New bowl

Wow, It has been a long time since I posted. Problems around the house has slowed me down. Not all tasks are related to woodworking. A week in the Bahamas took precedence too. :-)


Here is a bowl I turned from spalted maple, the lid is purple heart and the knob or handle is from cherry. The finish is linseed oil. I turned the bowl and lid before vacation, but only now posting it. Also, I included a shot of my typical setup when I take the pictures.


I did not edit the pictures this time, but used Photo Shop Elements to batch the size reduction. If you have trouble loading or looking at them, let me know. I'll go back to preparing the pictures by hand.

Enjoy and be careful of the splinters.

Updated Sewing Room

It has been almost a month since I posted here. I've included a few pictures of what I've been doing. While not really woodworking, at least I wasn't sitting on my tush.


This room will be my wife's sewing room. We will need to move the quilt frame out, but While it was here I was able to work around it while putting up new wallboard, taping and painting, re-wiring the light, working on the ceiling, replacing all of the outlets, floor, molding. It was a long process, but it looks great.

We are looking at how to layout the furnishings in the room. Most of the cabinets will end up on wheels so they can be moved around as needed. The quilt frame will migrate to a different room that is longer and narrower. We will need some permanent storage, I think, to take advantage of the upper areas of the room. My wife is not to sure on that as it limits some flexibility.

For those not aware of what the room looked like, it had fake paneling covering moldy sheet rock that was not tapped, indoor/outdoor carpeting glued to the floor and 59 cent porcelain light fixtures.

Enjoy, and be careful of the splinters.

More Pens

Well, this weeks pictures are fuzzy. Don't know why, but I probably won't re-shoot them. One is a slim twist pen for my wife, the other is a fountain pen for my daughter. Both were a pain. I had no instructions for the fountain pen, and the wood fibers tore out on the twist pen. Never the less they are complete and I'm on to new things.

I still have a couple of pencils to try, as well as three more Euro Style twist pens (the bigger ones that I've posted.) Before that I plan to start and build a small box as a retirement gift for one of the people at work. I also need to redo my shop plan to see if I can get it approved by the county. Always a project in the works.

Be careful of the splinters.

For the Neighbor

Hi again. It's been a week. Here is a pen and Wine bottle stopper that I turned for my neighbor. This came from the tree that he removed between the two properties. The wood was still wet so I nuked it for several short periods of time to dry it out (20 seconds full power, 3 minutes to cool off.) It still is not my favorite wood, but it did work. They did appreciate the pen and wine bottle stopper. Both the pen and the sopper were made of a combination of heart (brown) and sap (white) wood. The piece I brought into the garage was trying to sprout when I picked it up yesterday.

I have a second picture of the pen I did last week. This is made from Cherry, Australian M... and yellow Sculpty clay. The clays fires at 250 degrees. I did the first 10 minutes clamped between the 2 woods, then removed the wood and cooked it by itself another 10 minutes. It gave the pen a pretty cool look. I'll have to try doing this method on a few more objects, as it is kinda fun and unique. The worst issue is that on a twist pen the pattern goes out of alignment when you use it. I don't know if I like that yet.

Be careful of the splinters.

Plastering

I've been plastering walls in my wife's new sewing room. The previous owner covered the walls with paneling. I peeled that off and found that the wallboard had not been taped or sealed. So I changed the lights in the ceiling and started plastering the walls and the joint at the ceiling. Slow work, but I enjoy it. I'll need to add two more layers of plaster to the wall to feather the joints so they become less obvious. Some of the previous work was pretty bad. I still need to tape the joint at the top of the closet. Later.

After I finish with the plaster, I need to re-texture and the paint the ceiling, followed by painting the walls. At that point I can finally lay the floor, a project I started 3 years ago.

I did turn a new pen, which I'll post a picture later. I'm just too tired to haul the stuff out for the picture.

Be careful of the splinters.

Here is a bottle stopper that I made. It is from a single piece of wood that has both heart wood (red) and sap wood (brown) in it. I just happened to center the turning so the color splits the wood. The wood is Australian M... I just couldn't read the writing. It tore a little when I was turning it, not a real hard wood. I turned a couple of pens as seen in the previous post with the same wood, but they were only one color.

I'm preparing some more pen blanks that will use a piece of this later. I've been refinishing a basement room for my wife's sewing, so that has taken precedence over my wood working.

Be careful of the splinters.

More Pens

It turned a batch of pens to send to the soldiers in Iraq, as part of a special project put together by the Cascade Wood Turners Association. I think this is in conjunction with a national program. I've included pictures of the set. I'll post separate pictures later.

I used a variety of woods, Cherry, Oregon Myrtal, Purple Heart, Australian M... (I couldn't read the writing), Spalted something, and a small piece of another oddball. These are all twist pens, and took about 1/2 hour each. Most of the pens were finished with super-glue and linseed oil. A couple were coated with a hard wax.

Enjoy, and be careful of the splinters.