t have big clamps to hold then together while I assembled them, having corrected that issue late last year I finally finished these.

Here are some pictures of the mirrors after they were finished. I didn’t have any paint so I’ll let Pete do that part.

Cookie the shop helper

The mirrors shown side by side

Glad to have another project finished and I will be delivering them today.