Oops

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Challenge accepted.

Tonight I finished the Eucalyptus hollow form.  I put it back between centers and took another cut from the mid point up to the rim.  This helped reduce the weight but it's still not where I'd like it to be.  Unfortunately this wood is very dense so a ultra lightweight form isn't in the cards.

This is one of my favorite parts of the whole process.  The piece has been sanded and I've started to apply the first coat of oil.  Now is the first time I get to see what the final piece will actually look like.

Top view showing the fake opening.

Bottom view.  The hollowing was done through the bottom and was then plugged with another piece of the same blank.  The grooves on the bottom help disguise the joint.

Profile view.  The sapwood on this side is lighter colored, with much less red.  It also has some small voids and a fair amount of crystallized resin.  The voids are helpful to judge the wall thickness.

Finished piece in my photo booth.  The color here is pretty accurate, and it's all natural.  The oil finish is nothing more than Watco Danish Oil.  They make several varieties, including Walnut, Cherry, and Mahogany but I always opt for the "Natural" variety.

Bottoming out

The President's Challenge for June is "Hollow Forms". Like most of the other challenges I've done I take the challenge part literally. I've done a bunch of hollow forms over the years but I've never done one that is hollowed from the bottom. Tonight I chucked up a chunk of figured Eucalyptus and went to work.








This is my progress so far. It doesn't look like I got much done but I'm actually mostly done. I may take one more pass on the outside to reduce the weight, other than that all I have left is the sanding, removing the nub from the bottom, and finishing.














I wanted the hole in the top to be impossibly small, it's about 3/8" on a form almost 5 1/2" across. I only know of 1 person that could possibly pull off hollowing this form through that opening, David Ellsworth. I might be able to do it through a hole about 5/8" but that's significantly larger than this hole (0.11 square inches vs 0.30 square inches).












Bottom view. I still have to remove the nub. Hollowing was done through a hole slightly over 1" diameter. Before I started I parted off the bottom of the form to maintain the best grain match possible. The joint will be hidden in a series of small grooves on the base.

The color should end up like the first photo once sanded and the oil finish has been applied.

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Photo log

 Tempe Center for the Arts has put out a call for entries to celebrate their 5th anniversary.  Traditionally the 5th anniversary is the wood anniversary so they will be having an exhibit entitled "2012 TCA Biennial: Wood".  Artists are encouraged to submit up to 5 pieces for consideration.

This is my first entry.  I decided to call it 'Round the World as the black line spalting on the top reminds me of a map.  It's spalted figured Maple (half way between curly and quilted) with lots of bug holes and a giant void (not visable in this photos).  The collar is out of Ebony or African Blackwood, I can't remember which.

 My second entry, Acer Falls.  Box Elder burl natural edge hollow form with natural edge burl base.  The bottom on this piece is completely round so a base was necessary.

 Side view.  This wood was part of a trade I made last summer with a guy up in Idaho, I did a demo for the Woodcraft Guild of Idaho Falls while I was in the area on vacation.  I traded some Mesquite, Ironwood, Olive, and African Sumac for Box Elder Burl, Russian Olive, and Osage Orange.  This piece was turned out of the Box Elder burl I received.

 #3 is a 4 piece nested set of Arizona White Oak Burl.  I harvested this burl off of a tree out in the woods and let it sit in my garage for several years.

 I'm calling this set Blanco Arizonica.  Sizes range from 13.75" X 4" down to 4.5" X .75"

4th entry.  60 West.  Spalted and bug eaten Palo Verde.  Roughly 9" diameter and 9" tall.

 This one has a semi pointed bottom so it needs the round donut in order to remain upright.

 This was to be my 5th entry but upon my last reading of the submission guidelines I realized that the pieces had to be made in the last 2 years.  This piece is at least 3 years old so I had to withdraw it.  Because I was so far along in the application process I elected not to replace it on my submission form.

 "Off Broadway" Eucalyptus Burl 9" X 4.75" to 5" X 2".  This blank was salvaged off a tree in the Phoenix metro area.  The cracks are filled with coffee grounds and epoxy.  This piece was included in the 2009 Chandler Center for the Arts "Beneath the Bark" exhibit.

 A few more photos of some recent pieces.  This is from the same tree as above.  I'm still working on the finish.  Approx 15" diameter.

 Sissoo with Macassar Ebony pedestal and finial.  This wood was sourced from Boyce Thompson Arboretum.

 Another piece of Sissoo.  Also sourced from BTA.

Last is a piece of Silver Maple burl sourced from Mike Mahoney.  It also has a round bottom so I turned a small ring out of Desert Ironwood for it to sit in.

Sleepy hollow

It's a long weekend and I've decided to use it on hollow forms. To that end I started out by cutting one of my Sissoo logs into 6 pieces of various lengths. Each piece was then mounted between centers and the outside shape was turned. I also roughed out a piece of quarter sawn curly Ash I got from Mike Mahoney.








I then hollowed the ash to 1/2-3/4" thickness and bagged it to dry. The piece on the left is Chinese Elm from back in April (http://agoodturndaily.blogspot.com/2011/04/catch-up.html). I put off finishing the bottom for a long time, my new 6" vacuum drum came in handy again. The short piece on the right is Eucalyptus (see below).








This pair was started about 4 months ago. I didn't intend to wait this long to get back to them, they just didn't take a high priority as they're already dry and Eucalyptus isn't one of me favorites to turn when dry. I normally don't use Eucalyptus but I will make an exception when I find a piece like this.








The bottoms still need some work and both pieces still need sanding and finishing. You can see the initial shaping and hollowing here: http://agoodturndaily.blogspot.com/2011/04/artists-arboretum.html


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Local woods only

1 quick photo of something I've been playing with the last couple of nights. I don't want to give too many details yet, I am willing to say that these are for our club's August President's Challenge - Local woods only.

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Spheres

Some spheres from Thursday and Friday night.  The smallest one at the top was made when I made the kendama and is made out of Cedar.  The 2 below that on the left hand side are both Eucalyptus.  The lightest colored one is Olive, the dark one in the bottom middle is Desert Ironwood.  The large one on the right is Mesquite.  The bowl is one I did a couple of years ago, I think it's Cottonwood.

Proof of concept

I've had this idea kicking around in my head for a while, a different take on a hollow form.  Donut shaped and hollowed from the inside edge.

 I'm still refining my approach, but I think it has promise.  This is my first attempt and the piece was secured to the wooden jam chuck with hot melt glue.  In order to hollow it out I will need to flip it over, the last time I flipped this sample I didn't use enough glue and it was torn free from the jam chuck.  I either need to rethink my approach or use more glue (or both).

As it sits it's only partially hollowed, about 1/4 to 1/3 done, but it will remain as is for at least a week.  I'm headed to California for work all next week.  I fly out first thing Monday morning and return late Friday night. Longest I've been away from home in close to 3 years.

Artists @ the Arboretum

 Today was the 4th annual Artists at the Arboretum event presented by the Soroptimist International Gold Canyon at Boyce Thompson Arboretum near Superior AZ.  I've been there all 4 years and have done pretty well for a small venue with a relatively inexpensive entry fee.  I only had 7 sales selling a total of 9 items but the average sale price was pretty good so it was overall a pretty good day.  I had my 6 year old daughter with me all day so that was also a plus.

 2 more catch up photos.  These are a pair of figured Eucalyptus hollow forms I started working on about a week ago.  They're from a chunk of wood I sourced from a local firewood lot.  The piece looked different, not quite a burl but also not just straight grain.  I took a small gamble and purchased it, I now wish I had gotten quite a bit more.

Hollowing is partially done, when finished the pieces will be 6" and 4" tall and both 4 1/2" diameter.  The outside shape will be refined and changed as the hollowing proceeds.  It's slow going as this is very hard and very dry end grain Eucalyptus.

Opinions wanted

 I need some opinions, please if you're reading this - woodturner or not - leave a comment.  I need to figure out what to do with the voids on this burl.  Many of the voids go at least an inch deep, some of them as much as 2 or 3 inches and up to 1/2" wide.  With a finished thickness of under 1/2" many of them will go all the way through the finished piece, risking it coming apart on the lathe.

 There's also this mysterious hole in one side of the burl.  It doesn't go all the way through to the bark and it doesn't appear in the bowl I cored off the bottom of this blank.

 The 2 options are: 1) leave them alone and leave the voids unfilled and natural or 2) fill them with something; coffee grounds, Turquoise, Chrysocolla, Malachite, or something similar.

This is an earlier set from the same tree to give you a better idea of the color of the wood and how it looks with coffee grounds used as a filler.

Now it's time to let me know what you think.  Fill or no fill.  If fill then with what?

Works in progress

 More work on the Oak Burl set today.  The core was remounted, turned true, a tenon turned, and then the blank was cored again.

I repeated the process 1 more time and I ended up with 4 bowls total.  I should end up with a 5th bowl as I have a small cutoff I cut off the side of the blank before I started turning.  It won't go with this set, but will be from the same blank.

The largest is just under 14" diameter, they step down from there, the smallest is about 4" diameter.

 I also remounted and trued up the outside of the Eucalyptus burl I cored the bottom off of the other day.

This one has a ton of voids.  I have to figure out what to do with them and I don't think I can progress much further until I figure out what I'm going to do.

Big Burls

I've had this chunk of wood laying around for 4 or 5 years.  It's a Eucalyptus Burl that was cut off of a dead tree that was sitting in an empty lot.  I've debated what to do with it and finally decided on Saturday night to do a natural edge nested set.

The blank was mounted on a faceplate and put on the lathe.  I can swing 20" inboard and as you can see from the next photo I needed every bit of that.

Clearance on this corner was about 1/16".  If the gap in the bed was filled It would have scraped.

The outside was shaped and a tenon turned on the bottom.  While working on the shape I decided that I would core off the bottom of the blank to form a standard bowl and then the rest would be done natural edged.

This also ensured that more of the burl figure ends up on the natural edge set.  Some of the wood closer to the tenon isn't as figured as the rest of the burl.  Initially I was planning to fill the voids with a filler like coffee grounds and epoxy but I think I've changed my mind now.

Sunday morning I chucked up another big piece of burl, this time an Oak Burl.  I neglected to take a before photo.  This burl also has a number of large voids.

Top view, I used my new Stebcenter to drive this blank, I don't think I'll be doing that again, it should be very useful on spindles and small bowls but on something this large and hard it didn't work very well.  Perhaps the 1" version would be better (mine is 5/8").

Tuesday night I decided to start the coring process on both blanks.  The Oak Burl was up first.

I decided to leave the blank thicker than normal because of all the voids, I didn't want it to fly apart.  It's just under 14" diameter.

 I still need to sand it inside and out as well as remove the tenon.  The core removed also needs to be cleaned up, I think I can get another core out of it, leaving me 3 bowls from this blank.

Next up the bottom of the Eucalyptus was cored off.  This photo is a pretty good representation of how that was accomplished.  The curved blade cuts in from the side rather than the top.  This is made a little more difficult because the tool support gate has to be held back from the entry point.  Normally the gate would be as close to the blank as possible to minimize overhang and maximize tool control.

 I wasn't sure how well I was going to like this bowl, I was thinking it was going to be much plainer than this, I like the way the straight grain runs through the middle of the bowl, almost dividing it in half.

In this photo you can better see how much straight grain there is on the outside of the burl, especially on the right hand side.  This one is slightly larger, just under 16" diameter.  It was also left slightly thicker for the same reason, I didn't want it flying apart on the lathe.

 The core out of this bowl (the natural edge from above) will be turned and cored and will hopefully produce 5 or 6 bowls.

The 2 bowls together, the lower right on the Eucalyptus is a partial natural edge, not a chunk missing.