Recent entries
july 4, 2018 - 2018-07-04
the triangle continues of courtney, boobear, & nyota - 2018-07-03
Cookie so cute telling, "Hello" to sparrows - 2018-07-01
lovebirb in love - 2018-06-30
wren with fluffffff - 2018-06-24
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Read my new book, The 10 Best Things You Can Do For Your Bird at Amazon or at many other fine distributors like Barnes & Noble, iTunes, Kobo, and more.
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By public demand, and after a delay of an embarrassing number of years, I've finally put my notorious essay, Ender and Hitler: Sympathy for the Superman, free on the fabulous internets.
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A bibliography of my published books and stories.
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Here's a simple card-counting FAQ to get you up to speed on the basics. Here's the true story of the notorious DD' blackjack team, told for the first time on the fabulous internets. No other team went from a starting investor's bankroll of zero to winning millions of dollars. |
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| A Sadean take on Asimov's classic Three Laws of Robotics can be found in Roger Williams' NOW REVIEWED ON SLASHDOT!!!
The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect. Adult readers only please -- explicit sex and violence. For updates
on the "Dead Tree Project" and other topics, you may visit
the official fan site, Passages in the Void.. |
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My Bird Lists -- My Louisiana State Life List, My Yard List and, tah dah, My World Life List.
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| HEY! What happened to the Peachfront Conure Files? The world's only OFFICIAL Peachfront Conure site now features free peachfront conure coverage, including
a magazine length Intro to Conures previously published in American Cage-Bird Magazine, now free on the web. I offer the best free Peachfront Conure information on the internet. If you have great Peachfront Conure info, stories, or photos to share, contact me so I can publicize your pet, your breeding success, your great photograph, etc. on my site. Thanks.
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my new stone mosaic tabletop
2012-07-22 - 7:48 a.m.
 © 2012 by elaine radford
Here is a not very good picture of the new stone mosaic tabletop I just made. It's really nifty in person, where you can see the natural colors of all of the different varieties of polished stones.
If I show you one of the intermediate stages, you can probably figure out the rest:
But here's a step-by-step just for grins:
- First, DH cut the OSB to the right dimensions, then gouged it out with a router so that the stone pieces could sit down in the table top.
- OSB is porous and doesn't take paint well. Thus, I went over the frame and especially the exposed sides with papier maché strips. Dry the papier maché in a low humidity air-conditioned room with a fan blowing over it.
- Now comes the fun part -- picking and choosing the already polished stones. Most of them came from swaps with "Snuffy," a popular rock tumbling expert on the Rock Tumbling Hobby board.
- In the past, I have used Wellbond to secure the stones. However, our local Michael's up and moved away without warning, so I went to the Home Depot, where I found a dazzling array of Gorilla Glues. I used the one that "boils up" a little, so you must take care not to use too much.
- After the glue is cured, I used a pre-mixed, pre-colored grout, also from Home Depot. Got a little lazy, as in previous projects, I have mixed and dyed my own grout from powder, but I was ready for a quick win.
- I painted the frame in a deep emerald green and let it dry. I then pounced on the black glaze, to give a malachite (mottled deep green and black) effect.
- After another day or so of curing, it was time to apply the mosaic sealer.
I would rate this project as easy to do, inexpensive, and not very time-consuming, yet the use of the variety of all natural, highly colored jaspers, agates, and petrified woods give it a rich look that really packs a punch.
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All Rights Reserved, Copyright 2002-2017 by Elaine Radford
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