Saturday, September 23, 2017

The Bully is ready for the fair!

Last year, my second year in a row, when I entered the State Fair there was just me putting in my entry. The first year I entered I had a White ribbon for 3rd place. I was just like this is fun. I was not entering what I had planned to enter just a project that I had previously completed. I did not want to skip a year. I want to enter the State Fair every year. That entry won the Blue Ribbon! I was totally blown away. The blog post about that is here. So this year I have all this pressure on myself by myself. This is by far the toughest and most cuts I have done on a single piece.

So I started this project well over a year ago. It was supposed to be for last years State Fair but the bicycle crash I was involved in 2016 cut the project off for last year. But here are the various parts of this project and it will culminate with the final project picture ready for drop off in two weeks.

The frame. What I struggled with the most. The fear of the 45 Degree cuts the glue up of that and then then finishing. I believe it is a good frame. I used purpleheart wood for it.

The front of just the frame



The Back of just the frame



The Backer front which is painted black to show through the cutouts of the bully




The back's back side showing my logo.


A close up of the logo. This is toner printed on paper reversed. Then I take that and use a wood burning tool to melt the toner to the wood. Cheaper the buying a branding iron.


Finally Bully This has 1048 cuts. I have blurred this on purpose as I have been told people take images and make a pattern from them. Effectively stealing from the designers. Patterns are not expensive so it puzzles me why people do this.


Now for Bully framed. I don't want to blur this one. But with glass in the frame it was really hard to get a picture of the thing without a reflection coming with it. So I opted for indoors at an angle.




Sunday, September 10, 2017

Bully Getting there....

So I cut the frame yesterday and glued it up. I have not finished the frame yet but I spent hours sanding and put it together and took this shot. The frame is made from purpleheart. The purple should really come out once I put the finish on it. I am once again going to use General Finishes Oil Based Gel Urethane Topcoat. I liked the way it came out on my first project that I used that on.

Here it is just together and not totally finished. The weird distortion in the picture is there on purpose. Apparently, unscrupulous people will take photos of projects and make them into patterns that they then use/sell. So from now on when I am showing a photo it will be like this in some fashion. Not that all that many people follow my blog. But the pattern designers lose money when that happens. Patterns are pretty cheap. Patterns are generally under 8 dollars so I can't understand stealing them but people do.


Monday, September 4, 2017

Halloween Luminaries

Yup starting another project. Time is running out to complete this one. So despite the fact that I still need to build my frame for my NC State Fair entry I am starting another. I don't have the wood for the frame yet as it will be here this week. So this weekend if the weather holds I will work on the frame.

This is for Halloween and will be luminaries which will be painted. So I am using some 1/4" MDF I have from work. These were used with spools of optical network cable thus why they are round. So I am stack cutting these to get two pieces for each. Which works 6 different designs on this run times 2 for a front and back. Then 6 sides times 2 for 12 sides. Finally 3 Bottoms times 2 for 6 bottoms.

What I did here as to tape two circular MDF pieces with blue painters tape. The place the patterns on the wood lining them up to get them all on this piece.




I Have drilled and cut one internal piece out. That is all for today.