New Beginner's Project - Make a Mallet

I am getting tired of cleaning the workshop, which is not to say I have stopped, just gotten bored with it. However, it does go on, and on and on and - you get the picture. Sometimes I think I could be a hoarder, but then the whole thing gets to me and I clean up whatever I can.

Anyhow, as I was looking through some of the stuff on the computer, I found some pictures I had taken a while ago on making a woodworker's mallet, one of those things we keep around the shop for swatting the piece of wood that won't move and that sort of thing.

Anyway the project is up at Workshop Mallet. This is one of the exercises in Milton and Wohler's book but there it is just a measured drawing. It is a good beginner's project although I find it a useful thing in the workshop as well. The jaws I make for my OneWay chuck are a neat rig for getting the handle set right in the head. Take a look.

New Work in Progress

I have been having some difficulty with uploading to YouTube so the next installment on the natural edged bowl will be a while, but at least I am trying. Meanwhile I have started another work in progress. This time it is deciphering a pile of wood that is mostly burls.

One of them, the large spruce burl has to made into a fruit bowl, I think with the natural edge obvious. The folks who own the big burl, I think maple, want a piece made with the burl surface obvious or emphasized. Other than that, it will be whatever the wood and I want. To start with I am going to do something with one of the smaller spruce burls.

This should be fun.

Natural Edged Bowl - Roughing Inside

Ta Dah! this is the 100th entry on the blog. Applause please. Now that we have that over, I have managed to get another video up on YouTube dealing with the natureal edged bowl. This is the fun part, roughing the inside. This is also the quickest part, especially here with so much air to turn. Air turns fast. Duh! As always, comments are appreciated.

Drawing the Bowl

One of the more difficult things for a wood turner to learn is where to watch the lines form for a turning. Most of the time we like to look at the tool edge to see where the action is and likely to watch out for a catch.

One of the problems with this is the tendency to over compensate for a cut that is not quite right and make the wrong move with the tool. This produces a dig that needs to be cleared up and produces more work than necessary. What is desired is to be able to see the lines of the piece develop and to make small adjustments in the line of the result. An artist on paper would tell you not to look at the pencil tip but rather at the line.

So a wood turner needs to look away from the tool and seek instead to watch the line of the developing piece. This would then appear somewhat as in the accompanying video. The tool is not seen, just the "ghost" of the piece. This is quite dramatic in this instance as determined by the shape of the piece.

In a very real sense, this is drawing in three dimensions. The only thing is, once a line is in place, it can not be erased except to make the piece smaller. It also leads to a style of turning similar to the broad styles of sketching.

Some artists sketch with a bold line from the top of the subject to the bottom. Others work in short lines. Generally both refine after the main idea in in place and perhaps ink and color as well. Similarly, some wood turners make broad and long cuts down the side of a vessel while others nibble away in small sections and blend it in later. Most of us combine the two.

In a case like this I seldom have a final idea of the shape of the piece except in general terms. This is after all, a bowl and not a vase. However, there may be undercuts or ogee curves or opportunity for carving or piercing or the like as the piece progresses. This is simply the fun of the turning.

Natural Edged Bowl - Roughing Outside (1)

One of the things, if not the thing that makes turning these natural edged bowls fun is simply the amount of air in the mix. That is especially true for one like this that is longer than it is wide. Of course this brings up complications. For one thing, there is really not firm bevel to ride. You depend on the speed of the wood to make up for the gaps and just go for it. As the video goes on you can see the difference in tool movement as I go from the sides with gaps to the bottom with solid wood. The other thing is the difficulty in viewing the bowl. There is so much air that it can be hard to see the wood once it starts turning. I am turning here at 1200 rpm. You need a decent speed to contend with the huge gaps. If you are not comfortable turning a bowl at that speed, just practice on a few regular ones first.

Turning a Natural Edged Bowl - Mounting

I have been playing with a video of turning a natural edged bowl. These are always fun to turn because so much of the turning is really air, not wood. For this one I am using a piece of pin cherry of which I have a lot. I tried to keep the bark on but did not make it this time. It is sort of a crap shoot to keep the bark, depending on when the tree was cut and how long it has been down and likely whether you hold your nose just right. Anyhow, I will put sections up on YouTube and eventually have the whole thing available for download. Hope you enjoy it and as usual any comments and critiques are welcome.

Happy New Year

Time just keeps moving on and I seem to play catch up a fair amount of it. While checking the web site for a major rewrite, I found a couple of projects or at least the bones of them, that have not as yet been put up. So I managed to get a beginner project up on the site. It is based on the Milton and Wohlers book that is also on site. Eventually I will have instructions for most of those projects. Some are pretty dated but they all teach the skills of wood turning.

This project gives a handy tool for the shop, a scratch awl. I think the ferrule and striker cost me about 5 cents so you can make a few to keep them handy. The pages are over at scratch awl project

All the best to you and yours. Keep the turning turning. I will try to get the video for this shot and up shortly.

Time to Turn - Almost

Christmas has gone, I think. At least I am back to work even though the girls are still home on break. We are having an open house for the church on New Years Eve so I will be tied up getting the cooking done for that, but I hope to get some turning in.

There are some plans for the web site in the new year. I expect to get some contributor's pages up for one thing. Some really neat pictures have come to me from some of the readers and people should see some of this stuff.

Also there is more demand for video on the site and I plan on doing more of it. Some of the pages need a real rewrite and on my end the site has grown so much that I need to redo a lot of the organization. Not hard stuff, but it requires a fair amount of time.

In addition, there is a real need for step by step instruction for beginners and I have begun a web book course. the first pages will be up soon and I will announce it here. The plan is to develop the skills needed for turning using a project based approach. I think folks will like it. It will follow the format of Around the Woods but more systematically and will deal more with what it is reasonable for other people to turn rather than what I turn myself. Anyway, it sounds like fun and should keep me busy for the next few years.

Take care in the New Year. All the best to you and yours

Roughing a Bowl, Video 5: Mounting on the Lathe

Here is the quick and easy video 5, mounting on the lathe. I like to mount a bowl between centers if at all possible for roughing cuts. It is quick and easy and allows for the wood to be moved later if necessary. The big negative for me is the tendency for the spur bit to pretend it is a spade bit and try to drill its way through.Since this just means tightening the tail stock on a periodic basis, this does not really matter.