Rock, the falling squirrel

I put this in my woodturning blog because as I was just starting to do my fake attempt to workout at running on the treadmill and the radio was blaring Wait, Wait Don't Tell Me, to hear over the treadmill when the phone rang and it was a free wood call that I was expecting but it was to cancel for today.  I had to get out of the room to hear the call so I went out back with the phone.  As I was walking and talking I looked down next to spot where the dog likes to dig and found what looked like a squirrel that had fallen from a great height and was half embedded.  All that you could see was a big bushy tail and back legs!  I finished the conversation looking for evidence of what had happened.  Did the dog get it?  Did it take a suicide drop from the garage roof? Was it Rocky the Flying Squirrel with engine failure?  Was it just playing Ostrich?
My dog Yankee, from my childhood, was an outside dog and one day had dead mouse and we wondered how that happened.  Was the mouse full of poison, was it sick or did the dog just happen upon a lucky situation?  I don't see any signs my dog had anything to do with it and he does not want to go back out and wonder where it is.

Turns out Rock was missing the other half of its body.  No blood, no grossness, no signs of struggle, no evidence throughout the yard, no crime scene tape.  I have no idea.  I got a trash bag and scooped him up and put him in the trash can but questions still linger in my mind.  I am guessing that a raptor was eating breakfast, went to take it to another place and dropped it.  That seems to explain it all and avoid the long drawn out interrogation of the neighbors and all the hard feelings it brings, so we will leave it at that.

RIP Rock

free wood

I decided to cut up some wood today and make some sawdust, hope something comes out of it...  I have some Apricot (I think) wood from a neighbor that had a tree break in the storms this summer.   I looked at the lay of the wood and started to chainsaw it up and the saw made the a bad, bad noise and started jumping.  I stopped a looked down the cut and saw the shiny metal looking back.

Oh no....  The chain is still cutting but will need to be looked @ later so I cut from the other end and found another metal shiny.  I pulled out the wedges and sledge and split it the rest of the way.  Turns out they have three bars and some waxy glue like stuff in there to keep the crotch from splitting. I don't know how deep they are or how I am going to get them out or  what wood is left but I will try and find out..

This is quite interesting timing... last weekend I was demoing at the Woodturning Festival @ the Woodworker's Club, and I heard the turner next to me saying that metal in the wood is the danger of free wood.   How right he is! 

I have been spending many of my turning hours working on bottle stoppers.  Saturday our club had a woodturning demo day @ The Woodworkers Club in Rockville where we do our meetings.  It went very well, we had 2 lathes outside and 4 inside making all kinds of chips.  My task was to share a lathe with a young turner who was making pens (he also works @ the Woodworkers Club) and make bottlestoppers.  I knew about this for a long time and have been preparing, as much as I ever prepare.  I made a bunch of stoppers, bought a variety of bases and some extra Ruth Niles stoppers to show options and my favorite.    We had a pretty good turnout and talked to all kinds of people.  I had a lot of Osage orange (several questioned if it was mulberry but I purchased it as Osage and I am sticking with it.  

I made 6 stoppers while there and had 30+ examples to show people.  

Included in those examples are were these that I made from the Vicki Jordan maple.  I am hoping to get good shots and get them out the door!  Note the one on the end, I tried multi-axis bottle stopper for the first time and like it as a first try.  I was doing variations on a theme and I like the variety.  I step up to the lathe and take what it gives me.  I have been very happy with it.

Exhibitions: A Revolution in Wood: The Bresler Collection / American Art

I have missed the opening events but hope to make it down for some of this show. MCW is one of the groups that is doing some turning demos and although I would like to do some turning I am not sure I am the best to do that. We had slots for Saturdays and Tuesdays. I could not do Tuesdays and the Saturdays had better turner/ambassadors than I. I hope to go down when they are there and help out if I can. I need to worry about this weekend now.

Exhibitions: A Revolution in Wood: The Bresler Collection / American Art

Vicki's bowl page 4

I have not posted much here about my bowl, but pretty boring.  I put tung oil on it and it didn't seem to cure for a long time.  I then put a couple of coats of salad bowl finish on it and then today used the Beall buffing/polishing system on it and think I am done.  I need to take some very good pictures of it and will take it to the meeting this week and see if i can get some shots there as well.