Chemical Tests on the easel

We were wondering one day. We got to talking and it occurred to us that artists use all sorts of cleaners and thinners and stuff like that there. So we decided to test a sample of the Orbital Easel material to see how well it stood up to some of that stuff.

First of all water is pretty safe, obviously. However, watercolors will eventually stain the surface - as they do with anything else. So here is the result of exposure to several, and some rather nasty, chemicals that artists might use. Needless to say nothing we tried had any effect. Below is the list.

From top to bottom:

Denatured Alcohol - right out of the can.

Paint Thinner - The regular stuff you get at the hardware store.

Toluene - A standard thinner for oil-based paints.

MEK Methyl Ethyl Keytone - Pretty nasty stuff used to thin and remove resins used for fiberglass.

Naptha - A common cleaner and spot remover derived from natual gas.

Acetone - Another particularly nasty chemical, fingernail polish remover.

Lacquer Thinner - used to dilute oil-based lacquers and paints.

The Orbital Easel Tripod Base

We now have a tripod base available for the easel. It's similar to the regular base but small and has the treaded insert for a standard tripod.

As you can see, it's ideal for any sort of uneven ground when you are painting on location. You set the easel where it's most stable and your adjustment is in the Orbital Easel's tilt swivel base.

We suggest that you use a heavy-duty tripod and not a lightweight, $24 model from the camera depatment at Wal-Mart. After all, this is a 17 x 23 inch flat surface at an angle.

The tripod shown below is a Bogen "pro-sumer" type. But, honestly it was windy that day and there were NO stablilty problems whatsoever, none! Even we were surprised! There were several people flying kites that day. This unit is more stable than a standard easel.

It will be in store very soon!

Orbital Easel Unveiled

The Orbital Easel has it's own website at Orbitaleasel.com. Check out the video on the Products Page.

We were having some problems getting the hosting and the payment stuff set up but all is running now. You can order online with a credit card, a PayPal account, or you can call us on the phone if you want.

Using the Orbital Easel clamped to a table.

Easels on the shelf ready for shipment. The Orbital Easel comes in two boxes. The easel comes by itself in the flat box and the smaller box has the base and the pivot pin.

Quilceda Carvers Show - with pictures

The Quilceda Carvers are based in Snohomish County. That's the county just north of Seattle (King County) and the show was in Monroe.

It was held at the Evergreen State Fairgrounds in the Beef Cattle Pavilion. We're not sure if that's a statement in itself.

These are called Chinese Balls and are a real "How'd you do that" sort of thing. Inside this ball there are 6 concentric smaller ones. Fred Holder held a demonstration on how he does it. It involved a chucking system that he made and some special lathe tools. Check out Fred's books on the subject.

 The Northwest Driftwood Artists were right in the middle of things. These guys don't actually carve or reshape the found driftwood pieces at all. All they do is clean it, sand and scrape it, and wax it. This is nature's art as nature formed it. The close up below is a piece of maple and shows what is literally under the surface.

The Quilceda show includes a judged competition. This is a wizard head by Thomas Parkes of Richmond B.C. The celtic knot inlay appears to be maple. It's about 3 feet tall and really catches the eye. We're not sure who this actually is, but he probably played cards with Gandalf.


This owl was carved by Diana Galloway of Stanwood.We were impressed enough with the detail, especially the eyes. But she said that she carved him with a chainsaw! A very small chainsaw for sure, and over a long time but wow!

This magnificent carving of Raven and the Box of Light was done by Harvey Nelson of Sammamish. The native people of the Pacific Northwest tell a story of how the world was always dark in the early times because Grandfather kept the sun hidden in a box. Raven tricked Grandfather into showing him the sun in the box. Raven flew off with it and put it in the sky to give people light. Ravens are smart after all.

Grip-All Jaws didn't sell much at the Quilceda Carvers' show because the weekend was stunningly beautiful and warm, but no one did very well sales-wise. There wasn't the traffic there would have been on a rainy day. But sunshine, 70+ degrees, the beautiful Skykomish River - who could blame them.

Quilceda Carvers Show

We will be at the Quilceda Carvers Show the weekend of April 21. It's always a good well attended show. They have it at the Evergreen State Fairgrounds in Monroe, Wa.

They moved away for a year or two but now they're back.

http://www.quilcedacarvers.org/bbs/

Antlers to Art

Richard Lewis of Napels, Florida does fine, intricate work carving antlers. Moose antlers. We didn't want to crowd the Gallery article with the pictures so we put them here.

Click here to go to the User Gallery Article.

 

Drilling on the mark

We woodworking types all need to drill holes and they often need to be on an exact spot.

To help accomplish that we can borrow from the machine shop world. That would be a center finder.

 A center finder is a hardened steel cylinder and the tip is held on with a tension spring.

To use it, put it in a drill chuck. Push the tip off center and turn on the drill press at a low speed between 500 and 1000 RPM. You don't need any more than that.

With the chuck spinning, put slight pressure against the side of the tip until the wobble stops. I once worked with a guy that used his finger nail - he had 9 1/2 fingers. Use a screwdriver.

Now the point is exactly on center with the axis of the spindle. Use it to align with your center punch mark or crosshairs.
If you look closely, you can see that the first attempt is a bit off center. I fixed that with a center finder.