Eli demo continued

This bird ornament was made for demonstrating the use of the skew


Note the convex bevel on this skew chisel. Honed.


This is the "texture tool" made from a concrete drill.

Some of the tool hints that Eli Avisera left me with:

• Use rounded bevels on skew and beading tool. (As opposed to the more traditional hollow ground bevels.) Eli honed his skew on a buffing wheel with green buff compound. See the video on the previous post.
  
• Have very small bevels on gouges. The rest is just "cut away".
• Use epoxy filler to fill the flute of small gouge to reduce flex.
• Use a carbide tipped drill to make a texture tool filling the flutes with epoxy.
• Round stock made into a "combination tool". This is a bit like a gouge with no flute and "negative rake'. Check his webpage for more details.

Eli Avisera demonstration at Kingston Woodturners

Had a great demonstration about woodturning from Eli Avisera from Israel. He is an excellent demonstrator. He started by discussing tool sharpening. I include a video that is a little reminder about his sharpening tips.
To see more about him check his website. He also has some excellent videos for sale so this video is just a sample of his presentation style etc.
Check his tools here.



In later blogs I will have some of the video footage of Eli making some small projects.

Magnolia Scale

This is what Magnolia scale looks like. The insect inside is soft bodied and stains cloth red when wiped off at this stage. For more information check out other websites.
The treatment we gave the tree is experimental at this stage but I sure hope it works as it cost a lot of money!

Magnolia Scale Treatment Experiment

John from Arbrecare Kingston came by to treat our Magnolia tree for scale.

He used these vials that are spring loaded and injected this insecticide - organic - into the tree. It is very expensive and made for Emerald Ash borer but hopefully it will work on this "scale" which is like an aphid which protects itself by forming a grey scale over itself. It leaks honeydew all over the place including the leaves which then attract bees and wasps and flies, and makes a real mess of anything under the tree. It also feeds a black mould which discolours what it forms on.

This is the insecticide.


The picture above shows the plastic inserts which are wedged into holes drilled in the tree.

Demo day at the Museum

Here I am at the MacLachlan Woodworking Museum doing the first of the five summer demonstrations on woodturning.

I made two small bowls and two spindles which I will use in the new studio.


Also made a top to give away to one small boy who had an attention span long enough to watch the operation. Spectators were sparse.
There will be another demonstration next Sunday the 11th of July from 1 to 3 pm.

Compost Bin Visitor

Here is another look at the visitor to our composter. It appears to be an opossum.
Now it should be noted that opossums are not normally found in this climate - another sign of global warming? This little guy does not look very happy but at least it should be well fed as the food scraps are all gone. And of course it does not have to worry about the winter for a while yet.
Yesterday was a great windsurfing day so not much got done. Then today I awoke with a sore wrist from a previous injury - fell off my home built skateboard - so my wrist has never fully recovered. But drywall mudding is hard on the wrist so I am somewhat frustrated that I cannot do the type of job I would like to do because the wrist just does not want to work well. Of course the windsurf did not do much to help heal the wrist either. I am treating the wrist injury with Emu oil. Check it out, I am amazed at how well it works. Seems to go right through the skin and lubricates the joint.

Ceiling panelled

Rented a hoist and completed the drywalling of the ceiling yesterday. Also mudded the office space today.
Drywall hoist worked real well.
Noticed that they are selling hoists for $160 at a local building supply store. Cost $40 to rent it for a day. The hoist sure is an improvement on the old T bar system that I used to use when I installed drywall before.