davepolaschek

Ingredients

• ½ onion, diced
• ½ tsp powdered garlic
• 4 cups sweet potatoes, diced into ½” cubes (or carrot/squash) (there are bags of frozen roasted sweet potatoes we like to use – 2 bags is the right amount)
• 2 cups vegetable (or chicken) broth or water
• 15 oz can coconut milk
• 1 tsp chile powder
• ½ tsp smoked paprika
• ½ tsp salt
• ¼ tsp black pepper

Directions

• In a large pot over medium heat, sauté onion in a little oil (1T) until it begins to brown. Darker than translucent, lighter than caramelized.
• Add broth and bring back to a boil, deglazing pan if needed.
• Add coconut milk and bring back to a boil.
• Add sweet potatoes and bring back to a boil.
• Add spices.
• Stir to combine, cover, reduce heat to low and simmer for 15 minutes if using frozen roasted sweet potatoes, or 30 minutes if using fresh sweet potatoes, or until potatoes are tender.
• Use an immersion blender to blend soup until completely smooth.
• Serve and enjoy!

We routinely add a Spam Single, some leftover ham, a half-pound of Italian sausage, or other meat to this. Frozen spinach or chard is also a good addition. My sweetie likes to add a sprinkle of Tajin powder to hers.

#recipe #soup

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After the first bedside lamp with its wooden base, I wanted to try making one with a cholla and epoxy base. I started by pouring tinted epoxy into a 16 ounce cup from the dollar store, with some cholla pieces jammed into it. For smaller molds like this, I may need to start using partial pieces of cholla, as there ends up being a lot of empty space that needs to be filled with the epoxy. And pouring large amounts of epoxy can lead to a runaway exothermic reaction which causes the epoxy to foam and bubble and set very quickly, which generally isn’t usable.

With a successful pour, I pulled the blank from the mold and rough-turned it to a shape I thought would work. The only dimension I was really worried about was the top, which would have the top of the lamp meeting it.

Looking at the rough blank, there wasn’t enough room for a battery, so I glued on a round piece of cherry, which I thought would look good, then I poured a small pour of epoxy to make sure the base and the lamp body were stuck together real good.

Next I turned the base, aiming to leave it as wide as possible, giving me the most flexibility with the battery.

With the base turned, I bored a hole into the base of the lamp body. The largest diameter at the bottom was 2½ inches, but I stepped that down to an inch to make sure I didn’t make the inside of the lamp bigger than the outside.

With the hole bored and the top of the lamp assembled, I carved out an opening for the battery and glued on some feet to give a little clearance for the battery, so the lamp wouldn’t rest on the battery.

After signing the lamp, I finished it. The epoxy portion is polished with a plastic polish. The wooden base was finished with multiple coats of Tried and True Danish Oil. After the finishes have had a chance to cure, I’ll probably add a coat of furniture wax to make it easier to dust.

#woodworking #project #lamp

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A while back, my sweetie expressed a desire to have a bedside lamp and a night light. I worked with a few different ideas for the lighting part of it before finding the Lanterna 3-Stage Battery Powered Lamp at Lee Valley. It’s just about exactly what I want, except it takes 3 C-cells. More on that later.

So I started by making a twisted tangential turning roughly the shape I wanted for the lamp base.

I also went searching for a rechargeable battery for the lamp. Turns out our door cameras have a battery which is just about perfect. The battery has charging circuitry built-in, and the terminals are on one end of the battery, and the charging jack on the other, so I ordered a spare battery. The only question was whether the 3.7 volt battery would drive the light circuit which was expecting 4.5 volts (yes, yes it does).

Then I disassembled the Lanterna and figured out what I could use. It was pretty easy, as there is a ⅜ inch threaded rod down the middle of the lamp holding everything together and carrying the wires from the head to the base. All I needed to do was cut off the battery holder, shorten the rod to fit my base, and then solder the wires onto the rechargeable battery terminals.

Then because my base was a little short, I cut a piece of walnut and carved out a battery-shaped hole in it, leaving the hole just large enough to slide the battery through, but tight enough that the battery won’t fall out when you pick up the lamp.

With the walnut base glued to the twisted base, finishing was just a matter of a few coats of danish oil, a coat of shellac, followed by two coats of violin varnish, and then a thin layer of carnauba wax so the lamp should be easier to dust.

My sweetie thinks it’s wonderful.

Technical notes: the battery charging circuit may not support operation of the lamp while charging. I don’t think this is a big problem, but that’s part of why the charging jack is on the bottom of the lamp. It’s less tempting to try and use the lamp while it’s charging this way. Also, Ring doorbell batteries are about half the price of the TP-Link batteries, but the charging jack and battery terminals are on the same end of the battery. Depending on your design, this may be good or bad.

Finally, the three stages of the lamp were chosen fairly well. The dimmest is slightly too-bright for a night-light, but putting a colored lens in front of the LEDs would solve that. And would be easy given the way the lamp screws together. And the current draw is low enough that the lamp should last 10-20 hours at full power, and almost a full week in nightlight mode. I think that’s a pretty decent life.

#project #lamp #woodworking #woodturning

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Approximately 600g net carbs per recipe

Ingredients

• 2 C (8 oz by weight) chopped or crushed cranberries. Fresh and frozen are both OK.
• 1 large apple, peeled and chopped
• 6 oz (¾ Cup) orange juice

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• 2¾ C flour
• 1-1⅓ C granulated (white) sugar
• 2-4 tsp molasses
• 3½ tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp salt
• ½ tsp ground cinnamon
• ¼ tsp ground nutmeg

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• 1 large egg
• 1 C milk
• 3 Tbsp canola oil
• 1 tsp orange extract

Directions

• Peel and chop the apple and place in a small mixing bowl.
• Add the orange juice to the apple.
• Crush or coarsely chop the cranberries. Mashing them between two cutting boards works pretty well. Add to the apple pieces.

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• Mix the flour, sugar, molasses, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg in a large mixing bowl.

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• Mix the egg, milk, oil, and orange extract in a large measuring cup.

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• Mix the liquids into the large mixing bowl, stirring just until blended.
• Fold in the fruit and orange juice.
• Pour into two greased 4x8 inch loaf pans, or four (five if you want to frost them or put lids on) greased mini-loaf pans.
• Bake at 350F for 50 minutes, until golden brown and delicious, until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. If you have a larger apple, it will take longer to bake. The toothpick test is your best guide.
• Let cool for 10 minutes before removing from pans to cool on a wire rack.

You can frost these with an orange-flavored frosting if you desire (sprinkle some extra orange zest over the frosting if you do), but we like them plain, or with a little butter.

Frosting ingredients (optional)

• 1 C confectioners (powdered) sugar
• 3 Tbsp orange juice
• ½ tsp orange zest
• 1 tsp Cointreau, Triple Sec, or orange oil

#recipe #dessert

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I recently had our HVAC guy out to clean my shop mini-split. He commented that it really needed the cleaning, and he was surprised it was still working well. And that I really ought to keep it cleaner. So I decided I would built a box to hold some filters to clean the air going into the split, so it would be happier in the future.

First step was building a frame to hold two of the filters I’m going to use. These are the filters I already use in my Rikon 62-450 air cleaner, so I generally have them on hand.

With the frame built, I measured the mini-split and the space between it and the ceiling. My goal was to put the filters sitting vertically, rather than the horizontal filters built into the mini-split, which sit horizontally at the top of the split, and catch dust even when the split isn’t running. I figure the filters will last longer if they’re only collecting dust when the split is running.

Everything looked as though it would fit, so I built two frames for the box. The one in the left had to work around the mounting system for the post for my post drill, which I needed because it was impossible to buy a straight 6x6 during the early COVID days, so I got a twisted one and figured a way to make it work.

With the side frames built, I cut panels to fit on them from a scrap of MDF I had. Then I used more scraps to connect the two side frames together and provide an opening for the filter holder.

Next up was to seal up the large gap between the mini-split and the filter box. But I couldn’t build anything rigid here, since the front of the split pivots up when it opens so you can clean the filter. My solution was to tape in a piece of ¼ inch MDF. Hopefully the tape will remain flexible enough that I don’t need to remove it, but can simply flex the piece out of the way.

With that, it was time to put the filter carrier in place. I had hoped that it would stay with no attachment, bu it wanted to tip forward, so I put a single screw in to hold the top of it in place.

And with that, everything was done except inserting the filters. With them in place, it’s done. The filters don’t seem to hurt the airflow from the split when they’re clean, but I’ll need to keep an eye on things as they get dirtier. It wouldn’t do to burn out the fan in the split.

#project #woodworking #airFilter

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While working on the Altai Project Logo carving, I discovered I needed a narrow skew in order to get down into some of the corners. I have a handful of ½ inch wide unground blanks I got from the Mountain Woodcarvers clearance page, so I got busy.

First step was grinding it down to 2-3mm wide. Then I skewed the tip, and put a rough edge on with the grinder. That’s the rough outline of the tip made.

Then I had to re-harden the steel, as the grinding had wrecked the temper. I heated it bright glowing red with a MAP gas torch, and plunged it into a jar of canola oil I keep for hardening tools. Then the blade went into the toaster oven to temper it. I’m aiming for a hardness of 60 or so, which will work well for a carving tool.

With the blade in the oven, I turned to the lathe, and converted a small piece of granadillo into a handle. I also drilled a 3/16 hole for the tang. Because it’s a tapered tang, I drilled a short bit wider with 7/32 and ¼ inch bits. Then I added a ferrule from some ½ OD brass, and filed it smooth.

By this time, the blade was done cooking, so I pulled it out and let it cool, then pounded the handle onto the blade. A bit of hand sanding and a couple coats of tung oil, and it’s ready to go.

#woodworking #tool #project

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Based on the basic recipe from Southern Living, this is pretty tasty, and as a bonus, you get a good cup of pot-likker to give a boost (and some added vitamins) to some other recipe down the road. Switching Spam for ham will require tweaking the spices, but is not a horrible substitution.

Serves: 4 Active time: 15 minutes Total time: 2 hours, 15 minutes

Ingredients

• 2 slices bacon, chopped, or 1 Tbsp bacon grease
• 2 Tbsp diced onion
• 2 (3 if using bacon grease, rather than bacon slices) slices ham, chopped
• ½-1 tsp garlic powder
• 2 cups chicken broth
• 1 Tbsp apple cider or red wine vinegar
• ½ tsp sugar
• ⅛ tsp chile powder (I prefer Chimayó)
• ⅛ tsp salt
• ⅛ tsp black pepper
• ½ lb collard greens

Directions

• Sauté the bacon and onion until the onion has gone translucent.
• Add the garlic and ham, and get everything mixed together.
• Add all the other ingredients and bring to a simmer.
• Simmer for 2 hours, or a little more, stirring occasionally.
• Fish the greens out with tongs and serve, and save the pot-likker for something else. It’s tasty and full of nutrients.

#recipe

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I’ve been needing a single place to store my files, rasps, and floats for a while now. They were stored in two older tills, one of which had been repurposed from a saw till, and another which used to be something else that I don’t remember. Plus I had a number of files laying loose on various flat surfaces around the shop.

I started by building three racks to hold the files of various lengths. The largest holds 12 files, the middle holds 15, and the shortest rack can hold 20 files, though only the shortest in length will fit.

The racks are made of ⅜ inch thick oak, either 1 or 2 inches wide. Each rack has a bottom piece with indentations drilled in it, and a cross piece with magnets embedded to hold the files in place. They all pivot on the dowels that mount them (though this isn’t an especially useful feature) so they can be tipped forward or backward to access the files without knocking the ones in the rows in front. The racks were treated with iron acetate to ebonite them, though the solution was a couple weeks old, which is, I suspect, why I got a dark brown rather than a black finish.

The carcasse is built of ¾ inch thick pine, and dovetailed together, with the shelf above the drawer resting in a pair of ¼ inch deep dadoes. The drawer is also dovetailed, with half-blind dovetails holding the drawer front in place. This is the first time I’ve built half-blind dovetails, so it was good practice. The drawer-front is also carved with a design I made up over a few days of carving.

The pine is all finished with a coat of kakishibu. It’ll get a few coats of tung oil once it has had a little time to darken, unless I decide it needs a second coat of kakishibu first.

The drawer hold spare file handles, file cards, and needle files. A couple weeks of construction, the added carving on the front of the till makes it feel a little special and I also got to practice barrel and bead moulding which came out nice.

#woodworking #project #woodCarving #shopFurniture

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This is a moulding for the edge of a piece of wood that livens it up, and is fairly quick and easy to do. Working in pine, I can create a linear foot of beading in about ten minutes, including time for stropping my gouge.

For reference, here’s what I’m referring to as barrel moulding.

The barrels in this case are three times as long as they are wide. Beaded moulding is typically the same length as width, and bead and barrel moulding alternates the two, but the technique is the same for all of them.

First you need to make a bead on the edge of a board. I generally do three beads, and then cut the interruptions in the middle one to make barrels, which I think looks pretty good. I make these using a Lie-Nielsen #66 beading tool with an appropriate blade, which in my case is a double reed profile, set up so one of the reeds is right on the edge of a ¾ inch board. I repeat the profile going both directions on the board to make a total of three reeds, with one in the center of the board. Note that multiple manufacturers make beading tools, but you can also make a scratch stock that will do the job.

With the beads or reeds on the edge of the board, mark off the length of your barrels. As I said earlier, I like a 3:1 ratio if I’m going to make them uniform length, but other ratios work. Just set up your dividers and make marks a consistent distance apart down the length of the board.

With your marks made, you’ll need a #11 gouge the same width as the beads or reeds you’ve made in the board. This is also known as a veiner and has a u-shaped profile. My ¼ inch veiner that I use for making these beads has been modified with rounded wings or edges so that it doesn’t cut as far into the wood as it would with square edges.

I start with the gouge almost flat on the bead, with the cutting edge about a sixteenth of an inch (or a millimeter) back from the mark for the edge of a barrel.

Then I rock the gouge forward and into the wood, ending with it fully vertical.

Repeat this down the board, and you’ll have something that looks like the following.

Now go back and do the same in the other direction. As you rotate the gouge up, you’ll get a small amount of wood pushing to the sides. If it’s too much, start a little closer together for the two cuts. After you’ve gone both directions, use a #1s or #2 gouge (also known as a skew) to clean out the waste.

Here’s a photo showing all the stages from start to finish of making the barrels.

From left to right, that shows: cut one direction; cut both directions; cleaned out the corners with a #2 (skew) gouge; cut the second time from the left and right; and finally, cleaned out the second time.

I find that I have to go along the length of the board twice. If I try to do it all in one pass, the edges will be rougher because I was taking “too big a bite” at once.

Once I’ve been up and down the length of the board twice and cleaned out the waste with a skew, I use a chip brush I chopped shorter so the bristles are fairly stiff. This one has also been used for applying kakishibu, which further stiffens the bristles and gives them a reddish tint.

Once all the waste is brushed out, you’re ready to finish. Thanks for looking!

#woodworking #technique

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A friend wanted the dimensions of handscrews of various sizes. I took measurements of the four I have, and photos to show what the dimensions measure.

The dimensions are the following measurements:

And the four handscrews are shown together:

Beginning in the top left, an unknown Chinese handscrew, all measurements in inches.

Tall: 1¾ Thick: 1⅝ Long: 10 Jaw: 5 Screw: 9½

Top Right, a large Miro Moose handscrew

Tall: 2¼ Thick: 2⅛ Long: 14 Jaw: 7 Screw: 14½

Lower Left, a medium Rockler handscrew

Tall: 1¾ Thick: 1½ Long: 8 Jaw: 4 Screw: 8

Lower right, my smallest Miro Moose

Tall: 1⅜ Thick: 1¼ Long: 6 Jaw: 3 Screw: 5½

The free jaw measurement is, in every case, half of the total jaw length. The height and width of the jaw are nearly equal, but the measurement I have labeled “Tall” is always slightly larger than the jaw width (or thickness). And the free length of the screw is typically about the same as the total length of the jaw.

The Miro Moose clamps are a brand of Dubuque Clamps, and are made in Iowa.

#woodworking #tools

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