91

March

Well another month has passed and I'm still going strong with my ring a day project. I was able to make a ring each of March's 31 days. Here's a photo of all the rings I made for each day this month.

The past 3 months I've managed to make a ring each day. Some days I was making a ring around 11pm but so far I haven't missed a day without making at least one ring. Here is a photo of all the rings I've made so far for my ring a day project. 91 rings so far.

Along with my ring a day I also sometimes make a few extra rings in a day. Some are for custom orders while others a just ones I decided to make as an extra one for the day. In March I made 53 rings in total which means so far this year I have made 144 rings. So far this year I've sold 69 rings of which 31 were sold in March. So far this year every month has been better then the last, both in the number of rings I've made and the number I've sold. Let's see what April brings.

90

Pickin' Wood

I've decided that I'm going to narrow down the woods I make my rings with. Right now I have rings in my show made out of Argintine Lignum Vitae, Bocote, Chakte Viga, Cocobolo, Ebony, Guayacan, Lignum Vitae, Louro Preto, Mopani, Osage Orange, Pink Ivory, Purple Heart, Redheart, Rosewood, Tamboti, Tulipwood, Wenge, Ziricote, and maybe a few more. I love working with a few of these woods, while others I despise working with.

 I've already decided that I'm going to cut out are:

Argintine Lignum Vitae

 some of the rings seem to turn green after some time

Purpleheart and Ziricote 

these woods are just such a pain to work with that i don't really want to make a ring out of them unless someone really wants one

Bocote and Louro Preto 

because they seem to never sand smooth or some are just to week and break too often. 

Cocobolo 

 because people don't seem to like them.

I still have some of these woods for sale in my shop, but I don't think I am going to renew then once the listing expires. Eventually I think I might post these rings in one group listing, or donate them.

I would like to get to the point where I have around 10 consistent woods that I work with. I'm testing new woods every so often but the last few haven't met what I think is needed for a good stable ring. The woods I stand by now and love to work with are:

Guayacan 

Ebony

Chakte Viga

Osage Orange

Pink Ivory

Redheart

Tulipwood

Mopani

Tamboti

I would like to start making more rosewood rings, I just need to find a good source. All these woods I feel extremely confident in their strength and durability. If someone was to ask me which ring would last the longest I would with no hesitation say Guayacan. That's not to say that the other rings won't give it a run for it's money. It's just that Guayacan is just above all the most durable wood that I have, because it is by far the most durable wood in the world. But it's also one of the easier woods to work with, some of the lighter woods are actuly some of the harder ones to sand and saw.

Finding a consistent supply of good grade stock is also a challenge for some of the woods a I work with. I try to buy as much as I can when it's available, especially wood from the same tree. There are some woods, such as Guayacan and Tulipwood, where the wood varies greatly from tree to tree. Sometimes I can't match a ring for someone because I just don't have any more stock from the one they want.

Anyway, I just thought I would share about the woods I'm sort of picking through and choosing to make rings with. 

89

Bill Nye The Science Guy

Bill, Bill, Bill, Bill, Bill...

I use to watch Bill Nye all the time, both on his main show and when he would be on Almost Live. I like to watch these old clips and catch glimpses of 90's era Seattle.

88

New Music

Sigur Rós - Ekki múkk from Sigur Rós on Vimeo.
From the new album Valtari. Video by Jónsi's sister, Inga Birgisdóttir.
http://www.sigur-ros.co.uk/valtari

87

The Scar

I was working a little bit on a special section of the wowona today I've come to call the scar. It's a patch that was done sometime in the past on one of the outside planks. The outside of the plank has this really large knot that must have partially spit open. The patch consists of many copper nails and small trunnels attempting to hold the piece together. From the back side it's hard to tell there is even something wrong with the front. Today I removed a lot of material on the backside to expose the tips of the copper nails. We are going to attempt to remove these nails and replace them once the plank is carved.

Here are some pictures of the scar.

Here is the back side carved down revealing the tips of the copper nails.

86

How I Make My Rings

Here is a video showing just what goes into making one of my wooden rings.

Making A Wooden Ring from Ian Gill on Vimeo.
This is how I make one of my wooden rings. This particular ring was made from ebony and is for sale along with many other wood rings in my etsy shop http://www.etsy.com/shop/IanGill

85

200th

Today I made my 200th recorded ring. I'm sure I've made mote then that but some have broke or gotten lost or whatever, but I officially have 200 rings recorded in my little black book.

I recorded a video of myself making this ring. Once I have it completely edited and uploaded I'm going to share it on here. This ring is currently for sale in my etsy shop, snag it while you can.

84

Want To See

A few things about this movie look really interesting to me. One is that it stars Willem Dafoe, which I've always liked. Two, it looks similar to Last Night, which is another 'what would you do if the world was ending' movie. I like this concept of movie. It's like a prequel to a post apocalyptic movie where people know the world is going to end and they can choose at their will how to deal with it. The last thing I like about this trailer is the Tom Waits song.

83

Keyword Search

According to Google Analytics there are a few hundred search terms brought people to my Etsy Shop. Some are pretty strange, I can't really figure out just how some of them brought people into my shop. Here are ten of strangest words that are in the list, in no particular order.

hippie thong
tattoo sleeve onesie
canoe paddle storage
dance shrug
fake cupcakes
sexiest mythical creature
panty storage jars
felt hobo hat
smurf hat pattern crochet
willy wonka golden ticket adobe photoshop

The internet is a strange place. I cant really say for sure why these searches are directing people to my etsy shop. There are a lot of keyword though that do make sense, like wood ring, or wooden jewelry, or ian gill rings, and many more combinations like that. Those make sense, because they have to do with things I actually have in my shop, the others not so much.  I mean, I haven't sold felt hobo hats, panty storage jars, or hippie thongs for years now.

82

Progress 

Here are some pictures of the progress we are making on the Wawona sculpture.

Right Now we are working on the lowest section of the sculpture, this will be at eye level.

Once the wood extensions are glued on they are then drilled out

Then they are carved and sanded smooth to blend in

Then the back side is carved in

This wood has so many amazing colors

Here is a close to finished section

81

Fix it

Here is a great video of a quick cheap fix. I love quick fixes with just what you can find. This video makes me want to document some of the fixes I've done.

Fix an SLR with Peanut Butter from Casey Neistat on Vimeo.
like me on https://www.facebook.com/cneistat

mending is better than ending

80

Custom Bands

I've made a few custom bands for people. I like the process of matching different sizes of rings, it's like a little challenge. I like making custom rings in general that people ask me to. Some people know exactly what ring they would like in my shop, they just want it in a certain size. Other people have a fairly vague idea of what they want and leave a lot of it up to me. One of the challenges for matching rings is the wood. Wood is consistently inconsistent when it comes to grain. It's one of the things that makes a wood ring so special. The grain it like a finger print, there is only one like it. Some woods come really close between blanks, others I have to fish through and guess which one will come out looking the most like it. It's always a problem when I run out of a certain wood stock that I was making rings from, and then someone wants a ring from that stock. I guess that's just one of the challenges and fun things about making wood rings. Every ring is unique and trying to match them is a challenge.

So far I think I've made around 4 matching bands for people. I think I'm going to advertise this more in my shop. I don't really state that this is something I'm willing to do in my shop. Maybe this will become another aspect to my ring making. I've been doing pretty well sales wise in my shop this year, but one of my goals it to increase sales every month for this year. I have a few ideas for next month that should help draw attention that I will share in a post probably in a few days. I'm hoping my sales continue to be strong. I'm really starting to feel in a very productive mode right now. Most of all of my days are spent working but right now I'm really liking that. I'm starting to really see that my efforts are paying off.

Here are some pictures of  a few of the custom matching bands that I've made.

79

Song Day

78

Trimmings 

Here is what my desk looks like after a month and a half of constant ring making.

Maybe I should clean up a bit.

77

Dinner

I didn't do much for St. Patrick's day this year. I hate going out to a bar on St. Patrick's because everyone seems to try and drink like an irish man, and fail. It's really just become another holiday that people have the excuse to go out and drink as much as they can. Then end of the night is always the worse too, when there are people in the streets looking like the girl from the exorcist puking up green beer. Also, green beer? What the hell does that have to do with anything.

Anyway, I guess the only thing I did for St. Patrick's day this year this year was make myself a good dinner. Which I guess isn't that special because I make myself a dinner like this most nights of the week. But tonight I bought a nice garlic and herb lamb patty. With that I made some mashed potatoes, broiled asparagus, and some sauteed mushrooms.

It was good. I've been doing asparagus and mushrooms a lot lately. My asparagus recipe is really simple. I just put a little oil and salt over the asparagus in a sauce pan and cook until it's about half done then I finish it off in the broiler until they just start to brown on the outside. My mushrooms are just as easy too. I take around 10 small to medium sized white mushrooms and quarter them. I then place them in a small sauce pan with about 1 tablespoon of butter, some worcestershire sauce, a dash or salt and paprika. I then cover it and let it sit on medium heat until most of the moisture is gone, then i remove the lid and finish them on high constantly stirring for about a minute. They turn out great every time.

I really like cooking a dinner like this. I find that i usually don't take the time to cook a nice meal for breakfast or lunch but for dinner I will take the time to put something together, even if I'm cooking late into the night. Having a finished meal like this in front of you after a long day is really satisfying. This St. Patrick's day meal was a good one, much better then last years Beer Soup.

76

Blanks 

I cut up a bunch more ring blanks yesterday.

The woods I have there are ebony, guayacan, chakte viga, louro preto, laurel negro, tamboti, and desert iron wood. almost all my rings start off from rough blanks like these. I buy these small pieces of turning stock from either Woodcraft or Rockler. From the pieces of turning stock i cut out all these small little blanks. I vary the thickness slightly but they are mostly the same. From these I make all the rings you can see in my shop.

75

Unfortunate Cookie

Here is the "fortune" I got with my cookie today.

Gee, thanks. How is this even a fortune? I guess someone sure was bitter down at the fortune writing factory. Now my dream of becoming the worst fortune cookie fortune writer of all time will never come true because someone obviously has already taken that crown. I guess I just need to learn to be content with that.

74

Good Night

I'm too tired to put much effort into a real blog post tonight so I thought I would leave you with a bed time story.

73

Door

We were moving a few things around in the studio today and one of the old bathroom doors from the bar that use to be on the corner turned up. I think this door must have last seen action back in the early 90's. Have a look for your self.

This is the outside of the door.

If it's hard to read I'll transcribe for you, up near the top it says in Spanish "Viva Grecia! -Alfonso" which I think translates to "Long Live Greece". Or maybe grease, I'm not 100% sure. Below that it says "use toilet paper (stupid)". Then we have 2 warning stickers, one which seems to be misleading stating there is "NON-Flammable gas" the other warns to "stow away from foodstuffs".  The center gives us a stern warning to "DO NOT USE TOWEL PAPER To wipe your (ass, maybe, I'm just assuming)" this appears to be coming from "The Nanandgenent". Then we have the pièce de résistance, Bart Simpson saying "Don't have a cow, man!" which can be called the American sister phrase to Englands Keep Calm and Carry On.

Here is the inside of the door. I don't think I'll transcribe anything from here, I'll let you zoom in on your own and find little treasures, there are plenty.

Here are a few closer looks as a few areas.

I have a feeling the best thing to do to this door would be to burn it, either that or send it to the Smithsonian.

72

Kodak Duaflex III

As spring is coming around I'm starting to get itchy about taking more film photos. I have a few 35mm film cameras in my collection and the one i use most is probably my Canom AE-1. But I think my favorite to use is my Kodak Duaflex III. I found this little camera at goodwill a few years back and and then fiddled around with it to it now takes a 35mm roll. Here is a photo of the modification.

All I really did was trim and glue in a holga 35mm film adapter. It works quite well. The film advance is a little tricky though because you have to remember how many pictures you have taken off hand and then after a certain number of pictures you have to advance it a little further to avoid overlap. I might have already blogged about this before but I've just felt like breaking this camera out again because i've only really used it for I think 2 rolls.

Here are a few of the pictures I've taken with this camera.

Hopefully more to come.

71

Views

I've been having pretty steady views in my etsy shop this whole year, every once and awhile I will have a spike and have a few dozen or so more views on a specific day. I've come to rely of a steady average of around 40 views a day. You can see the graph below of each daily view. This is Jan 1st through March 10th.

That had been the case until today. Here is the same graph including March 11th.

My views for today literally dwarf all the data from the rest of this year. It's all because of these two little guys. Which from what it looks like the person who requested them had shared them on Reddit. I won't share the link because I'm not sure if it was a private forum or not.

Hopefully I get more view spikes like this, otherwise the data for the whole year will look flat except for March 11th. This weekend has been pretty good etsy wise. I will be taking 8 rings in all to the post office tomorrow. A few of them will be traveling throughout the US, one to Australia and then a few off to England.

70

We Stopped Dreaming

I've heard it said that one of the benefits of war is the technological advances that come from it. I think the misconception is that the war itself made advances where as in fact it is all the money given to scientist during a time of war to come up with these advances. These advances would no doubt have come about on their own during peace time if there was equal funding for scientist and their research. The goal of most scientist and engineers is to find answers to problems and answering calls to challenges. I find the figure that the bank bailouts cost more then NASA's entire lifetime running budget to be amazing, and very concerning. Out perpetual lack of will to do what we should be doing is pushing our dream of the future further and further down the road. We seem to be just spinning our wheels, we could be so much greater then we are. We owe it to ourselves to try.

69

Sign Post

Here is a piece completed last year by Lead Pencil Studio that I helped to make a small piece of. It's installed at Spokane Falls Community College. It's 40 something feet tall with plastic panels that are back lit at night.

photo by Liz

See that little arrow pointing to the half circle way up there. I made that. The rest of it is pretty cool too, I guess.

photo from Spokane Falls Community College

The piece is meant to showcase they dying culture of signage across the west. These classic style billboards which once dominated the landscape are now an endangered species.

I remember watching the video below awhile back and it brings up a great point about signage in modern day America. 

America Is F*cked.......(Graphically at least) from Jess Gibson on Vimeo.
This is Aaron Draplin telling me a story about a sign. He's a graphic designer and very passionate about what he does. Strong language- mostly lots of F words. If you like design stuff you gotta check out his site.
www.draplin.com

68

That Kony Video

Well where should I start with this one. Maybe at the beginning. Yesterday when I happened to look at my facebook I saw saw all these posts about the same thing. One of the first things that set off warning bells was that it was being posted by people that I never see post, and also being posted by multiple people who have very far ranging backgrounds and beliefs. It was all about the Kony 2012 video. I looked up what that video was and watched it on Invisible Children's site. Watching the video through left me with varying emotions, maybe mostly confusion, I kind of have a hard time putting my reaction into words. I think there have been a lot of great responses that express how I feel about this charity and talking with Carmel gives some great insight into how I feel. We were talking a lot about all the hype this video was getting on facebook and elsewhere. She wrote a great blog post laying out just what she, and I, feel about it. You should read her post here.

 I've been reading a lot of responses to this viral campaign and I have to say this is one of my favorite below. I think one of the best things she says is "I think we need to have kind of some intelligent campaign that's geared toward really real policy shift,  rather then a very sensationalized story that is out to make just a person cry and at the end of the day we forget about it."

I found this video here which I think is a great collection of people telling their reaction to this video.

I don't really feel like standing on a soap box or write down what I'm trying, and probably failin, to get some point across. I just feel that this issue is an important one, and one that cant be solved in simple ways. If you liked the video I think that's fine, I'm not saying that you shouldn't care about the problems it's addressing, it's just not as simple to fix as the video make it out to be. I would actually like to see these guys make more videos addressing all the concerns raised about Kony 2012. They have the worlds attention right now, it's going to be interesting to see how they go forward from here.

67

The Most Astounding Fact

It's so easy to forget we are sitting on a rock floating through space around a star. Not just that, but that we are too in fact made from the remnants of stars. We are much more connected to each other and the universe then it seems. This is a great video to remind yourself of the awesomeness of everything.

The Most Astounding Fact from Max Schlickenmeyer on Vimeo.
Astrophysicist Dr. Neil DeGrasse Tyson was asked by a reader of TIME magazine, "What is the most astounding fact you can share with us about the Universe?" This is his answer.

CREDITS
Narration: TIME Magazine's "10 Questions for Neil Degrasse Tyson"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wiOwqDmacJo
Music: "To Build a Home (Instrumental)" by the Cinematic Orchestra
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6PJ0Oxjc1v4
http://www.myspace.com/thecinematicorchestras

Video (in order of appearance):
IMAX: Hubble 3D (Orion)
http://www.imax.com/hubble/
Yellowstone: Battle for Life (Tree & Waterfall)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00jcdml
Supernova to Crab Nebula
http://www.spacetelescope.org/videos/heic0515a/
BBC: Wonders of the Solar System (formation of the solar system)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00qyxfb
Accretion and First Eukaryotes from the 2011 film "Tree of Life" directed by Terrence Malick
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accretion_(astrophysics)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_of_life
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_evolutionary_history_of_life
http://www.twowaysthroughlife.com/
BBC: Charles Darwin and the Tree of Life
http://www.wellcometreeoflife.org/
"Salar de Uyuni, Bolivia" by Ayrton Orio (Model: Xharon Kendelker)
http://vimeo.com/9505354
"Afghanistan - touch down in flight" by Augustin Pictures
http://vimeo.com/31426899
http://lukasugustin.de
"mongolia!" by wiissa
http://vimeo.com/27876709
http://wiissa.com

Excerpt from "Outside In", Copyright Stephen van Vuuren/SV2 Studios
http://www.outsideinthemovie.com
IMAX: Hubble 3D (Inside Orion Nebula)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orion_Nebula
Shuttle Launch from 1985 IMAX film "The Dream is Alive"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dream_Is_Alive
"Earth -- Time Lapse View from Space, Fly Over -- NASA, ISS" by Michael Konig
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ls9yJTphLxg
http://koenigm.com
Excerpt from "The Island" - La Palma Time Lapse Video by Christoph Malin
http://vimeo.com/27539860
http://christophmalin.com
Galaxy Map and Galaxy Formation by NCSA's Advanced Visualization Lab
http://avl.ncsa.illinois.edu/
"Mars sunset" captured by NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegallery/image_feature_347.html

Edited by Max Schlickenmeyer

Neil goes on to say "For me, that is the most profound revelation of 20th century astrophysics and I look forward to what the 21st century will bring us, given the frontiers that are now unfolding."

Special thanks to Carl Sagan, Neil Degrasse Tyson, Reid Gower, and NASA for their inspiration.

Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Non-profit, educational or personal use tips the balance in favor of fair use. All copyrighted materials contained herein belong to their respective copyright holders, I do not claim ownership over any of these materials. I realize no profit, monetary or otherwise, from the exhibition of these videos.

66

Stuck On Repeat

I've been listening to a lot of Damien Jurado lately. I have all his songs in a playlist that I always just seem to keep playing over and over again. It's filled with music that I stole off of Carmel's computer before she left, so maybe that's why I keep listening to it. Or it could be that it's just good.

Here is one song I keep finding myself listening to over and over again.

65

Wood Wonders

Here are some pictures of just a few of the more weird and amazing things I've found while working with the wood form the Wawona.

Today I found this one end of a plank with a knot running across. It seems that while the plank was in the kiln the board shrank while the knot did not. Resulting in this weird little thing. Most knots seem to either poke out on either end but this one bowed in the middle, and now it seem pretty solid. I tried pushing, and pressing it in but it wont budge at all. 

Here are some photos showing just how tight some of the wood grain is that we will be working with.

Then there are these strange sections in the planks that are rather beautiful

A lot of the grain is overlapped with stains from various sources such as salt water, salt, fish oil, or iron. It creates these beautiful patterns and color in the wood.

These are just a few of the discoveries as I work with all this wood, I'm sure there will be many more.