Cypress Knee Santa

Here is a cypress knee Santa I carved in about a half hour. The painting took about 4 days....waiting for paint to dry. Also I painted the small Santa Christmas ornament, though it is still missing the eye for a hanging hook.

This little guy was carved about 3 years ago. I wood burned the beard just prior to this painting.

Be careful and enjoy the splinters.

Fairy Door Revisited

Here is the assembled door, all glued up and ready for the finish. The wood is ceder, the 'hinges' are from a copper sheet, thin enough that I cut it with my carving tools. The door knob ladybug cost $1.99 and is the only item not from a scrap bin.

I still need to cut a keyhole slot in the back to hang the door on the outside wall.

Enjoy, but be careful of the splinters.

Fairy Doors

I started building a Fairy Door for the shop. I used 1/4" plywood for a base and I'm using ceder for the door and frame.

The hinges are copper and are not shown here, yet. I'll also trim the door with ceder to keep water away from the plywood edges.

Here you see the door set into the opening but not attached. the carving was tough cause ceder tears easily. I want to give the flower a yellow wash and the leaves green. You can see where I added some highlights with a wood burning tool.

Enjoy, and be careful of the splinters.

Turned Lidded Box

Here is a small turned box I made from Myrtle Wood. I was after a small depth and a simple lid design for a particular item to store in the box for Christmas. But the requirements changed and I finished it after Christmas. The top handle is walnut and was turned from a small scrap.

I have a pop can to show the size and the finish I put on the box. One more picture with the lid on the box.

Enjoy and be careful of the splinters.

Brush Duster

My wife had picked up a 35mm Duster kit from Rockler this Christmas. I've included a picture of the package wrapping as we'll as the brush itself.

Since I have a little spare Myrtle wood I grabbed a chunk for the handle, so I've added a picture of the other end of the source piece and the finished handle. Kind of a before and after shot. The opening I drilled was 1/2" deep, and then I turned the handle accounting for the size of the opening.

In the final picture, the brush is not epoxied in yet. I am writing this while the epoxy sets.

And finally

At the bottom of the first image you will see to portable diamond whetstones for sharpening tools. l did a quick touch up on my lathe tools and it did help with the turning

Enjoy, and be careful of the splinters.

Santa Clause's Revisited

Yes, I know the holidays are over.  But I hadn't posted the finished Santa Clauses, though they have all found new homes.

Here they all are after sealing them and waiting the new owners.

Enjoy, and be careful of the paint drips.

More Pens

There was a request for a set of pens to give as gifts, so I'm showing here the six pens I made.

I think the top one is bloodwood, and number 4 & 5 are Myrtle wood. The rest is all a guess.

Enjoy, but be careful of the splinters.

Santa Set

I've been carving some Santas that are meant as gifts for friends. These are about 6" tall, basswood with wood burnt beards and hair for texture. There is a fourth Santa in the picture that was carved for me.

 Here you see them, each with a different design, but the same basic shape and face. My next step is to paint them, along with a couple of other Santas I started last year but did not finish.

The woodburner I used is the soldering iron type and the best tip available was the soldering iron tip. So I took a piece of copper wire the flattened it with a hammer. Once it was thin enough to fit in the knife cutter adapter, I shaped the end to facilitate texturing the beards and hair. While it did work the temperature did not stay hot enough to do as nice a job as I would like. Copper also gets soft when heated so maintaining a good edge was difficult.

In addition I turned a globe from WP and carved a bead design around the shape. Then I wood burnt the holly leaves and berries on the globe and it to is ready for painting.

Enjoy, and be careful of the cold.

Can I have it Tomorrow?

I just got a request on Monday to create a round ornament for the artist son of my wife's boss.  My wife needed to deliver it on Wendsday, so I had one hour Monday night and two hours onTuesday. I hate rush jobs since I don't get paid anyway.

The wood had a WP on it in crayon, so I'm thinking it might be white pine? It turned easily, but I did have some minor tearout, which sanded out easily. The globe is 3" diameter, and I think the finalies. are Myrtle wood. I used no finish on it. I hollowed it out through a 3/4" hole in the end to about 3/16" thick.

Enjoy, and be careful of the Holidays.

Keeping it Warm

Now that Fall has hit and the temperatue has dropped off, the heater has failed. It was a 4000 watt 240 V heater that I rarely turned on high enough to pass the bottom 10% of its range. It was used and free to me, so I wasn't out much. I checked on line and that model is no longer available. What failed was the power switch, which I could not remove, nor did I expect to find a replacement as it included a separate circuit for the heater.

I picked up the following heater as the replacement from HD, same brand, but a newer model.

It seems to be working fine, and no rewiring the plug as the outlet let 20 or 30 amp plugs work.

Note that I mounted the brackets at a slight angle to keep the heat bouncing around the room instead of straight across and back.

Enjoy, and keep your fingers warm

Sandpaper Shelves

Here are pictures of a sandpaper storage unit I made in an effort to get the shop more organized. The first shot shows the base box. The sides are 3/4" MDF with 1/2" plywood for the top and bottom. The slots are 3/8" deep and cut in 2 passes to make them so a hardboard will slide in them.

Total height is 18", 13.5" across. I added a piece of 1/4" ply for the back. After that I cut several hardboard boards for shelves and hung it using a French cleat.

Here it loaded and hung. I'm still debating about adding a door.

Enjoy, and be careful of the splinters.

Cleaning Up

IIt's been a while since I moved into the shop and it was time to clean and rearrange. There were things I didn't like and some of these made it less user friendly.

I started the day by pulling out any item that sat on the floor, including all of the anti-fatigue mats. Then I took apart the table I had placed behind the table saw. Another place I gained space was removing all of the buckets of scrap destined for the fireplace.

I then moved the table saw so the front right corner was in the center of the room. At the end I placed the jointer, while moving the router table to square off that edge. I decided to place the thickness sander behind the table saw as it is probably the easiest tool to move when necessary.

The picture shows where other items have landed, including the carving bench in front of one window and my work bench in front of the other. I brought all of the mats back in and I ended up with a path around the machines.

I'm still putting things away, and figuring out what I need for better storage.

Some stuff hasn't moved, but that is mostly the stored wood. I also moved my heater to hit the path and not at the tables themselves.

I need to clean the work bench and make some proper storage underneath it.

So, for now, enjoy and watch out for the spiders.

Indexing a turned object

For my current project, I needed to accurately mark positions on a turned item. I had an indexing wheel, but had not yet made a way to lock it in position. I took the wheels off my center support, and using the same vertical riser I made a bar from corian to run the pin through. On the backside you can see where I drilled a hole to epoxy a nut. Yes, I had already drilled through for the bolt. The pin was 1/8" diameter so I drilled a hole for that after the epoxy dried. This allows me to adjust to the appropriate ring of indexes when marking my turned object.

Currently I am making a small table to mount and be able to slide a pencil on its side. Again I will use corian for stability. The table will have a post that I can mount on the slide ( 5/8" ) with a table that is offset to one side. Right now I am waiting for the glue to dry cause I needed to glue 2 pieces of corian together to get the size I needed, as corian is only 1/2" thick.

Here is the project I am working on.

Enjoy, but be careful of the splinters.

A Small Box

This box was for me. I use Breath Right strips and have never liked the cardboard boxes in my bathroom cabinet. Besides being too light to stay put, they were just ugly. Here is a box I made from spalted maple I had in the shop. I squared up the wood and cut 3/16" off the bottom, then cut out the center of the remainder on my scroll saw. The scroll saw did not like the thicker maple for this job, but with patience it worked. I used a file to clean up the inside cuts and assembled the box with wood glue. The outside was sanded only to 180 grit, then finished with a walnut oil and shellac combination.

This box is about 2.5" tall.  No I never pulled out a ruler to do this project.

Enjoy, but be careful of the splinters.

The latest box

Here is the last box that I completed, again as a gift to a retiree.

I added felt to the bottom. The box is Myrtle wood with juniper accents.

Enjoy and be careful of the splinters.

A long wait

Sorry it has been too long since I have posted any work here. Seems like this year I am gone more than I am here. But then again, there are no paid subscribers to this blog. The latest project I have finished are a pair of boxes to be given away as gifts for 2 additional retirees at work. I also took some shots of the beginning of a third box.

All of the boxes are made from Myrtle Wood and the first two are about 5" x 8".

Here is the wood I will use on the third box. Again it is 3/8" Myrtle Wood and I'll use 1/4" ply for the bottom. This box has been joined at the four corners with miters, but I am still working on the lid. The size of this box is 8" x 9", but still only about 3" tall.

I have only 3 days to finish the last box, so I won't write much here tonight.

Enjoy and I'll try to post more soon, but be careful of the splinters

New Turned Project

It seems like forever since I made anything to post on this blog. Actually I've started running to lose weight 4 nights a week and it has taken a month to not feel completely drained when I get done. Anyway I have here a shot at a bowl I turn from an African Mahogany. The shot with the ruler shows the bowls size and how it looked with no sanding. The second shot is sanded and I've turn a small rabbit in the top. I then took a piece of maple and I turned a matching lip to fit the bowl top. I haven't hollowed the center out yet but I'm carving a wavy edge as seen by the lines drawn along the edge of the maple. Once that is done I will remove then center of the maple and mount it onto the mahogany bowl. Then it will get one final turning to clean up the fit on the inside of the bowl. Somewhere along the line I will turn the bowl bottom too.
Wonderful, another day that Chrome doesn't let me load pictures. The iframe pops up but there are no buttons.

I'll save this version as a draft and try a couple of other browsers. Hey, it worked in IE 10. What a switch, usually IE is the worst offender.

Enjoy, and be careful of the splinters.

Cascade Wood Turners Mtg

Tonight was the Cascade woodturners mtg. The demo was performed by John Beaver where he showed the method he uses to turn his wave bowls, that you can see on his website using the link to his name. It was a very cool technique and he made a couple of special jigs to create the bowls. While some of it was easily achievable, it took some thought to create the jig that he uses in the process. These are techniques that I would like to try later for my own stuff.

Visit his site and enjoy the gallery, but be careful of the splinters.

The Grape Vine

A neighbor of mine trimmed his grape vines down to try and produce some better grapes. I don't think he had done it in years. He gave me some of the trimmings and after 2 years I tried to see what I could make from them. Very few branches were straight enough to get to get 6 inches without a knot,a bend, or a branching. I did find places where there looked to be enough wood for a bottle stopper, so I cut a few pieces from the pile and headed into the shop. I cut enough out to try and turn 2 pens and 3 bottle stoppers, even though I had no idea if they would turn at all and what the wood looked like. I got real lucky, it appears, on the first pen. The picture below shows how the wood looks after working through the moss and bark on the outside, to a very decorative and interesting wood.

After completing this pen, I had high hopes for the rest. As it turns out, the grape was full of cracks, wormholes and a soft core that seemed to reflect a central core, although it was hard to tell as it did not run very straight. Here is a picture of a second pen and 3 bottle stoppers I turned and then added colored epoxy in all of the cracks and holes I found. After a second turning, all four pieces when back to the bench for a refill of epoxy. you can see the epoxy I used, as well as the paint I used to color the epoxy. I only used a single drop as that seemed to be sufficient and I did not want to weaken the epoxy too much.

I'm now waiting for the third batch of epoxy to set before I finish turning the pen and bottle stopper. Maybe I'll dig through the pile and look for another chunk for a pen.

Enjoy, and be careful of the splinters.

Goofing around

I had a small piece of myrtle wood in a chuck so I turned a small bell shape, which I turned into a small 'critter'. This was all done in fun for me. But Myrtle wood is hard to carve, so I used a rotary tool to get the shapes I wanted. I also tried wood burning on it, which actually worked quite well. A touch of paint, even some extra paint that I didn't see until I blew up the photographs. You can see from the carved area around the legs that the shape was a tad thin. The shaped area is the result of cracking when I tried to reverse mount the shape on the lathe so I could turn the top. All of the carving and wood burning was done at my bench, most of the time with a magnifying viewer. The legs are from bass wood scraps. Other than the paint around the eyes and feet, there is no finish on this piece, yet.

Enjoy, and be careful of the splinters.