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

[grizz]

This is a bit of a tenious link to the teardrop build we have started (Surf-Pod) but as the machines and some of the stuff I will produce will be coming from here, I thought starting a thread on here to see what people think and what they all do (wood turners that is), would be good for me to learn from your comments.


I am not sure if anyone is interested in this sort of thing.

If not, I will either delete the thread or just not add to it in future.

Having been made redundant in January after 14 years with the same company, I have realised that it could happen again.

So I had been thinking of stuff or jobs I could do that are fairly self sufficient and would pay the mortgage while I actually enjoyed what I was doing.

I love to work with my hands, enjoy woodwork and with the next teardrop build taking shape I thought it would be an option to start doing "Artistic Woodturning" as I have some tools and am happy to learn or make it up as I go along.

The type of work that people who know what they are doing in wood turning are turning out blows my mind, I also know that there are people who will pay for the time it takes to make stuff.

To this end I started my first little plate today.
Keep in mind I have not touched a lathe in around 20 years, so it was purely a test piece.
The pleasure was instantly back as I remember it was when we built the Grizz-Pod..... wood dust and the smell of oak being worked takes over the senses and made me grin madly inside my dust mask.

The bit of laminated oak offcut from a kitchen worktop was cut to shape and then screwed to the backing plate, after which I started to work the base, followed by the top and bowl.

When I was done I showed Nicola who promptly took it from me and plonked it in the lounge with a candle in it..... probably the most expensive candle holder we will ever have if you add the cost of the tools and shed together.

Clean workspace..... the last time you will see it like that.




Offcut piece of oak kitchen top from Mickeys fire wood pile, not the best piece of wood to start with, but the challenge of oposing grains and a hard wood made for a perfect test piece.



Cutting to shape, this bandsaw rocks !!



For once in my life you will see me adhering to Health & Safety for my own comfort... the dust and flying chips are a bugger.



Getting there means getting dirty.



Up close....



Not having bees wax at hand, I came to the house and asked Nicola to sacrifice one of her zillions of candles..... the wax is not easy to work with as it has hardeners etc in, but still brings the life out in the wood more than if I left it just natural.



And of course in use once she had claimed it for herself.

Hopefully the future will see nicer and more refined pieces come from the shed, and more importantly, pieces I can sell to suplement my mortgage payments.




Comments welcome and advice accepted.

Also any tree surgeons in the Kent area, I will be looking for wood and intersting bits of trees. So please PM or post up if you have interesting stumps etc about.

[kzhorse]

Very nice work,That would make a nice base for a coleman lamp

Scott

[Ratkity]

Yay for the first chips in the shed!!

Very nice piece. I look forward to more of your work. I bet you could make a cute TD award with all those great toys.

Hugs,
Ratkity

[grizz]

Very nice work,That would make a nice base for a coleman lamp

Scott

Very good thinking Batman !!

You are right, it would look good, almost like it was meant to be there.

[canned o minimum]

Ya need to talk with Mr. Roly Nelson...chief wood turner and lathe person.

He loves his lathe !

[grizz]

Yay for the first chips in the shed!!

Very nice piece. I look forward to more of your work. I bet you could make a cute TD award with all those great toys.

Hugs,
Ratkity

That is true, first chips indeed.

Iwas telling Nicola it felt really good when I started.

I have an electrician booked for Friday to come and to the wiring of the shed from the mains. Currently I am running a pair of extension leads to the shed.

And here is a bonus for you..... Harley up at 4am with me, watching Youtube on woodturning.
Today when Iwas turning she was sat in the shed, watching me the whole time.




And a rare pic of all three our cats in one space.....

Ginger Marmaduke, Tabitha the old girl and of course fearless Harley.

[eaglesdare]

very nice!

[Larry C]

You have some quality wood working equipment in your shop!! However, your lighting could use some upgrading. The lamp on it's side with a flood light bulb makes me laugh because I have done similar trying to get enough light on the subject. Nice work with turning....

Larry C

[nrody]

Nice job!

[grizz]

You have some quality wood working equipment in your shop!! However, your lighting could use some upgrading. The lamp on it's side with a flood light bulb makes me laugh because I have done similar trying to get enough light on the subject. Nice work with turning....

Larry C

Shed is only getting wired up to mains on Friday this week, I was working off 2 extension cords from the garage.

Mickey brought me a 100watt bulb later which he traded me for a couple of screw in bulbs he needed.

The lamp is actually the original garage mobile light...... yep, it worked and was free, so did the job.

Once wired up the lighting will be improved massively.

[rebapuck]

I envy you. I've always loved woodworking, but I've never had any space. No workshop. No garage. No driveway.

The laminates in the oak make a cool pattern.

I've never watched a woodturner who had a dust collection system. Are they impractical?

[Roly Nelson]

Hello Rian, Roly here. Of all of the power tools in my workshop, my lathe is my very favorite. No other tool allows the freedom of digging a chunk of highly figured wood out of the woodpile, chucking it up on the lathe, and turning it into an absolutely one-of-a-kind, bowl, cup, goblet, vase, lidded box, platter, ring holder, sugar scoop, pepper grinder, bottle stopper, Christmas tree ornament, or some such work of art. Sanding is effortless, since all we have to do is stand there and touch the finished product with various grits, then apply some sort of finish that suits our fancy. After all this is done, it can be displayed on the mantle the very same day! There is no other woodworking tool that I know of that is so effortless and fulfilling.

I probably have 200 turned items in my livingroom, and I am running out of room. Small wood turnings make great gifts, and I usually have a bag of them with me when I go camping and hand them out to special people that I meet during my travels. Signing your turnings is very important, as well as the date of it's manufacture. I am sure that there are many woodturning groups over there in the UK. I find them enjoyable, here in the US, and am always amazed at the quality of work that is exibited during our meetings. We are encouraged to bring our latest creations, and place them on the show-and-tell table. Each turner then has a chance to review with others, the steps taken to complete their various items. I have learned a great deal, observing, listening and asking questions of many quality turners. Often when I am visiting friends or relatives, I am surprised to see some of my work displayed in their homes.

It looks like you have a Shopsmith type lathe in your shop. I suppose it has a variable speed dial, so greater control can be accomplished, especially on large, out of balance pieces. I wonder if you have an expandable chuck such as a Nove chuck or Grissly. I prepare my future turning blanks with a glued on waste block on the bottom, usually about 2 inches square. This fits nicely in my chuck, holds the spinning work solid and can be parted off with a parting tool after the piece is completed. There are always a couple of dozen such pre-blanks just waiting to be turned, when I need a break from my other woodworking projects. I see a disk sander in your array of power tools, and sanding the bottom prior to signing can be done easily. The beauty of sacrificial waste blocks, is there are no visible screw holes in the bottom of any of my pieces. (I was surprised how many turners check out the bottom when observing turnings.)

I have seen many museum quality turnings at our woodturning groups, but spending tons of money for imported exotic wood just doesn't fit in my budget. I prefer working with scrounged or found wood, expecially dead wood that worms and such have been hard at work below the bark and sometimes within the entire piece. They look great as the magic occurs when the clear finish is applied, and once again are the only one like it in whole world, and can't be exactly duplicated. Enjoy that lathe, and if I can offer any friendly pointers, please feel free to PM me and I'll share what little I know of our wonderful, unique world of woodturning.

Roly, the So Calif woody guy and woodturner of sorts and lover of my two cats.

[grizz]

Hello Rian, Roly here. Of all of the power tools in my workshop, my lathe is my very favorite. No other tool allows the freedom of digging a chunk of highly figured wood out of the woodpile, chucking it up on the lathe, and turning it into an absolutely one-of-a-kind, bowl, goblet, vase, platter, ring holder, or some such work of art. Sanding is effortless, since all we have to do is stand there and touch the finished product with various grits, then apply some sort of finish that suits our fancy. After all this is done, it can be displayed on the mantle the very same day! There is no other woodworking tool that I know of that is so effortless and fulfilling.

I probably have 200 turned items in my livingroom, and I am running out of room. Small wood turnings make great gifts, and I usually have a bag of them with me when I go camping and hand them out to special people that I meet during my travels. Signing your turnings is very important, as well as the date of it's manufacture. I am sure that there are many woodturning groups over there in the UK. I find them enjoyable, here in the US, and am always amazed at the quality of work that is exibited during our meetings. We are encouraged to bring our latest creations place them on the show-and-tell table. Each turner than has a chance to review with others, the steps taken to complete their various items. I have learned a great deal, observing, listening and asking questions of many quality turners.

It looks like you have a Shopsmith type lathe in your shop. I suppose it has a variable speed dial, so greater control can be accomplished, especially on large, out of balance pieces. I wonder if you have an expandable chuck such as a Nove chuck or Grissly. I prepare my future turning blanks with a glued on waste block on the bottom, usually about 2 inches square. This fits nicely in my chuck, holds the spinning work solid and can be parted off with a parting tool after the piece is completed. There are always a couple of dozen such pre-blanks just waiting to be turned, when I need a break from my other woodworking projects. I see a disk sander in your array of power tools, and sanding the bottom prior to signing can be done easily. The beauty of sacrificial waste blocks, is there are no visible screw holes in the bottom of any of my pieces. (I was surprised how many turners check out the bottom when observing turnings.)

I have seem many museum quality turnings at our woodturning groups, but spending tons of money for imported exotic wood just doesn't fit in my budget. I prefer working with scrounged or found wood, expecially dead wood that worms and such have been hard at work below the bark and sometimes within the entire piece. They look great when the magic occurs as the clear finish is applied, and once again are the only one like it in whole world, and can't be duplicated. Enjoy that lathe, and if I can offer any friendly pointers, please feel free to PM me and I'll share what little I know of our wonderful, unique world of woodturning.

Roly, the So Calif woody guy and woodturner of sorts.

Hi Roly,

Thanks for the comprehensive reply. I love it when people comment on threads as it always adds another dimension or angle of observation to your own views.

The lathe I have is a 1971 build from the markings I can see on the bottom rail.
It is a Coronet Major, and was designed just after WWII
I will post a link to it below.

http://www.lathes.co.uk/coronet%20major/index.html

The lathe has belt spees, and an on/off switch, so no variable dial.... which would be nice.
I still have to figure out the speeds to work at etc.... the oak platter I did was just put on and turned at high speed.

I will happily turn exotic woods, but if you look at my teardrop build thread and the new one, you will see that I get great pleasure out of making stuff out of nothing. So the scraps way will be the way forward.
I still need to find some sash clamps etc, so that I can laminate and join bits of wood.

Take a look in this link to get an idea of my "skills" when it comes to re-use of materials, which is where wood for turning will fit into as well.

http://www.retrorides.proboards.com/ind ... read=89875

[grizz]

In other news, I have been offered bees wax directly from the hive by a member on Retro Rides, pretty cool, almost like you know the bees who made it all up.

This is their product




And this is their home.....



Details are as follows.

Grizz, when we move next week and the wax emerges from the boxes I'll let you know. It's worth virtually nothing on e-bay so not worth selling so I'll see if I can liberate some.

We have 2 hives at the bottom of the garden in a housing estate in Preston, about 25k bees in each.

We have had around 60lbs of honey out of them this year and a few lbs of wax. Honey sells at about £5 a lb but there is only so much you can sell locally, most people don't eat that much of it! (Including us!) We have around 15lbs left.

A lb of wax costs about 5lb in honey in energy for the bees but you always end up with some wax left over from the honey extraction.

Read more: http://www.retrorides.proboards.com/ind ... z1dEyQWYv5


I was going to buy wax from Ebay, but it seems it will be much more personal.

[Larry C]

This is their product

When I first saw the jars I thought it was moonshine!

Larry C