Mega catch up

 It's been a busy week, time for another catch up post.

First up is some prep for an upcoming demonstration.  I'm headed to Idaho for vacation in about 3 weeks and will be doing a demonstration at the Woodcraft Guild in Idaho Falls on 7/7/11.

 I'll be doing my multi axis demo, the main feature being my multi axis lidded box with a twist.  As always I prepare the blank ahead of time by turning the inside.  This is primarily to save time but is also because the accuracy needed for the tenon would be hard to do with an audience.

 Next up are a few birdhouses.  The last couple of posts have been their construction.  Here are the finished products.

Some may notice that the 3rd one (Ornamental Yew) is missing.  It had an unfortunate accident while doing the final sanding.  I forgot how thin it was near the bottom and when I tapped on it to seat it on a jam chuck I broke the bottom out of it.  I made this body as a replacement on Friday night and gave the woman that ordered it her choice of the 3.  She picked this one and it's now living happily in her living room.

 This piece was boxed so it can be delivered to the 25th annual American Association of Woodturners symposium in Minneapolis-St. Paul.

 The President's Challenge for June is "Toys".  I'm working on a couple of things, first is a multi axis magic wand.  Next is a Tippy top.  This top is supposed to flip over and spin on the stem.  This one doesn't quite work right but I'm not sure what's wrong.  I'll probably do a couple more to see if I can figure out what went wrong.  I suspect it's too top heavy.

 This afternoon I turned a Kendama.  Kendamas are like the old ball and cup toy but a bit more extreme.  There are at least 4 surfaces to catch the ball one, each of the 3 cups and the point.

xAll pieces were turned out of Red Cedar.  I didn't have any plans and I couldn't find any dimensions on the internet so I had to base my design on a couple of photos.  I'm sure that the dimensions are incorrect. I can now see from additional photos that the cups on the side should be different sizes.  I also had some extra wood so I turned another sphere (above).

Last I had a custom job to turn a spindle and a drop finial for a music stand.  The customer supplied the wood and a poor quality photo to use as the template.  The photo was similar to the photo at left.  I didn't have to copy it exactly but it was used as inspiration for the piece.  The drop final was inspired by the bottom 2" of the spindle only in reverse and slightly different because it needed to taper down to a very small diameter in a relatively short distance.

Birdhouses III

 More work on the birdhouses, this time the roofs.  I chucked up a piece of Russian Olive and turned the outside shape.  The layers are meant to give it the look of layered wooden shingles.

The roof is then flipped over and vacuum chucked so I can turn a recess for the body and remove the majority of the bulk.  I can take it on and off the vacuum chuck to check the thickness and weight and get it centered reasonably well.  Last a hole is drilled in the center for the wire loop that is used to hang them up.

Still some more work to do; sanding, finishing, mounting a perch, burning the lines on the roof, and texturing the roof with a wire brush so the shingles appear more realistic and aged.

Top view with the hole drilled in the center for the hanger.  The 2 on the right are Russian Olive, the 1 on the left is Acacia.

Birdhouses II

More work on the birdhouses tonight.  The bodies are basically done except for some additional sanding and the finishing.  The 2 on the outside (Aspen on the left and Ornamental Yew on the right) are very lightweight.  The Pecan in the center is quite a bit heavier as the wood is much denser and with all the cracks at the bottom I didn't want to go too thin.

Next up are the roofs.  I'm planning to do them the same as the one I did back on March 3rd.  (http://agoodturndaily.blogspot.com/2011/03/birdhouse.html)  I'm not certain what woods will be used.  I have some Walnut burl but I don't think I want to waste it on these.  I'm thinking maybe some Shoestring Acacia.  I think I still have quite a bit and the color should be about right and I think it's just soft enough to texture well.

Birdhouses

 I'm back from California and back in the shop.  I was actually in the shop for about an hour yesterday but didn't do anything significant.  Tonight I continued to work on the birdhouses I started yesterday. 

While in California I received a call from a woman that had seen the birdhouse I donated to the fundraising raffle at the last art show I did.  She didn't win the raffle but loved my birdhouse so much she wants to order one.  I figured if I'm going to make one I may as well make more than one and give her a choice. The woods selected are Quaking Aspen, Pecan, and Ornamental Yew.

Birdhouse

A frustrating night to be sure.  I wanted to make a bidhouse for an upcoming event.  Artists in a show I'm in have been invited to decorate birdhouses that will be raffled off to help raise money for a local non-profit. 

I did another birdhouse for the same event 2 years ago and wanted to try something different.

The body is made out of Cedar, the roof is Walnut Burl.  I had to turn 3 bodies before I got one finished.  I wanted them to be quite thin in order to reduce the weight and I cut through the bottom on the first 2. 

The blanks for both the body and the roof are from pieces I've had for quite a while.  The Cedar came from eBay 5 or 6 years ago, The Walnut Burl came from a trade with another local turner about 4 years ago.

The roof was turned with steps to simulate shingles.  This was further enhanced by burning lines and by texturing the wood with a wire brush.  The ring on the top is copper wire.  Overall size is about 4" diameter and 5" tall.