Just gotta add to this week's blog. Got an interesting assignment yesterday that put me back into the shop today. My wife had sewed up fabric for a roman shade we are going to deliver to our daughter soon. The shade is 73" wide, to fit one of her windows. My job has become understanding the system that rolls up the shade and making the wood parts.
I had thought all I needed to make was a flat board 73" long by 2" wide. Yesterday I found we also needed 6 dowels that are 6 feet long. These dowels had to be smaller than 1/4" to fit into the shade. Holy Crimenently!
This morning was taken up mostly with eating lunch out and grocery shopping. At 2:00PM I got started on the dowels. Since there was another poplar board left over from the shutters, I decided to try to make the dowels out of that. The reason that particular board had not already been turned into louver stock is because there were checks and knots in inconvenient places.
I sawed a couple of 2" boards out of the good parts of this 8 incher and re-sawed one of these in half, then planed the halves to 3/16", then used the bandsaw and ripped 3/16" pieces from one half. Got 9 of them. Now how to make the corners rounded?
At first I tried the belt sander to take down the corners, making sort of octagons. That worked! Then tried to continue with the belt sander to round them a little more. Did two of these, but they have irregular spots, but will work if it comes to it. But looking to avoid losing flesh from my finger tips, tried to think of another way.
I set up the lathe using the drill chuck and sticking the 6 ft. piece through the tail piece. Using 80 grit sandpaper. This was a little rough at the beginning with the square sticks. Reversing the stick and using the quill made a pretty good dowel, but this method took a lot longer.
Now the chosen method will be to first use the belt sander to get the sticks partly rounded, then the lathe to finish them.
Oh! Last minute things! There will undoubtedly be more.
REMEMBER MOTHER'S DAY!
Octogenarian's have an earned right to be a curmudgeon.
Chuck in Lancaster, CA
A friend just told me about a maple tree they're going to have to take down. )
(Except they closed the store.
)