"Super Bowl" Sunday

A few more bowls today.  This was the core that was left over from last night.  It was a struggle at times, each of the bowls lost a chunk at some point.  In each case the missing piece was found (not an easy task in all my clutter) and then glued back into place.  I'm not overly concerned with the fact that they were glued back into place, I was planning to fill in some of the voids and bark inclusions with epoxy and coffee grounds anyway.

I ended up with 5 pieces from this blank if you count the blank I cored off the bottom last night.  I also got 5 piece from the other half of the burl but only 1 of those was the full 17" diameter.

There's a ton of stuff going on in this piece, the largest of the set above.  There are several branches, some burl, some punk, some curl, and a bunch of bark inclusions.

After cleaning up 60 gallons of shavings I decided to tackle a couple of pens for a custom order.  I was supposed to have them done a couple of days ago but a number of things got in the way.  The top pen is a Cigar dressd in Bloodwood.  Nothing too fancy but I think it has a good look with the chrome hardware.  I had a minor problem with assembly but was able to get it corrected.  The bottom pen is a Baron wrapped in Oak Burl with crushed turquoise filling in some of the voids.  They'll be delivered to their new owner sometime this week.

Clearing the backlog

I've made more shavings in the last 3 days than in the last 3 months put together.  I had a new student come over Thursday night, I think things went well, he's coming back on Monday.  We turned a small bowl out of Ornamental Yew, only about 8" diameter and 4" deep.  After he left I mounted a small piece my maple burl and turned it round.  It's about 2" diameter and 8" long.  This was a small piece I was able to break off where 2 cuts the previous owner made and were misaligned.

If this piece is any indication there's a ton of figure in the burl, I just have to get to it.

Friday evening I cut and mounted this piece of Mesquite Burl.  This is one half of the Mesquite Burl I got from Boyce Thompson Arboretum late last year.  I used my chainsaw to knock off the corners making it roughly round, about 18" diameter.

Because it's not a circle from point to point it's larger than 18".  I had to chip off some of the bark to get it to clear the bed.  My lathe can swing 20" diameter and this piece ended up with about 1/16" clearance.

The piece is mounted on a 3" aluminium faceplate with 8 #12 X 1.5" screws.  The tailstock is used for additional support and for safety.

 The outside was then roughed out.  There's quite a bit of figure here, not like the eyes of Maple Burl or Box Elder Burl, but clearly not just plain grain.

 I probably could have left this a little bigger but I wanted to get rid of most of the bark.  Some of the sapwood was left but I like the contrast.

I then removed the largest core.  It went reasonably well.  The surface has been moistened with water to enhance the figure.

 The roughout ended up at 17" diameter, slightly less than the 18" I was shooting for.  The core I removed is 14" diameter. 

 This morning I mounted up the 14" core I removed last night and proceeded to turn and core it.  I ended up with 4 pieces from this core, 5 total with the piece above.

Each piece is about 3" smaller than the last.  17" (not shown here), 14", 11", 8", and 5".

 Next I mounted and cored a piece of Olive.  This was a big piece, finished out at 17 1/2" diameter but as you can see from the pic below it has a typical defect for Olive.









Olive trees have a tendency to not be round, they end up growing lobes around the base which result in large voids in the piece.  I could have turned through the voids but then the piece would only be about 10" diameter and 2" deep.

Last I mounted the other half of the Mesquite Burl.  Also about 18" diameter.  A little bit of trimming and it was running very true.

This piece was a little rougher on the outside, it had several branches coming out and was quite a bit deeper than the other half, closer to 10" thick.  I started roughing but quickly determined that it was too deep for the largest diameter but I knew I didn't want to turn away all of that beautiful wood.  As I continued roughing the answer came to me.  I decided to try the technique I used the other day on the plates, coring in from the side rather than from the front.

I turned the bowls down so I had an idean where one would start and the other would end.  I was then able to core off the bottom of the blank and end up with 2 bowls with the maximum 17" diameter.  The core is removed and will be turned and cored in kind.

I ran out of time this evening.  Tomorrow I plan to rough and core the piece on the left.  It should yield 3 or 4 pieces.  I'll also need to spend an hour or 2 doing a cleanup.  The shavings have really started to pile up and I have my student coming back on Monday night.

Woodcraft Woodworking Expo 2011

Yesterday was the 2011 Woodcraft Woodworking Expo at the Woodcraft in Phoenix (Chandler).  Our club had a booth where we demonstrated the basics of woodturning and got people interested in our club and our upcoming symposium.  They also had woodworking contests featuring 4 different categories; woodturning, woodcarving, furniture, and mixed media.

I entered 2 pieces in the woodturning category, this burned trio and the piece below.




This was my second entry.  A bug eaten and spalted Palo Verde hollow form.  The judges were David J Marks (http://www.djmarks.com/) and Marc Spagnuolo (http://www.thewoodwhisperer.com/).  They ended up selecting this piece as second place in the woodturning category.

My prize is a new Supernova 2 scroll chuck. This is my 4th chuck, all Supernova 2s.

The demonstrations went well.  I turned 5 bowls (2 natural edge and 3 normal), a small hollow form, and a small 3 axis twisted piece.  There were 2 other club members there for most of the day, one turned a small lidded box and a couple of small weed pots.  The other turned a small mallet.  A very good day with near perfect weather.

Demo and coring

Woodcraft is having a big event tomorrow so I prepared some wood to use for turning demos to promote our local club and our upcoming symposium (http://www.desertwoodturningroundup.com/)

While I was at it I started to work on something completely new for me.  I bought this small piece of curly maple at Rockler earlier this month.  Our club challenge for March is "plates" and I knew what I wanted to do.  I've done a fair amount of coring but this was a different technique.  Normally when I core I'm doing bowls and I core in from the front face to extract a piece that's a smaller diameter than the larger bowl.  This technique is to cut in from the side, this allows you to retain the full diameter, just thinner.

I repeated the process to end up with 3 roughed out pieces all very similar.  Some may ask, could I have simply cut the piece into 3 slabs on the bandsaw prior to turning.  The answer is yes, but that wasn't my goal.  I was testing the coring technique and had there been more arc it would not have been possible with a straight cut, something that may come in handy in the future.

Yew?

I picked up some more wood this weekend.  I'm told that it's Ornamental Yew but I'm not sure.  I've turned a few small pieces of Pacific Yew before but this seems quite a bit different.

It came out of a yard in Central Phoenix, the homeowner wanted the wood to go to someone that would put it to good use, for use as something that would last longer than firewood.

Leaves.

Bark.

Endgrain.

Going burling

First a little housekeeping.  I finished the burning on the trio a couple of nights ago (Thursday, I think).

 Once again, they're Maple, all 3 are 2 1/4" diameter and range from 1 3/4" tall to 2 3/4" tall.

All 3 pieces have been signed with my standard signature, a stylized version of my initials, JTC, that also look like a stylized roman numeral 3.  My name is Jason Thomas, my father is Jeff Thomas, his father was Jack Thomas so I'm the 3rd generation with those initials.  For the record, my son's name is Christopher and his middle name is not Thomas.

Most of my day today was spent picking up and moving my latest purchase.  I found a Maple burl listed on eBay this week and I ended up the highest bidder.  Fortunately it was local (~50 miles each way) so I didn't have to pay shipping.  He had the burl listed as 36" diameter, 40" tall, and 1000 pounds.  I doubted all of those figures but I was quickly proven wrong (except for the weight, I'm still not convinced it's 1000 pounds).  My six year old daughter posing for scale, it's laying on it's side in this photo.

It took 2 of us, plus his teenage son, a come along , a rope, and 45 minutes of hard labor to get it loaded.  I rented a 5' X 9' trailer with a ramp to get it moved. Unload went quite a bit easier.  I lowered the ramp and looped the rope around the burl before hooking up the other end to my lathe.  I then simply pulled forward to leave the burl sitting in the middle of my driveway.  An hour of winching got it inside and with the help of a neighbor we got it upright.

I still want to move it a little bit to get it out of the way but for now it's safely stored in my garage.  As you can see by the 48" level it's every bit of the 40" tall he listed and it's about 38" diameter. It's too big for my chainsaw so I'm considering having it slabbed at one of the local sawmills so I don't butcher it.  That will add significantly to the overall cost but I got it cheap enough that it still makes sound financial sense.

Post #400 - Drips

This is a new burning design for me.  It wasn't quite what I had in mind when I sat down but it's what ended up happening.

My daughter says it looks like lava.  Again, not quite what I had in mind.  I was thinking more like paint or water.

The wood is Soft Maple.  The stipple pattern is made of thousands and thousands of individual burns.