Today’s project.
American Flag with a Surfer escaping a Wave shaped like a fist.
I think I am going to stain the Wave/Fist Black to make it POP.
I spent about 20 minutes doing the staining. 2 coats of Clear Coat.
1.75-hour carve time with 3-bit changes. .25 EM, .125 EM, and .25 60° V Bit.
HDM jewelry cont’d
For today we have our first attempt at, ahem, Plique a Jour, poor man’s style.
PaJ is an enameling technique that I hope to try in the near future. Meanwhile I have some crushed stone and CA so let’s see what happens.
Kinda cool I think. Technique and polishing need work, still. But, it’s a start.
Cut the wings on the HDM, 21 minutes to cut, 1 tool change. .0236 and .0512 mills.
Crunched up the stone a bit finer with my custom mortar and pestle. Used jewelergrade blue tape to back the piece. Dumped the stone in. Squirted in the CA and done.
Sanded, 220, 400, 800, 1000, 2000, 3000, 5000.
More inlay ballyhoo. This was Walnut on Hickory. Walnut is a dream to work with. Hickory, well of all the woods I’ve worked with, it is among them. Sharp knees, 2/10, WNB.
Yesterday brought me this heartache:
I was distraught until my friend told me of the good word of Saint Tite-bond. Literally overnight, my catchall tray was healed. I was able to delicately finish my work on the router table. Now just need to pick when I’m going to finish it with. The hickory is rather rough, so not putting much effort in, most likely a finish wax coat or two and give it to whoever wants it. Wouldn’t mind doing a similar project, just with a different base material. It was pretty good until the fragility of hickory reared its head.
Is the tall figure against the tree a self portrait?
8" aluminum impeller from billet
and some flat-pack snap together Halloween lanterns for a customer.
Working on a giant MDF coin (photo is the flipside of a bitcoin actually) as a farewell gift for a colleague who’s into crypto (and retiring, hence the text that translates to “free at last, 2022”)
While my dislike for MDF is as strong as ever, it holds detail surprisingly well (20° vbit used here)
I had exactly one evening to come up with a gift idea to make, and I’m all out of fancy wood, so this will have to do.
I then spray-painted it gold (and forgot to take a pic before wrapping the gift 
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Excellent work Julien.
I will find the image and cut one myself as a pattern for casting in copper/brass. It can be personalised as a gift. Though I think mine needs to be smaller so that it can be picked up!
FYI: I purchased the SVG on Etsy, for 8 euros (that’s 0.000049 bitcoins 
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Love the edge detail, very sharp!
Well, not all cuts work out as well as planned. Here is my second attempt at cutting out my large turtle shell.
I was 2 hours into the cut and the first thing that happened, and I have no idea why, was the X axis cable chain fell off the “metal shelf support” and ended up hooked under it when running the job.
As a result, pic two shows the cuts where the router went off the board and back. Fortunately, I was within ear shot and was able to stop the machine before any more damage was done.
After resetting everything I started, from the top, again, waiting two hours for the program to get back to where the problem happened. Then, after another hour of cutting, realized that a hole had developed in the top and while I paused to examine it, I continued on thinking it was probably a knot or something.
At any rate, after another hour, the first hole got larger and a second developed.
Finally realized that this was not going to be the best cutting day for me and gave up.
The holes ended up because I wanted to “thin” the thick board I started with (1.875" thick), but carving out the backside some. Obviously, “some” was to much. Live and learn.
I did create a lot of dust though! While I have a 5 hp Grizzly cyclone dust collector, I hooked up a small 1/2 hp bag unit with a Home Depot cyclone 5 gal bucket and it works like a charm! Glad something worked today.
Here is my earlier attempt that did turn out well. I guess when you try to improve something, it doesn’t always work out. 
Next time just fill those holes with some Epoxy and keep going. It will add some “Custom Character” to the project. lol.
We’ve all been there…
I have the Onieda Super Dust Cyclone with 5" port. The Jet DC1100 I use has a clear bag. When I see dust starting to collect in the clear bag I know it is time to change the collection bin on the Onieda. Recently I have been working with Mesquite and have been collecting it separately. My grandson likes to BBQ with mesquite. So all my off cuts go into a 30 gal garbage can and the saw dust goes into a 30 gallon can with a 50 gal plastic bag. I have seen the Peterson Briquette Press on youtube that you mix the saw dust with water and press it into donut shaped Briquette shapes and use that for the BBQ. The press was originally developed for 3rd world use to press cardboard and paper into burnable cooking Briquettes. So far I have about 25 gallons of mesquite saw dust and have a lot more to come.
Glad to hear your using your sawdust. I for a few years now have been giving it to a horse farm close to me that uses it in the barns for the horse beds.
They help sick kids get therapy with the horses and makes me feel better for not having to just dump it in the land fill.
Hope the Briquette Press does the job for you.
If your sawdust contains Walnut do not use for horses. Black Walnut and specifically all Black Walnut saw dust can cause problems in horses. A tiny amount likely would not cause problems but a lot of walnut can cause toxicity to horses.
The cable drag chain has fell off the back of my SO3 before. I put double sided tape with a block of wood but the tape eventually fails. So the last time ot fell off I had a 2 inch piece of angle iron laying around the shop. I cut a 4 inch section and drilled holes in it. Lined it up on the back of the gantry and marked the holes. I drilled and taped the holes and put removeable locktite on the screws and fixed my problem permanently.
Gdon:
Excellent idea. I have some angle iron and will work it into place.
THANKS
Appreciate the comment on black walnut and horses. Certainly right on.
I give about 5 55 gal bags of cherry, maple, pine and Cyprus dust every week.
The black walnut does work well when cleaning up oil spills so the local mechanic get it for the most part.
Great for starting fires too. And it smells wonderful burning.
