I finally found the right tool and was able to finish a joke project I started back in May.
And with a little bit more effort it’s also a Twitter bot.
Right now it’s tweeting a little more than once an hour, but in a couple days I’ll throttle that back to a handful of times per day.
Multi-tasking today. Making my Christmas beer, a heavy stout that should come in around 11% ABV. Used just over 30 pounds of grain for a 10-gallon batch.
Also working on Halloween decorations. A friend made up these skulls from expanding polyurethane foam and my daughter and I have been busy painting them.
wow! nice work on both. you seem to know what you’re doing on the all-grain heavy! I can smell that cooking! rich, roasty-toasty, thick and tasty. just what a holiday stout should be
Carved from Tasmanian cedar:
These skulls are very well detailed. Does your friend use a mold?
Yes, I couldnt tell you what type though. It captures a lot of fine detail.
I finally got around to making myself a rolling pin:
Made from a piece of a branch that fell from one of my trees during a storm:
nice.
how long do you wait for the water to totally evaporate out of the wood before it’s ready to be worked?
When I get fresh wood, I section it into manageable chunks, coat the cut ends with wax and stash it in the shed.
Ideally, you then want to let it dry for a year or two, although for a thin branch like this (as opposed to a trunk log) it should only need six months or so.
However, this branch only came off the tree a few months ago, so it wasn’t perfectly dry. Due to this, a few small cracks opened in the narrow parts at the handles while I was working it. They mostly closed up again after the final coating with oil, though.
If it’s just a small piece and you’re in a hurry, you can speed up the process considerably with the aid of a microwave:
Here are some of my pipe-cleaner armature ecperiments with the Sabo Brothers foam clay. First one was a basic human fig made from twisting two pipe cleaners together. it works quite well, but a double twist, as in the neck, is too stiff to be a good joint. The forearms eventually came a little loose. I think I was a little precious with shaping.
Next I wanted to make an articulated/posable horse. It worked well and is pretty rugged. First pic is partway through building, I buult the horse over several short sessions.
Humanoid mode
Currently working on a serpentine dragon. I learned from the first two to do an underlayer that I can really press into the pipe cleaner fuzz, the attach finer shapes and details to that base. Base layer only so far, wetted and bagged to maintain workability. I tried to use an unpopular color (“circus peanut” apparently…) for the base, but eventually plan mulicolored scales and head.
Ooh. Super cute!
best one yet. really beautiful wood and shape
I no longer have any excuses to hold me back from getting a lathe.
Without having actually watched the video, I have to ask: Did the cost of all these specialized Lego parts exceed the cost of an off-the-shelf lathe of similar power/functionality?
It’s still a cool idea and build – just more of a “because I can” kind of thing, I suppose.
ETA: I watched the video. To answer my own question: YES, since the Lego lathe has very limited power/functionality, 
less than even a cheap-ass Harbor Freight lathe that will break in a year.
But I’ll keep this in mind if I ever lose a white rook! Queen’s Gambit, eh?
