I now have a new site for my blog, with lots of posts and articles about woodturning. You can see my work, and perhaps even buy it, so please do visit!
Today I added another new article, on the wood used for bowls to my web site.
Visit my web site for more information about woodturning
Today I added an article on the design of turned wooden bowls to my website. I hope it will be of interest to potential customers and also other turners.
Visit my web site for more information about woodturning
I have started a series of reviews of some of the tools and equipment that I use in my woodturning workshop. I intend to add more from time to time.
The first are of my Graduate shortbed lathe and my Startrite 352 bandsaw. The list is growing, with more added since. You will find them on my website.
Visit my web site for more information about woodturning
From today, my turning blog has moved to turnedwoodenbowls.co.uk. Please click the link to see later posts.
Today I spent some more time on the prototype globe stand I mentioned yesterday. This involved a lot of gluing and clamping to make large blocks for the turning stage. I hope it will prove popular for sales at Greaves and Thomas.
I also fished out a small bowl rough-out that I started a few months back. At the time, with the wood freshly felled and full of sap, it was a brilliant red in colour, very striking. I thought it looked like plane, judging by the grain, but I was not sure owing to the colour, which I haven’t seen before in that species. It came from the local tree surgeon’s log pile. The trouble with that is that I cannot always be sure what I am getting. Now it has dried thoroughly and the red has faded to pink(ish). I am more confident now in saying it is plane. It distorted a lot while seasoning (all trued up during the re-turning) and now has a number of small fissures, so will never be a very practical piece, but I think it looks good. It has the flecks in the grain that are characteristic of plane. When the surface of the wood is cut at the right angle to the log’s grain direction these flecks form a pattern. The wood is then sometimes called lacewood, and the part of this bowl where the pattern shows is lacewood. There wasn’t much of this timber though, just enough for three or four little bowls.
This colour change often happens when wood dries. The turner is sometimes the only person who gets to see the full beauty of the wood. The moment when I turn off the lathe and see the freshly turned surface is always one to look forward to.
Not much actual turning today. I have been working on a prototype of a big new globe stand.
I was looking over some of my recent bowl rough-outs and was disappointed to find a lot of rejects. Over the past few months I have acquired two lots of oak and a log of elder. Most of the oak came from a very old tree that had been taken down due to disease. The trunk had been sawn up into boards by its owner, the logs I used were the larger branches. The elderberry log was unusually large in diameter, and elder bowls are not often seen, so I hoped it would be of value. I roughed out quite a lot of bowls in the usual way and put them aside to dry, just as normal. Soon they started splitting at the edges. Some are OK and some I can salvage, but I think more than half will go to waste. I always lose a few, but these logs have been very disappointing. Other rough-outs over this same period have come out fine – some sycamore from Kennington, some mulberry, some ash and another lot of sycamore have all been successful and I hope to finish turn the rough-outs and get them on my bowl pages fairly soon.
Different turners make different things. One thing I have never tried is segmented turning. This involves accurately cutting and assembling lots of small pieces of wood and turning an item out of the block so patterns become visible. There are some interesting examples including an impressive vase in bloodwood and holly here. A bit different from my work, and not something I am ever likely to do. I’ve often turned holly wood, but never bloodwood.
Today I finish turned the spalted hornbeam bowl I mentioned a couple of days ago, and put the first coat of oil on the mulberry one. That is always a good moment for me because it makes the grain and colour pop out. The mulberry is yellow/gold with a little green in one place. Still not finished though, it needs more coats and then buffing, will probably be another week.
I have also been working on another turning article for my web site, this time on wood dust and its dangers. Everyone knows that dust is harmful to breathe, but there are some misconceptions out there.
Today I added another article to my website, this time on how to make a giant pair of compasses to draw large circles. I have to do this quite often when marking out bowl blanks or laying out discs for globe stands etc. I was idly wondering what constitutes a single compass – is it just one of the arms? It’s like scissors. Or trousers. Why are they called a pair?
Next job was to photograph some new bowls. Uploading products on my website sometimes seems harder than making them. A pair of bowls, one in heavily spalted beech and the other in slightly spalted sycamore. The beech came from a ditch in a Devon wood. The log section had fallen there and been lying for a year or so in constant dampness. It was just on the verge of being too far gone and unusable, but that is often the point when it is at its best.
I also finish turned the mulberry bowl I made a few days ago, and another sycamore bowl. I shall oil them tomorrow and I’m keen to see how the mulberry finishes.
Today, James brought the remaining two discs that I mentioned a couple of days back. I needed some help getting them on and off the lathe so I could reduce their diameter. One good thing that came out of it is that he thought of a way to make the lifting easier. Until today, I would screw the blank to a big faceplate then lift them together onto the lathe spindle nose. James realised that by inserting a steel rod through centre holes in each, they would align properly and the rod would support the disc while it was attached. So from now on, I shall put the faceplate on the lathe, insert the rod, lift up the disc onto the rod, then screw the disc and the faceplate together in situ. A much better method, though still not easy. The faceplate is 1000mm and the disc is bigger than that.
These discs are components for large globe stands for Greaves and Thomas, James’s business. It is his policy always to use reclaimed timber, which is very good, but doesn’t always help the turner. One of these discs is made from very gritty wood, that I would not otherwise want to use. Today, while I did the turning, he was in charge of the sharpening. We had two gouges on the go. I was blunting one on the grit while he sharpened the second. The grit was so bad that it ruined the edge almost as soon as it touched the wood. Extreme turning! I was glad when it was finished.
I have also been working on an article on making chests of drawers for the workshop, to go on my turners’ pages.
Hello! I hope you find my woodturning blog interesting
I welcome feedback, so do comment on my posts.
Terry
turnedwoodenbowls 