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Text of the page (random words):
e all the guts here is where i was glad this pumpkin was so big i m not so sure how easy it would be to clean out the guts of a gourd if a hand couldn t be run inside to do the dirty work the inside is now empty ish i experimented to do the rest of the cleanup of the gourd sandpaper worked well to even out the saw marks using sandpaper with a block to erase the saw marks the inside of the neck was pretty rough so i used a half round rasp to do the dirty work and finished it off with sandpaper finally i used sandpaper to round over the edges a bit as they were pretty sharp using my beloved logier rasp to clean out the inside of the neck the last thing i did with the gourd today is apply some finish i am starting with some of my homemade boiled linseed oil this stuff is so beautiful to work with but the smelly store bought stuff would work just as well the gourd carcass with finish on it i might put on another coat after it cures maybe not and then a coat of shellac for protection and a bit of sheen then it will be ready for beads i think the bottom turned out where i added the epoxy it s a natural product so i don t mind next time i will hopefully be documenting how easy and smooth adding the beaded lattice net will be to build posted by brian eve at 12 44 pm 4 comments email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest thursday may 14 2026 shekere build part i oh my i see it s been five years since i last posted to this blog time flies i ve not disappeared but it is true i haven t been doing much woodworking instead i ve been using my spare time playing trombone with some salsa bands here in munich lots of fun my perspective from a recent salsa gig however i think it s time for me to start building again what better way than to make an instrument i ll use on stage a shekere my new shekere and güiro i recently bought a second hand shekere from a local percussionist the one i bought is mass produced but quality and made from fiberglass but i decided i needed to try to make my own using a gourd which is what how this instrument is traditionally made i watched several videos on youtube and found this one by the stanford taiko channel to be the most helpful i started by searching online for dried gourds for sale and surprisingly found a seller in germany i ordered from the largest category of gourd they sell hoping one would arrive that is nearly as big as the fiberglass one from lp my new gourd i was very pleased when it arrived it was even bigger than i had hoped the first step was to clean it up in the sink with a metal pot scrubber this task did not smell very nice and it was probably a good thing that i did this while the frau was at work cleaning the gourd in the kitchen sink after it was clean and dry i used 120 and 180 grit sandpaper to finish the cleanup clean and finish sanded to 180 grit being a natural product there were some defects in the base of the gourd i d describe it as tear out i don t think it affects the integrity of the gourd but it doesn t look so nice and you can really feel it some natural defects i decided to do what i would do with wood that has such defects i mixed up some west systems epoxy added a drop of some brown color that i had laying around with the thought that i would sand it flush and all would be good dried epoxy on the affected area my crucible card scraper was great for rough removal of epoxy it doesn t look that great but it is smooth and hopefully stronger i m wondering if clear epoxy wouldn t have been a better choice only time will tell braiding some string for the collar next i thought it was time to start thinking about the net and the beads i am going to use some 1mm polyester thread that i use for leatherwork for the net i thought the collar on the top and on the bottom should be a bit thicker so instead of using para cord i decided to braid three different colored strings for these parts i don t see why this won t work just fine and the contrasting colors are the exact color scheme as the beads i ll use these plastic 8mm beads salsa roja is the name of my salsa band so there has to be some red in this gourd i ll add black and some fake pearls for interest next i have to saw off the top of the gourd clean out the inside add some finish to the gourd and create the bead lattice it s a big gourd i hope 1800 beads are enough stay tuned posted by brian eve at 3 30 pm 7 comments email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest monday april 12 2021 the case for inches and fractions or fraction math without a calculator buckle up i recently was watching a tutorial video from a well known and very talented leather maker on layout and design it was painful for me to watch not because he wasn t a good teacher but because of how he was struggling with his method for measuring distances and dividing those distances in two he did what many of us would now first think to do he measured the distance between two points in inches and fractions he converted the fractions into decimals using a table he printed out so he could input those fractions into his calculator made his calculations and then used his table again to re convert those decimals back into fractions so he could find the new measurements on his ruler those of you who do all of your measuring in the metric system are laughing about now there are so many ways to screw up calculations in the above scenario that one really needs to be careful first i suggest don t measure at all if you can use dividers to make your measurements and transfer them directly no math no figuring if you need to divide those distances you ve measured there are easy ways to do it that have been around thousands of years others have covered this and i suggest looking these ways up because they are foolproof and involve no measuring measurement systems or math in other words it s foolproof no mistakes if you insist on measuring with a tape ruler measuring stick etc and i know you do don t blow off the imperial measuring system just because dealing with 10s is sometimes easier what if you need to divide 293 milimeters by two likely you can do that in your head but there is still a tiny bit of guesswork involved inches were born for this as an example let s take the above situation with the leather worker he measured his leather and found it to be four and a quarter 4 ¼ inches long so far so good what he did was convert 4 ¼ into 4 25 so he could put it in his calculator he divided this number by two to find the midpoint and the calculator told him the midpoint was at 2 125 inches out came his trusty piece of paper with a table on it telling him that 0 125 inches is inch add two and his midpoint is two and one eighth inches for the love of god did no one learn fractions in the third grade here s how dividing 4¼ should be done in your head divide the whole number 4 2 2 this is easy because the number is even we don t have to do anything else to it look at the fraction ignore the top number and double the bottom number ¼ becomes 2 inches done let s try another measurement from my own leather project four and seven eighths 4 inches half of the whole number 4 2 2 ignore the top number of the fraction and double the bottom becomes 7 16 half of 4 is 2 7 16 one more example from my current project seven and three eighths 7 inches half of the whole number 7 2 2 5 woops if the whole number is odd this doesn t work what do we do don t panic take the next lower even number in this case six 6 2 3 that extra whole number needs to go to the fraction add the bottom number of your fraction to the top and that is your new top number in our example becomes 11 8 when we add eight to the top number three we re not done yet we have an inch added to our original fraction we need to find half of this new fraction same as before just double the bottom number 8 2 16 our new fraction is 11 16 add it all up and our midpoint for 7 inches is three and eleven sixteenths 3 11 16 here are a few common measurements for you to practice write down the answers before you look at the answer key find the midpoint 8¾ 11½ 5 here are the answers no cheating four and three eighths five and three quarters two and thirteen sixteenths easy right let me know your method posted by brian eve at 3 27 pm 17 comments email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest wednesday december 30 2020 flooring dutch tool chest part vii finished for now ta daaaaa we left off having painted and blo d the chest i normally finish off an oiled finish with some type of paste wax my favorite is one that i make myself from beeswax orange oil and a few other goodies i happen to have all of my paste wax ingredients in spain not in germany where i am at the moment after digging around however i found some howard s feed n wax this has beeswax and orange oil in it so i thought i d give it a try feed n wax the consistency of this product is a little more liquid y than what i make it seemed to work well though and it is very easy to apply this way what i did was squirt a glob in the middle of a cloth wrap the cloth around it and use the cloth as an applicator after letting it sit for 10 15 minutes i buff it out with a clean cloth i like the look now that the finish is done let s get rid of those ugly drywall screws and replace them with roman nails unfortunately the only roman nails i happened to have are 60mm long about 2 1 2 or so total overkill for this but it s what i have out with the old in with the new this engineered hardwood is much more fragile than solid 3 4 pine so i had to be very careful most of the screws i backed out left a hole big enough that i could push the nail in with finger pressure until less of an inch of the nail was sticking out notice a roman nail makes a good hammer handle wedge it s just then a matter of carefully tapping the nail home but not too far i ve learned the hard way that if you keep banging on these nails the head will crush the wood fibers around it spoiling a nice paint job one only needs to tap until the sound changes i check it is deep enough if i m unable to get a fingernail under the head of the nail one minor blowout there were only two nails that decided to misbehave one is pictured above it blew out on the underside of the center shelf it s not too bad and it s in a hidden place so i left it be the other was on a corner with a dovetail remember i reinforced my dovetails with nails and i think this reinforcing nail pushed my roman nail out of the way while i was tapping it home i noticed it started to come out of the bottom of the chest since i still had little way to go with the nail i decided to remove the nail and squirt some pva glue in the wood that was deforming i then nipped an inch of length off the nail with some nippers and pounded the nail in good as new my method of clenching nails in a single photo i decided to attach the battens on the fall front with clenched nails i really like this technique it holds forever like it or not now i can say i m done with the carcass of the chest here s some glamour shots there s obviously a bit more to do such as organize the top compartment to hold my leather working tools add some handles on the sides and maybe a lock i might also decide to make another matching box for this one to sit on that is on casters that would give me even more storage for stuff i didn t need that often as well as making it easily transportable around my apartment overall i m extremely happy with this chest i didn t really have high expectations for it in fact i figured it would be something that perhaps i would throw out someday and build again when i had better materials but this box is surprisingly strong someone asked about the weight i m not a very good judge but i think it is probably similar to a chest made of pine this one as it is weighs 13 4 kilograms about 30 pounds not too bad for a huge box the single best part of this chest for me is the finish i toyed with the idea of turning the beech side out but i figured the joints would bee too ugly and weird i m glad i chose this i am stunned at how well those japanese burnishers prepared the soft underside of the flooring material for milk paint sadly it can t be properly displayed in photos i find myself running my hands over the surface of the lid every time i walk by it the milk paint turned out so well that i m wondering what else i could make and finish this way it just dawned on me that my atc that i built in 2011 is still unpainted perhaps it would be fun to try red over black i look forward to many years of use from this tool chest i hope you enjoyed the build half as much as i did posted by brian eve at 4 00 pm 5 comments email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest tuesday december 29 2020 flooring dutch tool chest part vi paint this chest is nearly done just like any other project the quality of the finish depends greatly on surface preparation in this case i spent a lot of time with my japanese burnishers in order to get a specific texture on the wood that i wanted to show through the milk paint i chose milk paint because it is a traditional look for tool chests plus it is pretty easy and safe to use the brand of milk paint mix i use is old fashioned milk paint there are others but this is the one i know best i used some home made milk paint on the last chest i made and i have to say this mix is much easier and more consistent perhaps i need to work on my home made recipe a little anyway for quite some time i ve really admired the black over red look that is often seen on windsor chairs curtis buchanan has some really great youtube videos on how he makes his and in one of them he goes over his method for achieving the look he gets with this finish if you would like to watch it search curtis buchanan 46 preparing to paint on youtube i ve tried this before and haven t really gotten the results i was looking for this time i tried to do everything the same exact way he does and i m very pleased the first bit that i took away from his video is the water to milk paint ratio he uses for red he uses a 2 1 ratio and for black he uses a 2 5 1 ratio barn red basecoat the other thing i may have done wrong in the past was apply too thick coats this time it worked well to use just a little paint on the brush and drag it as far as can be done i spent some real time trying to avoid runs as those will show through in the end after two coats of red i let it rest over christmas and moved onto the black black over the red with the black i also didn t worry about applying it in thick coats this is more of a wash coat than anything i slapped on a thin coat covering 80 90 then for the second coat i just touched up the endgrain and the large panels i didn t worry about making sure i covered up all the red i wanted some of the red to peek through in the end maroon and gray 3m scratchy pads after the paint is cured it is time to burnish it...