Day 225: Pendants III

Limited shop time tonight so I turned 2 quick multi axis pendants.  The one on the left is Maple Burl that was turned between centers for the outside and then mounted off center to turn the inside.  The piece on the right is Desert Ironwood turned on 3 centers with a small Malachite cabachon.

Day 224: Peppermill III

I assembled and finished the twisted peppermill tonight.  I also had a friend and fellow woodturner over for a visit, he needed some help assembling the laser pointer arm for his hollowing system and wanted a refresher on turning collars for hollow forms. 

We also had a bit of a show and tell.  He's been out of town for quite a while dealing with some family issues and while he kept up with my blog he hadn't seen any of my recent work in person.  He was particularly interested in the small hollow forms I've been burning lately.

Another small burned hollow form tonight, this one is covered with a spiral brand I made.  Ficus approx 2 1/4" tall.

Day 223: Peppermill II

More work on the twisted peppermill tonight.  I didn't have much time so I didn't get much done, a bit more sanding and then I turned the top and the bottom. 

Top and bottom view.  I still need to do a bit more sanding, apply some oil finish, and then assemble and secure the mechanism.  Not sure if I will get to it tomorrow night or not, I have a fellow turner coming over for a visit.

Day 222: Challenge

The club challenge due in April is Multi-Axis turning as I demonstrated at the February meeting.  I've had a couple ideas kicking around in my head for a while and I finally got around to turning another one of them tonight (I previously turned a 3 sided pendant back on day 203, http://agoodturndaily.blogspot.com/2010/03/day-203-tri-pendant-iii.html)

This is a 3 sided peppermill with a 120 degree twist in East Indian Rosewood.

This was more difficult than I thought it would be.  I had some problems along the way that were partially my fault.  Among the problems was that the joint between the top and the body wasn't very tight (and it shouldn't be so the top can turn freely to drive the grinding mechanism).  This allowed the 2 halves to shift slightly during a heavy cut. 

I still have quite a bit of work to do, sanding, finishing, turning the top and bottom, and final assembly of the mechanism.

Day 221: Smoke on the water

3 burned hollow forms today, these were 3 of the 6 I turned last night.  I burned the middle one with the polka dots last night but didn't take a photo before heading to bed, the other 2 were burned today.  My wife really likes the one on the right, if it doesn't sell at the sow on April 10th or the show I'm trying to get into on April 24th she'll get it for her birthday on the 27th.

Day 220: Burned out

More burning on the urn tonight.  The majority of the body was burned using a random stipple pattern.  I left 3 sections unburned for some personalized information that I added after these photos were taken (so I didn't have to black in out).

Top view.  I'm undecided about leaving the top portion of the outside unburned.  The design is up to me and the more I look at this the more I want to finish burning all the way up the neck.

Bottom view showing the 3 panels I left unburned and the unburned portion of the bottom.  I have a little bit of cleaning up to do on the bottom before I sign it.  The delivery is still to be determined.

I also turned a bunch of small hollow forms to be burned for my upcoming show.  I was able to knock these out pretty quickly, now the fun part can begin.

Day 219: Misc.

Finished trio from yesterday.  I don't have a name in mind yet.












Top view, all 3 are Ficus, which is naturally a very light wood in both weight and color.

I came across something that concerns me about this series.  I came across the Winter 2000 issue of American Woodturner Magazine online the other day and this photo with an eerily similar motif jumped out at me.  I'd never seen it before this week and have never heard of Simon Levy.  The only reason I saw the photo is because the American Association of Woodturners recently put online all 25 years of American Woodturner for all current members.  I'm now somewhat concerned that one or more of the contest judges that these pieces are intended for may accuse me of copying or deriving my design from the piece shown here.  Nothing could be further from the truth but I'm still somewhat concerned.

Tonight I turned 2 pieces of the Maple Burl I've been cutting up for the club.  This stuff is amazing, I'm going to be buying more from the club for my own use.

Outisde view of a bowl in progess.

The trio I turned tonight.  The piece shown above is the one on the left in this photo.  The piece on the right was cured from the bowl in the middle.

Closeup view of the middle bowl.  The colored area at the top of the photo is a bit on the soft side but not enough to justify tossing the piece.

Closeup view of the bowl on the right hand side, this has a bit of everything, spalting (color), burl, and curl.

I also started work on a commissioned piece, it's a miniatre urn that I've chosen to make out of Ficus.  I've had to remove the identifying information from the photos in order to post them  The body will be burned to match the lid.

Top view of the lid.  The ribbon in the middle has the customer's last name, the smaller ribbon on the top includes the birth date and the ribbon on the bottom the death date. 

Day 218: A day late...

No photos today, I finished burning the last of the trio last night but neglected to get any photos. Then I got busy and forgot to post before bedtime. I've got a bunch of irons in the fire at the moment and posting simply slipped my mind.

Day 217: Birthday and burning

More burning on the trio today.  The 2 smaller ones are done.  I continued to work on the largest one this evening and it's now about 70% complete.

Tonight was also my next door neighbor's birthday so I turned and then burned a quick hollow form for her tonight.  The burning is very simple and was very quick to do.  I probably have 45 minutes total into this piece.

I knew she wanted some of the natural wood to show through so I left a band around the middle the natural color.  The wood is Ficus and it doesn't have any finish and minimal sanding.

Day 216: Something something smoke

I started the burning process tonight.  The variation on my 'feathers' design for this trio is that the orientation of the feathers will be different on all 3 pieces.  The tallest piece will have vertical feathers, the smallest will have horizontal feathers, the middle will have feathers at about 45 degrees. 

Day 215: Contest

One of my favorite websites just announced a woodworking contest that fits in perfectly with what I've been working on lately.  The contest is called "Turning and Burning" and as the title suggests all entries must be both turned and burned. 

Tonight I spent a coule hours unpacking from Prescott, cleaning the shop, and the turning the 3 small hollow forms on the left. 

I plan to burn these with a new variation of my 'feathers' design (http://agoodturndaily.blogspot.com/2010/03/day-196-feathered-friends.html).  I thought the wood was Myrtle but as I started cutting on the bandsaw it quickly became aparent it wasn't, it didn't have the very distinct smell or the light olive green color of fresh Myrtle.  I'm now pretty sure they're Ficus.    

Day 214: Demo done

My Prescott demo was today and we're back at home tonight after retrieving the kids from my Grandparent's house.  The demo went really well, I did all 4 projects I planned, parallel axis goblet, parallel axis wavy spindle, 3 sided lidded box with a twist, and a couple of multiple center pendants.














My wife not only traveled to Prescott with me but she also attended my demo and took these photos for me.  This was the first time she'd seen me do any turning aside from walking past the open garage door.  She said it was interesting and was more detailed than she had thought it was going to be.  She says she was also surprised how vocal I could be.  I'm fairly withdrawn and quiet by nature so seeing me in front of a crowd entertaining and teaching everybody was very different from what she normally sees and hears.

All in all a successful demo and a fun weekend away.  Special thanks to my friends Tommy and Marie for housing us on Friday night and for dinner tonight.  If you're ever in Prescott I highly recommend Bill's Pizza on Cortez just South of Gorley.

Day 213: On the road again

On the road to Prescott this evening with my wife. I took the afternoon off to run some errands and cut some more Maple Burl to offer for sale at the Prescott club in order to recoup the club's investment back faster. Absolutely gorgeous stuff, I couldn't help but to put a fee choice pieces aside. I also took the club's Delta lathe in for service. Something happened to the reset switch sometime in the last month or so. It should be covered under warrantee. We're now on our way to Prescott where we'll stay with my friends Tommy & Marie. It's about a 2 hour drive to their house and an additional 20 minutes to the demo location tomorrow.

Day 212: Movin' on up

No photos tonight, I didn't get any lathe time but I did spend nearly 5 hours on woodturning related activities.  Immediately after work I headed over to Woodcraft as today was the last day of classes and with the help of the store staff disassembled and loaded 2 lathes (both Nova 1624-44s) into my SUV.  Both lathes were then delivered back to their owners and reassembled.  After returning home I got packed for Prescott, we're headed out tomorrow evening so I wanted to get as much together tonight as I could.  I still need to add a couple of finished samples and pack some clothes but other than that we're ready to go.  Prescott here we come.

Day 211: That's the spot

Tonight I burned the larger of the Polka Dot pieces I started yesterday and I'm really happy with the way they turned out. 

I'm thinking about taking this pair along with a couple other pieces to Prescott to put in their Instant Gallery on Saturday.

 Top view.

I also spent some time turning and then burning a small Myrtle hollow form.  I've had this burning design in my head for a while but I'm not completely happy with the way it came out. 

I think it would have been better with finer lines and tighter spacing.

Day 210: Polka!

Polka dots that is.  2 small Walnut hollow forms, the burning is finished on the smaller one and hasn't been started yet on the larger one.  I just learned that I have been accepted to a art show on April 10th so I need to get some inventory built up.

Most of us don't realize how difficult it is to try and keep things random.  It's human nature to create patterns and straight lines, this is exactly the opposite of that.

Bottom vew.

Day 209: Curly with a twist of satin

I finished a twisted lidded box tonight.  This will be a sample for my demo on Saturday and will also be a gift for some friends of mine that live in Prescott and are letting Judy and I stay over Friday night so we don't have to make the trip up first thing in the morning.  It will also be able to get a night away without the kids.

  The wood is Asian Satinwood and is extremely curly on one side and almost no curl on the other side.  There is a small amount of tearout on one side right in the joint but there isn't enough wood left at that point to clean it up.

Inside view.  I really like this wood, it turns well and looks fantastic.  I've got enough of this wood left for one more this same size.  I've got about 3 weeks before my next show, the Sunnyslope Art Walk on Saturday, April 10th from 5PM - 9PM on Central and Dunlap.

Day 208: Maple Burl

I spent a couple hours this afternoon cutting and sealing some of the maple burl the club purchased yesterday, the figure in this stuff is incredible.

On the down side I ruined yet another nearly new bandsaw blade cutting this up.  There was a bark pocket in one of the pieces that had a fairly large rock inside of it.  There's really no way to avoid this.  Nails and similar can be avoided with a metal detector (which I don't own) but rocks are a hazard that you just have to deal with.  As woodturners we often deal with what others may consider substandard or even defective wood but the results make it a risk worth taking.

Very tight burl figure running vertically with some nice color and spaltin towards the center.  This piece is approx 9 X 9 X 3.  I prefer to cut across the burl so that you see more eyes than streaks but this perticular piece of burl was better sectioned up in this orientation.














Another piece of the burl, approx 8 X 8 X 2.5.  The figure shows up much better in person and much better before the wax sealant was applied.  This one shows more eye figure becuase if was closer to the edge of the burl so the cut was more across the figure rather than parallel to it.

Day 207: Stuart Batty

Today was the big day, close to 80 woodturners attended Stuart Batty's demo in Sun City.  We had turners from all over the Phoenix area as well as some up from Tucson and down from Prescott and Flagstaff.  Stuart has changed up his demo significantly since the last time I saw him demonstrate around 3 years ago.  Today was focused more on technique, tool presentation, and sharpening rather than "project" demos where the demonstrator typically will do one of more projects over the course of the demo.  He did do a thin walled bowl as part of his demo but it was more to demonstrate the process and technique required to turn it safely. 

He now has 5 days of hands on classes ahead of him.  6 club members have signed up for a 2 day beginners course and then 6 more club members will be taking a 3 day intermediate/advanced course.  The classes aren't cheap but an opportunity like this doesn't come around very often.

In conjunction with the demonstration and the classes we had a buy tavel from California with a load of wood for use in the classes and with a trailer load of Maple Burl to sell to club members.  I was able to resist temptation and keep my walled in my pocket but still ended up coming home with a full load.  At the end of the day the club purchased the remaining wood at a substantial discount.  It will be used for fundraising and/or prizes for raffles and other club activities.  Until then it resides in my garage, taking up what little space I had available.

Day 206: Club business

No photos tonight, I spent the evening doing work for the club including working on the club website, working on the welcome letter for new club members, preparing for tomorrow's big demo in Sun City, and hauling lathes to Woodcraft in Chandler for the hands on classes next week.  Everything woodturning related, but not a gouge in sight.

Day 205: Scrap?

6 more pendants tonight, they're all made from small pieces of material that otherwise might have been trown away or recycled.  I purchased a box of scrap material a little over a year ago that is perfect for items like these.  From left to right these are: Maple Burl, Buckeye Burl, Desert Ironwood, Spalted Maple, Walnut Burl, and Curly Maple. 

I also did some demo prep work, my demo in Prescott is just 8 days away, time to start getting things together and put together a checklist.

Day 204: Photos

I'm preparing to redo most of my website with new photos on a new background.  Tonight was night 1 of updated photos.

"Tidal Forces" - Eucalyptus and pyrography.

"Feathered Friends" - Quaking Aspen and pyrography.


















"Untitled" - Olive and East Indian Rosewood with pyrography

















"Eddies" - Eucalyptus and pyrography

"Stingray" - Eucalyptus and pyrography.


















Box Elder Burl.













Quaking Aspen


















Curly Spalted Maple


















Redwood Burl set of 3 with Box Elder Burl stand












Eucalyptus Burl set of 3













Multi axis pendants, Desert Ironwood, Box Elder Burl, Maple Burl