First small batch of sticks

First, I'd like to thank everyone for the interest and enthusiasm for the drumsticks undergoing development. There suddenly has been a huge outpouring of interest in this stick endeavor locally, nationally and worldwide. It's been wonderful talking with Jeff Rich and his referrals of potential customers is a welcome contribution. Through many trials of erroneous attempts, I got this small batch of straight 5B barrel tip sticks turned out late last week. There are a few things that can effect the outcome of a good product. There are still improvements to be made. I am ecstatic at how far I have come in the process over the last three or for months. It has been a major undertaking just to get to this point. Lots of machine maintenance and hands on self education, learning how the machine works. The past few weeks have been a huge curve.

Lately here in Louisiana it has been extremely cold...totally out of the norm. We haven't had a cold spell like this in nearly 20 years. We've been dealing with freezing temps down into the low 20's, freezing rain and ice on the roadways. I've still been going to the shop and working on all this. I feel it is of utmost importance. Last night, after a 12 hr day, I had to run my car 30 minutes to defrost the nearly 1/8 inch of ice on the windows. My car was toasty to go home and I'm glad I left when I did because the roads were getting icy. There maybe 3 cars I passed on the way home.

Monday, I spent the morning running a few much needed errands before the weather set in. I got to the shop and made what I thought were some good adjustments. Turned out they were not. I did clear up a few things with them, but caused some other things to happen. I'm still learning. After lunch, I took a much needed trip to the hardwood distributor. I sifted and sorted through nearly 300-400 board feet and found about 74 board feet of useable stock. They are expecting another shipment next week and I'll be going back for some more. There expecting a shipment of 10 foot boards and I'm not exactly sure how they will fit in the old astro van. I can fit 8 foot boards safely inside. I 'spose I'll just have to let them hang out the back and tie a red flag on them.

Tuesday was a "sneaux" day for much of Lafayette. We didn't see temps get above 30 degrees. Actually the temps kept dropping all day and it was very icy with sleet. I made my morning trek to the shop and started on my day. I started going over some of my notes from monday. I thought I had some really dry wood that I had been turning due to how the chips were flying. Turns out the roughing knife and gouge were getting dull. I have stones for the back knife but not for the ones getting dull. I got on the phone and ordered some. Then I proceeded to shape out an older gouge that I got from Jeff. I got it pretty close but will have to wait to finish it since the "wheel" needs to be shaped. It was productive.

My next "to do" on this snow day was to rebuild my router jig for shaping the "butt" end of the stick. I'd built two already and they helped get me to my next design. The 1st one never came to fruition. It got about halfway started and I realized it wasn't going to work. That led me to revision 2 which worked alright but left a lot of room for error. There was a lot of chatter from the stick not being properly supported while being pushed and turned into the bit as well as the stick wanting to climb out of the holder. That all led me to the design of revision 3 (shown above) that works MUCH better. It offers good support next to the bit and keeps the stick in place while being turned. I redid the small batch of sticks shown above but then my old router, that was my dad's and nearly 40 yrs old, started crapping out. I'll have to rebuild it when I have some "free" time. Glad I have another that I can mount in the table. I'm very happy with the jig.

My good friend, and fellow drummer, Jermaine had stopped by the shop since he was off from work for this "snow" day. He hung out and we chatted quite a bit about drumsticks. He also watched everything I did while making the router jig. He's really nice guy and always willing to help and gain some knowledge. After I finished making the jig and testing it out, we took the last hour and some change to chop and rip out some square stock out of the hickory I'd picked up the day before. We chopped and ripped enough stock for about 120 drumsticks. My neighbor Josh stopped in at the end of the day and was very surprised at the developments that have come along since he saw me last week.

Even while the machine is down waiting for tooling supplies there is plenty to do to get ready for the production of sticks. I didn't get to the shop very early today due to icy roads. I did get there about 1030 and dealt with fixing a heating issue in the shop. It's all good now. The heater is now able to get the temp up to a much more comfortable working environment. My friend and fellow woodworker Noah came by to visit a little while. He's seen the videos and was curious to see what I'd been doing. We had a very nice visit a discussed some options for getting names and logos on the sticks. He's been another wonderful person to talk to about woodworking. Seems like there is a nice circle growing in the community. Jermaine came by again today for a while and then my woodworker friend Martin came by and we had a very casual conversation about all that is going on in the shop and the outside. Martin and I go back over 20 years.

Thursday will be a short day in the shop since I've got lessons in the afternoon and a gig at night. I've got to run to the hardware store for some screws to mount the "new" router in the table and run some errands so the bills get paid. I'll post more later this week.

Y'all have a good one and thanks agian for your interest.
Talk to ya soon!