May | 2022 | MowryJournal.com

Archive for May 2022

Because The World Needs These Leave a comment

I love Deviled Eggs.

I make these Deviled Egg Platters to help make the world a better place. They are difficult to make: each one takes 9 hours to carve on my CNC. It takes about 90 minutes to hog out most of the waste with a 1/4″ end mill, and then a 1/16″ tapered ballnose bit advances 1/100″ with each pass to make the egg cups as smooth as possible.

Labor of Love, they are.

Here are the latest 11 that I have completed. 2 are already gone. The 9 remaining will be going to Bishop Mule Days over Memorial Day weekend … so if you would like one of these for your holiday table, speak now and I will get it shipped to you, no problem.

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Buying a Deviled Egg Platter

Posted May 16, 2022 by henrymowry in Woodworking

Tagged with deviled egg, Exotic woods, Mr M's Woodshop, Santa Clarita, serving piece

I Call Them Large Serving Pieces Leave a comment

When I started making these, everyone called them surfboards.

They aren’t really shaped like surfboards, but they have a certain curvy shape that takes people there.

But, then I started making actual surfboard-shaped serving pieces or cutting boards (you choose how to use them!). I needed to rename these pieces, so … well, I am known for my creativity (well, sometimes).

Large Serving Piece was the perfect name. Name the thing what it is, that’s what I think. Creativity can only confuse people at this point.

The LSPs are made with cove cuts on all 4 sides. Cove cuts are made taking the piece across the front edge of the table saw blade, moving sideways – not through the blade with a straight cut. This makes a large sweeping curve which is unique to this piece.

And making those cove cuts spews sawdust everywhere. Saw blades are made to capture sawdust between the saw teeth, and return it to below the table of the table saw for dust collection. The sideways movement of this cut interrupts that flow … and I’m left with a fine sawdust over the entire shop as well as an 1″ of sawdust under foot after making these pieces.

Once the cove cuts are done, then the piece gets the signature oval-ish shape cut on the band saw, and then the LSP is smoothed with 2x different random orbital sanders. 4x non-skid rubber feet held on with stainless steel screws complete the piece, which floats lightly on the table.

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Buying a Large Serving Piece

Posted May 15, 2022 by henrymowry in Woodworking

Tagged with Cutting board, handmade, Mr M's Woodshop, Santa Clarita, serving piece, Valencia

Passport Stamp: Petrified Forest National Park Leave a comment

We visited the Petrified Forest National Park on May 3, 2022. We entered through the South entrance, after spending the previous night in Winslow, AZ (on Historic Route 66) and enjoying the downtown homage to that signature tune by The Eagles.

After driving through the closest town, Holbrook, AZ, and driving right by the largest private seller of petrified wood and buying nothing … we arrived at the turn off to the park entrance, and went to the apparently smaller retailer of petrified wood that has a very impressive store right by the entrance. After buying nothing, again, we proceeded on to the main event.

The southern entrance of the park is close to the park museum and gift shop … worth a stop. Then we took a hike to the adjacent Long Logs area of the park to see one of the greatest collections of petrified wood you can walk to in the park: we walked about a mile and a half on a largely paved path. Most of the pix below are from that hike.

After getting blown by 20 MPH winds, gusting to 30 MPH, we proceeded on the drive through the park which took about 4 hours. We stopped at most of the recommended places, though we became discouraged by the 30 MPH winds that were gusting to 40 MPH at this point and did not do a significant hike again. In spite of the wind, we had a great visit and transitioned into the northern section of the park, AKA the Painted Desert. Our timing in May was good with some of the vegetation in it’s growth/flowering cycle.

Please note that our drive through the park was guided by the app “Just Ahead” which is highly recommended. This GPS-triggered app guided us through the park with both driving directions and interesting trivia just as you approached the relevant sections of the park. Highly recommended as the way to visit our national parks … though you may need to download maps while on the hotel’s wifi the night before!

Here is what we saw.