Category: crafts

Walnut Hollow Hot Tool Issues

On By Michel McDonaldIn craftsLeave a comment

July 15th 2009:

I just emailed Walnut Hollow with this query but I wanted to post it here as well.

I have a Creative Versa-Tool wood burning kit.  Sometimes the points get black from being used so much or maybe from being turned on for extended periods of time.  The points I can sand with a very fine metal sandpaper which I usually use when needed but the threads on the points also get black.  I can use a wire brush to get the black off the threads on the points but what about the inside of the tool?

I’m having issues getting the points on and even taking them off.  I have to use a pair of pliers to put the points on and take them off because it’s so tight from all the black on the threads.

So while I await their response I’m going to save this post as a draft so I don’t have to edit my post.

I am still waiting for their response but while I was waiting I decided to try my own little experiment.  I tried looking for a wire brush, it looks like a tooth brush but it’s wire instead of the normal plastic bristles your tooth brush has.  I wasn’t so lucky but I did find something that is a bit longer than the average tooth brush with longer bristles and is meant for use in the kitchen.  So I grabbed that and also a can of WD-40 meant to keep my bicycle lubed up at all times.

I sprayed some of that on 2 of my points and it soaked the In ‘N Out Burger napkins on my desk so the bottom of my desk is now an oily mess.  I proceeded to scrub the shit out of the points with the brush and even though I could see some blackness going onto the bristles, the threads didn’t change.

I then squirted some WD-40 into the chamber where you screw the points, not too much, I flipped it over and tapped it on the napkin so in case I put too much in there then it would drip out.  I then tried screwing a point on and unscrewing, you know, to grease the threads and it seems to have helped a little but not too much.  Maybe it just needs that to be done several times to get that shit out of the threads on the inside and on the points.

It’s too late now to get a response so back to the draft this post goes until I get a response hopefully tomorrow (Thursday).

July 20th 2009:
Dear Michel,

I believe that the ‘black’ on the Points and threads is due to a reaction when the metals get hot from the tool. To remove this, you can use fine grade sandpaper. As for any difficulty you have changing the Points using pliers, try using powdered graphite (found at most hardware stores) to help with changing Points on the tool. Powdered graphite is mostly used in locks to make keys slide in and out easier – works on our hot tool threads also.

Hope this helps,

Chris

I Got Wood…

On By Michel McDonaldIn craftsLeave a comment

… for wood burning lol.  What were you thinking?  You dirty birds.

My package from Walnut Hollow came tonight with 4 medium pieces of wood and 2 large pieces of wood.  I also got a book and the numbers and letters as well as some fun shapes to burn with that all screw onto the wood burning tool.

I was going to do my own font for the Spirit board but considering the large wood is a bit smaller than I thought it would be I’m gonna have to use the smaller letters and numbers and since I bought letters and numbers then why not use them right?  Then once I’m done with it then I can just do some other designs on the board.  Although, now I need to make a smaller planchette lol.  I have another piece of wood so no biggy.  I want to make a different one anyway without the hole inside with just a pattern on the top of it.

Anyway, I can’t wait to see what I’m going to make.

New Purpose for Stakes

On By Michel McDonaldIn craftsLeave a comment

Years ago we bought these stakes from the garden section of the local hardware store.  No, we don’t have a vampire problem.  We were putting grass seeds on the grass to grow new grass and to prevents people from walking all over the new grass we put the stakes in the ground and used this green tape on the stakes.  Although, that didn’t do much good, people broke the green tape and walked on our lawn anyway.

We still have all these stakes though and don’t really know what to do with them so they just sit on the patio collecting dust.  I just got an idea today…

I’m going to take the sander and sand the sides of them then use those zig zag type of metal nail things that you hammer into 1 piece of wood on the side then you hammer another piece of wood onto the other side of the zig zag nail to join the 2 pieces of wood.  I’m going to put some wood glue in there and attach maybe 5 of the stakes together then press them tight and let the pieces dry.  I’m going to do this with several of the stakes so I have more than just 1 or a few pieces.  I’m going to keep 1 stake for every board that I make so I can use them to stake the board into the ground.

Why would I need to stake boards into the ground?  Because I’m thinking that maybe I can use these boards for wood burning projects.  I can wood burn patterns for gardens as gifts for Christmas.  I think it will be neat.  I could burn maybe a picture of fairies sitting on or flying around mushrooms or maybe some gnomes or something lol.  I think it’s a neat idea and it gives me free wood to burn on since we already have the wood lol.

Me In The Simpsons – Wood Burned and Painted

On By Michel McDonaldIn crafts, HumorLeave a comment

I got bored…  LOL I went to the google search engine and typed “turn picture into simpsons character” and I found this website from Burger King called Simpsonize Me.  I thought it was a very good likeness of me lol and I got bored so I wood burned it and that wasn’t enough for me, I had to paint it too lol.  So here you go, I hope you like it.

Box for Vedra

On By Michel McDonaldIn Birthdays, craftsLeave a comment

Today was (Darrin’s cousin) Vedra’s birthday and so we went over to her house to give her the box.  I put 2 bags of Hershey’s Kisses, 2 different flavors inside the box.  I know 1 flavor was peanut butter but the other was truffle creme with dark chocolate or something like that, I forgot what the name was lol.  Anyway, she loved it.

I went to Walgreen’s and bought one of their ready-made gift bags with the ribbon on the front and the different color tissue paper inside to match the bag color.  Then I came home and took the tissue out and put the box inside of it then tucked it back into the bag.  Then of course I put the card in there too.

When she pulled the tissue paper out of the bag with the box in the paper then she peeled away the tissue the expression on her face was priceless.  She goes “OH NO!!!” hehe.  Oh No meaning I can’t believe you got me this, I love it.  I know Oh No usually doesn’t sound good but in this case I could interpret it hehe.

She looked at every inch of it and was just in love with the design and the paint job and her name being on the top.  She was really happy so that is all that counts.

Here is my original post with the video of the box on YouTube:

Wood Burned Box

Well, now that I know what kind of reaction she gave me I think I’m going to go back to Michael’s for more boxes from here on out until December buying up as many boxes as I can afford to make boxes for everybody for Christmas 2009 lol.  Well, not just boxes lol.

New Bike Seat and Wood Burning Stuff

On By Michel McDonaldIn Bike, craftsLeave a comment

New Bike Seat:

I just bought my new bike seat finally.  It’s an Ergo bicycle seat which means it has no “horn”.  It’s just the butt part.  The one I bought is the “Classic” Vinyl Bicycle Seat with the black sheepskin cover.  The sheepskin is supposed to add more cush for the tush.  It was a bit pricey at $67 after the shipping cost but it’s worth it to me to have a bicycle seat that doesn’t make me numb in places that make me blush to mention.  Also my left leg has had some pain shooting down from the crotch area and that’s not good so this is going to be great to have.

Update: I just got an email from the bicycle seat website that I bought the seat from and the guy who is in charge of it all sent me an email saying it will take him 4 to 5 days before he can send it out because there was a tragic death in the family.  Poor guy.  I can wait.  4 to 5 days would be Monday or Tuesday when he can send them out.  That’s fine, I wasn’t really expecting it to be sent out until then anyway because of the 4th of July weekend.  I can be patient.  I was hoping it would’ve been shipped out today though so I could get it by Monday but that’s fine.

Wood Burning Stuff:

I’ve been wanting to go to Michael’s to buy some wood burning stuff but their wood burning section is too small.  So instead I went to the Walnut Hollow website.  They have a special discount for the 4th of July, all you do is type in Made in the USA when you checkout.  It didn’t work for me, probably because all the things I bought are already discounted.  Here are the things I bought.

I don’t normally brag every time I buy something… ok yeah I do but I just wanted to brag about these things lol.  All the wood burning stuff from Walnut Hollow came out to about $38.58 after the $10 UPS shipping.  Which is not a bad price to pay for shipping considering the alphabet set and the numbers set at Michael’s costs $28 each.  And all that wood that I bought they don’t sell the irregulars at Michael’s but they are expensive there.  I would guess that I’d have to pay about $15 or $20 each for those.  So I think I got a really good deal on everything.  The hotstamps everyday series and word series, I probably will never use those or maybe use them once but who freakin’ cares, .50 cents dude!  The books were not in the “Great Deals” section which I like to call bargain bin but that’s ok.  $5.29 for a book is great and the other one that is 99 cents is a thin book.  No biggy.

I can’t wait to get all that stuff especially the seat.  Oh boy do I need that seat because I’ve already added 3 miles to my ride thanks to that homeless guy at the rest stop.  But you know, thanks to him for creeping me out and pushing me to go further lol.

Wood Burned Box

On By Michel McDonaldIn crafts1 Comment

I just added a video to YouTube, it’s just a 1 minute video but it’s of the box that I just finished making for Chips cousin Vedra.  Her birthday is this Saturday, July 4th.

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_3cqj-0WWA

I wish I had thought of doing this earlier in the month because then I would’ve had time to do it properly.  I put this wood protector stuff on it, I don’t know what it’s called but it protects the wood from the sun and from water.  Anyway, you are supposed to put that stuff on then let it dry then sand it then put more on and then sand it again and I think you are supposed to do that several times.  But I didn’t have the right sandpaper to do that and it’s just a box lol.

So what I did was I found the pattern online, it’s like a border for making a card or sign or whatever.  But I stretched it out so it was the same size as the top then for the front and back I cut out the bottom of the border image and printed it the right size for the front and back.  Then I did the same thing with the sides and I just blended them in with the roses so it looked normal lol.  Then I used this water based paint to paint the roses and the leaves.  Darrin wanted pink so I mixed the red and white to make pink.  I was trying to be clever with the green color for the stem that the leaves were on so they weren’t as dark of a green lol.

I’m still a beginner with 0 skill in shading so until I can learn that there is no shading in any of my projects.  I’m going to buy a book online this Friday along with some supplies so I can learn.

Anyway, I hope you like it.

Wood Burning Shading

On By Michel McDonaldIn craftsLeave a comment

A friend of mine bought me a Creative Versa-Tool wood burner but I never bought a book for it because the Michael’s in town has a very small wood burning section.  So I was looking around and asked someone about it.  I asked if I am wasting my time with this cool tool or should I save up for the expensive big boy tool and this person told me that I can just get a lamp dimmer and use that.  Well, I just so happen to have one of those.  I tried it and it works great.

The only issue that I have with this light dimmer is that it doesn’t really have a dial, it has buttons instead.  Like “Bright” and “Dim” so I had to plug in a lamp into it and press the dim button while counting lol.  It does 0 dim to 15 bright so when I use the wood burner with it I have to just count lol.  I think it would be a good idea to buy a piece of wood and trace like a checkerboard and number it 1-15 and just do shading in each of those boxes so I will get a better idea of what each shade looks like so in the future I will know the exact shade I need lol.  Good idea eh?

If someone has a Creative Versa-Tool wood burner, I would love to hear your comments if you have some good suggestions on how to do things.

My Spirit Board

On By Michel McDonaldIn craftsLeave a comment

I’ve been wanting to make a spirit board for a very long time.  I don’t want to buy one because I want it to be personal, something that I made.  Perhaps when I die I might be attached to it some how lol.

I just haven’t had the money to go out and buy all the stuff for it.  A friend of mine, Alyce, bought me the wood burning kit which I am totally grateful to her for because it’s a $30 kit and even though I can afford to buy that I just would’ve never been able to because there is always something that is going to take precedence over a hobby.

All I need now is to buy the piece of wood to burn the letters and numbers.  I’ve mainly been waiting all this time because I wanted to practice wood burning to make sure I’m good at it before I even try to attempt it for fear of screwing it up.

So when Alyce first sent me the wood burning kit we went to Wal-Mart looking for cheap wood to burn on and I found these little pieces of wood in the craft/hobby section for .99¢ but the wood is so difficult to burn on so I just figured that since it’s so cheap I will do my best to try but no guarantees on it.  Well one of the pieces I ended up using to cut the Planchette with yesterday and I burned the Charmed triquatra on it.

my-planchette

It’s not perfect by any means but it’s mine.  Of course I’m going to stain it a little and put lacquer on it to keep it clean.  Then I’ve got to put the bottom pieces on it to make it slide easily on the board.  Here is what the board is going to look like:

55125012

I like this wood, I like that it has the bark on it and I think it’s about $20 or $30 at Michael’s.  I don’t remember.  Of course I want a very big piece.  I think the piece that is probably the better size because it is paper size is about $15 or $20.  I want it to be bigger than paper to give the planchette a lot of room to work with.  Also I don’t want the letters/numbers to take up the whole board because eventually I’m going to add a pattern around the whole thing to give it character.

Ok I know what people are going to say about spirit boards.  They are dangerous and they open up a portal that you cannot close blah blah blah exorcist yadda yadda yadda.  Whatever.  I don’t believe in all that.  Personally I don’t think this is going to work with just 1 person anyway and I can’t ask Darrin because he doesn’t believe in the spirit world.  He is taught as a born again that the only spirit he is supposed to acknowledge is the “holy spirit” despite the fact that he has had an encounter with a ghost cat in my bedroom.  He knows they exist but he’s not allowed to acknowledge that because of his religious beliefs.

Well, I don’t go to church, I don’t believe in organized religion.  I don’t believe that if “God” does exist that he would want us to sink all of our money into a church to worship him/her/it when we can do that at home.  But that’s a debate for another time or never lol.  My point is, I do believe in ghosts and no church is going to tell me that I can’t believe.

Well, in July I’m going to buy the board to make this because I want to.  I’ve already made a commitment to buy some other things like a new seat for my bike which is about $30 – $50.  I’m thinking of just buying the cheap $30 one even though it’s probably hard as a rock but then in August I can buy the sheepskin cover for it.  And I’ve also made a commitment to buy a cigarette kit for Chips cousin for her birthday on July 4th.  It’s the injector for around $5 plus a cartons worth of tubes and a can of tobacco which should only be about $25 total.  So I’m pretty sure that after all that I can still afford to buy this wood to burn on.  Plus I want to buy some other wood burning accessories to go with it all lol.

Of course when I make this I will post the board picture.

Gothic Chess Set

On By Michel McDonaldIn craftsLeave a comment

I mentioned the other day that there is this website which sells molds for building model castles.  Well, I’ve been obsessed with looking at all the cool projects that they have to make and I came across one that is a Gothic Chess Set.

This is the project that would probably cost a couple of hundred dollars but in my opinion is well worth the cost.  Now I personally don’t play chess but I think it would still be an awesome thing to have.  Especially if you are Gomez Addams lol.

Here is the page for the Gothic Chess Set:

http://www.castlemolds.com/chess/chess.html

They warn you that it is a monster of a project.  Yeah it is.  I’m sure it would take forever to make and it is going to cost a lot of money and a LOT of time too.  But like I said, well worth the cost, effort and time.  The chess pieces are sold from another website and each individual piece are about $7 and the pawns have 4 pieces and they are about $14 and of course you need 4 sets of pawns.

I would like to start buying the parts gradually over time and then just set them all aside until I have everything then I can start working on it maybe in 2012 lol.