Earring (Saturn) box and more

An earring box for Ali. Putting together a piece from multiple parts is time consuming but it's an enjoyable challenge to try and get the proportions right. The cherry was from a log in the woods behind our house which had been felled a number of years ago and there was only a little of solid timber to get out of it. Thanks to Gary Wall for his gift of some ebony blanks.

The second and third pieces each have a band of antiqued foil which is a new technique I'm working on.

The last two pieces have rims painted with iridescent paints.

Earring box in cherry and ebony
3 1/2" x 9"

Cherry bowl 7" x 4"

Sycamore platter 10" x 2"

Beech bowl 8" x 3"

Sycamore platter 15" x 2"

Silver leaf and more

My second attempt at patinizing silver leaf was successful. After applying the leaf I laid crumpled tissue paper in the bowl and sprayed the paper with a solution of 1 part liver of sulphur concentrate to 70 parts espresso coffee at 120 degrees F. I placed a plate on top to stop evaporation and left it for 45 minutes before rinsing it with warm water from a spray bottle to stop the colouring. (I think my first effort last summer failed because I used a different manufacturers silver leaf which was probably imitation).

Looking forward to using the effect on hollow forms and platters.

The next two pieces I used my £2.50 'airbrush' for decoration and finally a salad bowl in sycamore.

Bowl in sycamore 8" x 4 1/2"
acrylic paint, silver leaf, varnish

Platter in sycamore 15" x 2"
acrylic paint, shellac, and wax

Bowl in apple 6" x 4"
acrylic paint and varnish

Salad bowl in sycamore 15" x 4"
walnut oil

Pewter and laburnum

All the pewter at my home is now in danger of meeting the melting pot. At about £35 per kilo I'll probably wait until boot sales start up this spring to replenish supplies. (Anyone have any lying around that is of no use?)

I found it handy to prepare the pewter elements in advance to fitting on the green timber. The ring on the end grain bowl was fit with a tongue and groove joint and epoxy. The foot ring inserts are a handy way to decorate and clean up the foot.

Bowls are finished with oil and wax.

Laburnum and pewter end grain bowl
5 1/2" x 4 1/2"

Laburnum cross grain bowl
8 1/2 " x 3 1/2"

Foot ring and insert detail

Wikipedia entry on laburnum

All parts of the plant are poisonous, and can be lethal if consumed in excess. Symptoms of laburnum poisoning may include intense sleepiness, vomiting, convulsive movements, coma, slight frothing at the mouth and unequally dilated pupils. In some cases, diarrhea is very severe, and at times the convulsions are markedlytetanic. The main toxin in the plant is cytisine, a nicotinic receptor agonist. It is used as a food plant by the larvaeof some Lepidoptera species, including the buff-tip.

More fun with colour

The first bowl in cherry has the exterior finished with Plastikote two-part crackle, Jo Sonja gold iridescent acrylic, and Wood Doc 20. I thinned the gold paint hoping to apply it with an atomiser tube but couldn't blow hard enough to raise the paint. Ha, stuck a dusting needle from the compressor into the blow pipe, turned it up to 80 psi and out came the paint! The softer wood within each growth ring took more paint and added a pleasant grain effect.

The next two bowls are coloured with the Sonja iridescent paints applied by sponge.

The final piece is a small cross grain elm platter with the rim decorated with the Plastikote crackle. (I'm getting better results with the crackle on face grain.)

Cherry end-grain bowl 7" x 5"

Sycamore bowl 7" x 3 1/2"

Sycamore bowl 8" x 5"

Elm platter 7" diameter

Exploring Colour and Texture

I've been cutting a lot of open bowls lately just to have some pieces to play with. Each additional material or technique seems to add exponential possibilities. I'm definitely straying from the adage that less is more.

The first two bowls have Jo Sonja iridescent acrylic applied over a darker undercoat. I've brushed the thinned acrylic at slow and high revs and finished with a few coats of lacquer. It will take a lot of play and experimenting to find a technique that is really pleasing.

The third bowl is cross grain sycamore bowl died with spirit stain and  textured with a Crown tool with a gold gilding cream rub and finished with Chestnut wax.

I think that the direction I'm taking is a result of near constant woodturning for a few years. What matters to me is to stay excited.

End grain cherry
6" x 3"

Cross grain sycamore
8" x 3"

Cross grain sycamore
10 1/2" x 3 1/2"

Toni's sugar pot
Laburnum and holly lid

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.