Thursday, September 25, 2008

Back to Burl

At the moment there are a lot of things going on in life, but for now we are back from vacation, I have not started my new church and will not for about 10 days, and the garden is sort of getting past. There is still the fall yard clean up, but that will get done eventually. For now I plan to get back to the lathe a bit.

That burl is still on there and is ready to come off. It has been hollowed and is dry as dust. What remains is to remove it from the faceplate and turn away the waste wood while finishing the base. Then the sanding needs to be finished and the finish applied. The fun part is deciding how to turn away the waste considering that the top is not even. This is just one of those things that makes burls fun.

Thursday, September 18, 2008

Great Legs from Paris

I'm back. In fact my wife and I are back from a week in Paris followed by a week in the Lake District of England. The trip was great except for having my wallet lifted in Paris. Thankfully there was little cash in it and I canceled the cards before they could be used. All it amounted to was a nuisance.

While we were in Paris we saw hardly any turnings in the shops. There must be some somewhere, but I failed to see it. However, when I went to the Louvre there were a couple of turnings in the Egyptian section. All the way to France to see turnings from Egypt, this is a small world.

Notice the legs here
Egyptian wood turned table legs
These are well turned with mortises cut for stringers and beads to decorate the feet. What is remarkable is the similarity to something we might turn today but these are from the New Kingdom, around 1550-1069 BC, say around 3000 years ago. Talk about nothing new under the sun.

Then there was this table (sans the top) from the same time period.
Egyptian woodturnings, table baseIn fact, the work is so similar that it may have been the same maker. On the other hand, it could just have been the style or for that matter a request to duplicate the existing furniture.

There was some other wood around but no other turnings that I saw. It is remarkable to me that wood has lasted 3000 years. On the other hand, there may have been lots of turnings in the Louvre. Only a part of what is on hand is displayed and it would take ages to see just the displays.

Lots of fun and lots to think about.