Light My Fire

 

     One of the projects I made to sell at the store, shortly before it closed, was a line of candles with a variety of artwork on them. The candles themselves are not ones I made. I bought them at a discount store, mostly with the intention of melting them down, as they cost less than an equivalent weight of raw wax at the time. For many years I had the idea of making custom pillar candles with some sort of decorative applique, but I was envisioning more of a 3d applique. However, after several years of failing to come up with anything on that front, I decided to try just painting a design on some pillar candles.

     The first one of these I made was done with a vinyl stencil, cut on my new Silhouette Cameo 4, and then painted, but I only made one of those. It was a time consuming and tedious process. Then I thought to try a water slide decal, printed on a laser printer. This was much, much faster and also allowed for a much higher level of detail in the image. I ended up making 50 or more of these in about a dozen different designs. I thought they turned out rather well. This isn't much of a blog worthy project, but it was meant to be a fast turnaround high margin product, not art.

Get Your Strap On

      I just wrapped up construction of a project that has been on my to-do list for several years: guitar straps. You see, about fifteen years ago, I did a re-build of the old lighting rig for Rogue Cthulhu. I build log of that re-build to post here has also been on my to-do list for several years. Anyway, part of that re-build included using a winch to raise the new light rig. That winch used nylon webbing (seat belt material) instead of the usual rope on the winch. I sourced a fair bit of grey and also black 2" webbing for that project and had quite a bit left over. My immediate thought was, "let's use it to make guitar straps." That thought ruminated in my mind for the next fifteen years, until last night.

 

     Over the past two or so years, I've been piecing together the other parts I'd need to make the guitar strap project; buckles, leather...  Well, that's pretty much it, buckles and leather, and I already had the leather. But in my defense, I did have a difficult time finding buckles that I thought were perfect for the job, and also, I didn't look very hard. 

     The leather I used is a thin soft calf skin like black leather (not sure of its origin) with a textured pattern on one side. I found this leather at a discount store many many years ago. It is far too thin and weak to be used for the strap ends, so of course, that's what I used it for. To make it work, I doubled up the leather, giving me the textured pattern surface on both sides, and also sandwiched 10 oz. black cotton canvas between the layers. These I married with spray adhesive, and would later stitch the edges for reinforcement. I cut out the strap ends with the help of a template I made in Inkscape, using an existing guitar strap from my collection as a guide.

     Once all the pieces and the stars aligned, All that was left was to dig out the sewing machine and assemble the straps. It was pretty evident that I hadn't used my sewing machine in quite a while. My first attempt yielded pretty horrible results. After switching to grey thread, like a normal person would, I ripped out and re-sewed that zig-zag stitch about a dozen times before I was satisfied with the results (read as: too frustrated to continue).

     After adding the buckles and stitching the ends, I cut the strap button holes with a hole punch and a craft knife. That's it. It took about an afternoon to make three of them. Probably would have gone a lot faster if my sewing wasn't so bad.

Who You Gonna' Call?

 

     Here we have a small wood end table, painted black that I picked up from a discount store for about $20. Like many other such items that I buy for the store with the intention of modifying and reselling, it sat in the back room for several years untouched. Finally it got bumped up to the front of the line, mostly because it took up too much space and I needed it out of the back room. 

     As I was more interested in clearing it out of storage than I was with creating something wonderful, at first I copped out and just slapped a pentagram on it to try to sell it and get my money back out of it (and the space it was taking up in my workroom). I stenciled and painted a gold pentagram in the center and put it out on the floor to sell, but even then, it didn't look finished. It stayed on the sales floor for about a week before inspiration struck and I knew what I had to do to finish this piece. I needed to make it into an ouija board. 

     I had long intended to start making spirit boards to pair with my planchettes that I was making and which were selling decently well. But I never managed to find the time to do the layout work to get started onn the project. The only spirit board I had ever attempted ended up getting stalled at around the 70% complete mark back in 1993 (and still remains unfinished to this day). I measured the table top and the pentagram and went into my vector image software to create a layout for the spirit board top. Normally I would use masking tape or make a paper template and cut the stencil by hand for something like this, but this time, I decided to use my newest toy, the Silhouette Cameo 4 vinyl cutter. After laying out the image design in Inkscape, I broke it down into sections small enough to cut out on my vinyl cutter and used it to cut the mask.  Once the mask was cut, the sections had to be properly positioned and transferred to the table top. The positioning was a bit tricky, but fortunately the vinyl masking is fairly forgiving. Then it was a fairly simple matter to paint and remove the stencil.

     This is the first spirit board that I ever completed and one of the last items I made for the store before it closed.

I'm On Drugs!

     

     Howdy kids. Well, I'm back, and I feel real good about myself. Just kidding, but I do feel a little better. How, you may ask? Through the wonders of modern chemistry! You see, after long reflection and the realization that I am likely now in the last decade or two of my life, I came to a decision. I decided that for once, I'd like to not feel miserable. So, after 50 years of avoiding it, I made the move to seek out professional help, and now I am moderately medicated. I've been taking meds and doing counseling for my mental health for the past year, and have seen some mild improvement. I'm not farting sunshine and pissing rainbows, but I do feel better and I'm starting to be a little more active again. It's more like being back to my usual level of misery that I'd endured for the last 30 years, instead of the debilitating nightmare that has been the past nine.

      What does all this mean for you, you ask? You selfish bastards; Is that all you think about? Well, after my most recent medication adjustment, I'm finally starting to feel motivated again, and have actually spent the past few days in the workshop! Not making anything you'd want to see of course, just some new shelves for my kitchen, but considering that it's been more than two years since my last post (holy shit, it's been more than TWO YEARS since my last post!) that's got to be a good sign.

     So, I'm reorganizing the kitchen, and looking to make some more storage space, and free up some counter space, and just generally improve the layout. Above is a little shelf I made to fit over the rear control panel on my stove. It will give me a little more space for holding seasonings and such, and will prevent things from falling off and ending up behind the stove. 

     This is a little shelf that spans between the refrigerator and the microwave stand. Again, more storage space. I've got too many pots and pans to fit in my cupboards any more. Odd, for someone who rarely cooks anything but canned chili, I know, but here we are. 

     Looking over my photo folders, There were actually a handful of items that I made for the store before it closed that never made it onto this blog, so I'm going to try to get some of those documented over the next few days. Hopefully by then, I'll be on to something more exciting. I'm hoping to make a few quick items to try to sell to some of the other local pagan shops before the holidays. 

     Here's to a considerably more productive and moderately less miserable final decade or two. Cheers.

Totally Cherry

         It has been more than two years since I have made something- like, actually made something, not just modified or laser etched it, but actually crafted it with my hands from scratch. The Rogue Cthulhu dice boxes were probably the last thing I really made. 

        Not gonna lie, things have been rough. Rogue Cthulhu has been retired. My gaming days have come to an end. Book of Shadows, my store, has been shut down. The building was badly vandalized and it did not make economic sense to make the repairs needed to stay open. My mental health continues to struggle. I can go weeks without leaving the house or even getting dressed. So, at this stage, for me to make something is a major achievement. But, I sold a rune set on Etsy today, and I think that gave me a little spark of energy. 

        It's not quite finished yet, but it's close. This is a hand turned wand made from locally sourced cherry wood that I seasoned and milled myself. There is going to be a crystal point embedded into the tip (where the hole is), but other than that, it is done. I was a little surprised that the piece came together with little difficulty. This is probably the first time I have touched my lathe in three years. It isn't perfect, but considering how out of practice I am, it's pretty good.

        I love this batch of wood. The color is very pleasing. Even the sapwood is nice. I've got quite a bit of it, so I expect I'll be doing a lot of projects in cherry in the future. Now that the store is closed, I'm going to have to focus more on online sales in order to have any income. My needs are small, but I've been bleeding money for the past two years, so it's either make internet sales, or get a straight job, and I'm a little too old and jaded for that! 

        I have a couple more wands that I started years ago, and got them to about this same point and never finished them. I think I'll try to make a couple more, and then add the tips to all of them at once and post them in a batch. I was just so excited to have accomplished something in the workshop that I had to post it, finished or not. 

 P.S. I'm not dead yet. 

Rogue Cthulhu Dice Box

 Just a few months before COVID shut down all gaming conventions all over the world, I regained control of Rogue Cthulhu, the gaming club I co-founded over 20 years ago. In those few months between Thanksgiving 2019 and when the world shut down in March 2020, I was hard at work trying to prepare for the next Rogue Cthulhu show at the Origins Gaming Convention. One of my areas of focus was to re-establish the prize table and point system that had been dismantled while I was away from the helm. 

This is one of the prizes that I was working on at that time. Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures of its construction. It's a portable dice rolling box, with a side area for storing and transporting your gaming dice. The lid slides open like a pencil box top. The sides of the box are oak. The top and divider are sapele. The bottom is lined with bonded leather. The sides and top are all laser etched. 

I'm not sure if or when Rogue Cthulhu might return to the gaming convention scene, but if it does, I will probably make more of these. I initially only made two, and since the future of the club is currently uncertain, I think I'm going to give these two away to some friends.

Memento Mori

 So, 2020 happened. That was a thing. As I'm sure it was for all of us, it was a particularly hard year for me. At the end of March, just before COVID-19 took over all of our lives, my mother passed away unexpectedly. There is some confusion about how exactly she passed, and I'm not convinced that COVID did not play a part, but testing was not being done at that time. She went into the hospital to get treated for rhabdomyolysis. She had been complaining of muscle pain and weakness in her legs for weeks and my daughter, who is a pharmacy student, discovered that she was taking two different statins (something you should never do). Mom went to the ER and it was confirmed that she had statin induced rhabdo. She spent several weeks in the hospital being treated, and was on the mend. I visited with her every day back then, and we could see the COVID hysteria ramping up around us. At that time, there was only one confirmed COVID patient in our city (and not in our hospital). After her treatment concluded, she was transferred to an off-site facility to complete her recovery and to begin physical therapy. The critical part should have been over at that point. When she was moved to the physical rehabilitation facility, COVID had become the hot topic of every day. The shut-down was beginning in our area. I was not allowed to visit her while she was in the new facility. She wasn't allowed to have visitors at all. She would remain there for several weeks, and we would communicate by phone or text. I would never see her alive again. 

Things seemed to be improving. She could get to the bathroom by herself now. Then, she called me one night out of the blue saying that she thought she was dying. Something was wrong. Her blood oxygen level was very low. She made some very bizarre remarks that made it seem like she might be having a psychotic episode. The doctors at the facility did not seem alarmed, and did not provide much information about her condition, nor did they seem to take the situation very seriously. The next morning they did decide to send her back to the ER. She barely made it through the doors of the Emergency Room before she coded. They could not resuscitate her. 

She was not allowed to have calling hours because of COVID. We have a large close knit family, and I had to chose a maximum of ten people to be at her graveside for the funeral.

My mother's passing is the primary reason that I have done almost nothing in the past year. I have been completely overwhelmed with her death, funeral, and estate. It is almost a year later, and I haven't really begun to grieve. 

But wait, there's more...

Due to COVID lock-down, my store was closed through most of the Winter and Spring. We did finally re-open again in June (three months later than we would have). My store clerk, Toni, has health problems of her own. She is the same age as my mom, and can barely walk from her car to the front door without resting. Her doctor didn't want her working at all in June, but she was eager to get back to work for financial reasons. So we started out only opening on weekends, and putting reasonably strict COVID prevention measures in place. No more than 4 people in the shop at a time, no children, masks required, frequent surface and hand sanitization. Despite the very late start, and the economy being in the tank, we actually had a pretty good year, financially. 

Then, in very early December, Toni got sick. Now, it's common for her to get bronchitis once or twice (or thrice) a year, especially when the weather turns cold, so we all hoped for the best, but there was always that fear looming over my shoulder that it could be something much worse. She spent a couple of weeks at home, but her condition did not improve. I told her she should go to the hospital, and that I wasn't going to let her come back to work without a negative COVID test. She dickered around for a few days, and then she finally went in to get tested. She was positive for COVID.

I held out hope, but all of her friends suspected that it was going to end badly. Toni stayed in the hospital for a couple of weeks. I took care of her cats while she was away. Then I got the DM from Toni's daughter that she had been called by the doctors to come up to the hospital (she lives in another state). Toni died just minutes before her daughter arrived in the room. It was the day after Winter Solstice. The shortest day of the longest year of my life.

Toni was like a second mother to me. I had known her since I was six years old. She ran my shop for me for the past ten or so years. Her daughter and I grew up together. To say that I feel more alone now than I have ever felt in my life is an understatement.

Which brings me to the subject of this post. Unlike my mother, who would have absolutely hated the fact that she couldn't have her family at her funeral, Toni was a very private person who didn't want anyone to know she was sick. She didn't want a funeral, or an obituary, or a memorial service. Her daughter had her remains cremated and plans to bury the ashes in secret in a place her mother would have liked. The only remembrance she will get is the small memorial table I have set up for her at the shop, for which I created this memorial book that friends and patrons can use to leave her a final farewell. It is one of the only things I have made in the past year.

The book itself was just a fake moleskin covered blank journal I found at a discount store. The images are ones she would have liked, gleaned from the internet. I etched the covers with my laser cutter. 

Memento Mori is a Latin phrase that means- "Remenber, that someday you too will die." Since my mother's passing almost a year ago, I have thought about little else.

Key Fobs v1.0

I recently returned to the leadership position of my old gaming club, Rogue Cthulhu and due to changes in policy during the four years I was away, our once vaunted prize table now has to be rebuilt from scratch. So, first I made a list of reasonably simple and inexpensive craft items I could make to begin rebuilding our stock of prizes. We often get gifts of larger prizes, like RPG books, as prize support from publishers connected to the games we run, so what we mostly need is smaller prizes that work with our point chip system.

The first such project that I thought of was a line of laser engraved wooden key fobs with various Cthulhu Mythos related images on one side and the Rogue Cthulhu logo on the other. I mean, after all, what good is having a laser cutter if you can't use it to make prizes!

The design for the fobs was fairly simple and laid out in Inkscape. Then they were cut and engraved, double sided, on the Glowforge laser cutter out of 3mm birch plywood. I made about 60 of these in total. About half were left their natural color, while the rest were stained with varying hues of wood stain. All were sealed with a clear gloss top coat.

The metal split rings came from Michaels. The split rings were attached to the fobs with a 15mm x 75mm strip of bonded leather. Some are black and some are brown. I got the bonded leather in large rolls off of eBay some years ago. The strips were glued into a loop connecting the fob and the ring, using Barge cement, and then a nickle finish double cap rivet was used to cinch the loop.

The engraving and cutting took about 45 minutes per side for each batch of 20. The staining and top coating probably took about an hour total. Cutting, gluing and riveting the bonded leather loops probably took about an hour and a half to do all sixty fobs.

Planchettes v1.6

I have made about five batches of planchettes since I first posted about them. This post is about batch #3, i.e. version 1.6. I'll try to keep it brief, because I just finished batch #4, i.e. version 2.0. 

Version 1.6 was just like version 1.5, except they had laser engravings on the top surface. It was a medium sized batch of about 17 units. All were made from hardwood, though some were made from planks that I planed down to thickness, and some were made from thin (1/8") stock I usually use in my laser. The laser stock ones were too thin to put a glass oculus into, so only the ones I planed got that. The woods used were red oak (laser stock), spalted buckeye, and hickory.  I didn't take many pictures of the production process, as most of it happened on the laser. Below are the planchettes hanging on a rack drying after being coated with either Danish oil or Tung oil finish. I can't remember which.

 I did learn a few things from this experimental batch.
First, although the laser stock wood will cut all the way through on the laser, it is really a little too thin to make a nice planchette, and definitely too thin to inset a glass oculus. The planed down boards on the other hand are a good thickness for drilling and insetting the glass, but even though they are technically under the maximum thickness for the laser, they are really too thick to cut through all the way by that method. In the future, I will likely just score the outer outline on the laser and do the rough cutting on the band saw and sand up to the line on the disk sander, like v1.0 and v1.5.

Second, due to possible alignment error when drilling out the center hole, I should mark the center of the hole with the laser by scoring a cross-hair, but NOT score the actual circle to be cut out. Any misalignment of the drill bit can cause the score line to be visible even after the hold is drilled.

Third, when using thin stock, orient the grain of the wood with the long axis of the planchette, or at a diagonal. Doing otherwise will create a weak point at the sides of the center hole, where the body is very narrow. 

Here they are again, waiting for the next coat of finish.

This batch with the laser engraving was very popular both on my Etsy store and in my brick and mortar shop. All of my offerings in my Etsy shop are sold out and I only have two left in the brick and mortar store. You can mostly make out all of the designs in the picture above, but I only took glamor shots of the ones that were going to be sold online. So, here they are-

This was a smallish batch that was finished fairly quickly. It only took a couple of days from start to finish. Its main purpose was to test the idea of cutting out planchettes on the laser, and for engraving the tops with designs.