Author: The Lord of The Manor

Laser Burning Imagery

Posted on by The Lord of The Manor

I spent time today working with the Glowforge doing some laser art on wood. I used a two-inch-thick piece of poplar that measured about 10×12 inches. I tried a few different speed and power settings before I settled on a setting that came out really good for anything that should be displayed indoors. On that final setting I could hardly feel the depth of the burn on the wood. But to burn it any deeper than that to make it more suited to outdoor display I lose detail on the object I was burning into this particular block of wood. And on that note, I burned a copy of the farm’s business sign, and even a photograph. Both came out great! I think I could over-burn the wood and lose detail for something that is intended to be displayed outside, as it would likely also need to be a lot larger. I’ll need to mess about with that, but I think it is best to do something on a larger piece, and to do it, it should be done on the big laser.

So that was a step today. I think I will try doing one of my own photographs for the next photo test burn and put it onto a specifically sized piece of wood, maybe 12×16 inches. Once I standardize that, I can look at offering photos burned like that as an item to sell. It could be interesting.

So that is the workday I had today. I didn’t earn anything. But I did learn some things. I have some experimenting to do.

Markets and Candlemaking

Posted on by The Lord of The Manor

Today I made a bunch of colonial candles. I am pretty happy with the results. of 36 of them, I took four away because they gave me a little trouble coming out of the mold. It has been a couple of months since I made any colonial candles, so it was a little rough trying to remember all the tricks I have worked out for the process. I will check them over once more before I set this batch aside to sell. I’d like to fill a wax box completely before I set the molds aside again.

I am also working on a few pinecone candles and will likely put a few more Christmas Tree candles in the box soon. I have a couple of pre-Christmas markets to be ready for. One will be here in Preston, and the other down in Smithfield. Look for Antiquary Artisan there!

Festival of Gifts

Preston Senior Center

Friday, November 29, 10:00AM – 4:00PM

Christmas Craft Fair

Smithfield Library Parking Lot

Monday, December 2, 5:30PM – 8:30PM

If you are in Cache Valley, please stop on by! There will be many other vendors there as well, supporting the local economy.

And finally, we went to the Market meeting tonight to find out about the plans for next year. Preston Farmer’s Market will be moved to Franklin City and begin July 5th and go every Saturday till October 18th. The Market will be open from 10:00AM till 1:00PM. There will also be “Festivals” in Preston at the normal location, and normal time from 5:00PM till 8:00PM. The Festivals will be held on 6/25, 7/16, 8/6, 8/27, 9/17, 10/8, and 10/29. The Festivals will have children’s booths available.

At the moment we are thinking we will attend all of the events above; however, we do need to confirm that. On our end, they are quite a bit more expensive to attend than this year has been, and yet they are reasonable compared to what many other market fees run. There is no reason not to do both Wednesdays and Saturdays that we can think of at the moment. I am eager to see how the new location will affect the traffic. We are also excited to continue to get to know the other local producers and crafts folk in the area.

In an unusual twist of fate, I wrote this the other day and closed my computer without publishing it. So, I think it has been sat here since Thursday! I’ll publish, then start a new post!

Making Candles / Come to the Markets!

Posted on by The Lord of The Manor

Today I made a bunch of colonial candles. I am pretty happy with the results. of 36 of them, I took four away because they gave me a little trouble coming out of the mold. It has been a couple of months since I made any colonial candles, so it was a little rough trying to remember all the tricks I have worked out for the process. I will check them over once more before I set this batch aside to sell. I’d like to fill a wax box completely before I set the molds aside again.

I am also working on a few pinecone candles and will likely put a few more Christmas Tree candles in the box soon. I have a couple of pre-Christmas markets to be ready for. One will be here in Preston, and the other down in Smithfield. Look for Antiquary Artisan there!

Festival of Gifts

Preston Senior Center

Friday, November 29, 10:00AM – 4:00PM

Christmas Craft Fair

Smithfield Library Parking Lot

Monday, December 2, 5:30PM – 8:30PM

If you are in Cache Valley, please stop on by! There will be many other vendors there as well, supporting the local economy.

Candles and Lasers

Posted on by The Lord of The Manor

We are getting new things ready for markets. Christmas markets are coming, and I know we are registered for one, and Missus just applied to another. There will be Christmas decorations to sell, and gifts or trinkets as well. So Missus and I have both been busy getting at our seperate products.

I got to work on some candles to put up for sale at the markets. I have some beeswax that is set up for tool wax and for waxing thread and the like. I noticed a few people picking the ones shaped like little beehives and turning them about to see all sides. So, today I got to work making some wicked candles in the same molds. I have a bunch of Christmas Trees already made. So I added those and some taper candles together and have a whole box ready to sell at these upcoming markets. Fingers crossed, they go!

While I was allowing the pours to harden, I also spent the day trying out a laser engraver that has been sat connected to my computer for a while. It works, but I was trying it etching a design into paper and I started out wondering if the laser was even working as it didn’t even leave a scorch mark! . On a higher setting it finally made the marks I was expecting it to. Except it didn’t. I really did expect a scorch mark. As it turned out, it quickly went to cutting right through the paper. That was quite the elegant design, and I see a lot of potential in that for things like paper lanterns.

We are celebrating a birthday here this evening, so my focus will soon turn to that. It is a joy to have a kid and to celebrate a special day with them! I plan on taking as much from the evening as I can.

Site Changes

Posted on by The Lord of The Manor

I have been messing around with design tools for the website because I am not a coder. So, I bought some templates to set up the look for me. My trouble is, I wanted to either maintain the look of the site before I added helpful tools, or if I could not, then I wanted to change it to make it look very neat and clean. I think neat and clean will help the colors of photographs pop. That’s about it. I liked the old way I had it set up. But I cannot keep it with these tools because invariably something always goes wrong. Either the background interferes with text that is not in a container of any kind, or the colors of each element cannot be made to look as I want them to. Some few elements don’t seem to change color. I thought I had a new and improved problem on the last theme, where the menus would not keep the dropdowns properly sorted, so I came to this theme, and while in it, I found a checkbox that corrected the problem. But then I remembered there was no container for some of the text at the top of a sidebar, and that basically ruined the cleanliness of the page. So, I will try this for a big, with a white background and no color at all, and see how long before I want to reset to the previous color scheme with plaid and tan as my primary color theme. Oh, to be fair, I settled on the same theme for my photography site. Go figure. In that case, it really was about making the colors pop. Maybe I will invert the monochromatic theme there and have the same layout but with white on a black background. The photos would still pop.

Background Options

Halloween – First Snowfall ’24

Posted on by The Lord of The Manor

As I type this, the woodstove is crackling to life from a small bed of coals to a lively fire intended to warm the house against the wintery cold that is starting to arrive here in the valley. There is a faint flurry of snow outside right now, and the clouds are hanging low. Everything about the day feels cold. The wintery weather is settling in at about the normal time as leaves still hang from the poplar trees that surround us. I close the door to the stove and allow the fire to reduce to a warming flame that maintains comfort through the house. It doesn’t have to battle too hard yet as it is barely cold enough to snow. I want to acclimate to the coming cold, those January and February days where the mercury seldom makes it above 25°F, and the nights are proven a great time to be wrapped up snug in bed.

Today is Halloween. To me, this is the beginning of the Holiday Season, which slams shut abruptly with the coming of New Year’s Day. It’s that time of year when I contemplate just how much wood I really have set up for winter, and if I need to split anymore to dry at the last minute, or worse, because I just don’t want to have to do it in the snow in the real winter. I get excited to take the kids Trick Or Treating. I get excited for Thanksgiving and Christmas and especially for the family time together. This year we are all excited for the coming of our second grandchild of 2024! Seasons change, the old things slowly make way for the new, and I feel a certain joy for it, even though I know one day my leaf too will fall. All this as we celebrate our own Day of the Dead, spook away the old spirits and make way for the new.

Warm Woodworking Winter

Posted on by The Lord of The Manor

I moved the Roman workbench onto the front porch yesterday so I can work on some of my projects over winter in a warm place. The shop gets cold! It gets colder in there than it is outside by a few degrees each day, and my hands sting while I work with them. The front porch will warm right up in the sunlight because of the big windows out there. When the sun is not shining the room can be warmed by leaving the front door open and letting the heat from the woodstove fill the space. I think that since I will be right there in the room, I can do some work conveniently to filling a couple of the gaps and working towards sealing in the heat even better. I’ll certainly have good cause!

The Roman workbench is a three-inch-thick top on four robust legs that are splayed outwards to help keep it stable against the motion of working with wood. The top is about 18 inches high, and four and a half feet long, so it is to be sat on while working. I have a row of dog-holes and some wooden bench dogs to help with work-holding. I brought in a few tools to do some basic finishing work, such as two hand planes and two saws and a drill and the like. I’ll plan on the big work out in the normal shop, and just get the wood ready for the finishing of final cuts and assembly on the porch. Well, this is now, and it seems like a good idea. We’ll see what I say about that later.

I think the first job to do out there on the porch will be the making of some bobbin lace looms. Missus wants to put some up for sale online to see if she can generate interest and help boost her shop in Etsy. She says she has a hard time finding such looms for sale online, so she thinks there is a space to sell them. I don’t know if I can happily drill what I need to without using a drill press, but that is easily sorted, if need be, out in the shop.

Aside from the drill press, I will be using the bandsaw out in the shop, too. I also will have to do any of my lathe work out there too. So there is plenty of reason to sill work out there. But I can prepare the final work on components such as boards and sticks ready for assembly while on the porch, giving me a place to work that is more naturally warm. I can adjust as I go and see what things I can accomplish without freezing my hindside off!

Last Farmer’s Market

Posted on by The Lord of The Manor

We went to the last Farmer’s Market of the season here in Preston. It was a fun night with all the Trick-Or treaters coming around. We also made more sales than ever before! It is not enough to live on, but we did finally feel like we fit in a little around here and are getting to know the people of our local town.

We had one person come by with pictures on her phone of some of the coloring boards she bought before and colored. It was really exciting to see she did it, and it was also exciting to see that she enjoyed what she bought! That was one of the highlights of the day for me! Her work was beautiful!

There was one young girl who took a real interest in the spinning that Missus was doing and she walked her through how to do some spinning of her own with a drop spindle. Then Missus gave the girl what she needed to get started. That will make it easier to follow her excitement, and hopefully get her going on a new hobby.

We packed everything up at the end of the night, enjoyed conversation with some of our neighboring booths. Then we drove home, and on the way, we passed a guy looking almost forlorn while unloading his stuff, a long rifle loaded over his shoulder. 250 feet after that, a deer crossed the road in front of us.

Once home, we unloaded anything that could be damaged in rain, then went in and everyone went to bed. Well, everyone except for me. I wrote a blog post.

A Little Update

Posted on by The Lord of The Manor

This week has been very busy off the farm! Missus has been teaching 4H classes and we have been sorting out many other things, but the big event this week was the arrival of a new grandchild! Forgive me for not giving further details, but I do want to say what is going on, and that everything is great!

We seem to be deeper into the autumn weather now. The rain fell the night before last, and the wind has kicked up since. It is chilly for sure! There is snow on the tops of the mountains around us and the clouds have not cleared yet.

I’d like to say I have finished the woodshed now, but this week has been so busy that I have not touched it. I got the roof on the little shed out back when I found some steel lying about behind the barn. You can just about see it in the photo below.

It is coming into mid-afternoon, and I can smell the winter soup I started this morning. It is in a crockpot on the kitchen island and will be ready for supper tonight. The change in weather is what inspired it! Honestly, I would have loved to put it to stew and into a pie.

The weather is set to remain cool. I think we will see the need for closed windows, firewood, and lots of hot drinks now. I’d like to have a lot more done outside and will work on it all, starting on the woodshed. I need to get that woodpile covered!

The Shed, the Fair, and the Panel Raiser

Posted on by The Lord of The Manor

It’s been a busy week with things going on with the kids in school and the Farmer’s Market to attend. I have not had the time to do too much on the shed, but as of tonight I cut the last pieces of wood for it, and they are ready to go up tomorrow if I can get to it. Then it needs the metal roof on it and it is done. Meanwhile, I wanted to post a photo of the door that I finished for it the other day.

I will get that roof on soon as there is precipitation dure on Thursday. I will also have to see how much smell of vapor there is in the building after the roof is on, and I will drill loads of holes as necessary to vent it. I am thinking one-inch holes quite like a person might find on a regular old outhouse.

We went out to the autumn fair in Logn today. There was Trick or Treating for the kids, and plenty of arts and crafts on sale. It was an absolutely perfect day! The weather was spot on, there was no wind or rain. I could not have asked for a better day. Missus observed there was plenty of repetition in the types of things for sale. There were at least a half a dozen 3D printer shops, and a couple of laser cut shops. There were a few crocheter and sewers, too. But Missus says she would like very much to do that fair next year.

I expect that is about enough for now. I need to see about making a panel raiser for the shop. It will have to be made from wood, and I will have to grind my own blade. I sure can’t find them for sale right now. So it seems like the only option. I have never made a plane before, so since I don’t know how hard it is, why not?