LA Arboretum

Bloom where you are plant, is one of my favorite sayings and that is exactly what we did today. LA has many things to offer but we have gotten a  bit lazy about seeking out new experiences. Since I moved here I've been wanting to check out the Arboretum, so we headed out that way today and it was a blast. The Arboretum was beautiful and to our pleasant surprise free on every third Tuesday of the month.

These guys are everywhere 

Matt's psyched

Selfies 

He just wants a hug...

"If you're not in photos, nobody will believe you were there"

Easy on the eyes 

Cacti flowers

Sun in my eyes 

New Surfboard and Bowl

I finished this natural-edge bowl I've been working on - pretty pumped on how it turned out! This is olive wood, and it smells super strong like green olives when working with it, almost annoyingly strong...This was a bit hard to work with and took quite a bit longer to turn as it's pretty hard wood, and it was pretty wet. It's been drying out in the fridge for a couple weeks now and I think it's good now.

I like it

Also, just yesterday, I finished my second wood board. I didn't write about this much on here, as I was just a bit busy/lazy to take the time to.here's some pics. I made this using the same construction method/process as the first one, but paid a bit more attention to wood patterns, glueing, and a couple other things.

 outside, bottom and rails finished, fin box supports in, and blending rails into the frames, about to install the top planks

closer

view of bottom planks. I paid a bit more attention to the grain patterns, and laid out various sequences of the planks before gluing them on. I match-booked, or mirrored planks by resawing/splicing the wood down the middle of it's thickness, and basically opening it up like a book then.The middle plank is not mirrored, but one piece is on the bottom of the board, and the other half of that board is on the top of the board, in the middle. The next two planks are from the same piece of wood. Then the next two planks are from the same piece of wood. I'm not explaining this well. Hopefully the pictures show it better.

 Skip a few steps, lots of sanding, fixing mistakes, glassing, sanding, hot coating, sanding, and hot coating, and voila, it's done! Top view. Middle strip is on both the bottom and top. Then match-booked boards on top also

 Bottom view. fin boxes ready for single, twin, or single plus side bite set up

 side profile view

 Close up of woodburnt decal on top of board. Similar to my last one, which was only the cross section of the wood, but this one with some water in it. As with all my boards, Mel was the art advice on this one and I like how it turned out!

 Signed, dated, and dimensioned

Working on a bike trailer

Trying to make a single wheel bike trailer from an old jogging stroller. pretty fun so far - hope this turns out good and not just a piece of crap. I can't weld so I'm trying to do this with nuts and bolts and connectors...

 stroller dissassembled and with the single wheel left in tact

 I'm using 1/2" conduit to make the support bars and additional structure of the trailer. Here I made a jig to be able to bend the conduit the same as the front of the stroller 

Grinding away on something. more pics soon

a mess

Well, it's been a minute, and stuff's been going on. Here's a few pics from lately....

 Woodturning class has turned out to be awesome! I didn't expect to be into this as much as I am but it's really fun. One of the class assistants brought in some of his own segmented turnings, and they are insane...

 closer - can't remember how many hours he said it took to glue this up, but it was ridiculous. this is actually turned in two pieces, top and bottom sections, and then glued together once finished. can't tell where the seam is though - this is crazy looking in person.

 a few smaller guys, equally cool

 cool idea of having thick walls and parting out these lines. the then let it warp on purpose, but it didn't warp as much as he thought it might. cool effect though to let things warp

 burls, bowls, vases, and mugs

 here's a bowl i turned recently. it started developing a bad crack through the top middle, so i kinda V cut it out to get rid of it and figured 'd see how that tured out. came out cool!

 end before removing the inside of the bowl

 scariest part - parting off the bowl from the lathe - hoping it doesn't fall, or break in any way on this last step.

 finished, but no oil or anything on it. i should've showed this bowl before, the assistant's turning above. this doesn't look so great, ha

 Here's some work from the internship - sanding lots of wood these days. it really is more fun to sand pieces that go to a lamp/fixture that you think looks cool, rather than one that is just ok in your mind

 pieces oiled, and attachments/wiring being assembled.

 Then the acrylic boxes and outer pieces go on. I got to assemble a couple of these one day, which was pretty fun

It ultimately become this guy - really really cool looking. this is big too, just shy of three feet in diameter I think

 And other days, I'm routing a ton of the same piece.... not overly fun, but getting good at routing. :)

 routing pieces to make this lamp fixture

lots

 which ultimately becomes this - it hangs and looks pretty cool. I like this fixture

 Then clamp and glue them up

Then to deal with this open corner issue,  they taught me this cool trick: wipe it down with a water and rag, and then mash the wood at slight angles using the rod of a big screwdriver 

 wiped with water and mashed along the edge. the water raises the grain, slightly filling the gap, and then running the rod along on each side of the corner, basically mashes the wood together, and then it dries, adn the corner is closed up and nicer looking. cool technique, but it does take a while to do this to every corner of every fixture

 closed up!

I was finishing this piece, and it just had some awesome quilting on it, so I figured I'd take a pic

 Made these fins for Mike for his birthday in November. they are cool, but definitely have some mistakes

 Mom came to visit last week, and we got out bodysurfing with her. super super fun. she had a blast

 mike going left

 mike going right

 mike prepping for a tube?

newest bowl I'm turning. keeping the bark on this one. it's olive wood which smells like green olives as you turn it. pretty cool, but kinda strong actually...