A good turn daily: January 2013

Sunday, January 27, 2013

Demo results

I ended up using a prepared piece of Box Elder for the 2nd half of my demo. I didn't want to waste time doing the actual hollowing of a blank so I swapped to a pre-hollowed blank when we took a break.

I'm going to refine the shape a bit more and thin it out a little to reduce the weight a bit so it's a finished piece. I'll probably give it away at the next regular club meeting (April).

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Thursday, January 17, 2013

Demo 2013

I’m doing a demo on Saturday at the Arizona Woodturners Assoc. I’ve chosen to do a hollow form that’s hollowed through the bottom and then plugged with a piece of the same wood (from the same blank to best match the color and grain). I started my prep work tonight and ended up settling on this piece of Apricot. I was considering a piece of Maple burl but decided against it.

Here’s a few examples of the type of hollow form I’m going to demo:

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Monday, January 14, 2013

Piece of Ash

2 chunks of Ash burl I just got in a trade. I gave him a half a log of Sissoo for these 2 pieces. He will probably use the Sissoo he received to make Native American style flutes. I thought I was going to make Torus IV out of this but now I’m not sure. The piece on the bottom is a half sphere with some rot in the middle, it’s probably 18” across, 16” long, and 8” thick.

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Saturday, January 12, 2013

Challenge - bowls

Most months my club has a President’s Challenge. I assign the topic for the next month and then those that want to participate are encouraged to turn and bring in an item that fits that topic. We’re pretty lax in enforcing the rules so sometimes we get objects brought in that were turned months or even years prior, not specifically for this challenge.

I take the challenge part very seriously; I really try to challenge myself and do something I’ve never done before or do something in a different way. I often try to put my own “twist” on things - sometimes literally.

For January we’ve gone back to basics; the topic is “bowls”. We’ve done this topic once or twice in the past 4 years but its always a fun one. The piece I chose to make is a small piece of Quaking Aspen and chose to make it as thin and light as I could.

It’s 7” diameter and stands 2 1/4” tall and is about 3/32” thick. It’s bone dry but the light still passes through quite easily. I wanted the form to be as close to perfect as I could get it and I think I came pretty close to accomplishing that goal. It’s almost the perfect little bowl.

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Thursday, January 10, 2013

Ebony?

I bought these goblets at a local antique store a couple weeks back. They were marked $6 for the pair but were then discounted to $3. I’m always on the lookout for stuff like this, some for my collection, others to possible reuse or repurpose the wood. These caught my attention because of the black color but I’m always wary that they may have been artificially darkened, painted, dyed, ebonized, or otherwise altered. There were some areas that seemed suspect, the finish appeared somewhat caked on, but I could see enough grain running from the stem to the cup, through the inside of the cup and up and out the other side that I was confident that the wood was pretty nice; even if it had been enhanced.

Tonight I took them out to the shop and took a little bit of 320 grit paper to parts of them. It turns out I was right, the had been altered, one whole side was clumsily painted black, but there was still some very nice grain underneath. I’m guessing they’re some kind of ebony, possibly Macassar Ebony but there’s no real way to tell. For now they’ll go back on the shelf until I either find the time to completely refinish them or find a way to incorporate them into another piece, perhaps as the stem on a elevated hollow form. $3 well spent in my opinion.