For your article in the latest More Woodturning Magazine. The one showing how to bend brass rod for hangers to display ornaments on. I made a little modification that works well. I only had one 1/2" rod to bend against so for the second one, I substituted a round 1.5" hardwood disk. I epoxied the 1/2" rod in place, laid my 1/8" brass rod beside it and screwed the disk down thereby pinching the brass between the two. Using the wooden disk to bend around gave me the look I wanted. I use a 2.5" disk when I want a bigger loop (it looks like the upper end of a ? mark).
JKJ, if I can figure out how to post a picture, I will do it. All Johns do not have the same talent with pictures. Basically if you took a period and could imagine it sitting next to but not touching a capital O at the centerline. The period is the 1/2" (or 3/8) rod that is epoxied into a wooden base. Now the O is the wooden disk. Before screwing the disk down, I put my 1/8" brazing rod next to the metal rod (John used wooden dowels) then pinch the disk against it and screw it down. I bend the brass rod by rotating it around the steel or wooden dowel. It looks like a fish hook now. The short end of the hook is between the disk and the dowel or rod. I slide it up and insert the long end in next to the disk and bend it around the disk. I wish I could post John's article but maybe he can post a picture of it. I will try tomorrow to photograph and post tomorrow.
>if I can figure out how to post a picture, I will do it.
I am certainly no expert in this but I have posted a lot of pictures here. (I love photos!) There is probably much more to it than what I know but in case you are interested, this is what I know, or think I know...
AFAIK, there are two ways to post pictures here. One uses the "Optional Image URL" field for a link to a picture stored on a server somewhere, such as a photo hosting web site. I think this picture can be any size but I've never done it. One think I don't like is if the external picture ever goes away, the picture here is dead. I've seen this when searching the archived messages.
I do it the other, upload the picture to WC with the Browse button just above the message text input box. The picture is limited in size, not in pixels, but in bytes (the size of the image on the disk). I think 100k is still the limit for WC.
Changing the image to meet this byte size limit should be easy to do but it can be a pain depending on what software you have available. The following is a long winded description if why and how. It's been a long day so read at your own risk!!!
Note that there is probably a better description of how to post photos in the FAQs page, link above.
(BTW, here's a deal for you: if you have any issues at all uploading a photo I'll be glad to fix it if you email it to me.)
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Since the 100k photo limit is pretty small compared to the megabyte size of typical digital photos it is sometimes a challenge to get the size small enough to upload. Cropping and resizing to a smaller picture, say 600 pixels across, helps a lot but is often not enough. The size the picture occupies on the disk needs to be reduced. You can continue to resize until the disk size is small enough but depending on the image content the picture might then be tiny and hard to see!
The way to do this with JPG images and still keep the picture large enough is to "compress" the image more. This decreases the image quality but the picture is usually looks just fine.
One problem is some image software we use for photo manipulation does not have an easy way to set the disk image size. Many will let you decrease the JPG quality but that may require several tries to get it right. Image software on phones and tablets may not even allow this.
I use Photoshop for all sizing since it has a one step function to make a perfect WoodCentral upload file! There is an option on the file menu called "Save for web" which can force an image to a specified file size by automatically choosing the proper compression value. This eliminates the trial and error and results in the best possible image quality. I simply set the file size to 100k and save the result to a special "for posting" directory so I don't mess up my original image.
Photoshop is outrageously expensive and I could not afford it if I had not bought it many years ago for my work. However, the very affordable Photoshop Elements will do the same thing according to its specs. Other image software also has ways to do this but I don't know the specifics. Again, the FAQs section here should have some good info.
Hey, I read somewhere that if a picture is worth 1000 words, then a word must be worth a millipicture.
Obviously there are a million shapes and ways to do this. One guy sent me an e-mail after the article and said that you can buy a Whisk in stainless steel at Walmart for 99 cents and get 8 or 10 wires.
Here are two quick photos to give you the idea of what we are talking about.
Ah, thanks, that makes sense. I've never hung an ornament like that. I've seen people use them but I thought they bought them somewhere. I have a bunch of thin stainless and aluminum filler rod for TIG welding that might be perfect, maybe spin polish to mirror finish first.
