Hardware Aesthetic Shop Notes

Building a cut-down bike scooter, part 4

2011-05-10T07:46:00.000-04:00

The scooter frame was complete and had been brushed free of grime, finish, and weld slag. All it needed was a deck to stand on. I started by experimenting with a skateboard-style wooden deck, but it seemed visually wrong and probably too prone to wear and breakage.

I liked and so didn't remove the Iron Horse crest from the steering tube.

I decided that what I really wanted was freewheel sprockets on the deck. I played with positioning some and liked how they looked, and liked that they articulated the theme of a cut-down bicycle.

My client was justifiably concerned about the sharp and jagged teeth of the sprockets chewing up the rider's ankles, though, and I had to find a way around that. But I decided to commit to the gears and welded them in place.

After some thought, I decided to cut sections out of a wheel rim and weld them in place on either side of the deck to define its edges and protect the rider from the sprockets. If I had arrived at that plan before welding on the sprockets, I would have placed the largest gear in the centre, at the widest part of the deck. But sometimes I have to make a stand and resolve the remaining problems later to move forward.

With everything welded down, the scooter was complete. The deck was wide, comfortable, and stable.

This is the completed commission. I was very happy with it and rode it around the neighbourhood for a while before giving it up to my client.

Nice ride!

Building a cut-down bike scooter, part 3

2011-04-01T11:54:00.000-04:00

With the down tube wrapped around the front wheel and the top tube inverted and moved to the deck, the next step was to find a way to attach a rear wheel. I removed the front wheel from an abandoned child's bike, installed it in the rear dropouts, and positioned it to see how it would look.

I was pleased with the possibilities, and committed to it by cutting off the bottom bracket and what was left of the seat tube.

Positioned this way, it started to have a dragster sort of feel to it, which I liked. To get the chain stays level with the deck, I decided to bend them just at the edge of the wheel.

Again, I cut wedges out of the tubes so that they would bend easily and precisely. I had previously removed material from the dropouts so that I would be able to bend the seat stays down toward the deck, and you can see the missing sections here.

I placed the stays back into position for a final check before bending the stay assemblies closed.

I heated the dropouts where I wanted them to bend, to just shy of their melting point, and then gently closed the triangles.

With those assemblies completed, the whole frame was ready to weld together. The seat stays are inserted inside the top tube, and the chain stays spread outside it.

Here's the completed frame, with the tack welds completed and the rear triangles welded closed.

It was ridable in this state, and my hopes were realized -- it was way too much fun to ride. I did have to lock out the travel in the front shocks, though. Every time I gave a good kick the deck hit the ground. I drilled through the shocks and brazed in a section of bolt to keep them from compressing. The final steps were to brush the frame free of finish, complete the deck, and apply a few coats of wax to slow the rusting. At this stage, I still hadn't figured out how to make a deck to stand on.

Building a cut-down bike scooter, part 2

2011-03-09T10:35:00.000-05:00

I decided that the deck of the scooter would be built on the top tube of the bicycle. Flipped upside down, the seat tube could extend upward to meet the down tube, which had been wrapped around the front wheel but didn't come close enough to the ground to meet the deck.

So, I separated the seat stays from the top tube.

The seat post sleeve and gusset would drag on the ground, so I removed them also.

Then, with some trial-and-error fitting, I decided where to cut the seat tube and separated it from the stays. The photo below shows the two sections of the bike that remained.

To join the inverted seat tube stub to the now-plumb end of the down tube, I decided to run the seat post through the seat tube and up into the down tube. I brushed the finish off the seat tube and drilled holes to allow for rosette welds, which would help join the seat post and tubes.

With the seat tube installed (forcibly, with a mallet) it was ready to weld.

It was a fussy business getting the alignment right, so that the deck was level and the correct height off the ground. When I was satisfied with it, I tack-welded it all together.

The remaining challenge was to modify the stays to hold a smaller wheel from a child's bike and tack the whole thing together, which I'll show in the next post.

Building a cut-down bike scooter, part 1

2010-09-29T13:13:00.000-04:00

I had a very exciting commission this summer. My client had seen kids in Cuba riding kick scooters cut down from broken bicycles, and wanted one made. We didn't have any photos to work from, so I got to develop my own design.

This is what I ended up building. It is lots of fun to ride! The deck is made of sprocket gears and sections of wheel rim, and the rear dropouts hold a wheel from a kids' bike.

I watched for discarded mountain bikes with sturdy frames, and picked up a bike with partially rectangular tubes and front shocks, but no front wheel. I pulled a decent wheel from another bike and swapped in a set of cruiser handlebars.

I use a cutting disc in an angle grinder to cut bikes apart. To start, I separated the top tube from the head tube, and the down tube from the bottom bracket. That left the pieces seen above: the front shocks, head tube, and angled down tube, and the rest of the bike.

The plan was to wrap the down tube around the wheel so that it is ultimately plumb, straight up and down. I opted to cut out wedges and cold-bend the tubing before welding the bends shut again.

In the photo above, I've marked the wedge that I intend to remove with soapstone.

After cutting out the wedge, I was able to bend the remaining tube like a hinge, closing the wedge to a weldable line.

Here's a close-up.

I removed a similar wedge at the second bend in the down tube, so that the last segment will be plumb. Then I removed the finish in the area of the welds and tack-welded the bends closed.

The plumb section of down tube did not come nearly close enough to the ground to support the deck, so the next step was to find a way to extend it (and hold the rest of the scooter up).

Turning a bark-edged bangle

2010-09-23T07:17:00.000-04:00

I prepared a stack of bangle blanks a while ago. This time I chose the interesting bark-edged one on top.

It's always best, but I find that to avoid knocking bits of bark off as I turn, I have to keep the gouge very sharp and the cuts shallow. The bark itself dulls the gouge quickly, so there's more sharpening involved. But it's worth it.

Once the shape is developed and the exterior rough-sanded on the lathe, I remove the core with the same hole saw that I used to mark it initially.

After some careful sanding and a walnut oil finish, here's the bangle! It sold quickly.

Forging sturdy toggle clasps

2010-09-14T19:29:00.000-04:00

I've had trouble recently with storebought clasps breaking, especially on my bicycle chain bracelets. The standard lobster clasps are difficult to operate at best, but they are also too brittle and easily snapped. Toggle clasps (rod-and-loop) are easier to use but aren't any stronger. So I decided to try making my own.

I don't have an actual coal forge, and my anvil is tiny, but the torch is up to the heating job and I don't need much of an anvil table for this work. I get a finish nail up to workable temperature, just red-hot, and then hammer the centre section flat.

In the photo above you can see an unmolested finish nail at right. The rest have been heated, hammered, and quenched in a little tub of cold water.

After grinding and filing the ends smooth and dull, I drill out the centre to take a small lead of cord.

The loops of the toggle clasps are made of heavy wire. I use standard jeweler's wire-bending tools to create one large loop.

Then, a smaller tool to make a smaller loop in a figure 8. It takes some oomph to bend the heavy wire in a tight radius like this.

Then I use a hacksaw to cut the loops free of the wire bale. Side cutters or snips would deform the circles too much.

The free ends are on opposite sides of the loop.

For these, I heat them closer to the melting point. After red, the metal turns orange and then bright yellow, which is where I want it for forge-welding the free ends closed. When it's hot enough, I lay it on the anvil and hammer the overlaps into each other so that the whole loop lies flat.

This is what the finished clasp looks like on a choker. More fun than shopping for findings, much stronger than commercial clasps, and appropriately grungy and rough in appearance. And easy to close and remove.

Finishing a bicycle frame keyboard stand

2010-09-08T09:04:00.000-04:00

Having found that a single bicycle frame is readily cut down into one side of a support stand, I chose another frame and prepared it in a similar way.

It was a different size and of different geometry, so I took some time to ensure that the top supports were level.

Can't ask for better than that.

When the alignment was right, I clamped and welded the base.

The next step was to commit to the placement of the lower support tubes. I aligned the first so that it was both level itself and potentially level with its counterpart on the other frame. (There's a limited range of adjustment.)

Once I had tack-welded that support in place, I leveled across to the second frame and positioned its lower support to match. In the photo above, you can see that the lower support tube on the second frame hasn't been cut and is still crossing the angled vertical tube.

And here are both sides of the stand, welded and ready for cleanup.

To keep the left and right support frames from toppling over if I get excited, they are fixed to a plywood base. I marked and drilled through fir support blocks and inserted axles to hold what were formerly the rear dropouts of the bicycles. The frames just slide over the axles and then rotate up into position, firmly attached.

I positioned my pedals where I like them, and nailed thin strips of wood in place to hold them there. It's nice that they don't slide around now.

To clean up the look of the stand, I wire-brushed all of the old finish off the frames.

Down to bare metal, I like their look a lot more. I coated all of the metal parts with wax as a basic rust barrier, although I will have to keep that finish maintained as it is not very durable.

With a couple of coats of black stain on the plywood base, the stand is complete. Custom fit to me and my keyboards, interesting to look at, and more comfortable to play at.

I also like the fact that, other than the hunk of plywood I had lying around, the stand is made of abandoned and recycled parts.

Similar instrument and other stands and tables are available by custom order from my shop. If you're interested in knowing more, please contact me at david@hardwareaesthetic.com.

Welding a bicycle frame instrument stand

2010-09-01T10:31:00.000-04:00

I play keyboards in a Tom Petty tribute band called Full Moon Fever (fullmoonfever.ca). I don't like my commercial keyboard stand -- I play seated, and it has an X-shape that prevents my knees from fitting below my instruments.

I also have a lot of bicycle frames lying around, stripped of their parts for jewelry and sculpture. I thought I'd use the tubing to weld a custom keyboard stand.

The front forks fit into the seat tube, and if the forks become the base of the stand, then the down tube becomes the top support, and the height to it is just about right. Convenient!

I marked the down tube to be long enough to hold my organ, and cut the top tube long enough to support my piano and reach back to the seat tube to be welded in place.

The freed section of frame consists of the remainder of the down tube, the support section of top tube, and the head tube joining them. I flipped it over and checked the fit. So far so good.

To complete the base of the stand, I cut the rear stays and dropouts free of the rest of the frame, and moved them down to meet the front forks.

I marked the length and angle of the top tube and cut it to meet the seat tube.

The section of down tube still attached to the head tube slides nicely over the remaining section of top tube. So there's the basic shape: standing on the dropouts, with a long support for the lower keyboard and a shorter one for the top.

With the seat stays cut to meet the front forks and clamped in place, it stands up and looks about right.

I wire brushed all of the joints free of finish, then welded everything but the section that will hold the lower keyboard. I want to reserve the option to adjust its fit later when I make the other side of the stand from another bike frame.

I tried a test fit with the left half of my keyboards still supported by the commercial stand. It works!

In the next post, I'll describe making the left side support like this one, and then a base and custom pedal board to hold it all together.

Welding a custom bike chain ring

2010-06-27T10:46:00.000-04:00

I had an interesting custom order recently, for a bicycle chain ring in a custom size. As a set of closed links, there's only one ring size possible with standard chain, and it's very small -- about 5 3/4. To make a custom size, I'd have to weld the links closed.

I started by turning a sizing guide in a piece of 2x4, and then wrapped a length of chain around it to see where cuts would be needed.

There was an excess section of inner link that was preventing the ring from closing around the form. I removed that material on the grinder until the ring could close, and then rounded off the corners.

The next step was to remove part of the extra outer link, but leave a section in place to be welded. I cut it off with a hacksaw and checked the fit again.

That's about right. I reshaped the cut edge of the outer link on the grinder before welding.

Here is the custom ring, ready for welding.

With the link welded closed at the correct angle, the ring is ready to wear.

This one was too big for any of my fingers, but it made a good thumb ring.

These rings are available made to order in my shop, here: hardwareaesthetic.etsy.com

Prototyping a percussion instrument, continued

2010-06-24T13:16:00.000-04:00

With the top glued to the curved shell, I could try to tune the tongues. I started by relieving the hinge areas, which tends to lower the pitch and improve the tone at the expense of volume. I used a chisel to pare away material.

It went too easily, and I removed too much material from the hinge of several tongues. Wanting to raise their pitch, I also removed some material from the ends and edges. It worked to raise the pitch, but also made the pitch less specific and the tone more hollow. So there's a technique to avoid.

I continued to refine the sound as well as I could, and then cut a bottom from a handy piece of finish plywood, too thick to resonate well but enough for a proof of concept.

I glued the bottom to the assembly.

When the glue dried, I made a pass around the bottom with a flush-trimming router bit to bring it in line with the shell, and then played it a bit with superball mallets.

So how does it sound? Well, promising at best. I plan to make another at some point and correct these problems:

Tune and free the hinges cautiously, and avoid trimming the ends or edges of the tongues.
Make a shell that resonates. The kerfed sides of this one are effective sound-deadeners.
Use a thin, solid back that can resonate.

When I make those improvements, it will be easier to tell whether this is a dead end or a promising direction. I'm still interested to find out.

Prototyping a percussion instrument

2010-03-23T06:57:00.000-04:00

I had an idea a while ago. I remember seeing an instructional video in which Bill Bruford was playing a complex rolling pattern between his toms and a tongue drum placed on his snare. For clarity, a tongue drum (sometimes called a slit drum) usually looks something like this. You've seen them.

I thought it would be cool to make a circular tongue drum. I played with a number of configurations of rectangular tongues, but finally realized that the shape was calling for a radial arrangement of wedge-shaped tongues instead. Like this.

I have a lot of baltic birch plywood around from cabinet projects, and so I took a first pass at a prototype using one of those panels.

To cut the interior kerfs and allow the tongues to vibrate, I drilled through at the endpoints of the lines and threaded a scrollsaw blade through the hole.

Once the tongues were cut, I cut outside the diameter mark on the bandsaw to complete the rough top. My scrollsaw technique is very rusty, and those inside cuts aren't up to production quality. Better to make the mistakes on the prototype.

I thought I would try pulling a strip of the plywood around the radius by kerfing its backside every half inch.

To cut the regular kerf spacing quickly, I hacked a quick jig onto the tablesaw mitre gauge.

That's a fat roofing nail, nearly a full kerf thick, with its head cut off. Each cut kerf fits over the nail to position the next pass. Very quick, very accurate.

I used the waste from the top as a clamping form to glue the side closed in a rough circle. I had counted on the material curving evenly, but of course it did no such thing.

To try to bring it into round, I cut some spacers and arranged them inside. It helped, but not enough.

I glued the top to the side while it was still clamped to the form.

Finishing Bikes and Trees 3

2010-03-01T10:29:00.000-05:00

This is the workpiece in progress, and in pieces.

And this is a closeup of the problematic foot. The deep scoring is from the chuck jaws, which I had previously clamped down on the base in frustration. The bowl had held securely, yes. But.

I considered some options. I could try to turn a jam chuck, remount between centres, and carefully turn the base again. That would give me a good chance at a concentric and nicely flowing base, but given the missing half rim and likelihood of further splitting, the risk seemed too great.

I thought about evening out the distribution of the chuck marks around the diameter and making decorative features out of them, but really, all I wanted to see was the profile.

In the end, I hand-shaped the base with chisels and abrasives. The process was tedious, and the result is not concentric or even perfectly circular, but most of the charm of the profile was preserved.

Instead, I added a pedestal of bike parts. First, I disassembled a very rusty rear wheel from a ladies' cruiser with a coaster brake. I tried the hub as an extension of the profile, but it was too narrow much too soon. I wanted to see the profile flare out again.

So I cut three sections of the rim and affixed them around the hub, one end tucked under the flange and against the hub body, and the other splayed out as a foot. To get an idea of the look, I held them in place with elastic bands.

It looked good, but with three legs the profile depended on the orientation of the pedestal. I didn't like how it looked that way, and so I cut a fourth leg.

I also used the grinder to cut a recess so that the tops of the legs were outside the flange rim instead of inset. The profile of the bowl flowed into the pedestal better that way.

All welded up, I was very pleased with it. I added an 18-tooth freewheel sprocket at the top of the pedestal, which was just the right size to provide a nice finish for the pedestal top and overhang for shadows.

I cleaned the pedestal with a toothbrush and alcohol, then hand sanded the bowl to 400 grit and rubbed in a beeswax finish. I avoided oil because I didn't want to further yellow the sapwood or dull the vivid reds and oranges of the branch endgrain.

I love the contrast between the discoloured, rusty, and worn metal, the soft creamy yellow sapwood, and the explosion of reds and oranges. Sometimes persistence pays off.

Persistence in the face of turning disasters

2010-02-25T12:29:00.000-05:00

I resolved to finally finish my nemesis bowl, whether it liked it or not, and so I firmly grabbed it by the base. I planned to figure out a way to deal with the chuck marks later.

After truing the rim AGAIN, I took my time and peeled away the central column with facing cuts from the bowl gouge. It had been my attempt to take a shortcut by cutting through the column near its base that had caused my massive catch last time, so I just grit my teeth and did it the slow way.

A chunk of loose end grain came flying off while I trued the rim, and it left an interesting shape. As I hollowed, I lost another piece.

In this photo you can see how I tried to fair the trued rim back into the out-of-true bowl body. It came quite smooth with a little sanding. And you can also see that another chunk came tearing away. I do love my helmet.

That's about half the rim gone. I won't be reversing this to finish the foot! Turning half a bowl is interesting, as you can see right through the side of the bowl as it rotates. It's a new perspective on the tool.

I finished the hollowing and smoothing of the bottom of the bowl with a round scraper, and then resorted to hand sanding to remove the substantial waviness left in the remaining wood. I also used the 120 grit cloth abrasive as a shaping tool to refine the jagged edge left by the breaks.

Very interesting, and well balanced by accident. There's more hand sanding to do, but I want to solve the problem of the broken foot next.

Throwing bowls across the shop

2010-02-24T15:47:00.000-05:00

I had daydreamed about turning bowls from chunks of tree for years before I finally bought a lathe. I made myself learn the basics, of course. But the first time I caught a city maintenance crew felling a big tree in my neighbourhood, I scored a six-foot log. It was a dead or dying Manitoba maple with characteristic streaks of pink and red through the heartwood.

I chainsawed and split it into half rounds and set them aside to dry, but couldn't wait to turn some. I chose an odd crotch piece, wedge-shaped and massive. Any sane turner would have called it firewood, but I didn't know better and thought it would make a fine first green blank.

Look how nice and new that lathe is!

The chalk marks are where the wood was binding on the lathe bed. I just kept whacking chunks off until it would turn. When the blank was finally free, I switched on the lathe and immediately switched it off, as it was doing its best to walk across the shop from the eccentric weight distribution. (Ever wonder what's in a vibrator? A motor and an eccentric mass, not quite as shown.)

Apparently I got it roughed down somehow, and the blank sat on my shelf for seven years. I had already sawed out a wedge of splintered splits, and you can see the wax on the branch end grain.

I had tried finish turning it once already, and had more or less trued it up and begun flattening the rim when I had a catch that sent the bowl flying off the screw chuck and across the workshop. Enough time had passed that I was ready to try again.

I grabbed it by the foot, used the tailstock to adjust it to run as true as I could, and then turned a tenon for the chuck into the central column I had left while rough hollowing.

Reversed and grabbed by the tenon, I could true the figure on the new centre. After some sanding it started to look pretty good.

Time to cut a new foot. My chuck manual says that the minimum recess diameter for an inside grip is 2 3/8 inches, so I dutifully used that dimension. I was justifiably worried about the skimpiness of the foot, but foolishly ignored my misgivings.

In truth, it looks like the chuck will grab a much smaller inside diameter, maybe as little as 2 inches, and I will ignore the manual and use the smallest recess that works in future. But in this case, I went for it, had a catch in the hollowing, and sent the bowl flying across the shop again, with a chunk of the foot missing. My fault, of course. I set it aside until I am not angry with it again.

Finishing Bikes and Trees 2

2010-02-23T12:43:00.000-05:00

With the turning complete, I had to figure out how to get a clean, straight slice through the work on the bandsaw. First, I made a sacrificial V-sled the hard way by grabbing a nasty old cedar table leg out of the burn pile, jointing and squaring it, and then taking angled cuts out on the tablesaw. Completed, it cradled the turning securely and let me use the mitre gauge to set the cut angle.

I also took the time to carefully reset the blade tension and guides so that the blade stayed quite straight and did not wander. I was rewarded with a very clean cut. I can't see any blade tracks in the photo, and it sanded dead flat in just a few strokes. (To keep flats while sanding, I lay a full sheet of sandpaper on a flat table, lay the flat of the work on it, figure out how to hold the work to avoid any rocking, and then take straight light strokes back and forth. It usually works out very well.)

A quick test fit kept me excited about the project. I like this:

But the sphere was now clearly oval, as the kerf of the cut was much thinner than the sprocket. I measured the difference with calipers and marked the excess with a round marking gauge.

Doesn't that look precise and sophisticated? I think the Fine Woodworking magazine next step would be to construct a shooting jig for a low-angle bench plane and take sweet shavings of end grain off until the marked line was just kissed. But I'm not that good.

Instead, I clamped a belt sander upside down on the bench and did my best to sand down to the line more or less flat. More less, in fact, which led to a lot more hand-sanding to restore the flat. (So maybe the shooting jig is the right thing, really.) But it got there.

I carefully put the sprocket right where I wanted it, and then traced the inside onto the wood. I had started out with the idea of a loose tenon, and then dowels, but drilling into the top was looking like trouble. I decided to use brads as pins, which let me progressively refine the orientation of the gear by adding brads.

Once the sprocket was locked in place, I snipped the heads off the brads and carefully positioned the top. Once I was certain it was where it needed to be, I pressed down to mark the pin locations, and then drilled at the marks. With a tiny drill bit, I could just hold the top to prevent it tipping on its round.

The press fit was very firm, and so I completed the assembly without glue after finally hand-sanding the turning with the grain. With a rubbed coat of walnut oil, it turned out very nearly as I had hoped:

I don't think that this will be the last of this sort of thing, as my head is exploding with variations on this theme. It's fun to be inspired!

Turning Bikes and Trees 2

2010-02-22T11:15:00.000-05:00

Two of my lifetime passions are cycling and woodworking, bicycles and wood. I am inspired to look for interesting ways to integrate them. Here, for example, is a slightly rusty freewheel sprocket and a nice quarter section of black walnut.

My intention was to turn a sphere and bisect it with the sprocket.

The first thing to do is rough the wood down. I marked and punched the centreline I wanted at each end of the log, then bandsawed away a big chunk of waste and mounted the blank on the lathe. That's the roughing gouge sitting on the wood. It chips and peels the wood away very quickly, and doesn't rely on the work already running true for a good cut. You can just pass back and forth, sending chips flying. Eventually you will have a cylinder.

I wanted to start with a diameter similar to the gulleys of the sprocket's teeth, so I set a pair of calipers to that dimension. The parting tool is lying across the calipers, as I planned to use it to establish the diameter.

I laid out the sphere with three pencil rings, intending to leave the centre one and turn down to the outside marks. Partway there, I noticed a large split developing at the tailstock end. I stopped, flooded the crack with cyanoacrylate glue, and tightened a hose clamp around the end. (I removed the hose clamp before resuming turning! It's just posed on the lathe like this.)

I had time to think, and decided that I had better make myself a half-circle template if I was to have any hope of achieving a sphere. As it turns out, the diameter I'm eventually looking for is about 2.5 inches, and I have a hole saw in that size. I made a quick plywood template and used an orange pencil crayon to mark the highest spots.

Mark, turn away marks, mark, turn away marks... it didn't take long to get quite close to spherical. By this time my vision had changed and I wanted to leave the sphere on a simple footed post, and then set the sprocket at an angle.

I had used a square scraper to peel down the post, and now switched to using it instead of the gouge on the sphere as I crept up on the shape.

I sanded to 240 grit on the lathe and then parted the base off. I made a hash of the parting off, and the bottom of the base was indeed undercut but also badly scored. I mounted a sanding disc in a Jacob's chuck and cleaned up the base, doing penance for my turning error.

Now I had to figure out how to slice through the sphere in a straight line at the right angle. I didn't want to use the tablesaw, because I don't have a thin-kerf blade and don't want the sphere to become squashed. So I decided that meant a jig on the bandsaw and sanding to fit.

Welding a scrap steel cowbell

2010-02-19T06:35:00.000-05:00

Before I finished folding the cowbell closed, I took a hand file to the edge of the back that will be welded to the bottom. I wanted it to lie nice and flat. I also put a slight bevel on the corners so that they wouldn't bind during final bending.

I haven't found a way to effectively clamp the bend while closing the cowbell, so I laid the top of the cowbell flat on my jointer table and tried to push the bend over further with a length of angle. I persuaded the joint into position with clamps, then locked it down with a big welder's C clamp. (G cramp, UK. Wotcher!)

My welding is improving. The major mistakes I made this time were in positioning the work and retouching the weld. I laid the cowbell on its side with the weld up, and the heat caused the sheet steel to sag noticeably. It would probably be better to position the cowbell on its mouth so that the side is supported while welding. The excessive retouching didn't help because of the heat buildup.

However, I did get a complete, solid, gap-free weld all the way around on the first try this time, which pleased me. Strong first, pretty later, I guess.

The next step is to drill out the mounting bracket. I put a 3/8 twist drill in the drill press and laid the cowbell on its top face (which is coplanar with the top of the mounting bracket, unlike the bottom). I eyeballed centre, put a bead of cutting oil in place, and slowly went straight through the bottom and then the top of the bracket, ensuring perfect hole alignment. Then I swung the table out of the way, stood the cowbell on its mouth on some blocks, and drilled a similar hole in the back for the thumbscrew.

I used 5/16 18 TPI rod and nuts for this cowbell, but as long as your hardware is sturdy and all fits together it doesn't much matter. To receive the screw, I welded a flanged nut onto the inside of the back of the bracket. A short bolt and second nut keeps the flanged nut in place.

I managed to grab the camera in time to catch the glow. It fades fast in the Canadian winter!

Finally, I wire-brushed the cowbell on all sides to remove the enamel and welding grunge. I like the brushed finish.

My local hardware store doesn't have thumb screws, so I used threaded rod and a wing nut. I have noticed that the world looks different now that I think of metal as something I can modify like wood.

I welded the wing nut on to the end of the rod, trimmed the rod to length with a cutoff wheel, and beveled the end on the grinder.

As a bonus, it looks way cooler than bright plated hardware store stuff.

This cowbell lacks the two distinct notes of the first one, which was 6 inches long and made of 23 gauge steel. At 5 inches and 20 gauge, it has a single ringing note that is higher than the last one, but still pitched lower than my storebought cowbell. Here's audio:

Folding a scrap steel cowbell

2010-02-18T12:08:00.000-05:00

Someday I may feel justified in buying myself a sheet metal box bending brake so that I can do this right. In the meantime, I worked around the missing tool by making a brake jig for each bend with a couple of lengths of slotted angle. I clamped a length of angle along the bend line, front and back, and used the benchtop or another length of angle to push the steel over. The angle spreads the force and prevents the metal from folding, bending, or creasing anywhere other than intended.

I find that to get the fold right on the line, I need to place the outside angle edge right in the middle of the line, and the inside edge just under it. That is, the inside angle is set perhaps 1/32 inch below the outer one, to account for the thickness of the material and the radius of the bend.

The sequence of bends is also important. I folded the back over first, and then made the long folds, starting at the over flap and finishing with the under flap. It would be very difficult to fold the back last.

I had to persuade a couple of the long bends to square up a bit with an anvil and ball peen hammer.

The last bend can only go to about 45 degrees before it binds on the guide angles. That's OK, because I still need to brush off all of the enamel in the general area of the welds.

The mounting bracket will be folded over after the cowbell is welded closed.

Cutting a scrap steel cowbell

2010-02-17T12:15:00.000-05:00

I have been cutting sheet steel with the oxy-acetylene torch so far. It's fun and exciting, but I get very poor results. For this cowbell, I tried a cutting wheel in the angle grinder and used a length of slotted angle as a guide and fence.

The results were encouraging. I took a photo of each step in the process:

At this point I had gotten a bit zoned into the through cuts, and I needed to avoid messing up on the remaining stopped cuts, so I put a bit of red tape at the stop point.

That last little triangle of material between the back and mounting bracket can't be reached by the cutting disc. I clamped a length of slotted angle along both sides of the cut line, snapped a vise grip plier onto the waste, and wiggled it back and forth until metal fatigue set in and it separated near the line.

Nice and neat, minimal post-cutting cleanup required, and I've saved myself a lot of grinding with this refinement. I did flip the workpiece over and grind away all of the cutting burrs.

Then I wire-brushed the inside clean of all enamel and grunge, for weld preparation and finished appearance.

Ready to fold!

Laying out a cowbell, step by step

2010-02-16T11:01:00.001-05:00

In my last post on making a cowbell from the side panel of an abandoned dishwasher, I didn't provide details of how to lay out the pattern. For that one, I used trig to figure the angle of the large trapezoids, then used my tablesaw mitre gauge to set that angle, and a bevel gauge to transfer it. Ridiculous.

This cowbell will be similar to the last, but where it was 6 inches long, this one will be 5 inches. The other dimensions will be the same: 3 x 1 1/2 at the mouth, and 2 x 1 at the back. The finished pattern looks like this:

I labeled the top, bottom, and over and under flaps of the welded side. The unlabeled side in the centre is where the layout starts.

I found this article, which suggests using a cardboard pattern. And once I started thinking about that, I agreed that the whole thing can be drawn more easily, accurately, and repeatedly without any trig or angle transfers. I used an empty cereal box for my patterns.

To draw the large trapezoid, I first marked the endpoints of a line that is 5 inches long. I labeled them as C and C'.

That line is the centreline of the trapezoid. The mouth is 3 inches wide, so I marked dots at 1.5 inches either side of C, square to the centreline. It's two inches at the back, so I marked 1 inch on each side, and then drew the lines.

I plan to make more of these in different sizes, so I made patterns for 5, 6, and 7 inch cowbells with the same mouth dimensions. (Of course I'll experiment with the mouth dimensions at some point too.)

I didn't make a simple rectangle pattern for the back and mounting bracket, but I should have and will next time. In this case, it would be 1 inch by 2 inches.

To draw the cowbell pattern on some scrap sheet steel, I inset the small trapezoid cutout from the edge of the panel and marked its four corners.

Then I aligned the left edge of the large trapezoid with the dots at the right edge and marked its other two points. This will be the bottom of the cowbell.

I used the small trapezoid aligned with those marks to mark the under flap.

The top and over flap were laid out in the same way on the left side of the pattern.

I dotted the fold lines and stroked the cut lines. As usual, I stroked where I should have dotted and hashed the line to compensate.

Add a rectangle to the bottom, which will fold to become the back, and three to the top for the mounting bracket. Like this:

I want to try cutting this one out with a cutting wheel in the angle grinder. I've marked my intended cuts in the photo below. I'll post later about how it turned out!

Rescuing a rough turning mistake

2010-02-15T05:41:00.000-05:00

After I got a lathe, whenever I heard the city tree maintenance people fire up their chainsaws I wandered over to find out what they were trimming. I usually ended up with a hunk or two of timber worth keeping. I got into the habit of setting up bowl blanks by halving and waxing the end grain of rounds of green wood, and I now have a shelf full of the stuff. Once in a while, I grab one, bandsaw or chainsaw it more or less round, and rough turn it. The idea is that since the wood is going to move when you hollow it, you go ahead and let it, leaving enough material that you can then turn it round again later.

This maple blank was rough turned in Jun 2004, according to the pencil scrawl.

Sometimes, though, I get carried away with the hollowing and don't leave myself anything to hold onto to rechuck the bowl. I gripped the foot in the chuck, trued the edge, and then cut a recess for the chuck jaws. But when I tried to turn it around so I could shape the outside and foot, I found that the jaws could not reach the recess.

I left it sitting like that for a week or so, until it stopped annoying me. Then I realized that if I glued it to a panel, I could just thread it onto a screw. So I roughed out a panel of leftover nasty plywood and mounted it on the lathe.

A good generous bead of glue on the bowl rim...

...and clamped with the tailstock.

It worked perfectly! I was able to complete the bowl and just turn the plywood away when it was no longer needed. I'm sure I've got other blanks with this problem, so I'm glad I figured it out.

This bowl became my Dad's Christmas present, as may be obvious from the photo. That's a bicycle chainring trapped in the wood, and the maple was coloured with many stain coats of old coffee.

Preparing blanks for bangles

2010-02-13T06:31:00.000-05:00

My bangle stock was running low, so I rummaged through the burn pile for some offcuts and leftovers. I came up with a half round of black walnut, some 8/4 maple and cherry, and some boards of maple and poplar. (In the photo: top and left, black walnut with bark; upper left and lower right, maple; the small red chunk is cherry, and the long board under the cherry, maple, and walnut is poplar.)

I've posted previously about how I make these. To make it easy to remove the bore with a hole saw after turning, I establish the groove from both sides. The centre hole will be reamed out to 3/8" for the lathe screw chuck, and trying to use a hole saw with an oversize guide hole is dangerous and disastrous for workpieces. The groove ensures that the saw doesn't wander later.

After the bores are established, I cut the blanks free with a larger hole saw. Sometimes I cut flats on the tablesaw instead, for polygonal or faceted bangles.

Once a blank is screwed onto the lathe, I use a bowl gouge to true and shape the bangle. I turn one side of the bracelet, then turn the blank around and shape the other side before sanding to remove the gouge marks. The hole saw leaves a coarse finish on the inside of the bore, so I use a sanding drum to smooth and polish it before final hand-sanding and finishing.

Walnut rarely disappoints with its figure, but often it's the offcuts and reject pieces that show the most dramatic grain. Voids, bark inclusions, splits and knots all look great finished but are usually avoided for most work. I really like redeeming these unwanted scraps.

Making a cowbell from scrap steel

2010-01-23T13:45:00.001-05:00

In a previous post, I wrote about disassembling an old dishwasher for parts. I've been cutting cowbells out of one of the steel side panels, and on my third attempt, I made a pretty good one. Here's how.

I tried a couple of patterns, some in multiple pieces, but wasn't happy with the results. I wanted a single seam down one side of the bell, and I wanted the mounting bracket to be integral. This is the layout I developed for this cowbell.

The tricky part is getting the angles of the trapezoids right correct. I'll post later about my approach, which worked well and was minimally annoying.

The dots are folds, and the solid lines are cuts. The solid lines with hashes are where I forgot and marked a fold as a cut. It's important to be clear, because with the welder's shield on and the torch throwing sparks, it's easy to get confused.

The length of slotted angle is supposed to be a guide for the straight cut along the side. I abandoned it immediately, as it was not helping me.

Any decent shop teacher would give me a D for those "straight" edges, but it was cut.

The next step was to grind the edges that will be welded nice and straight and flat, and brush all the old grotty appliance enamel off the inside.

Getting straight bends without a bending brake has been a challenge. What has worked least poorly so far has been to clamp firmly the fixed portion of the workpiece between two lengths of angle to keep it rigid, and then use a third length to force the bend. A box bending brake would work much better.

I clamped it closed and welded it up. Here's how it came out.

Looks nasty before cleanup! Grinding welds flush on sheet steel this thin is risky, so I didn't dare take them down completely. But it did end up looking quite presentable.

And in fairness, here's the ugly side.

Here it is mounted on my drum kit.

It sounds different from other cowbells I've played. The steel is 23 gauge, much thinner than usual, and I've opted for longer and narrow as a result. But it has a very clear distinction between low and high notes, and a nice ringing low tone.

Toaster sculpture!

2009-12-08T16:59:00.000-05:00

Our toaster broke. Everyone was very sad. Except me.

Nothing personal, Oster T. Toaster, but I've got an oxyacetylene torch with your name on it. I set myself the challenge of making something interesting.

I misled Oster about his name, by the way. But I do like what it does say.

So, after discarding the non-recyclable plastic and saving the wiring and electronics for other purposes, here's what's available.

When there are obvious faces, it seems foolish to ignore them.

First time with the cutting attachment. It is, apparently, wildly oversized for the thin steel I am trying to cut. The preheating flame burned through immediately without oxygen, so I just melted the face away instead. Not the intended result, but an interesting one.

And the direction is set.

Hmm. No.

Yes. OK, time to find the rest of the body parts. Hmm...

And there it is! Time to switch the torch to the welding tip and braze this guy together.

I'm going to need a bigger quenching bucket.

This seemed like the point where adding things would make it worse and not better. So it's done!

There are more and better photos of the cleaned up sculpture in my shop.

Reusing packaging cardboard for shipping boxes

2009-12-07T16:46:00.000-05:00

I'm embarrassed to say that it's taken me this long to figure out that the greenest source of shipping boxes for my handmade jewelry is to make them myself of cardboard that I would otherwise recycle. The cardboard used in cereal boxes and similar seems about right.

I opened the box along its seams and cut out an appropriate chunk, then laid out a simple box plan on the inside. The bicycle chain earrings that the box will contain are shown.

I used scissors to cut out the shape and separate the glue flaps, and then scored the fold lines lightly with a utility knife.

After folding all of the scored lines to about 90 degrees, it's ready to glue.

One drop of cyanoacrylate glue on each tab, and just a moment's pressing of each joint, and it's a box. Very quick, very easy, strong, custom, and extra enviro credit.

To ship these steel filings earrings, which have rare earth magnets at their cores, I needed to keep them separated so they didn't grind together throughout shipping. So I just glued up a little insert, into which I put a small bag of filings to renew the earrings on arrival or as needed.

Tool setup for small-batch bead making

2009-11-28T11:52:00.000-05:00

I've been making softwood beads out of a weathered old trellis from our garden.

For the last two batches in this style, I kept the sectional dimensions of the sticks and just sliced beads off. For this batch, though, I wanted to make beads that are small enough for simple bracelets. So I milled them down to 1/2 inch square on the tablesaw first.

Slicing beads from the battens is tedious at best, so I set up my benchtop bandsaw with an angled stop and catch bucket to make things easier.

The stop isn't acting as a fence, and the wood is not in contact with it when it enters the blade. But it makes it easy to quickly eyeball each slice, corrals the pieces, and helps direct them toward the parts bucket clamped to the back of the table.

Here's a quick video of the setup in action.

It saves a lot of time to catch the beads.

I set the tablesaw fence to 1 inch and took a corner out of a scrap of plywood to make a quick drill press jig. My first setup had the dust collection chute pointed into the corner, and it whisked the first bead away the moment I released it. It gets all the dust and none of the beads where you see it.

The sliced and bored beads, ready for dyeing and abrading.

New in shop: 7 link bicycle chain bracelet

2009-11-26T21:24:00.000-05:00

Today, I listed a bracelet that completes a set of bicycle jewelry of a particular style. Many of my pieces use the bike chain intact, like this series:

But I also have some earrings that use gunmetal jump rings to join partial links for a much lighter effect:

So I made a bracelet in the same style. Like the earrings, it is lighter in both weight and effect.

Now available in my shop.

Setting up and firing a new oxy-acetylene torch kit

2009-11-24T00:30:00.002-05:00

Metalwork in general and welding in particular have become more and more interesting to me. I'm excited about the possibilities of integrating torchwork with my woodworking. After studying books and videos, I felt brave enough to purchase an oxy-acetylene torch kit and try it out. I recorded a rather long video about it, embedded here. First flames at four-oh-four.

I'd like to acknowledge the helpfulness and respect I was shown at the welding supply store I chose. I'm used to having to wade through some condescension when I don't really know what I'm doing, but I got all of my questions answered and was sold what still seems like just the right stuff and no more. Show some love to Praxair at 400 and Finch in Toronto.

From burn pile offcut to pretty bangle

2009-11-20T08:48:00.000-05:00

I pulled this offcut of roughsawn maple out of the burn pile the other night.

It's about an inch thick, and big enough for a bangle.

So far, the most efficient way I've found to do this is to drill through the centre with a 1/4 inch bit, then drill partly through from each side with a hole saw sized for the bore. In this case, I used a 2.25 inch hole saw. The goal is to clearly establish the groove as a guide from both sides without going too deep and weakening the workpiece.

Then, I cut the blank free with a larger hole saw, 3 inches for this bangle.

The screw chuck I use with my lathe needs an 11/16 clearance hole, so I enlarged the central hole with twist drills and mounted it on the lathe. (A screw chuck lets you just thread the piece onto the drive screw, which is very convenient for bowl and other face work.)

I used a bowl gouge to true the blank, and then roll over the edges. The curve on the bangle is idiomatic to the gouge -- it wants to make that shape.

After a bit of sanding on the lathe, I unscrewed the bangle from the chuck and finished boring it out with the smaller hole saw.

The hole saw leaves a rough finish, so I mounted a rubber spindle sanding attachment to my drill press and worked through a few grits to clean it up, and then hand-sanded the whole bangle.

Finally, it got a rubbed coat of walnut oil and a light rubbed beeswax finish. Here it is, available in my shop:

Stripping down an abandoned television

2009-11-18T15:56:00.000-05:00

I also got Dan's help to take apart the abandoned TV that I found on Sunday. He is getting very good at this sort of thing.

Safety nuts, be advised that I shorted out the flyback and capacitors before Dan resumed poking around inside.

I had promised him that he could smash the case if he wanted.

Dan and Uncle Michael figured that this was where the case should go. But it may become a craft project some rainy weekend. Eve was envisioning a backlit opaque acrylic screen -- she has a source of translucent acrylics with really nice texture patterns. We'll see what hapens.

I don't know if I have any use for the picture tube. Anyone know any good tricks it can do?

These are all of the things that Dan felt were worth keeping. A closer look:

The plastic plate and dial are interesting. 2 FED B 13?

I am excited about the flyback transformer. I'll desolder it and read up on ways to drive it. More high voltage hijinks to come!

The television was assembled in 1982, but it looks like this vintage printed circuit board was designed in 1978. It is very interesting looking. More fun views:

Tooling up for metalworking

2009-11-17T15:16:00.000-05:00

I'm excited by the possibilities in adding metalworking to my bag of tricks. In addition to an oxy-acetylene torch, I indulged myself in a grinder and some wheels. Here's a photo tour of what I've assembled so far.

My brazing station. I've built up two layers of fire brick over an air gap to make metalwork on a wooden bench a not completely unreasonable proposition.

On the fire bricks: welder's goggles, striker, flux-coated brazing rod. On the bench, scrap slotted angle for supporting workpieces, a plumber's flame guard for use as necessary, more brazing rod. Not shown: leather gloves, shop apron, forced ventilation.

Clamping and holding tools. If it moves when you push it, it will move when the torch pushes it.

Fire extinguisher, solvent, bucket and gloves for cleaning parts.

Wire brushes, files.

Grinder, wire brush wheels, coarse and medium flap wheels, grinding and cutting wheels.

And it's shop night tonight! I hope to make a few interesting things.

Stripping down an abandoned dishwasher

2009-11-16T10:16:00.000-05:00

I picked up an old dishwasher yesterday morning, and Daniel and I spent the afternoon stripping it down for parts.

Daniel had the top pulled off with manual screwdrivers before I even got out to help and get him the cordless driver.

So we've got nice casters, a strong steel frame, and a big motor.

Dan goes after the motor and frame assembly screws.

Taking inventory. We've got maybe 50 square feet of enameled sheet steel plus a bunch of structural and decorative steel angle, no end of rubber hose, a pair of motors (one big and fast, one small and very slow), and a bucket of parts. Score!

What's in the bucket?

I am sketching dishwasher creatures now.

Errands are taking longer these days

2009-11-15T11:44:00.000-05:00

Eve asked me to pick up some bagels this morning. But right there was an old CRT TV with a flyback transformer and lots of interesting goodies in it. So I picked it up.

And then just around the corner there was a dishwasher with a lovely butcher block top, yellow steel panels, and at least one big motor.

And then two blocks later:

At least I remembered the bagels!

When 6000 volts is not enough

2009-11-14T12:09:00.000-05:00

Whenever I'm on Queen Street I stop at Active Surplus looking for inspiration. Most recently, I noticed a box of salvaged 6kV sign transformers, probably because of my recent high voltage shenanigans. I bought one.

I have some slotted angle left over from building utility shelves, so I bolted two pieces together in an inverted T and clamped the rail to my workbench. I had to drill out the mounting bracket on the transformer to take a larger bolt.

I had a large red button sitting around that seemed perfect for this, so I wired it into the circuit and used it to test fixed spark gaps. For the demonstrations in the video below, I removed the button for safety since I would be holding the live lead. The principal rule of high-voltage safety is to avoid becoming a path to ground, so I was wearing shoes with thick rubber soles and leather gloves. The housing of the pushbutton was in contact with the grounded rails, so if I had held the high-voltage electrode in my right hand and pushed the button with my left, I could end up with significant current across my chest. So, one hand in pocket...

All electrical connections were insulated with heatshrink tubing. The high-voltage output had a ceramic insulated housing, and I did not have the right connector. I did have an old test lead with high-voltage insulation and a banana plug, to which I kept adding insulation until it stopped arcing. I finally had to put a rubber O-ring around it.

And here is a short video of me playing with it.

Finishing ebonized beads

2009-11-10T13:53:00.000-05:00

In earlier blog posts I wrote about cutting and boring beads from an old weathered cedar trellis. This batch was abraded and dyed in a rock tumbler, which emphasized the grain texture and ebonized the beads.

Like the chisel cut coffee dyed beads, I oiled these by putting them all in a lidded contained, drizzling a little walnut oil over them, and tossing them thoroughly.

To avoid gummy blobs of oil or a blotchy, uneven finish, I hand-polished each bead with a lint-free cloth and set them out to dry for another day.

These beads are too large for a bracelet, but they do make a lovely choker.

Finishing chisel-cut beads

2009-11-08T18:39:00.000-05:00

In previous posts I described chisel-cutting, refining, and dyeing and tumbling some maple beads. I wanted them softened, not round, so I took them out of the tumbler after a day or so and rinsed them thoroughly.

Definitely moving in the right direction. They needed to dry for another day or two next, so I set them aside.

Once dry, the beads were ready for a coat of walnut oil. (I like to use non-toxic, renewable, washable oil or wax finishes.) I actually put them in a small container, drizzled some oil over them, and tossed them like a salad. But I did find it necessary to hand-polish each bead with a lint-free cloth to remove any excess oil before setting them aside to dry yet again.

I'm really pleased with the simple bracelet that I strung to show off these beads. There is so much variation in shape and colour within the simple form.

That's certainly a technique I'd try again. I think that next time, I'll take more trouble at the bandsaw to separate the beads cleanly, and maybe even scorch them a bit before tumbling to further complicate matters.

DANGER HIGH VOLTAGE

2009-11-07T12:20:00.000-05:00

As I was carting an abandoned bicycle up the street, I spotted a discarded flatbed scanner. Since Eve was on her way to pick me up, I grabbed it too. The other day I opened it up and poked around. The platen will be kept. What else?

I set the stepper motor and 7 inch circuit board aside as a potentially useful items. But what's that above them?

In my excitement I blurred the photo, but it reads DANGER HIGH VOLTAGE. No wonder it caught my attention. How high voltage?

200 volts AC. Huh, not bad. Should strike an arc, I think. Hmm...

A couple chunks of copper wire and it's a small Jacob's Ladder.

Success with boil-bending at last

2009-11-06T12:14:00.000-05:00

On my third and fourth tries bending maple strips by boiling them in coffee, I was able to get it to work reasonably well. None of the bracelets are going to end up as I originally envisioned, but that's usually the way.

Here's the third batch in the pot with the beads.

And bent around the form.

If I do this again, I need to take the time to build up a ramp so that the strip is fully supported at the spot where it first crosses itself as it wraps around. Both of these pieces have damage at those spots that I'll have to cut away.

On my fourth attempt, I used a thin, long strip, and tried to push it into the pot like spaghetti.

I captured a video of the strip coming steaming out of the pot, and of the bending and clamping process.

And here are the future bracelets.

More ways to break a workpiece

2009-11-05T10:47:00.000-05:00

After I snapped the batten that I was trying to boil-bend into a bracelet, I had some thoughts about how to avoid that outcome. I tooled up and tried again.

It's a bit hard to see in the photo, but I've taken a red pencil crayon and pointed out weaknesses in the grain of the board. I cut away the split at the left edge and tried to take a few slices of clear grained wood.

I figure by having a range of batten thicknesses available I can experiment to find out what works. The next thing I wanted was a clamping form. I can make one if I can't find one, but...

A standard 1 1/2 inch ABS pipe coupling has almost the right outside diameter. And room for spring clamps.

Once more into the pot, along with the cleaned-up chisel cut beads from a previous post.

After 15 minutes of boiling, I removed one of the battens, drained it on paper towel for just a moment. and then started gently molding it to the form. It was pliable, and was almost entirely clamped when it snapped along the grain. Ah, I thought to myself, right. The grain has an inside and an outside for this purpose.

So I examined the next batten more carefully, figured out which way kept the grain supported, and carefully bent it around the form. It tore right across the grain.

So, apparently in the absence of more refined technique, I'm going to need to try thinner battens. But it's getting closer...

And sometimes they break

2009-11-04T14:41:00.000-05:00

When I cut a 1/2 x 1/2 inch batten for chisel-cut beads, I ended up with a long sliver that was 1/2 x 1/8 inch in section. It was springy and light and seemed to want to be a bracelet. I pictured it bent around a form and bolted closed, with just enough springback to make it easy to get on and off.

I drilled holes for a pair of Chicago bolts, cut and shaped the edges, and sanded the batten to 120 grit, knowing I'd have to finish-sand after the grain was raised by the bending process.

I don't have a steam-bending setup, but this piece is small enough to boil in a largish kitchen pot. I liked how the maple beads looked with a coffee dye, so I figured I'd boil the workpiece in coffee until it was softened.

I had prepared the dye earlier that morning.

Softening up the thin batten only took a few minutes, but I boiled it for almost 15 minutes in the hope of deepening the colour.

When it seemed like time, I removed the wood with soft tongs, drained it quickly on a paper towel, and began carefully bending it around a form. It bent easily, but showed weaknesses at spots where the bend would sharpen. And when I closed the bolts and tried to straighten out the curve on the form...

Notes for next time: cut a choice of battens and flex to test for weakness, inspect for sharp changes in grain direction. Don't drill before bending. Leave long, trim and drill (carefully!) afterwards.

Tumbled beads and hardware: the reveal!

2009-11-03T10:27:00.000-05:00

In earlier posts, I wrote about cutting wooden and metal beads, and about making bamboo ring blanks. All of those items went into the rock tumbler along with some water, grit and metal filings, ebony aniline dye, and kosher salt. After three or four days, this is what they look like.

Mmm, beads! Finished and strung on cord, those will be stunning. The abrasives have selectively worn away the early wood from each annual layer, leaving the familiar ridged texture of worn and weathered softwood. And tiny salt crystals have gotten lodged in the wood, which adds just a hint of glitter.

Battered and antiqued barrel clasps and lobster clasps for necklaces and bracelets.

Next time, I'll take more care to grind off the burrs and flashing from the cutting process. I'll have to do it later, and maybe feature the contrast between the freshly-ground and weathered sections. If you can't fix it, feature it...

Much better, don't you agree?

And these old lockset slices are way too cool. I'll have to find a good use for them.

The bamboo rings are also interesting:

I didn't sand the bores out before tumbling, and they didn't get smoothed, so I'll have to do that later, too. The open pores of the end grain probably soaked up dye deeper than the long fibers, so the ring might show a gradient inside. We'll see!

Cutting bamboo ring blanks

2009-11-02T07:40:00.001-05:00

I made a bamboo ring from a bamboo plywood sample not long ago, and was pleased enough with the results to want to try a few other approaches to the material. So I cut some blanks to experiment with.

The bamboo is from bamboohardwoods.com, and we have cabinets made of their sheet bamboo plywood. Strong, attractive, sustainable stuff.

Immediately after cutting these blanks I remembered that boring out the central holes is challenging enough without cutting away all of the clamping surface of the workpieces. Oops. I used a large crescent wrench and some battens to hold the blanks during boring, but still had trouble keeping them quite centred.

The 7/8" blanks are bored at 5/8", and the 1" blanks at 3/4". The big ones will be mens' thumb rings, but the smaller ones can be reamed out to typical ring sizes. Wikipedia has a good ring size chart: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_size.

I happened to have a chunk of 5/8" dowel lying around, so I wrapped it in coarse sandpaper, stuck a blank on it, mounted it between centres, and trying turning the blank.

The cross-laminated bamboo turned poorly, with lots of tearout, so I finished with a scraper to clean it up before lightly sanding. The result is attractive, if a bit muted:

Making wooden beads

2009-11-01T09:46:00.000-05:00

When I have time in the shop, I often like to choose a piece of material and then try to find something to do with it. It's an application of the idea that we are more creative when we are forced to find solutions to constraints, problems, or limitations than when we face a blank canvas.

When we bought our house years ago, there was a rotting old cedar trellis nailed to the wall of the garage. It finally fell over, and I threw it on the burn pile. One day, I chose it and made some beads from the weathered battens. Eve will not let me sell the choker that resulted.

So I made some more.

The old trellis batten is laying across the table of the benchtop 8" bandsaw. (I really like this little bandsaw and use it for everything it can handle.) The slotted angle isn't a fence, but a stop and corral of sorts. At the blade, it sets a 1/2" cut, but angles away behind the blade so that the work doesn't bind. It also helps to catch the beads as they are cut free.

I bored out each bead on the drill press, and then threw them all in the rock tumbler along with the cut metal hardware, abrasive grit, kosher salt, and black aniline dye. I'll post photos of the beads when they're ready.

I also got to try an idea that I had been toying with. Years ago, my father and I worked with a portable bandsaw mill operator to saw boards from some diseased maple and cherry trees that he had to fell on his property in Niagara. After years of air-drying, the boards yielded a series of very successful shallow bowls. I grabbed an offcut of maple and cut a 1/2" square batten from it, clamped it to the bench, and used a 1/2" chisel to mark off beads. Then I cut facets with the chisel.

I had tried coffee as a dye before, and thought that the very blonde maple might take the colour well. There's always a little left in the pot.

I tried them as a bracelet. Eve likes them.

But even in this photo you can see how fuzzy they are. The coffee bath raised the grain, and the bandsaw cuts aren't right in the grooves in some cases, which left ridges. Any technique that requires individually hand-sanding beads is not one that I'll be trying again, so I think I'll clean up the ridges, cut a few more, and use the rock tumbler (with coffee and grit, not black dye) to smooth them a bit.

Cutting shopmade metal beads

2009-10-31T09:33:00.000-04:00

I collect interesting pieces of hardware for jewelry purposes, and many of the best would make great beads if only they were shorter. Objects longer than about 1/2 inch get in the way of a bracelet or necklace developing a nice curve and can be uncomfortable to wear.

So I gathered a bunch of those pieces and made them shorter with an abrasive cut-off wheel mounted in the compound mitre saw.

The face shield and gloves are not optional -- some of the chunks I’m cutting are brass or aluminum, but some are steel, which throws very hot particles of red-hot metal. I had tiny red burns all over my left hand the first time I tried this. And possible disasters include red-hot and freshly sharpened workpieces fired as projectiles or the cut-off wheel exploding. It’s all very exciting, and I risked Eve’s camera to bring you the action shot at the top.

The 1/4 inch baltic birch plywood is a sacrificial fence to support the workpieces and prevent them getting lodged or lost inside the saw’s table. It would have been better to afix the fences to the table and score them with a wood blade, but I was too lazy to change blades twice, and I like the smell of burning wood.

Now there's a pile of interesting objects. I ripped off the biggest burrs with pliers, and then dumped the whole pile in a rock tumbler along with some water, abrasive grit and all of the grinding filings, aniline dye powder, kosher salt, and some rectangular wooden beads that I'll describe in a later post. I like the antiqued finish that results, and the hardware helps with beating up the wooden beads.

Stripping down an abandoned bike

2009-10-31T09:06:00.000-04:00

(Originally posted on October 30, 2009)

When I left the post office after shipping a pair of bicycle derailleur gear earrings last week, I walked into an abandoned bike containing the parts to replace them. I spent the evening in the shop taking a first pass at the parts that interest me most. (I’ll try to find ways to use as much of the bike as possible later.)

The bike was a pretty pink Sport Racer with a floral saddle. I treated her gently, like a lady.

I was after the navy blue plastic gears from the rear derailleur, the caged ball bearings in the head tube, and the chain. Except for a little trouble loosening the handlebar gooseneck, the bike gave them up readily.

After a soak and a thorough scrubbing in artists’ odorless mineral spirits (much nicer than hardware store solvent), the bearings and gears are ready to wear. The chain still has a light layer of rust that I’ll need to brush off.

Earrings-in-waiting!

Chunky cherry hexagon bangle

2009-10-31T08:44:00.000-04:00

(Originally posted on October 29, 2009)

This bangle started as an offcut from a cherry bowl that I turned years ago. The bowl was successful, and the offcut had such interesting figure that it survived all of the culls.

I picked it up a while ago and saw that there was enough wood left in the corner to get a bangle, but I wasn’t sure how to approach it. There weren’t any interesting wane edges to include, and a square wouldn’t fit, and I wasn’t in a circular mood. So I tried a few polygons and found that anything higher than a pentagon was fine. I grabbed a hex nut from a parts drawer, laid it on the work, and eyeballed out a scaled-up shape.

I had recently tried turning a bangle and hadn’t been happy with having to finish the hollowing by hand, so I drilled out a centre guide hole and bored out the bangle with a hole saw. Then I cut outside my hexagon lines on the bandsaw, and contemplated the work. It was horrible. The wobbly cutlines and bandsaw tracks were not charming, but ugly.

It was then that I began to wish I had flattened and parallel-planed the faces, because there was a quarter-inch difference in thickness from one side of the bangle to the other. I turned to the tablesaw, cranked up the sawblade for the thick workpiece, and crept up on straight sides that were roughly perpendicular to an imaginary average of the faces. Very carefully.

With the shape looking more hexagonal, I flattened the faces on a sander and re-examined the workpiece. The attractive knot and internal split had opened right up to one face, and I could pull the two sides of the split apart like a mouth. Not good now that I was so invested.

I wish I could remember which woodturner to credit for the technique, but I’ve read that cyanoacrylate glues will stabilize and fill through cracks in turnings. I decided to try it, and after packing the cracks with fine red sanding dust, I flooded them with thin adhesive.

After the glue cured, I scraped it off, then sanded to 220 grit and finished with a few rubbed coats of walnut oil. Not the shortest route to the finished piece, but then I didn’t know that’s where I was going.

Set of five small rings

2009-10-31T08:18:00.000-04:00

(Originally posted on October 28, 2009)

These were also inspired by discarded designer samples -- in this case, of Abet Laminati Tefor recycled thermoplastic, which looks something like this: http://bit.ly/3mCul2.

...except that these samples had 1/4 inch holes punched in each corner so that they could be strung on a chain. I measured 7/8 inch in from each face and marked out four square blanks with one rounded corner. I stacked the samples and duct-taped around their edges, then gang-cut them on the bandsaw. (Duct tape was my choice here for the fabric backing, which stretched to apply light pressure to hold the stack aligned. But I also like the cred.)

I then marked centre and drilled a 1/4 inch hole in each blank, stacked them all up on a 1/4 x 20 bolt, and added a pair of counter-tightened nuts. This provided a shaft that I could mount in a Jacobs chuck on the lathe. Turning the rings round was more fun than you’d think -- long, thin spirals of coloured plastic off a shallow-fluted detail gouge. I lightly sanded the rings on the lathe, and then removed them from the bolt.I shattered a couple of workpieces trying to find a way to open up the central holes. I expected to be able to enlarge them using a succession of twist drills, but no matter the speed or feed rate, I couldn’t make it work. And with only about 1/8 inch thickness outside the intended 5/8 inch bore, I couldn’t see how to clamp the rings to attempt a hole saw.When all else fails, try abrasives, and a conical grinding point in the drill press worked, if not well, then eventually. I was able to hold the rings by hand while reaming them out. By inspecting the progress frequently and selectively applying light pressure, I kept the bore roughly centered.

I then mounted a 1/2 inch sanding drum with a medium-fine grit (probably about 220), cleaned up the bores, and cut a slight bevel at the inside edges for comfort. The outside edges were no longer quite concentric in some cases, so those were reshaped very gingerly on a benchtop belt sander. I then hand-sanded the rings with 220 grit, and finished by burnishing the plastic with my fingernail.

The finish I ended up with feels good, but looks rough. I’ve been experimenting with the offcuts from this project, and the solution seems to be to finish with scraping and burnishing after the final abrasive shaping.

But Eve wants them for herself, so I must have done something right.

Scalloped bamboo ring

2009-10-31T08:04:00.000-04:00

(Originally posted on October 27, 2009)

My wife is an interior design consultant, and she routinely updates her library of material samples. That gives me access to a stream of small chunks of interesting stuff.

In this case, I was given a box of bamboo plywood samples. Some are cross-laminated, and others have plies aligned for appearance. The piece I picked up first was of the latter sort.

Without the cross-laminations, the gluelines would probably be too weak for a bangle, and the sample was too small for that anyway. So a ring or earrings it was, and I’m on a roll with rings.

I started by marking out a 5/8 inch diameter hole in the sample and drilling it with a hole saw. I then cut the workpiece out square and contemplated it. Too chunky -- wearing it would spread your fingers and be uncomfortable.

I mounted a 1.5 inch sanding drum to the drill press and hand-shaped the scallops and rounded over the outside corners. The shape looked better with curves and more interest, and my wife pronounced it wearable. Some tearout and face damage remained from the machining, so I sanded the faces flat and the finger hole round and smooth, rubbed in a couple of coats of walnut oil, and called it done.

The exciting tiger figure on the face was a result of the scalloping process revealing portions of different layers of plant cells. I didn’t plan it, but I sure am pleased with it.