A thousand words

I'll let the wood speak for itself tonight.















Silver Maple Burl courtesy of Mile Mahoney.


















This one also has a round bottom. I set it into a ring temporarily for the photo.


















The blank used for this piece is the darker piece on the top left of this pile.


















While I was at it I also took a better photo of the Box Elder Burl hollow form I just finished. I'm still not happy with the base. I have Monday off so I plan to try a couple other options.

















Side by side.

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Two down, two to go

I finished the first two of the four hollow forms I have in progress right now. The smaller piece on the left is Spalted Beech, the larger piece on the right is Curly Maple.










The Beech has been left bare, the Maple has one coat of Danish oil so far. It's hard to get a sense of scale on both of these, the photo below should provide a comparison that everyone can relate to.










A standard U.S. penny is 3/4" diameter (.750"). The openings on both of there are well under 3/4", they both measure 21/32" (.65625"). In fact a standard U.S. dime (.705") is larger than both openings.










The bottoms both have a small base with a slight concave surface. The bases are slightly larger than I've been doing lately so they're a little more stable.











Profile view.

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Frustration

A chunk of red stained Box Elder I started hollowing yesterday. I got the blank from Mike Mahoney this summer and rough turned the outside a couple months ago.











Everything looks good and hollowing was going along well until I heard the telltale tick tick tick of metal on metal. Investigation revealed that there was a nail hidden on the inside of the blank.









The nail had to have been driven into the tree and then the tree grew over the nail over many years. There was no outward evidence that a nail was hidden inside.














I set about trying to chisel enough wood from around the nail to free it. Alas it was not to be as I chiseled a hole straight through the wall (from the inside). After taking some frustration out (the rest of the marks on the outside) I decided to cut it in half, mainly out of spite.















The most frustrating part is losing a nice piece of wood like this, the second most frustrating part is the I still can't get the stupid nail out.

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QS Ash HF

I didn't know what I wanted to work on tonight and I'm not sure why I chose to work on this piece but I did. This is a chunk of quartersawn curly Ash I got from Mike Mahoney back in July. It sat in my shop for about a month and a half before I roughed it out. It was the bagged for another month and a half leading up to tonight (http://agoodturndaily.blogspot.com/2011/09/sleepy-hollow.html)





Because it had been roughed to about 1/2" thick there wasn't much material left to remove to get it down to final thickness. The piece had warped slightly so it was trued up on the outside before I setup my hollowing rig. Hollowing was done without a laser and because the piece doesn't have any voids determining wall thickness is based mainly on experience and sound. The pitch goes up as the piece gets thinner. Learning to judge the wall thickness by the increasing pitch is something that can only be learned through experience.



Top view. The hole could be slightly smaller and the final weight could be slightly lighter if the bottom was a little thinner but overall I'm pretty happy. It's a relatively plain piece of wood and the simple but elegant form really accentuates the grain and the curl. I don't do much with quartersawn wood and I don't do much with Ash so this was all new to me.

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Nothing fancy

Nothing fancy tonight, just a trio of rough out Quatersawn Ash shallow bowls. All 3 are roughly 12" diameter and 2 1/2" thick.











This was some of the wood I got from Mike Mahoney last month. It was still fairly green so they were roughed out to about 3/4" thick and have been bagged and set aside to dry. It doesn't show up very well here but these all have a fair amount of curl.

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Necessary evil

 More work with the Mountain Mahogany.  This set is from the butt end of the largest log and ended up at just over 12" diameter.

 I'm not sure if it's visable here but there is a fair amount of curl in this wood.  It's subtle but its there.

 I was afraid I was going to lose the smallest piece in the set, a portion of the rim broke off while I was coring it out of the 2nd largest piece.  I was able to move the piece slightly off center to compensate and to save the piece.

 Here's most of the rest of my haul, cut, split, and sealed.  Not a fun thing to do in Phoenix this time of year but a necessary evil.

I've also been working on roughing out some hollow forms.  Most of this wood is from Mike.  The 2 big forms are Silver Maple burl from Mike (darker color on the left) and Box Elder Burl I received in a trade (lighter color on the right).  There's also a smaller Box Elder Burl hollow form immediately to the right of the larger one.  These blanks were not from Mike, they were received in a trade while I was in Idaho.

Mike's generosity

These 3 pieces were all from the stuff I got from Mike Mahoney.  Left to right they are, curly Black Ash, red burly Box Elder, and curly Mormon Poplar.  These will probably end up as hollow forms of various sizes.  Eventually.

Vacation haul

I'm back after a 3 week vacation to Idaho to visit family and to go on a 5 day white water rafting trip.  Along the way I picked up wood whenever possible.  This stack was sourced from Mike Mahoney and includes curly Ash, curly Maple, Maple burl, red Box Elder, and quilted Mormon Poplar.  All of this came from Mike's personal stash.  I also got a tour of Mike's operation - from his shop, to his drying room, on to his shipping room, and a small tour of his home and a quick look at his turning collection.  I don't think I've ever met a nicer person than Mike and he's a fantastic turning to boot.

While in Idaho I visited a couple of turners, Brian Brown in Idaho Falls and Dick Anderson in Pocatello.  I met Dick briefly at the 2011 Desert Woodturning Roundup and I met Brian a couple of years ago when he was in town on business.  With Dick I swapped some Mesquite for some Madrone Burl, Russian Olive, and a piece of Mountain Mahogany.  Brian and I traded some Mesquite, African Sumac, Desert Ironwood, and Olive for Russian Olive, Osage Orange, and Box Elder Burl.

My biggest haul on the vacation though was some Mountain Mahogany I managed to get near the end.  I thought I could get some in the 6" diameter range and hoped to find some between 8-10" diameter.  The biggest piece is approx 12" x 14" on the butt end.  It's also extremely heavy, similar to Desert Ironwood.  When dry it will not float in water, one of only a handful of woods with this property.