For the first time in months, I started turning a new bowl. It began as a crotch from a chokecherry tree, then I turned it roughly round, with the pith running horizontally in the bowl to be (yes, I know, that will probably cause cracking). Also, there was a bark inclusion in the blank, which I am now filling with purple-pigment-filled epoxy. If you’ve seen a yarn bowl, the bark inclusion looked similar to the curved hole in yarn bowls. At least one more pour before it goes back on the lathe.

As for any eventual cracking, my plan is to fill those cracks with epoxy as well, though depending on their size, I may need to use cosmetic mica and CA glue. Time will tell.

Edit to add link. https://duckduckgo.com/?q=cosmetic+mica+powder

Third, and hopefully final epoxy pour complete. A total of 5 oz (150ml) of epoxy resin was used, which is less than most of my pours. I realized that I could fill the majority of the crack with sawdust, because it will be the interior of the bowl, which will get turned away. Didn’t pack it as tightly as I might’ve, or I probably could’ve cut it to 3oz.

Anyway, a couple days to cure, and I’ll be able to hollow the bowl and get a better idea of what I’ll have. #WoodTurning #epoxy

Got a session out in the shop this evening. Rough-hollowed the bowl so that I can finish turn it maybe next week. It gets the weekend for the epoxy to cure and the wood to finish drying, and possible crack some more. I also might decide to touch up some of the chip-out in the epoxy where it wasn’t cured enough, but I’ll decide that tomorrow, as any patches will be small enough to cure very quickly. I think it’ll end up being a right handsome bowl when complete, though. #woodTurning

This morning, I spent another hour and change finish-turning the outside of the bowl, then going back and filling the tiny cracks from the juniper drying with purple cosmetic mica and CA glue. This combination ends up being harder than the juniper wood (I might’ve said this was chokecherry earlier; I was confused), so when I sand off the excess, I’m still left with a tiny ridge. Not really visible as such, but it’s interesting to touch, and more kintsugi than wabi-sabi. (1/2)

I put a test-coat of oil on so I could see how things are progressing. A little hand-sanding, and the outside will be done, except for turning off the tenon on the bottom and smoothing the bottom of the bowl. Not sure if that will happen on the lathe (with a jam chuck, most likely) or by hand in the bench. A lot will depend on how thin I turn the walls tomorrow or Friday. More details in the alt-text. #woodTurning #crackRepair (2/2)

This evening, some more shop time. I finished hollowing the bowl, and sanded the inside, but there’s still quite a bit of hand-sanding to be done, since I patched the cracks from the inside as well. But I made a custom shaped scraper and cleaned up the excess glue and fill before I called it a night, plus cut off the tenon on the bottom of the bowl, and began cleaning that up. It’s looking pretty good so far. My big worry is I’ll break it at this point, but I’m hoping that’s a healthy worry.

@skinnylatte Yeah. I grew up in the country. It was a half-kilometer to our nearest neighbors, who had no children my age.

@skinnylatte And that’s where we differ. A lot. Almost all of NYC is too people-y for me. But hey, enjoy!

@skinnylatte I also Do Not Want sourdough. We have a local bakery in Santa Fe which has a long line every week at the farmers market. I stood in the line shortly after we moved here. “Do you have anything that’s NOT sourdough?” “No.” “Ok. Thanks for your time.” We wave at each other sometimes, but it’s nice to know that’s a line I never have to stand in.

@gumnos @etchedpixels I prefer “aged” dead badger. Or perhaps “aromatic!”

I’ve had people telling me that some of the projects I’d like to tackle require “serious hardware,” and as I think about it, I’m pretty sure I first saw the idea running on a 286 running either QNX or XENIX, but I can’t remember which for sure, and whether it had more or less than 1MB of RAM. / @spstanley

First, they bombed #NewMexico. https://searchlightnm.org/trinity-bomb-detonation-atomic-bomb-1945-new-mexico-downwinders-congress-trump-radiation-exposure-compensation-act/

Photo from the morning walk. The tree cholla is blooming. #cactus #BloomScrolling

@derek We don’t use our fireplaces at all, so I built a cover for one to keep the cold air out, and am working on a second for the other (curved, so more complicated) fireplace. Many of our friends and neighbors think it came out pretty good.

I haven’t had much time in the shop this year, for reasons, but I’ve gotten a few sessions lately. Turned this bowl from some Russian olive I got from friends. The wood fought me most of the way, but I think the end result came out well. The bowl is about 8-9 inches (20+ cm) in diameter, mostly turned on the lathe, with a hand-carved rim. #WoodTurning #WoodWorking #Bowl

Activists from a Polish think-tank who have fought off authoritarian governments twice in Poland (first the communists, then the right-wing populists) have some tips for activists in the US. It’s a good read with a few actionable tips. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/apr/28/right-defeated-same-antibodies-poles-developed-beat-communism

I’m looking for a small, water-proof-ish device which I can use in the bathroom to access a web page and enter my weight after I step on the scale every morning. Only needs to be minimally waterproof in that it may be operated with wet fingers. The touchscreen on my iPhone SE 2020 is bad at this, and I don’t WANT this device connecting to iCloud, which is hard with an iPhone. Is there some cheap box that will work? Old eReader? An RPi with touchscreen seems excessive. #AskFedi

@skinnylatte When I worked at the Big Red A, some of the engineers I worked with from India wanted to move to the US (usually for non-work reasons). And there were some who had done the math and wanted very much to stay in India, because the cost of living in CA made the better salaries there not so good after all. And almost none wanted to move to Minnesota (cheaper COL than CA, similar salary) due to the cold.

PSA: Mac OS 15.2 breaks Time Machine backups. A friend had his entire backup history blown away by Time Machine. If backups are important to you, wait for 15.2.1 or beyond.

SuperDuper and CarbonCopyCloner are similarly affected. Just avoid the update if you can. If you’ve already updated, disconnect your backup disk so it doesn’t get clobbered. #macOS #Apple

https://www.macrumors.com/2024/12/17/macos-15-2-breaks-superduper-bootable-backups/

As it’s Sunday, I spent the morning doing low-impact #woodworking. Lowered the ground around this #acanthus leaf. It’s my first, and also the first carving I’ve done in a month or two, so a slow warm-up was welcome. This was about 2.5 hours, though there was some time spent sharpening the gouges.

The gouges are (in Pfeil numbering), an 8mm skew, a 6mm 60°︎ V, a 20mm #3, a 14mm #5, a 12mm #7, and a 12mm #9. The 5 and the skew get the most use, but all six were needed. #woodCarving