Plasticification of soil

I do woodworking. One of the things I have been thinking about is the life-cycle of our waste products. For example, the sawdust. It is frequent that wood workers are now integrating plastic products into their production processes and shaping them with the same tools used for wood. I have done this with Plexiglas and the image below from Willamette Valley General Contractors shows the worker cutting a Trex decking like material and wood. Typically in these set ups there is no clean-up process to remove plastic shavings from the environment. The process is to set up an outdoor workstation and make sure everything looks neat when the job is done. We don't set up our wood shops to consider the differences between wood and plastics materials either. So what do we do with these plastic shavings and how are those impacting our environment? When we cut materials outside do we just expect the plastic to integrate with the environment?

Construction worker using a saw.

Image of Willamette Valley General Contractors cutting deck material.

Plastic in sawdust

As woodworkers, we use a lot of resins, plastics, and other synthetic materials which get filed, ground, shaved, or sanded, along with wood and disposed of along with sawdust.

This means that woodworkers in their modern art context often contribute to the production and proliferation of microplastics. It also means that the “sawdust” isn’t 100% biodegradable.

What methods are there at the individual workshop level to filter it these plastics from biodegradable materials?

Making a Violin

I was looking up some resources for making a violin in my area. Violinorum says there are three, one in salem and two in portland. I want to make three violins.

https://www.theluthierslibrary.com/
https://www.theluthierslibrary.com/luthiers_library/mainMenu.do
https://www.kerrviolins.com/baroque-and-classical-instruments.html

http://www.sandysviolin.com/handmade-violins-violas.html

https://www.herrmannviolins.com/violin-making

https://hillviolin.com/

And then of course there is the bow making too.



couple of articles:

https://www.yamaha.com/en/musical_instrument_guide/violin/selection/
https://extension.okstate.edu/fact-sheets/using-wood-for-violin-makers.html
https://www.benningviolins.com/types-of-wood-for-making-a-violin.html

Fixing Brio

My parents got my brother and I Brio trains around 1984. Over the years some of those pieces broke and were repaired. Some of them got additional shades of pigment added. They survived through seven kids and now my two kids. Well almost survived.

Undoing previous repairs

Today I repaired three pieces by adding pegs. I made the pegs by drilling a 3/8” hole in a wooden ball I bought from a craft store. Then I glued in a dowel from the hardware store. Next I sanded the tip flat. Then I sanded the circumference of the ball to give clearance on the sides. Then I pre-drilled the track portion and dry-fit the pegs measuring the amount I needed both in the track and for appropriate connection to the next track piece. I then cut the dowel to proper size. Finally I glued the peg in with wood glue.

Dry-fit for usability.
Three fixed pieces

Building a marble run

I finished the first couple marble run blocks this week. Introduced them to see how the play factor would work. A little bit advanced for my audience. But still interested in them.https://hugh.thejourneyler.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/img_8053.movhttps://hugh.thejourneyler.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/img_8050.mov

CA glue…

This is my first project with CA glue. I have a set of shelves in a dark hallway. My idea is to add LEDs as under lit area under each shelf. The task has been to embed the LEDs in the wood shelf. And then to cover them with plexiglass. Are used CA glue to attach the plexiglass to the finished wood shelves.

One thing I did not know about CA glue was how it’s offgassing would etch the plexiglass. This seems to be corrected if we use the CA glue curing excelerator.

CNC Laser

Continuing on my thoughts about woodworking, I was looking at laser engraved wood and CNC machines. Here are a couple of DIY videos from YouTube.

There is a company here in Eugene which specializes in this.

Here is a DIY project page: http://davidegironi.blogspot.it/2014/07/38mm-x-38mm-laser-engraver-build-using.html
http://www.aliexpress.com/item/PCB-milling-machine-CNC-2020B-DIY-cnc-wood-carving-machine-mini-engraving-machine-3050114A/32428314987.html

It also seems that andrio or bananna pi are also used. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_Pi