With the proliferation of the dabblings into the laser occult, ramblings about rotary attachments and the odd sprinkling of writer paraphernalia, I thought I’d bore you all to tears with this import I wrote for LJ on 23rd. Oct, 2020.
I was compelled to follow up with this post, as someone actually accused me of making sense in one of my comments on a peculiar particular thread.
I found that with the introduction of C19, I'm starting to regress as I find using my fountain pen
progressively challenging. With all this bloody politically correct propaganda, I could no longer find a reliable supplier of Indian Ink
for my pen(s)... yep, that's real blotting paper in front of the black... (and the biro blotting paper is in front of the blue).
Poor diet and two much alcohol has put me in the Delorean with Marty McFly and made me reach for the chalk and blackboard only to find I have developed a C19 "panic grip" and kept breaking my chalk,
Having no crayons and whiteboard marker tips got abraded by the texture of the blackboard… I needed to stiffen up my chalk… perhaps put some lead into it?
I was forced to resort to the keyboard as my primary mode of literacy. Unfortunately, a keyboard under my armpit in the workshop needed a better portable alternative… even when I replaced my keyboard with a wireless one.
♫ To set the mood music, let me explain why this project came into fruition due to C19... ♫
Lockdown has forced me into making some pens and quickly realised my old sponge sanding pads for acrylics needed replacement… the before and after,
(Shizen, that's worse than my ROS discs were before I discovered Abranet and started to extend disc life .)
While ordering a couple of sets of the pads, I came across these "Chalk Holder Kits",
and I didn't have to call to Alexa to,
and it miraculously finished up on the order… bugger, another set of bushings I had to find a slot for,
Ignoring SketchUp as the build was already preordained, chucked up the lathe and walked away with a curvatious blank, made out of my favourite Black Palm material,
along with a practice pine,
Bypassed my traditional SketchUp first stop, did a bee line (past the Manuka),
and headed straight for CorelDraw where the design for LBD
using the Brushed font was framed.
Exported to the laser and made several cuts in the test pine blank, to determine positioning,
which was a total waste of time as I screwed up centering on the main blank,
(I repositioned the laser manually by 10mm to the left to better center the letters… and then the vino made me move it another 10mm through the program. DOH!²)
While I love Black Palm, it's a bugger to work with and does tend to leave hairline gaps/tearouts on the surface. On hindsight I should have filled these gaps with a mix of ebony, walnut and jarrah wood filler, as they finished up getting filled with the white filler used for the lettering. Not that it was that bad, however, there was one gap that needed to be scraped out and re-filled,
The filler (white) was sanded flush with the surface, coated with 20 layers of CA and BLO mix finish. It was then sanded with the 6 grades (two sided) of these sanding pads designed for acrylics,
and finally polished with auto cutting paste.
This picture with better lighting may reveal why I like the Black Palm,
At the end of the day, or end of the morning on the other side of my planet, this Chalk Holder will come in handy for all those panel mark-ups before glue-ups and countless other workshop uses it can't be used for.
Keep safe jocks... or keep jocks safe, if you venture out and run the C19 gauntlet.
If your first cut is too short... Take the second cut from the longer end... LBD
I remember the teachers complaining about the chalk dust getting on their hands, then clothes and they requested chalk holders post-haste.
The new technological marvels arrived and all were stunned by their plastic gloss and ability to auto-feed with the push of the button. Also hurt a lot more when thrown at us unsuspecting rabble-rousers.
Your autistic artistic labeling and palm finesse work! I have a big chunk of that wood and have no idea what to do with it.
SplinterGroup .... Also hurt a lot more when thrown at us unsuspecting rabble-rousers.
I remeber well those days... however, one day one of my teachers went overboard and thre the wood backed eraser at me... I tossed it back and nearly took out his eye... nearly got expelled.
Moke commented about 2 hours ago new Your chalk holders look great and well done Soliloquy. But you should try Acrylics...it will take your pens to a whole nother' level!!!!! LOL!
My new pen direction is UP... not DOWN!
I have tried crapcrylic... UGH!... I have my limits....
they are not wood, but certainly not acrylic. Row on the left are antler, the one front left is tru-stone and the front right is Damascus "steel".
Unfortunately there is no great demand for them in downtown Churchill... the Philistines here are just learning to write... though there is a great demand for the chalk holders by the "educated" elite.
Shit, everyone can buy ferakcrylic pens in those $2 shops, cheaper than the kits.
If it wasn't for wood, could you imagine driving an acrylic?
If your first cut is too short... Take the second cut from the longer end... LBD
