The Second Cup -- Part 4

Today we found a new attachment for the ball drill, which was something like sandpaper, used for shining wood. I tried it on the inside of my cup, and with only 10 minutes work on the machine I saved myself at least 3-4 hours of hand sanding. I still had to sand the inside of the cup afterwards to make the last little rough spots go away, but this machine really did a lot of work for me!

Here the cup is finished on the inside, so now I have to work on sanding down the outside with fine sandpaper. This goes pretty fast, as the outside of the cup is easier to work on than the inside. I sanded the outside for about 1 hour today.

The next step is to drill holes in the handle. You can see in the picture above that the handle is the only thing left I haven't sanded, and that's because you have to drill the holes first in case of chipping. Also, you would essentially be sanding it twice since the insides of the holes themselves need sanding.

After the holes were drilled, I used the little belt sander to shape out the handle as I wanted it. I decided to put a bit of a rounded edge on the sides, which proved much harder than I thought. It's nearly impossible to get both sides even, at least with the little experience I have. When it was as good as I could get it, it was on to hand sanding again, this time the insides of the holes. This is my least favorite part, because I always end up scraping my weak, "pretty" knuckles, or get slivers!

Now the cup is very nearly finished, only a little more hand sanding to smooth out the rough edges, and then it's on to staining. It should be finished next week, making this a record-fast cup for me (under 14 hours work)!

The Second Cup -- Part 3

Snowy greens

 Today my walk was graced with snow, but you could still spot a few signs here and there of the passing seasons. When I got to the workshop, I worked for about 1 hour on the sanding machine, then spent the rest of the time sanding by hand, before venturing out into the snow again.

This is the sanding machine I was using today. There are two sanding options, the wheel on the right, and the belt on the left. I decided to use the belt and platform to finish shaping the outside of my cup.

I love this orange table!

Almost finished on the outside, you can see I was a little reckless and cut too deeply into the one side. This also happens to be when I broke the sand paper on the belt, so we had to fix that, too.

Now I need to use the huge belt sander from last week to finish off the bottom, rounding out the sides as you can see they're uneven. I forgot to take a picture when it was done...oops!

You can see a bit more of the outside, I've finished it off. Now it's on to hand sanding the inside, which takes longer than the rest of the cup. Didn't someone once say "patience is a virtue"?

The Second Cup - Part 2

My walk to "work"

This is the place I go to work on my cup. It's called Snekker'n, which means The Carpenter.

Today I carved a little more by hand, but the cup became too deep to use hand tools further. So I used this Kulebor, or Ball Drill, to finish hollowing out the middle and expanding the sides. It's a neat little machine, but sawdust flies everywhere!

Here I am, using the Ball Drill and covered in sawdust. Black is maybe not the best color to wear while working with wood, if you care about that kind of thing. Make sure to keep your fingers out of the way!

Here the cup is finished being hollowed out, and is ready for some shaping.

I had to have help on the heavy machinery. I don't know what it's called, but I call it the Finger-Chopper-Off-er. Here, the outside of the cup is being roughly formed, cutting away the excess wood along the guide lines I had drawn on earlier. The next step is sanding, using the huge belt sander pictured below. This is a rough sanding, also to give shape and flatten the bottom of the cup.

The Huge Belt Sander

Here is the cup after I used the belt sander, as well as another circular sanding machine to give rough shape to the outside of the cup. This is as far as I came today, but I was only there for 2 1/2 hours, so that's pretty good, considering. Next Monday I will  be using yet another sanding machine to give final shape to the outside of the cup, then it's on to sand paper and hand sanding both the inside and outside.