A Black Friday Project

   I thought once the election was over, life would return to some kind of normalcy.     Instead of calls and mail asking who you are going to vote for it turned out that the mail, the news paper, and the e-mails started to focus on a new holiday called "Black Friday".    It almost makes one feel that if you do not get into the groove of standing in line at some locked doors belonging to a department store you are just not with the program.   Well, this fellow was not going to get sucked into those kind of  marketing schemes.   That was at least until I started to read through the Menard's flyer.  (I almost succumbed to the desire to want to get up at five in the morning and race to some hardware store - anywhere, but I held firm - at least til Cyber Monday.)

     We were fortunate to have some of the kids and grand-kids make it home for the Thanksgiving holiday.   On Black Friday, my oldest son, Chad and I spent some time in the shop playing.    Something I always wanted to do was to turn a wooden bowl.   We started out by sawing a chunk off of an oak log.    The wood from the log was not dry so it was considered "green wood".    Turning some kind of a bowl would be a first for both Chad and I, but it was either this or go shopping.   We voted for this.

    We trimmed the bark and a lot of the sap wood off and stuck this chunk into the wood lathe.   (It was a heavy little bugger.)     We did not have a plan and we had no more than started when we realized that we had too big of a chunk of wood.    Before long we had a pretty good sized pile of wood chips and shavings laying on the floor.     Since we did not have a plan, we started out with the idea that, when done, we would have a bowl to hold popcorn. After shaving a little more wood off,  

  we decided that maybe we were making a large salad bowl.    Pretty soon we were thinking that we were making a small bowl.   (Our fear was that we were destined towards making a goblet.)   I did have a fair amount of chisels to work with and we ended up trying different ones to see which ones worked the best.    In the mean time, the pile on the floor seemed to continue to grow.

    Finally as the sun was starting to set (which seems earlier every winter day) we started to have something spinning on the lathe that resembled a bowl of some sort.    Cleaning out the inside was a little tricky for us and I am not sure that the process we used was the correct process, but we got it done. (Some day I will have to pull the manual out and see what is the correct way to do the inside. )     



       Once we realized that it was almost happy hour time, we got out the finishing chisels and the sand paper and finished up.    For the lack of time, we used paste wax to put on a final finish.     Actually, it did not look too bad for our first turn.  
      The next time before placing the chunk in the lathe, I will try to trim off a lot of the excess wood using the band saw or something.     We ended up with a good size trash bag of wood shavings when finished.  
     I will have to see what the bowl looks like once the "Green Wood" actually dries out.    There are just too many unknowns for us.     Later on, for excitement we went to the TV and watched some You Tubes that showed the process for turning out good wooden bowls. We did discover that there are some things that we could have done to make the process a little easier.   (Oh well, still better than shopping any day.)

       Well,  I am thinking again about setting up a booth at the county fair next year.    You know,  The one where I display my projects and maybe in the background I demonstrate how one turns a bowl or two.  (Hmmm. Better practice up on that idea for a couple more years.)    

   Next week - my Cyber Monday experience.     Believe it or not...