davepolaschek

Thanksgiving dinner this year included a vegetarian, and my sweetie is dairy-free, so rather than my usual sweet potatoes that include bacon grease for the fat (in place of the more traditional butter), I tried a Dairy Free Sweet Potato Casserole recipe. It required some tweaking, since the amount of streusel seemed way too much, so I cut the recipe in ⅔ and cut the topping to ⅓ which seemed to work pretty well.

Serves: 8-10

Active Time: 15-20 minutes

Clock Time: 1 hour

Carbs: 297g for the whole dish. 30-35 per serving.

Ingredients

• 2 pounds sweet potatoes, cubed (1cm) and boiled or roasted until tender. You’re going to be mashing them, so a little overdone is not fatal. Boiling takes 7 minutes, steaming a little longer, up to 15 minutes if starting from frozen.
• 2 eggs
• ¼ C brown sugar, packed
• 3 Tbsp oil
• ½ tsp vanilla
• scant ½ tsp salt
• ¼ tsp cinnamon

Directions

• Prepare sweet potatoes, and mash them
• Preheat oven to 375°︎ F or 190°︎ C
• In a large bowl, or the pot you cooked the sweet potatoes in, mix sweet potato ingredients together. You can use an electric mixer if you’d like, but I use a potato masher, and prefer the slightly chunky texture.
• Put mixture into a 8” round casserole without the lid
• Bake for 25 minutes
• Prepare streusel (below) and sprinkle over potatoes in casserole
• Bake for an additional 15 minutes with no lid, until streusel is golden brown and delicious.
• Serve immediately or cover and serve within 30 minutes. Can sit longer if you keep them warm in a 140°︎F (60°︎ C) oven.

Streusel Ingredients

• ⅓ C light brown sugar, packed
• 3 Tbsp all purpose flour
• ½ tsp oil
• 1 tsp water

Streusel Directions

• Mix with a fork until crumbly

#recipe #sideDish

Discuss... Reply to this in the fediverse: @davepolaschek@writing.exchange

A while ago, I read Dave Fisher’s post on his Souped-up Sharpening Shelf and thought that sounded like a great idea to get some consistency in my gouge-sharpening. It’s not that all of my carving gouges are dull, but I’ve been hand-sharpening them, and I don’t always get the angle the same, so over time, that leads to a dubbed edge, which may be beneficial or not (do some searching and reading if you want a lot of different opinions). In any case, a badly dubbed edge is not good, and consistency will get me to a happier place.

I also got a Tormek SVS-38 Short Tool Jig to use with it, and since that wants a ⅜” rod to ride on, I bought a stainless rod, as well.

With all the pieces put together (the pieces of wood at the ends were quickly half-lapped onto the main board, and the metal rod is friction-fit into holes in those pieces), here’s how the jig looks in use.

The one other modification I needed was to put a couple strips on the bottom of the box holding one of my sharpening stones. These allow it to rise above the metal edge on my bench (which is definitely not traditional on a woodworking bench, but I find it useful) and get the gouge at the proper angle with minimal fuss.

Putting these together gets the gouge on the stone as shown below. The angle is a bit steeper than the gouge was originally sharpened at, and I’ll probably lower it in the future, but sharpening at a steeper angle like this allowed me to see the results quickly. I put a line on the side of the board so I can recreate this if needed, and I expect I’ll add more lines over time. And of course, as the gouges get shorter with repeated sharpening, I’ll need to adjust the angle by putting the board lower in the vise, which will mean even more lines on the board. But the lines on the front of the board will help me keep the board level.

After a dozen passes of the gouge back and forth, rolling it to try to sharpen the entire length of the edge, I got this:

And this:

As you can see in the second photo, I didn’t quite get the gouge rolled far enough to sharpen all the way to the edge of the bevel, but very quickly I got a mirror surface on the gouge. This was with a hard Arkansas oil stone, which is quite a bit finer than the grit the gouge was originally ground with at the factory, as you can see in the photos.

Overall, I’m pleased with this setup. It took me a couple hours to knock this jig together, plus $40 in materials, and I now have a jig which will help me sharpen my gouges in a more repeatable manner. The Tormek jig isn’t ideal for a large veiner like this gouge, as it’s difficult to roll the tool over far enough, but for 90% of my gouges, this should do a good job and help me keep them sharp, rather than waiting until they’re dull before I decide I have to sharpen.

#handyTools #sharpening #woodworking

Discuss... Reply to this in the fediverse: @davepolaschek@writing.exchange

I’m going to be making a new top for our dining room table one of these years, and as that will be a 5 foot diameter circle of plywood, veneered and edge-banded, I figured I should practice veneering a bit.

I found a small pine box with no bottom or top (I think it was the excess trimmed off a box to hold one of my lathe chucks) which was slightly under 6 inches square, by about 2½ inches tall. And I found some 6 inch wide hardwood “micro lumber” which was ⅛ inch thick that I used to make a top and bottom for the box. They’re simply glued on.

While that was drying in the clamps, I dug through my veneer sampler box that I bought from Veneer Supplies (mine was an 8½ x 11 x 6 inch box) and found a sheet of lacewood or snakewood which should be big enough (it’s 8 inches by 10½ inches) to cover all four sides of the box.

Next up will be softening and flattening that sheet (I think I’ll use a couple pieces of picture framing acrylic and a stack of wood for a press), mixing up a new batch of glue, and cutting the sheet into four pieces the right size for the sides of the box.

We’ll see how it goes!

---

That answers part of the question. I definitely need to treat the cauls I use so the glue that seeps through the veneer doesn’t stick to them.

I’ve stuck a piece of packing tape on each caul, and did the other two sides of the box. If that works, I’ll remove the damaged side and find another piece of veneer in the sampler box to try.

---

With fresher glue today, I also had to thin it a bit more so I had a decent working time. By the time I got all the clamps on the box, this had happened:

So I soaked that side of the box down again, and used a card scraper to gently peel up the veneer, scrape off the glue, put on new glue, and try again. I can see that my strategy of leaving the veneer overlarge and trimming it back to the box dimensions after the glue has dried won’t work, so I learned at least two things this morning.

But I think that’s it for today. I’ll maybe look for a piece of veneer for the badly damaged side and cut it to size, but I need to let the box dry before trying to do anything more with it.

---

After a few days of no shop time, I got back out to the shop this morning (Saturday, the 17th). I planed the wrecked veneer off the side of the box using my Carter mitre plane, then found a piece of birch burl which I thought would look nice and glued that on.

When I removed the box from the clamps and cauls after a half-hour, the new veneer looked good, so I set it on the bench to finish drying while I worked on some other things. After a half-hour, I noticed the burl veneer had curled almost into a circle as the side not glued to the box had dried faster than the side next to the box. I didn't take a photo, but I basically wet everything down and re-glued the veneer down. Hide glue was invaluable here, since hide glue will stick to dried hide-glue. PVA glues would have required completely removing the veneer and sanding the underlying pine clean, since almost nothing will stick to dried PVA glue.

With the burl glued on, and given a couple hours to cure, I pulled the box from the clamps again, and proceeded to trim the edges of the burl veneer. I used one of my gent saws with the finest teeth (32 tpi, I believe) to cut as close to the edge of the box as possible, then used the mitre plane to get the edges baby-butt-smooth, and hit the box with a coat of tung oil. The result is above.

The next session in the shop, I'll cut this box open, add hinges and a latch, and do some serious finishing. I think I'll probably French polish the box.

---

I cut the box open and put in an ash liner, which serves to align the top, and hold it in place. I decided against hinges and a latch, preferring a piston fit.

The ash liner needed some reinforcement at the corners, so I cut some spalted elm into triangular shapes and glued it in the corners. More visual interest, and much-needed reinforcement.

I also added some edge-banding to the top and bottom surfaces that were exposed when I cut the box open. This makes the box look much more finished. I should have been more careful about trimming the inner edges of the banding for a better look, but had the edges been all the same size, I would not have needed to do the trimming. I also didn’t have quite enough of one of the styles of banding to go all the way around the box, so one side got a different pattern. It looks a little goofy, but again, more practice!

And then I started French polishing, but at some point the already-applied finish pulled a bit (I probably did not have enough oil on my pad) and left a bit of a mess, so I sanded the box back a little bit with 0000 steel wool and started applying Tried and True Varnish Oil, which will be my final finish. It’s nearly fool-proof, though a bit slow, as each coat needs to dry overnight before the next coat can be applied, but it’s simpler to apply, and looks really good once enough thin coats are built up.

A think a few more days of this slow finishing regimen will see the box complete. At that point I’ll give it a few days to cure, and then apply a coat of paste wax. I’m not sure what I’ll do with the box, but I suspect it will get given away.

#projects #veneering #buildBlog

Discuss... Reply to this in the fediverse: @davepolaschek@writing.exchange

A while back, I bought a sander designed to square pen blanks from Penn State Industries. It’s a nice little unit, but there are small pieces included and it’s not a nice shape to store, so I built a box to hold it.

Construction is pretty simple, but I tried a few things to practice them. The sides and ends of the box are angled in at a 7.5°︎ angle. The dovetails were otherwise cut as normal, which worked fine, though I appreciated having made the sides from pine when it came time to fit things together, as pine will compress a little which makes inaccuracies less of a pain.

The bottom of the box is some poplar I had on hand. Had to glue up some boards to get the right shape, and then I added cleats to hold the sander in place.

The top of the box sits over the base and the sander, and I will be attaching the sander to the base once I’m certain that’ll work. I’ll also be building storage pockets into the cover of the box to hold things like spare sanding discs and the adapter so I can connect the sander to the dust collector.

Finally, I did some practice carving on the sides of the box. Nothing super-fancy, but it felt like I needed some practice, and I know I found a half-dozen gouges that needed sharpening along the way, so it was a good time to do some carving.

That’s it.

---

Of course, that isn’t it. A friend on mastodon asked about the style of the carving. I replied:

I learned mostly from Ron Aylor, who was heavily inspired by Peter Follansbee, so yes, it’s in the style of Peter Follansbee, but at a remove. I bought Ron’s Categories of 17th-Century Mannerist Carving years ago, and mostly refer to that, but I also have been reading through Mary May’s Carving the Acanthus Leaf and some of the details are things from her book.

---

Of course, that isn’t it, either. Since I’m reading about carving the acanthus leaf, I decided to get some practice. I sketched a leaf on the uncarved side of the box a while ago, and started lowering the background around it this morning. More to come, I’m sure.

---

Another three hours working on the leaf this morning, and the leaf is farther along. I had problems with the central rib / stem of the leaf, and there are a number of finer ribs I still need to carve, but I’m also thinking that maybe I’ve had enough for this practice.

---

No time yesterday, and only about 90 minutes this morning, but I cleaned up the leaf a bit, and may do a little more on it tomorrow, plus I started lowering the background around a circular hex (maybe). I think the border is going to be a barrel and bead pattern.

I worked this morning with a relatively strong sidelight. I keep being surprised at just how much better I can see what I’m doing with just small changes to the light.

---

Two more sessions, one short (almost exactly an hour) and one longer (three hours and a bit) and I think I have finished. At a minimum, I got close enough to put a coat of oil on the wood and step away from it. I’ll see what I think once the oil has had a chance to cure.

#woodworking #shopStorage #woodCarving

Discuss... Reply to this in the fediverse: @davepolaschek@writing.exchange

This is the “Zap Colors” bookmarklet I've been using for decades. I wanted to mention it on mastodon, but trying to paste javascript there is... fraught.

Apologies for the formatting. The bookmarklet needs things quoted and such so it survives in my bookmarks file without getting mangled, and it's easier to just keep that than to try and reformat this. Though perhaps on another day, I'll make the effort.

javascript:(function()%7Bvar%20newSS,%20styles='*%20%7B%20background:%20white%20!%20important;%20color:%20black%20!important%20%7D%20:link,%20:link%20*%20%7B%20color:%20%230000EE%20!important%20%7D%20:visited,%20:visited%20*%20%7B%20color:%20%23551A8B%20!important%20%7D';%20if(document.createStyleSheet)%20%7B%20document.createStyleSheet(%22javascript:'%22+styles+%22'%22);%20%7D%20else%20%7B%20newSS=document.createElement('link');%20newSS.rel='stylesheet';%20newSS.href='data:text/css,'+escape(styles);%20document.getElementsByTagName(%22head%22)%5B0%5D.appendChild(newSS);%20%7D%20%7D)();

#javascript #codeSnippet

Discuss... Reply to this in the fediverse: @davepolaschek@writing.exchange

I bought a Lost Art Press engraving tool a while back. The short metal handle works fine for putting it into a compass, but for freehand use, it’s not very comfortable for me.

So I grabbed a piece of red gum burl I had sitting around (on sale from Cook Woods, I think), and turned a handle to fit the cutter that the engraving tool uses.

It’s a 13/64 hole in the end to hold the cutter. I may need to make a stopper-shaped 3/16 diameter wooden plug to put inside the cutter to press it more tightly against the wood (we’ll see after some use), but this is already a ton more comfortable to hold. Plus, with LAP out of stock on their engraving tools, this is available today. You just need to buy an 2-pack of Excel Large Round Carving Routers, Small Round Carving Routers, or triangular routers (the small round is what I used here) and make yourself a handle.

#handyTools

Discuss... Reply to this in the fediverse: @davepolaschek@writing.exchange

I don't recall exactly when this box got made, but it's extremely simple construction. Butt-joints on the corners (marching around the box) and a glued-on top and bottom. The sides, are, I think, pernambuco, which is CITES protected. It was a micro-lumber board I got as part of a larger order, tacking it onto a larger order to push it up to the amount needed for free shipping. The top and bottom are elm which had a knot that I filled with sawdust and CA glue. I think it's a pretty smooth fill, though it's slightly more obvious from the inside.

The hardware is black “tansu” hardware from Lee Valley. But when I put it together earlier this year, I didn't have any black screws, so it's got brass screws, which is something of a mismatch. They don't look horrible though.

The box is between 4 and 5 inches, by about 3 tall. Or 9x12x7 or 8 cm for you types who think in base 10. The sides and top are roughly quarter-inch (6mm) thick, and the box is finished with some shellac and some Tried and True Varnish Oil.

#woodworking #box

Discuss... Reply to this in the fediverse: @davepolaschek@writing.exchange

I have a MicroLux Drum Sander which is a nice little tool for sanding things that are too small to go through the planer. The only problem I’ve had with it so far is that the height adjuster, for the table that wood goes through the sander on, is hard to adjust by hand.

So I had a thought the other day, and decided to make a knob for it. I started with a chunk of hard maple, and cut a 4 inch square by ⅜ inch thick piece. I found the center by drawing the two diagonals, then drew a circle on it. Where the circle crossed the diagonal, I used an inch and a half Forstner bit to take off the corners.

That done, I drilled a ½ inch hole through the center and chucked it up on the lathe. Used a parting tool to make it round, and then sanded a bit to clean up the rough edges. Then I popped a ⅜-16 bolt through that center hole, got it as centered as I could by hand, and drew lines to make a hexagon around the hole.

The nice thing about a 9/16 inch hexagon is that a ⅜ inch chisel is almost the exact length of a side of the hexagon. And the ⅜-16 bolt (and nut) have a 9/16 inch head. When I put my (inch) calipers on the bolt-head in the sander, it told me 35/64 inch, which is close enough that a 9/16 will work.

After a short bit of chopping with the chisel, the bolt fit through the hex hole I had cut.

Next I made the hole a hair larger on one side with a ⅝ inch spoon bit, going about an eighth deep, and cut a short bit (also about an eighth) off the end of a ⅝ inch brass bar I had on hand (which has a hole drilled in the end from when I was making nuts a while back) and put them together.

With that done, I gave it a test. Here it is on the adjuster bolt. You can see that the brass is slightly proud of the wood surface, so it will serve as a bearing. I meant to do that!

And with the table set down, it’s now super-easy to adjust the height of the table. I think the bolt is a M6-1 which means every rotation gives me 1 mm up or down. On hard maple, one eighth of a rotation was plenty to lift the table for every pass through the sander, but I’m not sure how much of a change that is where the sanding drum contacts the wood.

Tomorrow, I’ll pull my new knob out of the sander and epoxy the brass into the maple with as little epoxy as possible. I’ll probably give it a coat of oil too. But in about an hour, I had fashioned a new knob, and I’m much happier with my little drum sander now. Yay!

#woodworking #handyTools

Discuss... Reply to this in the fediverse: @davepolaschek@writing.exchange

This was captured by Dave Mackmiller, who spent an afternoon at the Bayon learning how to make Cambodian curry chicken. Kim let him watch and take notes while her husband Boon told him where to find ingredients. He thought he got everything written down correctly, although there seemed to be plenty of leeway on the amounts of the ingredients.

In the ingredients list, a “spoon” is roughly a large table spoon (as opposed to a Tablespoon measure) and are generally heaping spoonfuls.

Curry Chicken Sauce (12-15 servings)

Ingredients

• 1 cup Kachai, chopped
• 1 cup lemon grass stems, chopped
• 1 head of garlic, peeled
• 1/3 cup lemon leaves, chopped
• 1 tbsp turmeric powder
• 3 spoons curry powder (Golden Bell brand)
• 3 spoons red hot pepper powder (optional)
• 1/3 cup oil
• 2 spoons salt
  
• 1 spoon fish sauce
• 4 spoon sugar
• 2 – 12 oz cans coconut milk
• 2 cans water

Directions

1. Place kachai, lemongrass, garlic, lemon leaves, and turmeric powder in blender or food processor, and add water to top of ingredients. Puree.
2. Place curry powder in small saucepan and roast over medium heat for about two minutes.
3. Cook red pepper powder in oil in a large heavy pot for two minutes, then add spices from blender and roasted curry powder. Simmer 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.
4. Add salt, fish sauce, sugar, coconut milk, and water. Simmer for a few more minutes. At that point, the sauce is complete, and can be refrigerated for up to 3 days, or frozen for longer-term storage.

Making the curry chicken

Ingredients per serving

• ½ pound boneless skinless chicken thighs, broken up
• 1 medium carrot
• 2 medium potatoes, quartered
• [optional] ⅓ pound bamboo shoots, cubed

Directions

1. Deep fry (or stir-fry) each ingredient separately for about a minute.
2. Place cooked ingredients in saucepan. Add sauce almost to top and a little more coconut milk and water. Bring to a boil, then simmer for about ½ hour or until carrots and potatoes are tender.
3. Serve over rice.

Notes:

• If you increase the sugar, you can decrease the salt.
• The amount of fish sauce can be increased, to taste.
• Kachai or Krachai is a root that looks like a hand with 15-20 fingers, and may also be known as “fingerroot.”

#recipe

Discuss... Reply to this in the fediverse: @davepolaschek@writing.exchange

This started with this Thai Green Mango Salad with Salty Tamarind Dressing recipe, but I’ve changed nearly everything about the recipe, so it’s time to write up my variant.

Total time: 20-30 minutes

Serves: 2

Salad Ingredients

• 3 kiwis, removed from skins and cut into 5-7mm coins. We’re pretty sure grilled cantaloupe will work, but haven’t actually tried it yet.
• ½ Granny Smith Apple, cut into thin wedges, which are then halved
• small cucumber, cut into coins
• 1 tsp amchoor
• ¼ kg shrimp, sautéed in garlic and chile, or a single kebab of chicken, or a couple skewers of barbecued pork, Vietnamese-style (aka Xa Xiu ), or a bit of grilled tofu
• 20g peanuts, roughly crushed

Dressing Ingredients

• 2 T tamarind paste
• 1 T fish sauce, or squid brand sauce
• 1 T lime juice
• 2 T sugar
• ½ tsp molasses
• 1 tsp chile (we use Chimayo chile here)
• 4 T peanut oil (olive oil will work, but…)
• 10g peanuts, crushed

Dressing Directions

• mix all the dressing ingredients in a bowl and whisk until mixed. It’ll separate, and it will separate faster if chilled, so leave it room temperature if you didn’t make it the night before.

Salad Directions

• grill kiwi slices, 5 minutes on one side, undisturbed. They should be brown on the bottom, just beginning to caramelize
• place kiwi slices on plate, browned side up
• if you need to sauté the shrimp, put a little oil and garlic into the pan to loosen the fond from the kiwis, and then cook the shrimp
• place apple slices on plate
• place shrimp on fruits
• drizzle salad with dressing
• sprinkle peanuts on top of salad

#recipe #salad #main

Discuss... Reply to this in the fediverse: @davepolaschek@writing.exchange