Ray's June to September II

Now were was I?

Oh yeh workshop doings!

Here in South East Queensland a brilliant wood show/expo is held every year at Melany.
If you get the chance come visit its held over 3 days although we only go for the day.
This year I was scouting for a particular piece of Camphor for an upcoming commissioned project all hush hush at the moment. After spending all day looking for what was required it wasn't till leaving Sue spotted the perfect slab. We had been to the guys stall three times it had been buried below other slabs.

Only bought a few small bits other than that slab, however in giving Stan the man some Chili seeds for his wife he gave me two beautiful Cedar bowl blanks.













Speaking of Camphor, friends Sally and Toby are selling up and moving and Toby had a stash of camphor logs he need to move or burn! They are now housed in their new home. I did cut one log up as seen below some used for the two swifts in previous post.










Sue and her friend Judith had visited Revers Garbage where Sue picked up a few items for me. A few storage containers and cylinder type also, the tubes on the right are opaque and will be a project for future lighting.

 I've been cutting up Aluminium plate 900x500x43 Richard did the initial cuts using my trusty old Hitachi circular saw with plenty WD40 as lubricant, took him about30mins all up for two cuts of 500mm.
I've since used the sliding compound saw and 6x4 metal bandsaw to cut them down further.

The beginnings of a Rose Engine and many other projects..












Some years ago I scored two Corian I'll call them chopping boards the undersides being chipboard, I finally cut these up stored for now and the chipboard gone to landfill. I ended up with 2x200sqx15, 2x150sqx15, 2x40x30x400L, 4x400Lx15x40W, 6x100sqx15 as well as a few smaller off cuts.  

 Richard along with the books (see previous post) sent down 3 very nice bits of QLD Maple they will become handles for the panel 1/2 round body files picked up recently (see previous post).

Another quick fix was Dot's carder Dot passed away a short while ago and Ken sent it up along with hand carders. The two idler pulleys and drive belt needed replacing, I had spare pulleys Neil had sent up. The rear pulley had caused the weld-belt to rub on the adjuster I think from memory I had turned the plywood pulleys for Ken.

Last year we had a quote done for window tinting to the bay window and two side windows of the house. The summer sun hits hard on these and rises inside temps a fair bit. As well as adding a touch of privacy to the main bay window it is already proving a worth while addition.
While the fellows were here and the drapes down I took the time to repair the broken wand (yes I broke it about 3 months after moving in). I machined a piece of Nylon down to suit drilled the 6mm hole 20mm deep and drilled the mm hole for the hook of the wand to fit through. Then shaped by hand the area around that. The whole thing is a push fit no glue used to secure it.

Some photos from Melany Wood Expo 2018

Above is Stan Casinski Big Stan whom I got the Red cedar Blanks off.

Sorry the three updates are so long and full, time to venture out and do some more in the workshop.


Ps forgot to mention I'd scored a few stashes of Model Engineer and Model Engineer Workshop UK magazines, one lot from bob Ward who delivered the Jig borer. One lot of 3 boxes which included a box of Model Engineer Australia Jack had picked these up and held onto them for six months till Mark Baker was down that way and brought them up. I also bought a few from Old Petrie Town steam guys. Overall I've ended up with one box full of double ups from all my collection so they'll go back to Old Petrie Town for their fund raising.