The other night I went to a Robert Sorby Tools demonstration at our local Busy Bee Tools store where Sorby sales representative Chris Pouncy, from Sheffield, England, demonstrated several tools from the Sorby product line. It was one of the most entertaining presentations that I have ever went to. Seriously.

Chris kept a patter going throughout the whole demo that should be the envy of a lot of stand-up comics on the circuit today. From his use of ‘tongue oil’ to the graphic story of his Irish Wolfhound with it’s head caught in a cat door he peppered his presentation with humorous stories about his travels and his life. He also exchanged quips and jokes with the audience members that kept us ‘rolling in the aisles’. All that was missing as the ba-da-bump of a drum.

This is not to say that with all this fun going on Chris didn’t get down to business and tell us about the Sorby tools and show us what they could do. No, in fact, this is where he really shone for he not only entertained us but he did his ‘routine’ all while he turned and taught.

And boy, did he turn! To demo the different attributes and features of the various Sorby tools by Chris turned an enclosed bowl, a spiral example and an off-center piece.

Here’s a few photos showing the enclosed bowl with texture that was created by the Sorby Texturing Tool:

Continue reading 'A Rockin’ Robert Sorby Tool Demo'

Last night I had the opportunity, along with a dozen others, to spend the evening with woodturner, Zalman Amit. Though the design and form of Zalman Amit’s works includes a varying range of unique styles last night’s presentation focused on his use of perforations, or piercing, in woodturning. His mastery of this technique has led him to create one-of-a-kind turnings, on which he shared his creative process and insight.

His presentation was a combination of how and why he became a woodturner, his thoughts on woodturning as an artistic approach, his observations on design and form and how he creates his perforated turnings. He gave an excellent in-depth tutorial on his technique that included a live demonstration. There were also several of his beautiful pieces on display that he used to highlight a point or to clarify. Seeing, touching and being able to hold these pieces of art was a treat in itself!

Throughout his career as a university professor Zalman dreamed of becoming a woodturner. After retiring and moving to Nova Scotia his chance to pursue this dream arrived and in 1999 he started turning. After a couple of years of extensive training, with both professional instruction and his own perseverance, Zalman began seeking something more than the traditional bowls and platters that he had been making. This search led him to creating thin-walled vessels and then the addition of perforations.

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Today was both a happy day and a sad day. Happy, because we would finish the chair to the point that we had set out to do four days ago and sad, of course, because it was my last day here at Rocking Chair University. The week had gone so fast, it seemed that I had just arrived!

The day started with a special treat. In addition to rocking chairs Hal has made several guitars and harps. Here he is playing a few songs on the ‘Reso Nuevo’ resophonic guitar (dobro) that he built:

He doesn’t make guitars anymore but he says he’s working on a few more harp designs and he also hopes to make a violin sometime!

After this enjoyable mini-concert we worked on the arms and the rockers. The first thing to do was to plane the rockers to size:

Continue reading 'Rocking Chair University Week – Day 5'

The English Walnut that we were using for the chair had a very distinct coloring, ranging from mostly the creamy white of the sapwood to what would be considered the more traditional dark brown of the heartwood. Since it hadn’t been ‘steamed’ as most commercial Walnut is it retained it’s natural color throughout. It’s sweet smell had a tang that peaked your senses as soon as you walked into the shop, immediately setting the mind’s perspective of the work, or journey, ahead.

It was Day 4 here at Hal’s and since the smell of the Walnut has set my mood I’m ready and raring to go!

We started today with coopering the backrest. As I said in the first post this chair is a small rocker so the ‘headrest’ of a traditional rocker is the backrest on this one. Here are the four pieces that we will be using:

The joining edges were cut to a 4-5 degree angle, which will give a comfortable sweep. The edges were then planed, glued together and clamped with pinch dogs:

Continue reading 'Rocking Chair University Week – Day 4'