S shapes flipping over! Wooden cutlery, forks

What has today been for me? There was no Kamakura
business.

Two things, really, coating and redundant pieces.
Take a look at the following.



What do I do with them? I just cannot let them go
as rubbish! Can you see a line drawn in the middle of each?
My intention was that once cut into halves each of them

might turn into a fork, albeit smaller.

What is bellow is the result of cutting them down in the middle.



They are more or less of the same length, but differ in
thickness. That, probably, was the reason I was drawn into
something odd.

Take a look at the following.



These are shorter forks, but I do not like them very much.
They appear OK, but quite a propotion of them have
different side profiles.

With earlier forks, you had a nice S shaped side profile
with each of them. With this current lot, however, you
do not have that property.

I am not too sure if I can describe it...
With some the S shape is flipped back, OK, you may
say flipped back Ses are still Ses. Are they?

The problem here is this. Whether regular, or flipped back,
I hold them, and somehow, they fit into my hand.
I am no longer sure what side profiles forks should

have in the first place.

All this may not matter, after all, what I have been
trying to do was to make the maximum use of the given material.
All these little pieces will be, eventually, given away

as gifts.

The following image carries a different story.



Top left is a template. One of the real ones is a
gift, Conchita and her new born baby girl, that is. The
other one is to be sold, as an oder came through.

These are baby feeders, very delicately made.

Bellow, I will show you a series of photos,
coating, that is.





With this image above, those on the right are my picker knife forks.



With this image above, they are all given to my wife, for her
to give them away as it pleases her.



Above, you can see my oak spatulas.



Most of those above are oak forks, for me to give away
as gifts.



In this very last image, you may have a glimpse into what
I was taking about re. side profile of forks.
Those of the left have been sanded, but, still fluffy,

but much better than those on the right, before being
sanded.

What do I do with those still fluffy things?
Well, I coat them as usual, and that makes their
surfaces hard enough, and then I hard sand the surfaces

That will remove those ruffled bits and pieces.

I still have some residual work to do, with the
current lot, fine, but it does not mean I will have
things useful to work on over the next few days.

I am at a loss, I really am!

パエ－リャ ３４

Conchita, bueno, vamos!

ドウノコウノだって、ちっとも構わないわよ！
I do not care one bit if dounokouno!

ドウノコウノする、ドウノコウノしない理由があるの！？
What reason is there that dounokouno!?

信じない人も沢山いるわよ！
There are many sceptics!

ドウノコウノ１、なので、ドウノコウノ２だって
分ったのよ！
dounokouno 1, and I came to realiise dounokouno 2!

そんなのって、普通は当然期待するわよね！
It it not the sort of thing one would usually expect!?

何でそんなのが好きなのよ！？
What is the appeal to you!?

ええ、それには気がついたわよ！
Yes! I have been made aware of that!

先に進もうよ！
Let us get a move on!

それって、なかなか簡単には止められないのよね！
It is the sort of thing one cannot easily grow out of!

ええ、皆もやってるから！
Yes!, after a fashon!

ありうる事よ！　（行動に関して）
You may well do!

二つの事、我慢しなければ！
You will have to put up with two things!

休みの日に、何で出かけるのよ！？
Why go out on your day off!?

閉経
the change of life

ええ、本当の所、どうなったかと言うと、ドウノコウノ
Well, really, what happened is dounokouno...

一日に２服よ！(薬）
Two doses a day!

それって、もっともだと思うわ！
I think that is a fair comment!

私の経験でも、では、ドウノコウノよ！
It is certainly my experience that dounokouno!

ガタガタ言わないの！
Do not make a fuss!

Conchita, tu pais es rico en todo sentido!
Ya me voy! Vaya con dios!

Habanero scoopers, wooden cutlery

I wanted to do something different today, which started with me
taking my wife to Kamakura in the morning.

What I had in mind is shown in the following image.



They are my habanero scoopers, short at 97 mm, and they have
small bores. I made, perhaps, a dozen of them before. Today's
problem was, "How the hell did I make them!", really.

The short and thin item at the bottom is a picker, and
you can see one fork done, and I have got another
20 or so, to be sanded.

Well, that is an aside, and today's issues were manyfold!

Having made them before does not mean much, unless,
you remember how. So, in a way today, I had to start
from scratch!

Now, take a look at the following image. Bores have been
created in the work pieces of six.



Yo must do this, before anything else you do! Because,
you have to align the bore centre to the centre line
of the work pieces. If you have formed the stems before

this operation, you will regret it very much!

In all this, I think I was driven by my instinct
to the final stage, which you have seen as IMAGE 1.

What follows is showing you stem formation.



It is not realistic at all to transcribe their top
profiles, using a template. This is because templates are
not perfect, not even symmetrical, if best made.

Of course, true to say that human eyes cannot easily
recognise the lack of synmmetry. Nonetheless, they are there!

By far the easiest way to form the stems, to match the
bores, is to use those alminium pieces shown here in the photo.

They are, cross-sectionwise, shaped in the form of L.
They can be placed on the workpieces and used to draw
equi-distant lines from the edges.

That, of course, assumes, that those bores have been
allinged to the centre line of the work pieces.
However, that is where my dexterity comes in.

If you cannot put the bores in the centre, then why
bother to continue with these tricky operations?

You are not going to belive this, but, I can easily
recognise true vertical and true horizontal lines,
of course, with reference to properly established

reference lines. And, that ability helps, in centreing the bores.

What is shown below is an interim picture.



You can see that there are new redundancies, as well as
the target work pieces, on their way to becoming
my habanero scoopers!

They will remain redundant, unless you can think of something
useful with them. One of these short pieces was made
into a picker, as shown in the first image.

That is about the only way I can think of...

Now, take a look at the following illustration. This is
really showing you the difficulties that follow, from
the image above.



You want them to be nice and shapely, in the end...
However, it is simply difficult. For a start, they are
small, difficult for hold onto during sanding.

To reach your goals, you need to loose mass, and
in A, the red area is OK. With the stem pointing
upward, you can loose the red area, fairly easily.

That is the same with the ide profile, shown in B.

Difficulties come in in the blue areas. Throughout,
the machine used is my belt sander.

Loosing the blue areas is the most challenging part
of this operation, because, not shown in A nor B,
there are discontinuities, as shown by the arrows in C.

Negotiating these discontinuities is the paramount
problem, and I do not want to go into the details, but,
they can be removed, eventually.

I think I have had enough for now.

パエ－リャ ３３

Conchita, ya tienes todo preparado para la cena?
Tienes el pan, la bevida, y sobre todo, la paella hecha?
Creo que si! Bueno, ahora entonces, vamos!

冗談でしょ！？
You are kidding!

ドウノコウノだって知って、メチャ驚いたのよ！
It came as a complete surpise to know dounokouno!

脇に少し下がってよ！
Take a small step sideways!

その結果は皆、知ってるわよね！
We all have seen the consequences of it all!

（次は犬の話）
いつもはおとなしいのよ！
He is normally quite well behaved!

良いときに思い出させてくれるわね！
It is a timely reminder to me!

文句が続々と来てるわよ！
We are having a flood of complaints!

（高速道路の）
Ｍ１では道路工事が行われています。。。
A roadwork is going on on M1...

ドウノコウノが見えない、そんなの馬鹿げているわ！
You must be blind and paralysed not to see
dounokouno!

（次はスキ－場のリフトの話、で、副詞句）
馬鹿馬鹿しい歌をラウドスピ－カ－がガンガン鳴らして！
with loudspeakers blaring out silly songs!

私、何か悪いこと、したかしら！？
What have I done wrong!?

Conchita, enough for now.
Ya me voy!

Domestic walnut forks, wooden cutlery

Rain does affect what you do, I think. Or, perhaps,
chores come in because of it.

Today started, going out at the request of my wife,
to a vegetale market, 3 miles away, I think, and in a
torrential rain, at that!

Once home, I then had to peel off the shallots for
her pickles projet, taking up 3 hours of my time.

In the meantime, my nephew and his wife-to be, and her
own father, and my own mother went up to our mountain
cottage, again, in the torrential rain (So I gathered).

It is all part of learning things. Had they told me a day
earlier, I would have gone there myself and met them.

It now looks as if the whole thing will have to
wait for the day of the wedding. Not a big deal, really...

Now, take a look at this.



Not again!, you may say. Yes, they look the same,
but they are, this time, of walnut. You may then say
they are not dark enough for walnut forks

Well, they are all domestic walnut, not coming from
USA. I placed a few oak forks for comparison, those
at the bottom of the image.

Over the last two years, or so, I have noticed one thing
with these domestic walnuts. Upon (or, even uopn) sanding
they become very fluffy at the surface. They are softer than US dark

walnuts. However, they are very tough against lateral pressures,
inward into the slots I made. I do not know why, really.

Tommorrow, I will be taking my wife to Kamakura for
her gathering. After that?, I do not know. I might produce
smaller SPs, I like them, and they might be useful in
many ways.

I now only have ten or so of them left in my room.

People will becoming in and I will be going out to
meet people. They will come handy on those occasions.
Yes, I should do that!

パエ－リャ ３２

Conchita, I like your new alias! I will stay with it
for ever and ever!

２時間もヒッチャキになって準備したのに、全てが
パ－になった！
Two hours of frenzied preparation was wasted!

肝臓って、触るとブルブルするわね！
Livers wobble, don't they, if you put your hands on them!

あそこに２年も住んでたけど、その間、ずっと一度も
多少ともドウノコウノ的な人には一人しか会わなかったわ！
I lived there for two years and in all that time
I met only one person who was even mildly dounokouno!

カ－ペットの上で大の字になった。。。
I just sprawled out on the carpet!

彼女、もう一分だけ頂戴とせがんだ。。。
She pleaded with me for one minute more...

彼が階段をバタバタ下りてくる音が聞こえた
I heard him banging down the stairs!

チョット、鏡で自分を見てご覧よ！
Look at yourself in the mirror!

彼女、部屋の中を歩き回った。。。
She walked around the room...

逆じゃなくて　（８副詞句）
instead of the other way around

その時以来　（副詞句）
ever since then

机の上を片付けな！
Clear out your desk!

私達、感心してそれを見ていたのよ！
We were looking at it in fascination!

それをテ－ブルの上に持ち上げてね！
Lift it onto the table!

あることすら知らないような食べ物が色々あるんじゃないかと、
わくわくしながら　（副詞句）
expecting all sorts of food you never even knew
existed!

小さな女の子みたいに　（副詞句）
in a little girl sort of way...

とても現実とは思えないわ！
It all seems unreal to me!

Conchita, an abrupt end to today's session!
Take care of your new born!

Wooden picker knife forks, my shed!

There was no chore today and that is why I am a little
surprised to see today's images.

Frist, take a look at the following.



I now know why, there were half a dozen phone calls and
I had to deal with them with care, that is why, I think...

Anyway, these three objects, I made them today as
the prototype of my picker knife forks, and I did not like them.
They look ugly!

Oh, I know!, I then spent a lot of time, thinking of
them, in my workshop. In the end, I came up with the following shape.



There were two reasons for not liking those in the
first image. The first reason was that you do not see
what they are meant to be at a first glance.

Second reason was at the rear end of the stems, the shape
of the stem ends. It is technical, that is, it is
very difficult to form these shapes with my tools.

They all are bladed fine, but they look ugly enough!

The one in the second image, I did not object to it, and
produced a few of them, starting with a template for them.



These are the only physical output of my today's work.
They are oak. I am not blaming myself, really...

With new things, it will take a while to climb up
the learning curve! With those of today, the edges
toward the left of the image are

bladed, that is, thined down to form knife like
edges, while those towards the right are simply
pointed. Structural strength? They are all OK!

In the meantime, I still have this problem of what to do
tommorrow, but, that apart, take a look at the following.



This is a conceptual frame of my shed to be
constructed at our mountain cottage in Yatsugatake.
Forget about clumps and the intrusions and

extrusions they produce.

The main thing is that the frame structure can be
formed without too many problems. It is even conceivable
that I put some plastic sheets over the frame and

live in it!

However, more realistic issues are shown in the following.



A is a typical schematic seen from above. The red
disk is the metal pipe seen from above. Clumps are
not drawn, but they are there.

B's blue lines correspond to 2X4 planks, bolted to
one another, as shown in C. Black areas are the
nuts and bolts in the 2x4 materials.

Once these are in place, then I can happily
screw plywoods, shown in brownish lines.
Naturally, the spaces between 2x4 materials

(and the planks) will be heavily insulated
with glassfibres. Thin black lines correspond to
heavy duty screws.

パエ－リャ ３１

Conchita, fue una mejicana, y ademas, muy simpatica!,
actualmente, muy, muy, muy simpatica!

Bueno, ahora entonces, vamos en la lluvia!

子供の時の経験よ！（副詞句）
from childhood experience!

（必ずしも公式の場でなくても）
ドウノコウノ、おめでとうございます！
May I complement you on dounokouno!

助けてよ（手伝っての意味も含めて一般的に）
Please help me out!

もう、こんな世の中、おさらばしたいわ！
I really feel like leaving the world for good!

貴方の手紙、ドコソコへ転送したわよ！
I have forwarded your letter to doksoko!

女って、ただの肉の塊じゃないわ！
A woman is not just a hunk of meat!

ドウノコウノなんていうもの、存在しないわよ！
There is no such thing as dounokouno!

彼みたいなタイプの人からだと、面白いと思うのかもね！
You may find it amusing, coming as it does from a person
of his type!

元のところにチャント戻しましょうよ！
Let us restore them to their rightful place!
（例えばお地蔵さんとか、由緒あるもの）

そうなればよかったのに！
They bloody well should have been!
（処刑とか）

特に問題があれば、。。。
If there is an outstanding case, ...

これって、どうのこうのするには、随分と役に立ったわ！
This has gone a long way todounokouno-ing!
（作業とか）

ずばっと言えば、どうのこうのよ！
To put it bluntly, dounokouno!

彼女、怒って家を出て行ってしまったの！
She walked out on me!

Yes, I had a cat. I loved her and I kept saying to
her that she would be the first cat to fly with me
into outer space.

It was not to be... She walked out on me, during
that bloody coldest night in February 2003...

Conchita, enough for now? Take care!

Two pronged wooden forks, new construction work

Today being Friday I did not need to take my wife to
Kamakura, and virtually all of my time was spent
outside my workshop, working on two pronged forks.

What is shown below bears that out.



I now want to talk a little about evaluation of these
forks while they are being fabricated. However, perhaps,
before that, I should talk about my typical fork shape.



Since I am not working with metals, my eternal concern about
forks is their structural stiffness. A, here, is a typical top profile,
and there is something here.

When you stick your fork into something, you do not want
resultant forces to split the prongs outward. Therefore,
the profile shown in A is my answer to such a problem.

Resultant forces make the prongs vend inward, rather than
outward, reserving the integrity of the system usefulness.

B, in the same illustration, is telling you something else.

This is the side profile of the pointed end of a fork.
If the top profile has been made to satisfaction, I could
form the pointed end along the dotted line.

If fabricated along the dotted line, then you have
pointed ends, as you might expect with metal forks.

Otherwise, if you choose to stay with the solid line profile, and
if you look at the fork end end on, then you will find a
crescent shape facing you.

Why all this?

Redundant, i.e., leftover materials do not come in
exactly the same thickness, width, stiffness and you
have to improvise the best solution...

Now, take a look at the following photo.



This is the largest wood deck I have constructed to date.
It is approx. 7.2 m X 3.6 m, and roofed for BBQing in
the rain.

Now, my mother is telling me that I have to construct a
shed for her washing machine. Fine, then, I will also go for
a much larger shed, even with my sleeping quarters in it!

The deck was constructed during the summer last year.
I and my mother were staying there for something like
two weeks in August.

Constrcution work was gruelling! 20 feet long 4X4 weighed,
easily, something like 25 kg! I am not going to repeat the
same process, with the sleeping shed (and the washing machine)!

My answer to the problem is shown in the following illustration.



My current idea is that I will first construct a frame
of the shed with metal pipes. Pipes used for scuffoldings.
You may think they are heavy, but they are not that heavy,

compared with wood pillars.

A is showing you a conceptual (oveall) structure, and B
is the ground rooting of the pipes. Once the pipe frame is
in place, then I can use ply woods to form the walls.

They will be fixed to the metal pipes, sandwiching them,
for structural strength!

Actual work will begin in May 2009.

Why not this summer?

Overgrown pine trees will be cut down in November. My eventual shed,
if constructed during the summer, will be destroyed by
the impact of the trees. They are monsters!

パエ－リャ ３０

Conchita, buenas tardes! y entonces, vamos!

数週間前に思いついた事
something I thought up a few weeks ago

今のところ、いいよね！？
so far, so good!?

バイクにはまたいで乗らないと！
You must sit astride the bike!

あいつ等、自分達の考えを押し付けるのよね！
They impose their views on you!

そちらの問題、大変ですね。。。
I am sorry to hear of your local problems...

何でそんな事、したのよ！
How on earth did you do it!?

きちんと列に並んでよ！
Come on! Boys, you just form an orderly queue!

彼女、直ぐにどうのこうのしたわ！
She wasted no time in dounokouno-ing!

（棒とかを）外側に向けて広げた
We splayed them out

消灯時間に間に合うようにキャンプに戻った
We returned to camp for light-outs.

彼女、いなくなっていて、行き先の住所も残していなかったの！
She had gone and left no forwarding addrress!

よく言うけどさあ、言われるけどさあ、どうのこうの
As the saying goes, dounokouno...

細かい（詳細）所の話をしようよ！
Let's get to the nitty-gitty (
of it all)!

ドウノコウノなんていう説明なんて、とんでもないわ！
I do not subscribe to the idea that dounokouno!

Conchita, ya me voy. Take care!