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

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

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

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

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

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?

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

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

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

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.

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.

The First Few

3" Cedar panel container, 2" cherry container, and 3" cherry bowl.

2 small cherry bowls.

Left finished in Shellawax, right finished with plain ol' Tung Oil Finish.

Bottom of cherry bowls

4 decorative rings turned into the bottom have become a standard feature on nearly everything.

3.5" cherry and maple bowl.

The first glued bowl.

4" red oak, maple, and cherry tray.

Playing around with spare bits and glue and ended up with my favorite little tray.

Red oak, maple, and cherry tray...

...in it's infancy.

3" bird's eye maple bowl

This is my candy bowl. Moderation. Refill. Moderation again.

Dark bird's eye maple bowl.

He's as impressed as I am.

3" Friction lid, one piece, cherry container.

The top and bottom grain line up and the lid is snug. A rousing success except for an inferior finishing job.

Inside of cherry container

The finish has some rough spots, but it works, and that's good enough... for now.

Butcher block bowl.

Made straight from a butcher block kit. Glue, cut, turn. Nuthin' fancy, great results, nice finish.

Several projects gettin' glue.

Gluing wood for turning saves a great deal of money, but adds a lot of time and planning (more time).

Production line.

1 bowl getting polished (next pic), 2 bowls on deck (last two photos), and 2 that need corner trimming.

Butcher block and cherry bowl.

Butcher block strips glued to a big ol' hunk of cherry make for a nice pattern.

Butcher block, cherry, and walnut strip.

Similar to the previous bowl, but cut in half wrong (I made an error) and sandwiched with another cut wrong half bowl around a walnut strip. Very cool.

Butcher block "chevron" bowl.

Leftover glued butcher block planks cut at an angle and glued back together "chevron style".

Woodturning (The First Batch)

September 25, 2013 in Woodturning

I'm all in with wood turning. This is satisfying my need to make things very nicely. The pics above are my first handful of photo worthy wood turnings. They're displayed in order of manufacture (mostly).

So far I'm liking simple segmented pieces more than the solid wood. Putting different wood together gives a piece more "pop" than a solo act, but there's also nothing quite like a container where the grain on top and bottom line up. I guess they both have their awesomeness-es.

The focus of this first batch was simply to make a presentable final product. That means a pleasing form (to me anyway), no tool marks, no scratches, and an even finish and/or polish. The photos are pretty much that entire learning process. The last few bowls in the slideshow actually exceeded my expectations.

So... yay!

Finally got something to show.

April 14, 2013 in Woodturning

My first turned container. Yay!

Wood turning is something I've wanted to do since 5th grade woodshop. With the exception of some time in a machine shop back in '07, I hadn't touched a lathe since the early 80s. Metal working is fun, but too rigid. Of course it has to be. T'is the nature of metal to be difficult.

Not so much with wood!

Figured it was time to try some 'new' things and wood turning is high on the list. I've been playing with the lathe (aka learning how to use the thing) for the past month or so and finally tried a proper friction lid container. It works!

Ha!

This is only beginning. Mwwwwahhahahahahahahaha! Oh! Details?

It's 2"dia. plain ol' cherry (swiftly becoming my favorite wood to turn), and about 2" tall. I sanded it with Howard's Butcher Block Conditioner cause that's what I happened to have on hand. Looks nice but I'd prefer something glossy and longer lasting. No big deal, this was just proof of concept. Fine finishing comes later.

So yeah! I'll be doing more of this. Yay!