Catch up

Acacia with spiral branding.













My new license plate.














A storm downed tree that I passed on. The tree was about 14" diameter but was cut into lengths about 8" long.











Mesquite, Palo Verde, & Ask headed to my club's 50/50 raffle.












Palo Verde burl rescued from a firewood pile.














Olive stump/burl rescued from the same pile.














The remains of the Chinese Elm from my front yard. It died suddenly and had to be removed. We'll replace it eventually.

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Gift giving.

The presents for my neighbor's sons are mostly complete. The football was turned, hollowed, glued together, turned again, and finally carved. The football is Russian Olive, the base is Magnolia, and the stand is pine.











The masks are Birdseye Maple, turned, cut, and burned. I think the base is Basswood, the metal rods are 1/4" aluminum.

Both bases will be laser engraved with a personal message.

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Day 341: Turn and burn

It was hot in Phoenix today, surprise surprise. 106 was the high and it felt more like 116 with the humidity.  That limited my shop time to 30-45 minute sessions spread throughout the day. 

My morning sessions were dedicated to more burning on the maple hollow forms.  I finished burning the 4 panels on both forms. 

The more I looked at them the more I thought they looked like beach balls, definitely something I wasn't going for.

 My afternoon and evening sessions were spent finishing both pieces.

I'm really happy with this pair.  I intended them to go to Woodcraft but I'm rethinking that now.













It cooled off a bit this evening after a light rain shower came through so I headed back out to the shop for some more turning and burning.  I grabbed a small chunk of what I was told is Teak and turned a small hollow form.  I then burned it with a similar design to the pair above.  I wanted this to simulate wood grain and I think it does to some degree but I think it also looks like a flame motif as well.

I've never turned teak before and I'm not certain this is Teak, even though that's what it was sold to me as.  It seems softer than I thought Teak would be.  It's also not oily at all, which is in every description of Teak I've read.  Either way it turned well and burned well.  I have a few more pieces to use, none very large.

Day 340: 3 B's

I needed to make a couple of pens today.  One for my wife to use at her new job and another for a friend of hers for a gift.  She picked 2 blanks, both acrylic.  Burnt Copper Polyresin (top, exoticblanks.com) for her friend and Burgundy Invisavue (bottom, woodcraft.com) for herself.

These are not the easiest blanks to turn but the results are worth the effort.  This photo was taken in the shade, the reflections in direct sunlight were too bright for my camera, it fails to capture the high gloss finish on the blanks.  It takes a while longer to get a good finish like this but in the end it's worth the trouble.

After things cooled down a bit this evening, it was 105 this afternoon, I went to work burning the maple hollow forms I've been working on.  I normally start the burning process for this design by dividing the piece into 8 even sections.  I'll fill in every other section around the piece and then fill in the remaining open sections.  I'm reconsidering that plan on these pieces, I'm thinking about leaving 4 of the sections unburned.  Opinions?

Day 339: New burner

Tonight I hollowed and finished the bottoms on the 2 hollow forms I started the other night.

Unfortunately when I turned on my battery charger burner to start burning them nothing happened.  I opened up the case and double checked all the connections but couldn't find anything wrong with it. 

I made a quick trip to Auto Zone and to Home Depot for some parts and got to work.  This is the charger I selected.  It's a Schumacher 6 amp manual charger from Auto Zone.  Approx $38.  The dimmer switch is a standard 110v single pole dimmer switch, model #6681, approx $5.









4 screws are removed and the case is opened.  The modifications are fairly minor but they will prevent the charger from ever being used for the intended purpose.  This will also void the warranty.

Step 1 is to undo the clip in the back that secures the cord to the case.  Move 6-8" of cord into the case and then resecure the clip.  This extra length of cord is required because of where we're going to place the dimmer switch that will control the power going to the burning tip.

Cut and strip the ends of the hot wire and the ground wire.  The hot wire runs to the volt/amp switch on the front of the case.  Do not cut the neutral wire.  Doing so won't hurt anything but will require you to splice it with a wire nut.

On the left side of the unit you need to remove the clip securing the battery clip wires.  Cut off the wires leaving enough length to attach the wires to the 1/4" mono headphone jack.  You'll also need to move the wire connected to the internal circuit breaker (pictured center) from the copper screw to the steel screw.  This will bypass the circuit breaker.  The 1/4" mono headphone jack was purchased at Radio Shack and is secured in the opening that the battery clip wires passed through. 

3 holes then need to be drilled in the left hand side of the case.  A standard household switch plate is a great jig for placing the holes the correct distance.  1/8" holes are drilled for the screws, a 3/8" hole is drilled dead center for the center post on the dimmer switch.

With the holes drilled the dimmer switch can be secured to the case.

Wire nuts are used to secure the connections to the wires.  Black to black for the black wire running from the cord to the dimmer switch and black to black for the black wire running from the dimmer switch to the volt/amp switch on the front panel. All 3 green wires are also connected with a wire nut.

The case is then reattached using the 4 screws removed in the beginning and a pen using a 1/4" mono headphone plug is attached to test it out. 

If you have problems. do the following:  Double check all the wire nuts.  Make sure that the the dimmer switch was spliced into the hot wire (the wire running to the switch).  Make sure that you've bypassed the circuit breaker by moving the wire from the copper bolt to the steel bolt.

To operate the burner push in the dimmer switch to turn it on and then adjust the dial so the pen heats up to the temperature you want.  Push the dimmer switch in again to turn it off.

Day 337: To burn or not to burn

This one's getting burned, no question about it.  I got a little agressive while hollowing and had it fracture right along a grain line. 

These 2 I'm debating about.  I've been invited by the owner of the local Woodcraft store to add a couple of items to their display case.  I'm leaning towards a couple of small burned hollow forms and a couple of the small textured hollow forms I've been playing with lately.  I intended to burn these 2 small maple forms but now that I've roughed the outside and revealed a fair amount of curly figure I'm second guessing myself so I'm putting it to my readers.

To burn or not to burn?

Day 333: Hands on

Today was the July meeting of the Arizona Woodturners Association.  We had a special hands on meeting at the local Woodcraft and it was a huge success.  We had 8 lathes going most of the day, with several turning pens, a couple of turning demonstrations by J Paul Fennell (http://www.jpaulfennell.com/) and Paul Porter (http://paulporterwoodturning.com/).  I also did a little demonstrating, doing a pair of small hollow forms, one with wire brush texture and the second with some wood burning.  In my opinion the best part of the day were the 2 contests we held.  The first was to challenge club members to turn a small cylinder and to get the best cut they could get on some small spindle blanks that I provided.  They were free to use any tool and any turning method they wanted, the only rule was that no sandpaper could be used.  Some of the results were very good and one club member walked away with a maple burl for his work.  The second contest was a group contest, a relay race actually.  We had club members signup for teams of 3.  Each team was provided an identical block of wood and the first member of each team turned for 15 minutes.  They then handed off to the second member of each team who also turned for 15 minutes.  The third team member then took over for the final 15 minutes.  The only rule was that team members were not allowed to talk to each other before or during the relay.  The finished pieces were then judged and the winning team declared and the winning team members won a small prize.  I initially planned to judge the contest but when the third team ended up with only 2 people when the relay was ready to start I jumped in to anchor their team.  Things went well until the last 90 seconds of my time when I had a monster catch that nearly ruined our bowl. The last 60 seconds was a frantic effort to save the bowl and trying to get it finished.  I ended up running out of time and wasn't able to get the bottom finished.  Had I gotten it finished I think we might have won.  I think the catch was a matter of 2 different factors, unfamiliar tools and a large check in the wood.  I'm not saying that it wouldn't have happend with my own tools or with a marginally better piece of wood - catches happen to everyone - but both of those factors together plus the fact that I was rushing was asking for disaster.