Artistic Woodturning - St Francis of Asisi 10/03/14

[grizz]

Update no 1.

Copied from a post I made elsewhere in response to an order for a gearknob.

A first attempt at making a gearshift knob to look a bit like a pistol grip.

The piece of wood I have used has 50 year rings, so was at least 50 years old. (Yes, I sat and counted them on the log)
It came from a house built in 1921, so you are looking at a minimum of 140 years old.

Remember these fence posts ?





One went to the BBQ......above the old road sign.



There is a bit of it now.





Also cut a bit of the offcuts to a very basic pistol grip shape to work from onto the lathe.
Looks a bit mad, but I knew what I was doing.



Parting tool done.



One of natures best..... looks a bit rude and threatening ?



Then a seriously stupid and dangerous part of the job.... cutting the sides off, to get the start of the handgun butt. Bandsaws are notorious for ripping things out of your hands, taking fingers toward the blade.





Right, at this point Copey needs to let me know what he wants me to do with the shape..... and the top of the knob.



I do have reasonably large hands.




More updated stuff later.

[grizz]

So, after I finished the initial work on the gearknob, which will get edited further this week, I thought it was wise to do something I wanted to do for myself.

I put the rest of the gate post on the lathe, the plan was to make a captive ring on one end, and then do the rest as a combination of the old rustic wood, and some machined wood, if the cracks down the side allowed me.
This ended up not happening, as the one crack ran too deep, and I was not going to risk the wood and not get a captive ring in one piece.

Started with this centred up. 350mm long.



Parting tool used to mark out the position of what I wanted and where it needed to go.



Shaping up.



This will be a table lamp once i am done with it.

Need to find some old fashioned lamp fittings and also some vintage Oak to use for the base. Then lastly, a neat lamp shade.



Back to work tomorrow, so I guess the next update will be over next weekend.

Thanks for looking in.

[grizz]

Stopped by at Lewis's on the way home in the pouring rain tonight, he offered tea and hospitality, but all I could think of was that it had taken me 3 1/2 hours to get to Oxford this morning, in stead of the planned 2 and a bit hours..... so home it was.

Thanks for all the wood, and also the section of Apple wood, which I am really excited about.

3 meter long lengths of Glulam, laminated beam offcut or samples. Perfect for table legs or in my case, bowl turning.



Apple and a small piece of "Top Secret" wood, to be kept for something special.



Remember the trees we cut down for the neighbour late September ?

I kept a couple of bits to try turn some stuff from it.

Wet and soft wood.

Well, one of the things was a 4 ring captive ring set, the idea is that it becomes a single candle stick.



Left it in the airing cupboard the last 3 weeks after turning and tonight I popped it back onto the lathe to just sand it a bit further, no waxing yet.



And this is what all the fuss is about..... twin captive rings around a wine goblet stem.





Here is something a bit different, Nicola my wee Wombelette found these two items discarded at work.... I finished them off, squaring the bases, sanding them to an inch of their lives and then waxing them.....

Spalted Pine I think, basically half rotten wood.

No good for anything except ornamental use.






Lastly, the custom pistol grip gear knob I have been trying to make for Copey.... done.

I have no idea if it is what he wants, but with about 3 hours work in it, lets hope he likes it.

Again, shaped, sanded and worked to within an inch of its life, then waxed.


Pound coin for perspective.

Ohh, and yes, the top is at an angle so that you can rest your thumb on the top.




Right, bed time.

Adios.

[Wanna Be]

How much of a differnt size between the pound coin and U.S. quarter ??
Looks like WOW !!!!!! I wish I could do that 1/2 as good as you!!!

Might you wish to sell some to supplimate your income ????
I know that for sure I would be interested in them.

Wish I had taken advantage of Woodbutchers offer with the cutting boards

Stay safe, and have fun !!!



Lynn,,, Wanna Be
Sorry for the misspellings

[grizz]

Right, early update tonight for the junkies and other interested parties.

Did a few pieces over the weekend.

Some good news from Nicola on Friday was that she shad spoken to the manager of the charity shop where she volunteers 2 days a week, and may have gotten us a bit of progress.

The shop has a second shop in Rochesters historic High street where they are planning to sell local artists and crafters items on consignment.... now I do not know if the expectation is that you supply at 50p, when the open market will pay £5 or if you supply at £3 and she then marks up a profit..... we will discuss that in the next week or so, but it does potentially mean a place to sell stuff and get known.

Back to what I got up to between shopping and dinner out.

Remember the branch form the neighbours tree with the captive rings? I wanted to toss it on the fire wood pile, but Nicola asked me to put a base on it and add a candle sized hole to it.



On Friday Mickey next door asked me to make some stands for his recliner chair which was putting deep holes into the carpet, he noted it when the carpet cleaner came and moved the furniture.
So I turned some stands with 50mm holes on top, looks like nice candle holders.



I cleaned up some more fence post, laminated it and then sanded it all so that it can become the base for the table lamp I plan to keep for myself, unless someone pays real value price..... ;D





Lampshade in perfect condition, found put out in Bristol on Friday while I was looking for a pathology lab, and for parking.



Christmas prezzie for Nicola's one best mate. (Not my idea)



More of the same.



Peanut bowl ??



Another jewelery bowl for sister in law, again, good for fire wood pile, but the boss said no ....



Popped into town to get some stuff for the woodwork shop today and picked up various bits, including a couple of these wooden trays. Nicola asked me to make block candle holders to put inside the trays, she reckons women will buy them. At £1/each I cannot make them.



Some block candle holders, and boxes of matches decorated to go with them..... I thought it a jolly good idea 8-)



Lastly, me personal favourite (excluding the unfinished table lamp) a single, large candle holder turned from a square piece of laminated Oak.



Thats all for now Folks.

[Wolffarmer]

You doing some great stuff there Grizz

I like the idea of the candle in the broken end of a post. Not many people would bother to make anything but fire from something like that.

Randy

[grizz]

You doing some great stuff there Grizz

I like the idea of the candle in the broken end of a post. Not many people would bother to make anything but fire from something like that.

Randy

Thanks a lot.

I am a big fan of finding more than one use.

My wife says women love that sort of stuff.

[grizz]

I was running about a bit for work today, starting in Slough, then down to Basinstoke and then up to Farnham, just over 200 miles for the day.

I also had my manager with me, and he knows the way my head works now, as I did the resto of the pedal cart for his son.

So on our way out after seeing the last client, we passed a works department where about 30 plus of these lamps below were all piled into some containers, marked for the recycling skip.
I looked at the boss, he laughed and said "Go on" so I went in, found a secretary who went to find the big boss and asked what the chance was of me having one..... this is to mount over the lathe for when I am doing turning that goes deep or needs a fine tuned eye on the work surface.

She came back and said that he had said I should help myself to whatever I wanted in exchange for a few quid into the local charity box.

WINNER !!!!

Here they are, essentially Freebies, or tip treasures.

One for the lathe, one for the bandsaw and drill press and one for the work top, and the 4th one for the garage worktop.



I wonder what they would have cost me in the open market?

[Wolffarmer]

Nice score there dude

Randy

[grizz]

I managed to snatch a Buy it Now for £40.00 on an older Tormek tool sharpener..... the wheel has a small chip missing, but that is no issue to me.

It will run off one of the old drills I had on here as freebies the other day.... you see, Wombling pays off.

Google Tormek or check on Ebay, to see they prices.







Other than being a 30 year old model, it is perfectly fit for purpose in my shed.

Collecting on the 19th in Oxford, where he is delivering it to one of the hospitals I have an appointment at..... bargain.

[Wolffarmer]

Good score on that Tomak. I never could afford one of those. and my sharpening skills are not that great eight. So I made me some MDF disks for my ShopSmith and a jig to hold the blades and use that for sharpening. Works good for me.

Randy

[grizz]

Good score on that Tomak. I never could afford one of those. and my sharpening skills are not that great eight. So I made me some MDF disks for my ShopSmith and a jig to hold the blades and use that for sharpening. Works good for me.

Randy

Hey Randy, trust me, I cannot afford the price of a Tormek, so when this old style one came on, I thought , make a cheeky request and see if they would sell at a sensible price..... the £40 they wanted was OK to me, as I have some drills tomeone threw out a while ago, to power it.... so at £40 I will have a tool that with a built in motor and modern looks would go to £200 plus on Ebay.


In the mean time, a small update.

Yesterday saw us take all the stock we have and submit it to a shop to sell on consignment. The shop manager was rubbing her hands together as we unpacked, which is a good sign, I think?

The biggest surprise is that when we went by later in the afternoon, is was all up for double and more than what I ask for items..... so I guess there are people who pay real world prices out there.

The round candle holder is a variation on the square one, which is still one of my favourites. The glass holder inside is 75mm diameter, so a nice size.




On the flip side, this is the part of the job you usually do not see.

I was making this bowl, 80mm deep, in Oak and wanted a specific profile which I got and then just on the final run of the thinning out inside the rim, I managed to lose concentration and destroy almost 3 hrs of work. Finding, prepping, fitting and turning all takes time, so I was gutted, but hey-ho off we go.



In the mean time I am keeping busy with orders that are coming in from various places through word of mouth and the web.

I now just need to source some nice weathered old fence posts where new fences are being fitted for some lamps that have been ordered based on the one I started for ourselves......

[grizz]

Remember the bowl I was making for Seth that exploded?

The base was less than an inch thick, but I managed to rescue some use out of it for Nicola, as she actually has nothing I made yet, seems the stuff she gets , ends up being sold or given away.



I recently also had a PM from a Member in Retro Rides to see what a couple of the items I had made would cost his missus..... oooopppsss... all of them were sold or given away already.
So I agreed to make a new Captive ring candle stick for him.
Typically though, it has actually taken about twice as long as I had anticipated, still it looks good to me, and I hope his wife likes it.

Have I mentioned that Oak is both hard and a pain to work with.



Done.



Couple of other test pieces I made, I do like the Plum tree branch, but not the oak bridge.



Tomorrow I have a load to do, as there are a couple of orders and also it seems the shop wants more stock.

[grizz]

Met up with the seller of the Tormek early this morning as McDonalds in Oxford, as I had a hectic day planned, with a handover from a colleague etc for 2012.
Still, a quick coffee, and chat about using the grinder effectively, led to him telling me the new 2011 Tormek he had bought cost him £675, so I am very pleased with my simple 80's technology.

Pic just shows it mocked up with a drill.

Still needs propper fitting etc.

This should keep the wood turning chisels maximally keen at all times.

[grizz]

Typical of the season of Goodwill, it seems my "goodwill" is being used.

Nicola's cousin in Canada sent her mum about 8 Native American "Pocket Spirits" as part of a Christmas card.

Described thus on the Website: Our 25 different POCKET SPIRITS are made of lead-free pewter. Each POCKET SPIRIT is 1" in diameter with a Northwest Coast Indian symbol on one side and a corresponding inspirational word on the other. Carry in your pocket, wallet or purse as a reminder. Here are your choices with the name of the symbol, the meaning of the symbol, the Indian artist and the artists' tribal affiliation.

Looks like this: Images can be seen on their website.

http://www.pacificnorthwestshop.com/pnw ... indian.htm


So on Boxing day evening she phoned to speak to me, rarely done by the way, as we live 3 miles up the road and see them regularly.

Could I make her a "TOTEM POLE" to mount these coins on?

Of course I tried to weasel out of it, but she does not take no for an answer, a bit like her daughter.

So I went down to the shed, originally time planned for the Cigar Box Guitar, and spent 3 hours making up the bits for the "Totem Pole"
I managed to glue and clamp the one side by 9pm and was down there again by 8am today to glue side 2, and then went back at about 3pm to continue working on it.

I took lengths of Oak and turned them once I had planned where the side wings would go.
The plan was to make spaces for 18 coins on three of the vertical sides, and 6 more spaces on the horizontal wings.
This will give her 24 spaces for the whole collection.

I also decided that seeing as they had been together long enough to pass their Ruby wedding anniversary, and were two peas in a pod, I would add two wooden rings around the base, which has more rings turned into it, to signify their togetherness.

The beadwork on the base was again a nod at the Native American and the intricacy of the Universe.

Quite deep stuff for me to be surfacing on here.

Once the upright was tuned, sanded and smoothed, I did the horizontal wings, and then split them on the bandsaw, sanded allround and then lastly split them as planned.

The last piece in last nights puzzle was whether to put the long or short wings on top.

Then I glued and clamped them and walked away, followed by the second half this morning.


Upright.



Wings/horizontals.



Splitting them.














Done, next job will be to get the coins she has to stick to the 3 sides of the upright and also the wings.

Hopefully I can get back to the CBG some time tomorrow, although I have a days trial riding planned as well.