The little things

I can't remember if I've mentioned in any of my recent posts that I got married back in November, regardless you most likely knew if you're reading my blog. BUT we didn't have full fledged wedding rings at the time and as a matter of fact we still don't. When we eloped Oz just continued to wear the bloodwood ring I gave her and I've been ringless for months! Solving that problem, I made myself a ring to wear! Two in fact!

The first ring I made myself was the white one shown in the picture below. A nicely barked tree fell down on the nearby towpath a few months ago and two weeks ago I took a branch from it. Whittled a section of the branch down and then Tru-oiled it. It is nice ring but I made it slightly too large and it is a softer wood resulting in a slightly bendy ring.

After wearing it for a week and being a bit unhappy with it(it looked like I had a band-aid on my finger). I went to work on the second ring in the picture below. Using my good trusty bloodwood scraps, I spent a good while on Saturday and Sunday shaping it down to size. I am exceptionally happy with my second outcome. I put a bit of tru-oil on it for a brilliant shine and it was all ready to wear. Now Oz and I have matching bloodwood bands until we get around to making silver rings!

As another side project, I gave my old, gothy snowboard bindings a new coat of paint! Primarily because I was invited to help chaperone a 6-8th grade ski trip but also I just didn't think they fit my personality anymore(even though the studded, bloody bindings obviously made me the coolest guy on the mountain). So first, I tore out the metal studs across the tops of the bindings. Easy squeezy.

Next, I sanded off some of the previous paint to rough up the surface which would make applying new paint easier.

Then it was time for lots of primer! I used gesso because it was what I had on hand. (Probably not the best choice)

A very thick coat of primer...

Next, two layers of bright red acrylic for a background color.

After that, I taped off the pattern I wanted with painter's tape and painted some electric blue acrylic. Pulling up the painter's tape resulted in these:

Now, the most obvious problem here is that I was using plain, old, boring, acrylic paint and didn't apply a clear coat or anything that would keep the paint from getting messed up. As a result, after one day of snowboarding a few minor damages occurred.

I'm still pleased by my rushed paint job and I'll look into methods of repainting them again with a more long lasting medium.

Until next time! (I'm still going to post pictures of the finished violin at some point)