Day 173: Smoke gets in your eyes

More burning today, all  bowls are Mesquite and 7 1/2- 8" diameter.  I don't like the one on the upper left but I'm very happy with the other 2.

I wanted to do some actual turning but I also didn't want to make a huge mess as I have a visitor coming over tomorrow night so I turned a hollow form for my Mother.  She asked me a couple weeks ago to turn her a hollow form but to leave it a little thicker than I normally would because she wants to do some cutting and/or carving on it.

Quaking Aspen 9 1/2" tall and 4 1/2" diameter.

It's 1/2 grey and 1/2 tan and pink with a nice feather on the pink side and a large beetle track as shown here.  The opening about 1 1 3/4" and is larger than I'd normally use.

I'm hesitant to send this one to her.  The color is fantastic and the feather up the side is really nice as well; I'm not sure I want to see it cut up.

Day 172: Back breaker

I spent the morning splitting and stacking most of my latest wood haul.  I didn't count but I think there's probably close to 40 half logs in this stack, all Mesquite and Acacia and all 12" diameter or greater.

I then spent an hour or so cleaning and organizing a bit.  It's not perfect but it's better than it was.

This evening I spent a couple hours enhancing some older bowls that were rather plain and haven't sold.  This design is based on a quick sketch I made on the back of an envelope while at a stop light the other day.

This is a small Mesquite  plate about 7" diameter.

I got a couple pieces of Avacado wood back in February and this was one of the smaller cores.  The colored streak is natural, I just added the 3 outlines.

They wrap around the front...

and onto the back.  I'm still not sure that I like it but it's slowly growing on me.

2 more pieces that I burned on the rims.  Both use my horseshoe shaped brand, the top one is Mesquite and has circles around the rim.  The one on the bottom is Ash and has something like a chain around the rim.  Both are about 6" diameter.

Day 171: Silver and Gold

Limited shop time tonight, I silver leafed the accent ring on this piece of airbrushed Jacaranda before applying a coat of oil.

I also rough turned the core I removed from the Central Avenue Olive I worked on last night.  Both pieces are almost ready for sanding and finishing.  Before that happens I think I need to do a serious cleaning.  

Day 170: Central Ave.

Finally getting back to the piece of 105 year old Central Avenue Olive I started working on about 10 days ago.  I like the rough natural edge and the contrast to what will be the smooth finished interior of the bowl.   Now I have a ton of sanding to do inside and out.

I also mounted the last 2 pieces of the dental light track tonight.  I'm really liking it.

Day 169: Let there be light

Lighting has long been an issue in my shop.  I installed 2 additional flourescent lights this weekend and tonight decided to install one of the 2 dental lights I have.  I had one installed for a while about 18 months ago but had an accident that resulted in the reflector glass cracking shattering.  These lamps aren't cheap and neither are the replacement parts. 

Here's a before photo with just the flourescent lighs on, there's now plenty of light but because of the shape of the bowl almost no light gets inside.

Here's the light and the track mounted to the ceiling.  It's a 6 foot track so the position side to side and the height can be fully adjusted.  I still have a couple of pieces to reattach to the track but they're purely cosmetic.  The track and light are surprisingly heavy so I reinforced and braced the ceiling joists.  This was important becuase it's mounted parallel to the joists and I needed several solid attachment points.

And here's an after shot with the interior of the same bowl illuminated by the lamp.  The difference is quite literally like night and day. 

Day 168: Take two

Another attempt at a multi axis hollow form today.  The inside is hollowed first and then the piece is moved off center for the multi axis portion of the turning.

The piece ended up cracking late in the multi axis portion of the turning but I'm OK with that.  It was a success in that I learned that a taller narrower form will show off the twist better as will a less rounded top and a less rounded bottom.  The rough edges would have been cleaned up with a small sanding drum to produce a finished edge.  That will have to wait for the next attempt.

Day 167: Experimental

I've been kicking around an idea in my head for a couple of days and got around to trying it out tonight.  Cindy Drozda makes a very ornate 3 sided hollow form and I thought I could make something similar but put my own twist on it, literally. 

http://www.cindydrozda.com/Assets/html/ImagePages/8430SeedsofChange.html

My first attempt wasn't very successful.

The second attempt was much better but there's still room for improvement.  I think I rounded off the top and the bottom too much and that disguised the twist on the faces.

A profile view better shows that the twist is actuall there.  The windows on the sides of the piece are partiall turned (in the areas where the outside is larger than the inside) and then smoothed with a small sanding drum in a Dremel rotary cutter. 

I think I'll play with this a bit more, a taller and narrower piece should accentuate the twist as will better profiles both inside and outside.