Practice practice practice

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A post from my last "Extasy" waterbed. A big ticket item in '76. A $1500 waterbed with mirrored canopy. The original was much more rustic with only hints at the footwork. Burned and brushed was the finish.
First the chain saw then the 7 inch body grinder with 36 grit paper.
 
When it starts to uh look a little uphill. Might be the early temperature rise.
So I get to the table and it's hard to find the ☺. Looking more like uh a sentence.
My strategy self coach says, "slow the flock down". So the logic is sound. Why go fast when you're not sure where this'll go. Take break. Walk it off. Take a lap around the table. Assess. Get a drink,(the gargle spit is reserved but available)😉 The step back to the table with a clear purpose.
 
The Slow Game:
First requirement (basic training) is No Abreviations! The Routine must be complete or I am eroding a lot of progress. It's so much harder to break a habit than to mold a new one. Through repeatedly religious responsibility.
 
Lefty makes the station closing 4 but trails 7-9. Now to find 2 rails to the dirt color 14 next to the ups 15. Hmmmm
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gregcantrall said:
We would gather firewood from the logging roads every weekend. With two saws and 2 pickups. The men bucking the cull logs at the landings and any oaks knocked down to build the roads. Fir and pine at the landings and white or black oak along the way. I was early teens and with the wives we loaded the trucks. We could get 4 loads on a Saturday and I was allowed a beer(with the men) at each offload. It took me all week to split and stack and be ready to go again .
On one occasion our partner was recutting at the wood stack. I was loading his saw buck from the pile and restacking after he made the cut. I stepped on a round and in regaining my balance my hand went out and brushed the chain with 2 fingers as it rolled around the end of the bar. He saw and got off the trigger so I only got 2 tooth marks between the knuckle and finger nails.
My chainsaw work was mainly woodcarving. I made canopy waterbeds with spiraled 4x4 posts with ball and claw feet.
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I have cue lathes and wood lathes. My biggest is about forty inches with a twenty inch throw. Playing when I first bought it I put a piece of out of balance wood about 150 pounds on it. The lathe wasn't bolted down and even with over 1300 pounds of ballast it wanted to do a high speed hoochie-coo! Thank goodness for variable speed and I did use a little discretion so all good.

I never finished a project before moving but I was working on two fairly large cannons that would have looked real on either side of my drive after painting. I was going to turn a huge bowling pin for the end of the drive too, to hold up my sign saying "Pro Bowler"! I turned bowls of course, not threw bowling balls.

Hu
 
Can't make this up. I had just given Self props for the good humor in the slogging progress. Lefty lays in the Max 11.
It's such a natural Z and I had lots o zero but near missed shots. 🤷‍♂️
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Now to find 3 or more to the 15. Getting hot already. I better hurry.....uh slowly. 😉
 
ShootingArts said:
Playing when I first bought it I put a piece of out of balance wood about 150 pounds on it.
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One of my earliest Highschool wood shop projects was a 16"×6" Salad bowl from black walnut. Glued into a solid square block. I got a good lesson in balance and centers of gravity. Our shop instructor hopefully learned to better guide next students. The band saw first! Then the lathe at slooooow speed or better still turn by hand into a locked down router bit.
Now the funny story. At one point in time I was working in a shop in Kirkland that did expensive artsy woodworking. $25,000 office desk kind of stuff. The owner had a Huge ego. He had a root wad the size of a tire and I noticed him attaching it to a lathe that had a 600rpm low speed. :eek: I knew and tried to interject myself gently. He dismissed me. I was the new guy, he was the owner and he knew what he was doing. 🤷‍♂️ There was also an apprentice in the shop. I went straight to him upon dismissed and pointed the lathe out and then the pathh a spinning tire would take if it disengaged at 600 rpm. Then I said, "Let's go to the water cooler and watch from there." Fortunately no one got hurt and the show was Very Entertaining.
 
Center of gravity and uh is it inertia arm length. I know leverage is involved. Jui Jitsu of pool an wood turning too.
 
gregcantrall said:
One of my earliest Highschool wood shop projects was a 16"×6" Salad bowl from black walnut. Glued into a solid square block. I got a good lesson in balance and centers of gravity. Our shop instructor hopefully learned to better guide next students. The band saw first! Then the lathe at slooooow speed or better still turn by hand into a locked down router bit.
Now the funny story. At one point in time I was working in a shop in Kirkland that did expensive artsy woodworking. $25,000 office desk kind of stuff. The owner had a Huge ego. He had a root wad the size of a tire and I noticed him attaching it to a lathe that had a 600rpm low speed. :eek: I knew and tried to interject myself gently. He dismissed me. I was the new guy, he was the owner and he knew what he was doing. 🤷‍♂️ There was also an apprentice in the shop. I went straight to him upon dismissed and pointed the lathe out and then the pathh a spinning tire would take if it disengaged at 600 rpm. Then I said, "Let's go to the water cooler and watch from there." Fortunately no one got hurt and the show was Very Entertaining.
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Yep, when instructors or bosses insisted on doing things their way sometimes all I could do was stand clear, well clear! Sometimes I put a heavy wall between me and them. A man I highly respected for all things mechanical went to welding on the top of a fuel cell with racing fuel in it one day when the temperature was in the forties. He told me it was safe, the fumes would go down when it was that cold. I had seen plain gasoline blow up higher than that on cold days when I ignited it so I put a heavy wall between me and that low fuel cell! He was right that time. I still wasn't convinced.

Back when I was a manly man, youngish dumb and fulla something or another, I had a helper tying on sixty or eighty pound bundles of material and I was hand over handing it about eighty feet or so into the air. I didn't like the way he was tying things on so I showed him how. He said the boss wanted him doing it the other way. I told him do it my way unless the boss made him do otherwise. Ten minutes later the boss came along and made the helper go back to the original tie. As soon as the boss left the helper looked up at me. "Do it his way," but then I made him back off forty feet or so and ready to duck behind an I-beam before I lifted, H-beam to be technical. Second bundle came apart when it was almost in my hands. One piece hit gravel, bounced up and hit the hood of an old style big 300AMP Lincoln welder on a trailer and ripped it off of the welder and then it flew about thirty feet! Green hand, best way for him to learn and nobody hurt. I had been on the job a week or two and knew I was short on the job already. Too dangerous working for morons.

I can't say I haven't made my share of mistakes including sending a chunk of wood flying out of the lathe in my early days, usually brittle wood splitting. I did stay in the safety zone, my own version. Most people seem to think the wood will come out straight sideways if it comes out, I add about twenty degrees to that area. Turn between centers until it is well balanced too.

I can see you made some nice stuff. I made some I was pretty pleased with, mostly vessels. I don't think I have a wood turning of my own left. I kept a couple gifts from other people including a little goblet turned on a rose lathe. You probably know those lathes were NC hundreds of years before there was NC. There was a big one sold locally four or six feet, all brass and stainless. I had the itch but couldn't find the $15,000 scratch needed. At that I figured it was probably a fourth what it was worth. The lathe was in perfect shape, a wall full of extras, and the lathe was a work of art itself, belonged in a museum. Another reason I didn't buy it, I didn't have climate control to put it in at the time and I can't bring myself to abuse nice things knowing it is going to happen.

No room for toys anymore and I am starting to dispose of things. My family would trash 3/4 of my stuff and give the rest away at a junk sale when I am gone anyway.

Hu
 
ShootingArts said:
and knew I was short on the job already.
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Oh wow, you have me chucklin now. So many similar stories.
My interest early on was fine finish work, cabinets and furniture. My best paying (and longest lasting) jobs were concrete forms and scaffolding.
My reason for pool as a hobby was, I could always learn more. My first gig in a cabinet shop had me starting on the glue bench. Gluing up face frames. I enjoyed learning and was doing so well that I got a quarter raise each week for 6 weeks. The assembly man told me I was doing half the mill man's job after 2 weeks. So I started learning assembly too. At 6 weeks I had the whole shop skills and it was starting to become uninteresting. Plus I learned that the assembly and mill men that had 15 years in the shop were only making 50 cents an hour more than me when the raises stopped. I lost interest and went to the owner at first break. I asked, "how much notice do you want when I quit?" His reply was a little flippant at, "I don't care." Which led me to, "Okay I am done at noon. "🤷‍♂️ Turned and left the office before he could change his mind. That was in '75 or 6 just before I started making waterbeds. A high point in my waterbed making was when the Millman from the cabinet shop(that had taught me so much) bought a bed that I had made.
Doing remodel work was interesting as Forest Gump would say," It's like a box of chocolates. "
 
Inspection is always 1st .
Straight back to the 1 ball is the opening choice I take. Makes me remember Mark Williams kick break in snooker. Mark is certainly one I am proud to emulate. Attitude is job 2. 😉

Always amazing the good things that follow a good attitude.
Now the Death Touch is what I try to channel on the Kick to the 1 ball.
 
Inspect for form and fit Ness.
Self to self:
Set the Camera.
Review as needed.
Useful in solving mystery 😉
Follow Proto Call!
Over.
 
Using the forum as a Practice Tool:
Leaking more secrets. Nah just pissin' on the leg.
I have noticed a propensity for marking the table.
My methods included, just rack 'em 9 ball and go sit at the bar.
Another was to lay my cue on the table. When it was approached, I would step up and explain. "This is My table and it's a $2 game." 🤷‍♂️
Now the practice of the ReSet.
 
And that's how long it takes to close station 1. Box score.
Lefty 2
Right 2
L- 3
R- 4
L- 0
R- 6
Next a 2 rail kick to the 9 ball.
 
After considerable measurements and adjustments. Lefty lays in a 7 point shot.
Using the modified Z.
Side
Side
Foot
Side
Is the name of the tune.
Grampa out.
 
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