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doodles in color

cool art and random nonsense
  • blog
  • gallery '13
  • gallery '11
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Small Cherry Bowl
Small Cherry Bowl

This bowl was made to be nothing more than a finishing experiment. Success took far longer than it needed to but it worked. No visible scratches in the wood and no visible ridges in the finish. Yay!

Cherry and butcher block bowl
Cherry and butcher block bowl

A leftover glue up from last month. After the cherry bowl success, this bowl was turned and finished with lessons learned.

Two future bowls
Two future bowls

Spent many days getting these beasts glued together.  Didn't want to turn them till my finishing technique was ready.  No excuses left. I'm scared.

Curly Maple, 2 piece mushroom
Curly Maple, 2 piece mushroom

Terrible wood turning books can be more trouble than they're worth. This single mushroom took two weeks. Ended up having to make accurate drawings and modify (simplify) the process.

Curly Maple, 2 piece mushroom
Curly Maple, 2 piece mushroom

The inside is a little burnt from the boring process (heh, boring), but that's easily removed. Not fully finished.

Useless mandrels
Useless mandrels

The mushroom book told me to make these mandrels.  They're supposed to help hold small work on the lathe. They don't.  A cheap piece of 3/4" poplar dowel from the hardware store was perfect.  Stupid book.  I want those days (and that wood) back.

 

Tool cup?
Tool cup?

Can't remember what this was supposed to be but it didn't work.  Now it holds very small tools. Kind of.

Future project
Future project

I want to glue these pieces together in this arrangement, but I haven't yet and I don't know why.

Zebrawood mushroom
Zebrawood mushroom

Started this little mushroom with what I thought was dry wood and then the smell hit me.  Zebra farts.  Project shelved.

Screw chucks
Screw chucks

A lot of time is spent making things so that you can make the things you're trying to make. These are used to mount bowl blanks on the lathe. Deck screws work surprisingly well.

Small Cherry Bowl Cherry and butcher block bowl Two future bowls Curly Maple, 2 piece mushroom Curly Maple, 2 piece mushroom Useless mandrels Tool cup? Future project Zebrawood mushroom Screw chucks

Trials and errors. Mostly errors. Mostly.

November 08, 2013 in Woodturning

Some people like to call mistakes "learning experiences", but that's only true if something has been learned.  October was a month of problems and figuring out how to figure out the solutions.  The slideshow shows the results of some of those adventures, but there's no way to show you how much time was involved.

It takes a lot of patience to sand out every visible tool mark, tear out, & scratch, and then comes finishing. Just because they put the word "finish" on the bottle doesn't mean you're actually finished. Once the finish is dry (up to 12 hours after application depending on product), the ridges and uneven spots need to be scuffed out, which can take as long as sanding.  When that's done, it's time for polishing!  The small cherry bowl in the slideshow was the learning piece. The second bowl went a lot faster.

...And then there was the curly maple mushroom. Ug. Yeah. I've picked up a few wood turning books and when it comes to basic and advanced techniques they're very helpful.  But when it comes to detailed project instructions, they can be the worse than useless. That mushroom took me two weeks because it took that long to go through the book's processes, fail at nearly every step, and then figure out how to actually do it properly.

It took the better part of a week alone to redraw the book's plans with accurate measurements and work out a decent process sheet. The process sheet took the most time because there's no way to know if the process works until attempted, failed, adjusted, redrawn, and reattempted. Once that was all done, turning the mushroom itself took less than a day.  It was all very frustrating so I didn't bother with fine finishing. Just gave it a quick protective coat on the outside and ignored the inside.  There will be more of these.  I didn't walk through that particular Hell to not get to Heaven.

I also have other projects I've been working on.  Some have been included in the slideshow and some have not.  Ran into many similar problems with these projects and they've taken as much time to design, process, attempt, fail, correct, and repeat as needed. 

And that pretty much sums up the month of October!  Lots done, lots failed, lessons learned (potentially), little to show.

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Howdy!My name is Mark W. Stevens and this is my site! 

Howdy!

My name is Mark W. Stevens and this is my site! 


Latest Posts

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DoodlesInColorStore now open at Etsy
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Experimental Bowl
Experimental Bowl
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