Ollie Bord – Railroad Conductor

FINALLY, I can post the pictures of this piece!  (See here for more shots).

This is the last of the 3 carvings that I have sitting on just waiting for the day when I could post them.  I was about ready to burst.  I understand that it was just presented, so now I am free to talk about it.

Late last year the wife (I’ll call her, “M”) of one of my co-workers (I’ll call him, “R”) requested that I create a “railroad related” birthday present for him.  She had seen some of my pieces and suggested that “maybe it should be a railroad conductor” similar to a caricature I had done about 5 years ago.  The carving was, as is often the case, to be a surprise. 

I was pretty booked up at the time and kept putting it off.  Then in way back in April I suddenly got a bit panicky.  I realized that if she had told me when she needed/wanted it – and she probably had -- I couldn’t remember what she had said. 

Note to Self:  Start writing stuff like that down!

Unfortunately, I couldn’t call “M” at home during the evening to check the date because “R” would most likely be there.  And I had to be careful calling “M” from work because “R’s” cubical is within easy earshot of mine.  So instead of attempting to confirm the required completion date and risk blowing the secret, I just got started and resolved to finish it as soon as possible.  As I thought about doing a caricature of a railroad conductor the name “Ollie Bord” just came to me. 

When I was almost done, I looked at “Ollie” (just the figure itself) and thought to myself, “You know, Tom, this guy is really pretty boring!”  My wife must of have gotten similar vibes because she said almost the same thing just a day or two later.

So, I first decided to put him on a platform, but then that didn’t seem to be much of an improvement so I decided to add the facade of an old wooden station.  (This was an easy decision to make because I had wanted to do this for some time since I have an idea for another piece that has an old-fashioned train station in it.) 

One thing led to anther and suddenly one day I realized that Ollie was standing in front of a full size station with a bay window and blinds.  I added signs and other items that would be meaningful (and hopefully humorous) to “R”.  I’d love to let everyone in on all of the inside humor but this being the Internet and all and privacy being what it is and all, I really can’t/shouldn’t.  Suffice it say, the significance of the “Pittsburgh, Homestead and Wilmerding Railroad” and the “Snacks-R-Us” and East Pittsburgh signs will not be lost on his friends or anyone from work who would happen to see Ollie.

Well, according to his watch and the chalkboard behind him, it is about time to make that first boarding call, so “Ollie Booooooooooord!!!”

One for the Bench:

Some people are like Slinkies.  They’re not much good for anything, and you can't help smiling when you imagine one of them tumbling down the stairs:--)….Am I perhaps getting a little too cranky?

‘Til next time…Keep makin’ chips!

August 19th is National Brown Cow Day

I don't normally post things like this but when I found out that Friday August 19th is National Brown Cow/Root Beer Float Day, I felt compelled to announce it publicly, because with all of the uncertainty in the world it would seem a shame not to celebrate such a noteworthy day with gusto! 

 

There are still 4 shopping days until the big day so you can get out there and make your holiday preparations.

My recommended recipe is:

 

1) Add copious quantities of Vanilla Bean Ice Cream (that plain vanilla stuff just doesn't cut it) into a tall glass.

2) Pour CHILLED (very important, you don't want the ice cream to melt too quickly) Hires Root Beer (It's still the best one, but ANY Root Beer is better than NO Root Beer at all) over the ice cream until the glass is full.

3) Remove excess foam by whatever means is deemed suitable.  The foam may actually be the best part so don't waste it.

4) Add additional root beer to bring the level back up to the top

5) Repeat steps 3 and 4 until the glass is as full as you can possible make it.

6) Sit back and enjoy.   

 

Properly prepared the treat won't pass through a straw very easily.  So, personally, I prefer to eat the concoction with a long iced tea spoon. 

 

While this treat is widely known and appreciated by the younger crowd, kids as old as I am have been know to enjoy it as well!

 

One from the Bench:

 

             One does not live by carving alone -- Carvin' Tom

'Til next time...keep makin' chips and sucking down those Brown Cows!

 

Spoon Drilling Jig

I don’t have a good camera or camera crew for filming “How-To” videos and besides this idea hardly requires that level of sophistication.  So, I’m just going to show you a couple of photos and explain why you might want to make one of these Spoon Drilling Jigs.

I threw this one together some time ago in just a few minutes to help get some consistency in the mounting holes that I drill in Lovespoons.  I was using it last night and thought that others might find it useful. So I thought I would post it. 

Here goes…

Drilling a mounting hole in the back of a wooden spoon is hardly rocket science, but you do want to get it right.  If the hole is drilled at too “flat” an angle, the spoon will hang but can be easily brushed off.  Generally, it is considered bad form to have a nicely carved spoon slide off the wall and hit the floor so you want the hole to be angled upward slightly to ensure that gravity keeps the spoon seated on the nail. 

Prior to building this jig, I would just pull a wood scrap from the bin and prop up the bowl end of the spoon a bit and drill the hole.  But, if you are like me, you probably have already carved, sanded and finished your spoon before you even think about drilling the mounting hole.  Under these circumstances, holding the scrap block, adjusting the position and balancing the spoon and pulling the handle of the drill press and watching to make sure that you don’t “punch thru” can be just a bit nerve-rattling.

The jig is just a couple of pieces of scrap lumber about the typical length of the spoons you like to carve.  Cut a small spacer so that you establish a slope of about 10 degrees.  The “true craftsman” can take the time to miter and slope the spacer, I didn’t bother.

I recommend installing some sort of stop block at the bottom to keep the spoon from shifting while you are drilling.  You could make it straight across but I made my stop “V” shaped to help center the spoon as well. 

To use the jig, just place it on the drill press table and adjust the table so that when the drill is all the way down it stops about an 1/8” or so short of the jig.  This way you can go all the way to the stop and not punch through the front of the handle. Slap the spoon is place and you’ve got a nicely angled hole.

That’s it.  I keep it right next to the drill press.  I’ve used to a couple of dozen times so far and I’m glad I took the few minutes to built it.

By the way, I have been trying to remember to tell my customers that since Lovespoons are so light that a good healthy straight pin in the wall is plenty to hold them up.  You can easily push the pin into drywall and hang the spoon.  If you move or just decide to move the spoon, the tiny hole left behind seldom requires any patching.

One from the Bench:

God gave men two ends - one to sit on and one to think with.  Ever since then a man's success or failure has been dependent on the one he used most. - George R. Kirkpatrick

‘Til next time…Keep makin’ chips!

The Car Talk Boys

These pieces are hardly new, in fact they date back to early 2005.  In looking back at these I guess that I actually have improved some over the past 6 years.

Saturday evening a very nice young woman was looking at these pieces in the curio cabinet and she said that she thought that I should add the Car Talk Gang to my blog.  Since I currently have several pieces under construction but nothing complete that I can talk about, I am going to do just she suggested.

If you are not familiar with the NPR program “Car Talk” that airs at 10 AM on Saturdays (at least in Pittsburgh), you really need to “squander a perfectly good hour” -- their words, not mine -- and tune in at least once.

Car Talk is, ostensibly, a car problem call-in show.  But the hosts, Ray and Tommy, manage to make what might otherwise be a very dry, boring discussion into 60 minutes of jokes, puns, snide comments and fun...to say nothing of good advice and information.  Their infectious laughter always puts a smile on my face.

Ray and Tommy

 Ray is the one holding the card and Tommy is sitting back enjoying his coffee.  I think that NPR really needs to get them a better table.  That jack stand looks a little wobbly to me.

But for me, an official, card-carrying punster, the funniest thing on the show is their closing credits where they read part of their list of official staff members. For example:

      Lois Steam - the Car Talk Assertiveness Training Coach        

      Bud Tuggli - Chief Makeup Artist                           

      Marge Innovera - Chief Statistician                   

I was so taken by the clever names that at one point, I chose to carve a bunch of characters to match these wacky names.  Check out these guys in the Picasa Gallery:

1.       Picov Andropov, the Russian Chauffer.  He seems to have some past experience with the KGB as well as Vodka.

2.       Joaquin Matilda, the Australian Tour Guide

3.       Moe DeLawn, Head of Buildings and Grounds The poor boy is obviously, not the sharpest pencil in the box.

4.       Yessir Itsaflat, the Chief of Tire Technology

5.       Euripides Imendes, Proprietor of the Car Talk Clothing Store 

'Til Next time...keep makin' chips

Yet Another Lovespoon…well, no…I guess it isn’t.

The Luther Rose

I guess this is actually a whole new “thing”, not really a Lovespoon and yet not really a “non-Lovespoon” either.  It resides in the netherworld in between. 

Some friends of ours were over a month or so ago looking at Lovespoons.  Their son and brand new daughter-in-law were the recipients of ‘the “R” and “X” Lovespoon’ that I posted recently.  “K” said that she admired the dark wood spoon that I did about a year ago. “S” said that he liked the heart with the inset cross of another spoon that he saw.  Being a Pastor, he said that it was like the “Luther Rose”, an icon of the Lutheran Church.

I put their comments -- along with the idea of inlaying one color of wood into/onto another in a Lovespoon that I had just seen someplace online -- into the mental blender and a day or so later this idea emerged.  

I carved the rose from Basswood.  As simple as the rose looks, it still took two tries.  It has a lot of very subtle curves and undercutting.  It also ended up being a bit larger than I had originally intended.  So I had to increase the overall size of the Celtic knot and the width of the handle to keep the slightly larger rose from overpowering the piece.  Originally, it was also going to have a “framing” disk behind it but that would have made it look even larger and there was an upper limit to just how big I was willing to go :-)

Both the handle of this piece and the aforementioned spoon were carved from cherry and stained dark.  I power-carved the previous spoon but this time I used a coping saw to cut out the openings and then I hand-carved it.  After it was all said and done, it turned out to require about the same amount of effort.  Sure, power carving is much quicker and easier, but this one required much less sanding because the blade-fashioned surface was not left “chewed up” by the rapidly rotating burr.

A secondary benefit of the hand-carved finish was that there were far fewer of those raw "mechanically" ripped open fibers to suck up excess stain.  That greatly minimized the dreadful blotching that I experienced the first time.

Not much else to say except that I hope you like it.

One from the Bench:

If you don't like how things are, change them!  You're not a tree. - Jim Rohn

‘Til next time…Keep makin’ chips!

Wow! Number 2000!

I just looked at the hit counter and saw that the blog has now been looked at 2000 times.  Wow!.  It took 2 years and 2 months to accumulate the first 1000 but only a little over 5 months to pick up the second 1000.

I guess people are starting to find my blog.  So my question to all of you is what have you liked?  What do you wish I had left out?  What would you like to see more of?  Less of?

Let me know.  And thanks for your interest.

'Til next time...keep makin' chips!

In Honor of National Sports Cliché Week

Here are my particular favorites...

Baseball is won between the lines. – Yeah, on the field as opposed to in the parking lot.

He's pitching lights out. – I wasn’t aware that some pitchers pitched with their lights on.

You can't steal first base. – Any other rules you want to read to us?

Three up, three down. – You mean like the inning is now over?

That ball should be playable. – I thought that they were all supposed to be.

The tying run is 90 feet away. – Do you mean like “there is a runner on third base”?

He has to wait for his pitch. – Don’t batters always have to wait?

He's seeing the ball well. – I would hope that most batters do.

He hit that ball squarely. – Ok, so just how squarely can you hit a round ball with a round bat?

He hit that one right on the screws. – I’m confused.  Are the screws in the ball or the bat?

He hit a towering line drive. – If a line drive flies parallel to the ground, how can it be towering?

In any other ballpark, that's a homerun. – That may be true, but sort of irrelevant, don’t you think?

He tatooed that one. – That is just plain dumb!

They're making a lot of un-forced errors. – As opposed to the errors they might be forced to make.

They have a tough road to hoe. -- Correctly stated, the original cliche is “They have a tough row to hoe”...a farming reference.  OK, Mr. Color Commentator, just how does one “hoe a road” anyway?

They have to circle the wagons. – I thought they were playing baseball.

They don't have their heads in the game. – Probably not their hands, arms, backs and legs either.

It ain't over 'til the fat lady sings. – Just who is this fat lady they keep talking about?  I have yet to hear her sing.  And believe me, I have been waiting and waiting and waiting!

He's going to have to get on his horse to catch that one. – I’ll be the grounds keeper would have something to say about that!

He uncorked a wild pitch. – As opposed to uncorking a bottle of Jack Daniels.

They're not playing to win, they're playing not to lose. – Is there really a difference?

They have to manufacture some runs. – Again, isn’t that the point?

I guess right after “the last nail was placed in the coffin”, “the roof just caved in”, causing them to “run into a buzz saw” so that “their wheels just fell off” so “a lot of the faithful are heading for the exits” where “They got an old-fashioned woodshed whooppin' ”.  So “This could get ugly” ...to say nothing of stupid!

'Til next time...keep makin' Chips!

The Empire State Express…the Painting and Assembly Begins

Pieces and parts

I’m starting to pull a few pieces together and to make some decisions on how things are going to look on the Empire State Express.  After looking at the pictures of the actual train that I found online, I have decided to deviate from the original paint job to something a little more…well… interesting.

The way I see it, the original manufacturers just didn’t bother to take into consideration what my opinions were of how their locomotive should look.  They probably thought only in terms of manufacturability, maintainability and ruggedness and gave very little thought to my thoughts of style:-)

The original locomotive appears to be made primarily of cast iron and steel.  So it is black with just a few decorative touches of  white.  Now, I don’t plan to make my locomotive look “Gaudy” but I do think that a touch of brass makes it more appealing.  So I am adding it to my locomotive. 

Although I once gave my VW bug two coats of the best brush-on Rustoleum paint that money could buy, I do not continue in that vein.  Carved items that are supposed to be metal really need to be first covered with sanding sealer, sanded and then spray-painted to give that smooth, “metal” finish.  No brushing!  You can see in the photo how the steam and sand domes and how the bands around the boiler are brass-colored. 

Now, before you ask me why the back end of the boiler is painted to look like brass, I’ll tell you.  The majority of the boiler will be black with just the domes and the bands in brass.  I set off over the weekend to laboriously mask off the boiler so that only the bands and the domes would be exposed to the flying paint.  It was only when I was almost done with applying the tape that I finally realized that…DAH!…I could just sprayed the whole thing and then painted the black over the brass where I needed to.  I didn’t need to mask anything.  You can see from the photo just when that realization finally hit me:-)

You can see that I sprayed the edges drive wheels with aluminum paint.  I’ll pull off the tape and paint the insides of the wheels -- probably red -- with a dirty brown/black between the spokes to make it seem like you are looking through them to the boiler beyond.  The small wheels for the front truck are loaded up on a small dowel rod for a trip to the “paint shop”.  The edges will be aluminum and the centers will be whatever color I decide to paint the drive wheels.

Right there in the center of the shot you can also just make out the bell.  I have yet to photograph the bell in its “frame” but I’ll be sure to do that for the next installment.

Well, that’s it for today.

One for the Bench:

We never really grow up; we only learn how to act in public.

‘Til next time…Keep makin’ chips!

Empire State Express Update #1

Front Truck, drive cylinders and cowcatcher

Things are progressing, albeit slowly, on the Empire State Express.  I turned and installed the steam dome, sand dome and smokestack into the boiler last week and I now have the majority of the locomotive front truck and cowcatcher completed.

Making the cowcatcher is not difficult but is always a very "putsy" task.  You can quickly get the frame cut and glued up but cutting, fitting, gluing each piece into the “grill” takes time because you really have to wait -- patience, Tom -- for each rib to dry before you dare attempt to measure, cut and install the piece next to it.  I have a pair of really pointy tweezers but the spacing between ribs is so small that it is still difficult to get a rib into position without bumping the one next to it.  If the glue on the previous piece isn’t at least halfway dry, you’ll be repositioning them both…again!

I always cut the pieces wide and long and shape them after the glue has dried.  It you look carefully -- you will probably have to click on the picture to expand it-- you will see that I had to add another piece to the middle rib.  The middle rib is always the first one I add because it has to be there to hold the whole assembly in alignment.  In this case, I realized about half way through the rib installation process that the middle rib did not match the others.  So when I was all done I glued an extension on to it, which I had yet to shape when I took the picture.  Please excuse the all of the “fuzzies”.  I have yet to do any final sanding.

A question for any Ferroequinologists (“Iron Horse” or railroad enthusiasts) out there:  The Empire State Express has a small, horizontal ”flat” located near the center top of the cow-catcher.  Any ideas what that is for?

Wider shot to show sand dome and smokestack

You can see from the photos that I have turned and installed the two drive cylinders and the front boiler support.

One the wider shot, you can see the sand dome, the smokestack and the hole where the bell will be mounted.  The boiler has had one coat of sanding sealer so that is why it appears darker than the front truck and cowcatcher.  Several coats of the sanding sealer (sanding with 320 grit between coats) produce a nice, hard smooth surface that looks much more like metal than raw Basswood.  Make sure you sand again, lightly, prior to painting, however, to ensure that the paint has something to “grab”. 

As I look at the photo, I realize that even though I went to all of the trouble to prop up the boiler for the purpose of taking the picture, I positioned it too far back.  It needs to come forward between 1/4” and 3/8”.

One for the Bench

Always take life with a grain of salt…but sometimes it helps to add a slice of lemon, and a shot of tequila.

‘Til next time…Keep makin’ chips!

The Start of the Empire State Express

Long time readers have seen pictures here of two wooden model locomotives that I have made over the past couple of years, “The Jupiter” and “Old No. 119”.  Well, I’m doing it again, this time it’s for my curio cabinet.

I have discovered that there is a lot you need to know about locomotives to be able to pull off making a reasonable model of one.  I am learning, albeit slowly.

The first important thing I have learned is that you definitely need a really good set of scale drawings to work from.  I built “The Jupiter” from exactly 1, count ‘em, ONE side view (that I could scale from) and a couple of “¾ shots” for info about painting details.  I could not find a front view anywhere.  As a result, its wheel spacing, and hence the track spacing, ended up being about 25% wider than it should have been. Fortunately, anyone looking at the model sees it from the side and the boo-boo is not terribly obvious.  But it does bother me.

I was able to locate a few more pictures of “Old No. 119” and some pictures of similar locos, so I did a much better job of getting it right.  But I still had to do quite a bit of fudging because I still had no straight-on front or rear views. 

This time I am starting with a very good set of plans, thanks to the “Cyclopedia – Volume 1, Steam Locomotives”, by Linn Westcott.  If you are interested in steam trains – for modeling or just for reading -- this is a great book (available online for about $10 off the sticker price).  It is just amazing to me how different they all are.

The second important thing I have learned is that even though these were a tiny models that could be easily picked up with one hand, to be successful you still have to build them from the ground up.  I know this because I did it wrong both times. 

In building a locomotive model it is nearly impossible to get the wheels aligned properly.  Invariably, the wheels never seem to quite all hit the ground together.  I had to continuously “fudge” the rail height and/or the space between the rails to make everything work out right.  The trick was to do this without making it too obvious.  This time I built the roadbed, rails and ties FIRST.  When the wheels are finally attached to the rest of the loco, the whole thing will be sitting on the rails so everything has to line up.

Carving the Drive Wheels

I purposely chose all three locomotives because of their huge drive wheels.  They provide a lot of character for the loco and I really like that historic look. But an equally important reason is that the larger wheels are much easier to detail.

Complete wheel on left.  Partially completed wheel on right

I first turned a basswood wheel of the proper scale diameter and cross-section on the lathe.  I have a bunch of wheels to make this time -- I’m planning to build the tender, too -- so made myself a template to compare with each production piece to keep them all the same.   I left the hub and the edge of the wheel "raised" with the spoke region “dished in”.  I then sketched in the spokes and cut out the area between them.  The actual wheels have 20 spokes. I settled for just 16 because the additional 4 don’t add much -- unless you are a real perfectionist – and 16 spokes are a whole lot easier to layout than 20.

Since the wheels are relatively thin (~ 1/8”) basswood, I never attempt to carve the whole way through.  The cross-grain and the amount of removed material would make the wheels far too weak.  Instead, I carefully make a stop cut around the edge of each opening (between the spokes) and remove about 1/16” of the wood there.  When the wheels are painted and mounted on the locomotive, the effect is pretty good.  I won’t even attempt to put spokes in the 12 smaller “Idler” wheels.  That would be just insane!

I do try to get most of the other details right, however.  You can see the “counterweight” between the spokes along the one side of the wheel (opposite the hole for the drive pivot).  In the real thing, this weight is there to balance the weight of the drive rods to keep everything from flying apart at high speeds.  The Empire State Express was the very first train to exceed 100 mph (it actually did 112.5 mph on May 10, 1893).  When you multiply the enormous 84” diameter wheels (that’s 7 feet!) by Mr. Pi you get a circumference of almost 22 feet!  At 112.5 mph wheels were going around 7.5 times every second!  Later, the 84” wheels were replaced with ones that were about 75”.

The Boiler

Boiler and Wheels on tracks

As before, I turned the boiler out of one piece of basswood, but since I had actual drawings this time I knew from the front view that the Empire State Express had a “Wagon-Top” boiler.  You can see from the picture that the rear portion of the boiler is larger in diameter than the front.  What is not obvious is that, while it is circular, it’s center is not in line with the rest of the boiler.  Its centerline is slightly higher placing the bottoms of the two circular cross-sections approximately in line.  (I’m guessing that this had something to do with improved steam generation because it greatly increased the complexity of the boiler shape.)  However, getting the shape right was quite a task.  For a better lathe operator there is no doubt a method for turning with 2 different centers of rotation.  But discretion being the better part of valor, I turned it to be symmetrical and carved and sanded it to the proper shape.  The hard part was getting the conical transition between the two offset centerlines to look right. 

I then glued on the bottom (rectangular) section of the boiler.  I can’t tell from the drawings or photos where the boiler stops and the wheel-mounts start.  But all of that detail is behind the wheels so just between you and me, I’m going to let that part go:--)  The block with the "X" is just a spacer to keep everything lined up for the picture.

One from the Bench

The difference between ordinary and extraordinary is that little extra. - Jimmy Johnson

'Til next time...keep makin' Chips!