Well, I finally got back out to the shop after being “on tour” recently and I got a chance to do a bit of woodturning. I chose a piece of Lacewood that I had sitting here on the bench for the past little while. Perhaps you remember back about a mouth ago when I had a small piece of Lacewood and turned a candle holder as a ‘practice’ piece before turning a bowl out of this wood.

The bowl is 5.5″ in diameter and 2″ tall. It is finished with the EEE Ultrashine and ShellaWax combo.

Even though I’m quite happy with the final result I doubt if I will rush out to purchase any more Lacewood bowl blanks any time soon. Unlike the candle holder I found turning this bowl a real challenge since the wood seemed very brittle which caused finishing issues with the end grain. I can assure you that it was much larger in diameter when I started!

Here are some more photos:

Continue reading 'A Lovely Little Lacewood Bowl'

Here’s a candle holder that I recently made out of Lacewood. It is about 3.5″ in diameter and 2″ tall. It’s finished with the Shellawax combo.

I bought a Lacewood bowl blank and was lucky to also find a small piece of it in the scrap bin. Since I hadn’t turned Lacewood before I thought I’d start with the piece of scrap. It was easy to turn and even though it has a coarse texture it finished up pretty nice.

Lacewood is a wood that comes from Australia. It is also known as Silky Oak, likely because of the prominent rays that are similar to Oak. It is a reddish brown / pinkish color.

Continue reading 'A Lacewood Candle Holder'

Here’s a bowl that I turned made out of West African Zebrawood. Zebrawood, also known as Zebron, has a figure that reminds of a Zebra with its contrasting light and dark coloring.

The bowl is almost 5″ at the top and tapers to 3″ at its base. It is about 2″ high and is finished with Ultrashine and Shellawax.

There is a dark spot near the bottom of the bowl that gives it a bit of a focus point. This might have been a branch at one time.

Here are some photos of different views:

Continue reading 'West African Zebrawood Bowl'

Here is another collection of wine stoppers that I turned recently. As you can see, woodturning is quite addictive! It doesn’t take much time to complete a project, these taking less than a half hour to turn and finish.

Items like this make great gifts. When taking a bottle of wine to a dinner party or a barbeque I plan on taking one of these to leave with the hosts.

The process for making them is quite easy as explained here in this post.

Here are closeups of the individual wine stoppers:

Continue reading 'Another Collection Of Wine Stoppers'

In between other projects I’ve been puttering away at making a variety of wine stoppers. Using scrap pieces of wood and the tricks I learned at the wine stopper course I took last month I am getting into the habit of turning one as a bit of practice. Here’s four that I did recently:

These are great little projects to make. They don’t take much time and are an excellent exercise in spindle turning. They also make great use of small scraps of wood that may be lying around.

Here are closeup photos of each of the stoppers:

Continue reading 'A Collection Of Wine Stoppers'

Here is a couple of pens that I just turned. The pen on the top is in the European Round Top pen style and is made out of Buckeye Burl. The pen on the bottom is in the Slimline style and made out of Tulipwood.

Buckeye is a beautiful wood available throughout North America, specifically the US state of Ohio where it is the State Tree. The burl has a terrific swirling grain with multi-colored layers. I find that it looks like some varieties of animal horn.

Tulipwood is an exotic wood from northern Brazil, not to be confused with Poplar which is also referred to as Tulipwood. The heartwood is a beautiful pink-yellow with a pronounced striped figure in varying shades of salmon pink and rose red. The grain is straight but more often irregular, with a fine texture.

Both pens are finished with the UltraShine and Shellawax combo.

Back to the shop…

We were treated to two great presentations last night at this months Nova Woodturners Guild meeting. The first was a sharpening presentation by Don Moore and the second was an information session on hollow turning by Dave Wilkins.

Don began the evening showing us the various facets of correctly sharpening our woodturning tools. Some of the information he imparted (and/or reminded us of) included:

Here’s a bowl of fire! Well, that’s what it looks like to me. I used an African hardwood called Padauk to create this bowl. With its rich grain and fiery red color it certainly makes a fine piece.

The bowl is 6″ in diameter and 2″ tall and finished with the new finishes that I recently bought. You can see how these finishes really enhances the project.

Padauk ranges in color from a deep red to a bright orange and it will darken overtime to a dark reddish brown.

Continue reading 'Pretty Padauk - A Bowl Of Fire'

Here is a bowl I just finished that is turned from Curly Birch. Curly Birch is a highly figured wood that has a beautiful, wavy grain that is said to look like ‘watered silk’. It is 6 1/2″ in diameter and 2″ tall.

I turned it with a shallow bottom that meets the side in somewhat of an undercut, creating a large, rounded rim. The bottom was turned with a scalloped relief. Overall, the bowl gives the impression of being fairly ‘hefty’ and when handled you have a tendency to grip the sides in an attempt to flex it. Rather unique.

Here are some close up photos:

Continue reading 'A Robust Rimmed Bowl Of Curly Birch'

I turned some handles for a few files and a drill chuck key today. Using the skills I learned at the recent course on Turning A Tool Handle I quickly, and easily, completed them within a few hours.

They are all made of maple with copper ferrules made from some old pipe that I got from a good friend. I left them unfinished to enhance their grip. Each one is shaped a bit different just because I wanted to have some fun with spindle turning.

The second one from the top sports some burn lines made by first making a slight groove and then holding a thin wire tightly against the turning wood. The chuck key is for my drill press and the longer handle will allow more torque as well as being a bit easier on the hand.

Continue reading 'Fine Handles For Files And Chuck Key'