Pen Video

A friend wanted a pen turned for him in the European style (what I used to call Mont Blanc until Cross got upset over a trade marked name). I took the opportunity to shoot some video of it. They are on YouTube and will shortly be on the web site as well. Fitting the center band is simple but seems to give people difficulties. All you have to do is ignore the bushing and turn the thing to fit. A few cuts with a parting tool and on it goes. I find it the same as fitting a ferrule to a handle.

Maple log: ornaments

Well the saga of the bird's eye log continues. I have not found much bird's eye but the wood is great. It varies from a cream sap wood to a dark heart and there is some nice spalting here and there. Because of deep surface cracks most of it will end up as ready spindles. I turned a couple of Christmas tree ornaments to try some of it. It is lovely to turn. In another day or two I will have a page up on making these icicles. Each one is just under 5" long with the largest diameter about 1/2".

New Project: Whisk Handle

Hi folks. I am attempting to write a new section on the web site for
beginners. Here is a project for it that has a way to center a handle on a
tool while making it. The project is a whisk handle for the kitchen and a
simple stocking stuffer to make.
Whisk handle
One of the great difficulties that wood turners run into is making sure the hole for a handle is concentric to the handle and fits the tang. This method of using a very simple friction drive ensures that the handle is properly on center.

Ready for mallets

So lately I have been turning mallets. Yesterday I took out the chain saw and cut a few pieces of maple for some more. I want to do up a project page on mallets and like to practice a bit first, especially if I decide to video the turning.

Mallets, in my opinion, are a great beginner project. They allow for lots of expression in a tool that has a definite purpose and hence a definite set of restrictions so you do not turn something that simply does not work. A mallet with a 10 pound head and a thin handle is just nuts. But a mallet with a head that fits the handle may have decorative beads and grooves and the handle could have all sorts of turned decoration without removing its sense of "handle."

Plus this is spindle turning. I see a lot of turners moving from spindles to faceplate stuff and a whole set of skills is being lost. Most wood turners start with spindle turning and then leave it under the impression that faceplate is where it is at. A lot of turned objects are spindle work, handles, newels, mallets, pens, gavels to name a few. This is also a lot of fun.

On the other hand, while I was cutting the maple I found that it was spalted to the point where another winter will not be good for it. Maybe I need to rough a lot of bowls before I lose the whole pile.

Free wood turning advice

A while ago I took a text book on wood turning that had been written in 1919 and reformatted it for the web. It is available for free down load from Project Guttenbergbut works better for the web with a little tweaking (ok a lot but it was fun). Lately I have seen it for sale on the web as the greatest thing since sliced bread for learning wood turning. There is some great stuff in the book and it is a good read for turners both experienced and beginning, but it is a text book. It requires someone to show you some of the dos and don'ts of turning as you go.

In fact, I think the value of the book is twofold. One is to give us an outlook on the history of our craft in the early 20th century and two is for the wealth of line drawing projects in the book. Many things are dated but they are still good. Some of the projects are things like chisel handles for chisels that have a tapered socket and for boxes to hold hat pins. But a good handle is easily adapted and a nice box is a nice box.

One thing the book is not is a primer for modern turning. Bowl gouges were not around when the book was written, nor were 4 jaw scroll chucks nor High Speed Steel tools. Sharpening jigs were virtually unknown, certainly not in the forms we now have them. Many of the modern finishes and for that matter abrasives did not exist.

This is a good book and a lot of fun, but not the be all and end all of learning to turn wood. With a good instructor and some editing it would be a good text today. Gradually, I hope to have the projects presented on the web page in some form as I did for the table lamp.

Presently I am working on the pages for a mallet based on those in the book. Some of the differences include using a set of auxiliary jaws for a scroll chuck to be sure the handle is centered correctly and making one with an oval handle. Over the years it would be good to have all the projects with pictures and at least some with video. I am also working on pages for the use of the various tools now available. It is a lot of fun, and I intend to keep it free. It seems more in the spirit of wood turning.

Wooden Spoon Video Part 5

It is Sunday morning as I write this. In a short tome I will be at church. Yesterday I conducted a funeral for a man only three years older than myself. Thoughts of faith more than wood are part of today's picture.

As I got to the bowl of the spoon, most of the wood turning became air turning. You have to have an idea of line and turn for it even though most of what is whirling there is air. The "ghost" of the object is all that can be seen. Once the idea is formed and the path of the skew is committed, you just cut and trust that learned skills will carry you through to an appropriate end.

There is an expectation of result here as well, watching the wood spin. All that the cutting will do at this point is leave the outline of the bowl. It is not deep enough for the cuts to reach the bottom so all it does is outline the bowl with hopefully pleasing symmetry. A lot of carving will remain to remove the rest of the wood and leave, finally, a working example of a pleasing spoon.

Sometimes wood turning is just wood turning and sometimes it is faith. Every time I turn it is an exploring of creation and Creator. Life is good.

Wooden Spoon Video Part 4

The wooden spoon continues as I get farther along the shaft and start the transition from the shaft to the bowl. This is the place where the whirling bowl can do some damage if you are not careful. On the other hand, this is the sort of thing that makes turning fun. It is also the first place where you realize that the handle is not on the same centerline as the bowl. When this comes off the lathe, the bowl will have the handle raised off the table when sitting. This simply makes the spoon easier to pick up. There is not a lot of need for huge diameters here either. 3/8" or 1/4" will certainly work although you could leave 1/2" because people think it is sometimes needed.

Wooden Spoon Video Part 3

So far this video stuff is becoming quite an education. Anyway, I have the third part of the spoon up now. This is just roughing down the shaft. As I have been doing this I realize that most of the wood turning is done with the skew.
This is one of the simplest wood turning tools we have. All it is is a straight piece of steel with a handle on one end and a cutting edge on the other. No fancy curves or flutes. Still it allows for lots of plain and fancy cuts. It is the easiest tool for a smooth cut on spindles along with beads and reasonably long coves.
More and more I find myself reaching for a chisel as I turn spindles, either a skew chisel or a straight. The spindle gouges are there but they seem more awkward than my chisels. Maybe I am just lazy and hate to sand. Hope you enjoy the video.

Garden Dibber: Oval Handle

I was fooling around making garden dibbers with tapered oval handles and put up a page on the site. This is an intermediate project just because the handle needs to be turned from three centers and becomes offset. In other words, a lot of the time you end up turning air. A dibber is used in gardening and this time of year some people use them for planting bulbs. Oval spindle turning is not difficult but seems to be something we have left out of our present turning vocabulary. Basically, if you can turn a regular spindle you can also turn an oval. Just be sure the wood is held strongly between centers as the tool will rattle it with every revolution.

Wooden Spoon Video Part 1

I have been playing some more with the video camera and put up a bit of video over on YouTube dealing with mounting a blank for a wooden spoon. It is a nice piece of offset turning for anyone who has not done it before. Basically it is just a matter of lining things up so that the part of the handle that contacts the bowl is above center. This lets the handle be at an angle when the spoon rests on a work surface. While I define the lines of the bowl while at the angle I have a friend who turns these things commercially and he turns the bowl on center and the handle off. It remains to carve the bowls after the turning is done.

Wood Turning Project: Table Lamp in Spalted Birch

Vacation is sort of underway. I anticipated doing a lot of wood turning for vacation including a 2 hour drive to see my folks and pick up an oak tree that a friend had to cut down. His description is of 2 foot thick and long blocks, but it has been down fo a while and it may be cracked. None the less, good wood is good wood and I do like a piece of red oak on the lathe. Shavings, wood lathe, turning, now that sounds like vacation time. Of course there is reality as well.
Does driving a van load (and I do mean load) of furniture 21 hours from Nova Scotia to Ontario and setting up my daughter's apartment count as vacation? While we were there my son got me to visit his kung fu school. I had to wring out my t-shirt after the workout.
Vacation? Now I am redoing a room in the house (remove the wall paper, mud and sand the walls, paint, remove the carpet, and put down laminate). Then there is the garage roof to shingle. Vacation is where you find it. Anyhow, I managed to get a page up dealing with turning a lamp for my daughter's apartment. There are no links to it as yet from "What's New" or the contents page but it is at Lamp Project
As always, any problems with the pages would be appreciated to be reported.

Wood Turning at the Exhibition

This last week we had the Provincial Exhibition at Truro. The local historical society has a branch at the Farm History Museum at the fair grounds. -During the exhibit they try to have crafts people demonstrate some of the old crafts from quilting to spoon carving. The last couple of years they have invited me to demonstrate for a day of wood turning. I really enjoy it.
I took along a lathe and turned mushrooms, potato mashers, and dibbers. Part of the time I had various people at the lathe trying it out for the first time or just learning some stuff.
It always amazes me when turners look at the shavings coming off and are amazed at sharp tools. I get them to touch up the gouge edge at the grinder and jig I bring along and then turn. The jig makes it simple.
While there, a fellow from the local paper came along taking pictures of various exhibits, including me. I thought he might put a small one of me alongside of a feeding horse or something but instead I got about a third of a page. Some days they are just hard up for news. :-)

Wood Turned Lamp

My youngest daughter is moving provinces for college and into her own apartment. She wanted a desk lamp so I turned one for her. We are moving her things up on Tuesday and will be gone for a week so I will not likely have time to get a web page up before then at Around the Woods, but I took some pictures as I went so I should be able to when I get back. This makes a great project involving faceplate and spindle turning as well as assembling a piece after turning. Since it also involves drilling a hole down the center of the lamp spindle, and at the center line of the base from edge to center, it adds a bit of complexity to the process. Besides, they make great gifts.

I turned it out of spalted birch that came from a silver birch I had to take down at my parent's cottage after it got lightning hit and was obviously not going to recover. So it has some special meaning to us as well. I think she will be happy with it.

turning wooden spoons

Okay, I got the page up on turning wooden spoons. the turning is fairly simple but I put it up as an intermediate project because it has both turning air for the bowl shape and the handle is offset. It needs to be for comfortably using the spoon, which is one of the things I have against the commercial wooden spoons. They also have to have the bowls carved, a page I have not written yet. All in all they make a fun project. Along the way I took some videos too and I will see about getting it made into a project shot like I did for the mushrooms. I turned them with a skew but roughing gouges and spindle gouges would work well.

Wood turning

I got back in the shop today for a while and started turning some cooking spoons for a friend. They are about 13" long with a slightly offset handle. Unfortunately, now that the turning is done, it is time to carve the bowls of the spoons. Not my favorite thing, but necessary. I will eventually get a page up about it but I am also trying to get some beginner pages up on tool selection, sharpening and the like. It is a pleasure to be turning spindles again. Maybe I will put the faceplate stuff on indefinite hold and do some more spindle work. We'll see.

Wood Turning Spindles

One of the things I have been thinking about lately as I consider wood turning in general and the art work I see on the web or at shows in particular, is the lack of spindle turning. While I grant you that chair makers and the like turn a lot of the same spindle shapes day after day and consider it more craft than art, what about artistic spindle work? Is all of it architectural? What about lamps and candle holders? Maybe gavels and mallets? Many of us seem to be caught in the grip of the chuck or faceplate and wood turning has become faceplate turning. the exception of course is pen turners today although I find many of my pens are pretty much straight turning. Perhaps I need to return to spindles for a while and see what comes of it.

Back at the lathe

It has been a bit of a dry spell lately with work and study pressures. The church is busy with the annual meeting around the corner and I have had a couple of funerals lately. They take all my energy for a day or two. One of the things that I really notice is my energy gets a boost from the creative nature of turning but it is still hard to get to the lathe and key into that energy. Crativity takes a beating from life some times. Any way, I have been turning a few angel wings with some nice spalted birch that is too nice to burn but too small to do much else with. I have also begun a Work in Progress from a small stump of the same wood. It should be interesting as I anticipate a lot of air in the finished piece.
By the way, I am increasing my links pages. If you have a wood turning related page you would like to exchange, please contact me.