Simon Hope

Simon

Spent last weekend with Simon Hope. What an enjoyable two days of woodturning. My main interest was working with pewter but I picked up lots of tips and inspiration.

A bit cold sleeping in the van on Saturday night but an impromptu blow on the bagpipes and a cup of tea from Simon Sunday morning warmed me right up.

We turned a few finished pieces and one knotty lampshade in walnut. Pics follow.

I can't recommend Simon highly enough.

I'll be back.

I thought my shop was inclined to be messy!

Walnut box

Yew bowl

Purpleheart box

A bit of fun with scraps and offcuts provided me with some xmas gifts for family. Various woods were used including beech, sycamore, holly, cherry, laburnum, and a couple of exotics.

Salsa Verde

A decent if slightly dissapointing crop of tomatillos this summer has given me enough fruit for several batches of salsa verde to freeze for winter craving.

Please leave a comment with your email address and I'll happily share the recipe!

Colouring and Texturing

Having returned from a woodturning cruise in Norway at the end of August, I've been busy putting some new ideas to task. Results from the tooling is a bit unpredictable but that's part of the fun. Thanks to Nick Agar for the inspiration.

Textured Yew Bowl

Cherry Boxes

Textured Sycamore Bowl

Tartine Bread

Not exactly turning but an enjoyable craft that you can eat. The method is simple and the results fantastic.I can't recommend the book highly enough. Many thanks to Mark Gascoine for renewing my interest in bread (and thanks for the starter).

Toni

Preparing to mix the dough

Folding the dough

Absolutely delicious

Recent Turning

Hollowing is a chore so a little spindle work to make a finial makes for a pleasant change.

Urn spalted beech and laburnum
8" by 15"

This green cherry crotch distorted attractively around the rim. Quick turning helps.

Cherry platter
8" by 3 1/2"

I've promised to bring a few pieces on the Norwegian woodturning cruise so I'm trying to come up with some interesting smaller shapes.

Lidded box spalted beech and ebony
4" by 4"

A friend kindly gave a big section of reclaimed beam from Coventry Cathedral. Phil Irons told me the likely species as a lot of timber was brought back to the UK from Australia as ballast in the late 18th century. (Forgot the name.)

Bowl reclaimed timber from Coventry Cathedral
8 1/2" by 5"

Two Approaches

Seasoned or green?

Finial bowl in maple and beech 9" x 3"

The seasoned block of maple required a lot of elbow grease to turn, created lots of dust, and felt like a lot of work. It finished nicely with a little Chestnut wax after sealing.

Spalted holly 9 1/2" x 4"

The cross-grain holly was rough cut to an inch thick and wrapped in plastic overnight. The following day it was turned to size, microwaved twice on high for 90 seconds (an hour apart) and saturated with mineral oil. Sealed in plastic again overnight for a rest and then exposed to let it relax and distort. A few cracks appeared but it held together remarkably well. I quite like turning green timbers that distort if I can manage to keep them from exploding.

For my turning green timber is a lot more enjoyable although unpredictable (plenty of failures) and generally takes several days to complete. In the end the pieces are unique, have character, and I enjoy picking them up.

A Bit of a Rant

I recently purchased a couple of Tracey Owens scrapers made by Henry Taylor. They're expensive at almost £38 each. At that price one should expect that the grinding of the steel would be reasonable. It isn't. I don't expect any cutting tool to be ready to use 'out of the box' but a little effort from the manufacturer certainly doesn't damage their reputation. I nearly returned them. It took me a couple of hours to sand the flat with 80 grit, polish on a twelve inch mdf disk with Flexcut compound, re-grind the bevels and hone with a diamond file.

The scraper on the top is polished prior to grinding the bevel, the bottom is as it came. They now cut as they should. The couple of hours it took me should have paid for one of them!

Yarn Swift

This was a simple project that made a nice gift for my wife at Christmas. I had some small bits of scrap cherry and yew lying around for the parts; all I had to buy was a £4.00 lazy susan bearing from Axminster.

The turned parts were two disks of cherry (one with a recess cut on one face to accommodate most of the thickness of the bearing), four shaker style pegs, and a knob with an M6 screw glued at the end. A threaded insert is screwed into the underside of the top disk. The two arms are yew with a half-lap joint in the middle and a series of holes for placing the pegs at different diameters.

Click here for a higher rez video on youtube.

A simple project for anyone you know who knits!

p.s. Forgive the mumbling nature of the narration.

Bigger is Better

At least with logs and salad bowls. A large log section allows for quarter-sawn blocks to be roughed out which means finished turnings are far less likely to crack. They remain green for a longer period so they cut a lot easier. For end grain there is no pith to contend with and cross grain pieces can distort and remain stable.

The salad bowl has nearly finished moving and the rim measures 12" at the widest and 10 1/4" at the narrowest. Finished with walnut oil

Salad bowl

End grain lemon bowl

How it all (re)started

In early April 2010 I built a Shaker lap desk from some leftover cherry from a mantle / surround for the living room gas stove. I needed a small knob for the pullout drawer and figured a lathe would be a versatile additon to the shop for turned furniture components as well as other faceplate and spindle work.

That one little knob re-kindled a passion that I had lost since I was twenty years old.

Spring Hollowforms

Dawn from shop

I think that everyone is anxious for spring considering the winter we've had this year. Looking forward to not have to fire up the shop stove to make things comfortable to work. Yesterday was warm and sunny but this morning it was 2 degrees at dawn.

Spalted beech pots

I've been working on semi-enclosed forms lately and have found the Woodcut flexi-hollower (thanks Phil Irons) the most  comfortable tool for small to medium size hollowing so far. For end grain at the bottom, Kelton scrapers are a little more effective.

End grain cherry pot

This is my favourite pot shape so far. Turned from a green off axis quarter sawn blank, microwaved for two minutes, and buffed with Beall system. The gentle warping adds a lot of life to the shape. More to follow.

Pot procedure

End grain spalted beech pot 6" x 5"

Yesterday my friend and neighbour Martin the farmer and I harvested some large beech rounds from a tree that fell a couple of years ago. Fortunately is wasn't in contact with the ground and still had a bit of root attached so its still fairly green. I figured it would it would be nice to give him the first piece cut from the timber. At the same time I wanted to outline the best steps that I've come up with to produce a shape I'm keen on.

Four beech rounds approx. 23" diameter

Blank mounted on screw chuck for initial truing and forming rough shape and spigot prior to reverse chucking

Roughing out bottom and cutting spigot for gripper jaws with half inch bowl gouge.

Cutting against the grain with a three eights finishing bowl gouge to meet the top bead leaves a little tearout

Shear cutting downhill with a three eights spindle gouge leaves a nice finish.

Drilling to depth with magnet for gauge prior hollowing done with a Trucut flexi-hollower. Material that had been supported by the tailstock has been removed.

The pot has been hollowed to a quarter inch wall (slightly thicker at the base) and mounted on a mandrel.

Trimming base with spindle detail gouge.

Voila!

Hoorah!

Peter Hawkes asked me to provide some turnings to sell in his gift shop Lacey's Yard in Chesham. It's a thrill to be entering the retail market and I hope expand to a couple more shops! Don't want to get too ambitious as it all might feel a bit like work.

Lacey's Yard

Pricing

Two Pieces from One Log Section

Having been frustrated lately at trying to include the pith in bowls and pots I took a large chunk of beech and turned a cross grain piece and an end grain piece from two half sections. Grinding a long sweep on just the left side of the flute on a deep-fluted bowl gouge allowed the upper two thirds to be cut in one sweep. The bottom third was cut with a Munro hollower and scraper.

Pot, Spalted Beech,  9.5"x 5.5"

The end grain vase is from a quarter sawn block and hollowed with Munro and Kelton tools freehand with lots of caliper checks. 

Vase, Spalted Beech, 6" x 9.5"

I quite enjoy working with spalted beech if it hasn't gone too far. Easy to cut, tends not to clog hollowers and finishes well. There's also a helluva lot of it around the Chilterns. Hope to post an entry soon on hollowing techniques and tools.

Recently Completed II

Yew bowl 9" x 6"

Popcorn bowl in yew from Adam and Petra's farm.

Recently Completed

Urn 6" by 12"

Last May Toni and I took the van to Lincolnshire for a visit to Adam and Petra's house for a fun run. I came across a large woodpile and was kindly offered a few log sections to take home.

The body of the urn is spalted horse chestnut from one of the logs with a cap of laburnum and a beech finial from my firewood pile. Finished with Chestnut wax. Right click on the caption for a larger view in Flickr.

(Thanks Adam and Petra!)