Shop update #71 (3-6-19)
I got an order for 2 more Wood Badge plaques and 2 elephant plaques. I am attending the Forbidden Fantasy mini truck show at the end of March and will be delivering one of the elephant plaques there and several car club related items as well.
Thursday night I carved the first of the elephant plaques and a Forbidden Fantasy car club sign. Do you remember the clear pine that I cut down in last week’s update? I am using two of them for the elephants.
Saturday was family time during the day and I hosted our monthly poker game that night.
Sunday morning I went to Home Depot and picked up a 6 ft 1 x 12. I set the 2nd elephant plaque to carving on the CNC and then went out and cut the 1 x 12 into 3 usable blanks. 2 clear and 1 with some knots.
I started the first Wood Badge plaque carving (1 hr) and took a large piece of what I think is walnut outside for resizing. It had a good warp in it that I do not have the tools to fix so I cut it lengthwise into 3 strips that I will then cut down into 3 pieces each for a total of 9. This wood is very dense and heavy so I am going to use them for a business card holder design that I came up with for my workplace. If all goes according to plan I should be selling them for $30 each so it will be an efficient use of the wide board.
The first Wood Badge plaque was still running in the CNC so I went in the house and made lunch from the leftover pork salsa verde that I made the day before for Poker Night.
After lunch I started the second Wood Badge plaque carving and did some searching around through my scraps and found 2 signs that I had carved for my boys and never finished. Everything got a coat of spray poly and I let that dry while the second plaque finished cutting.
I then broke out the router table and gave everything a slight chamfer on the top edges to clean them up and make them look like plaques instead of just carved boards.
I sanded all the sides with the random orbit sander and the chamfers with a sanding block. I then gave the plaques a coat of black spray paint in all the necessary areas. The Forbidden Fantasy sign only received a sealer coat of polyurethane as it will be hand painted later.
This was the third or fourth time that I had used this particular can of spray paint and I noticed that it was coming out a little thick and made a mental note to dispose of it after this use. I was almost finished when I gave it a quick shake to loosen the paint inside and it gooped black paint across my left hand. I wiped off the worst of it before I tried taking out my phone to take a picture.
I moved everything from the side of the house to under my rear patio to let it dry and then we went to a local Cub Scout bridging ceremony so that my older son’s Boy Scout troop could welcome in three new scouts. They had some pretty cool shadow boxes for their boys which gave me some good ideas for when my younger son bridges in a couple of years.
After the kids went to bed I painted in the Forbidden Fantasy sign with some glitter paint that I found in my sons’ painting box. It worked very well for this application and I plan on buying some more the next time I go to Michaels craft store.
I painted the sign in on Sunday night and this is what it looks like on Tuesday morning.