Some ornaments today

 

I turned 3 ornaments today. Hollowed forms with a spindle for the top. Finished them off with my buffing system.

 

Making ornaments today

I made a couple ornaments today. On vacation and decided to brush up on my hollowing skills. I also got a new spindle gouge from Thomson Lathe tools. I love the new tool and wanted to use it.

 

The ornaments are about 3 inches in diameter and 3 – ½ inches long. I put a top on both. The first was a ½ inch hole for hollowing. This is a little harder to hollow. The second ornament had a ¾ inch hole. I can get my finger in the form so it is a little easier to see what is going on.

Looking to turn something today

I just received a ½ inch spindle gouge and need to make a handle. I can do this or make a hollowed form for an ornament. I’ll go downstairs in the shop and figure it out.

On vacation

 

Today starts my vacation. Nice to be out of the office for a few days. I am looking forward to moving my woodturning shop to the garage. I’ll work on some projects and see how it goes. Stay tuned.

A new blog

 

I just attended the April Central Ohio Woodturners club meeting. We had a beginner’s corner and an advanced session. The beginners corner was dedicated to sharpening. The advanced course was dedicated to inside out turning. We had a pretty good crowd last night.

 

One more session with turning and election of officers. More later

 

Btw I am using MS Word to write this post. This seems pretty good for now.

This weekend I made another hollowed vessel.  This time it was a Walnut lidded vessel.  I started with a block of Walnut about 5 – ½ inches long and 3 inches wide.  The blank was originally designed to be an egg weed pot.  I have been making more hollowed forms lately.  I made a lip on the vase to accept a lid.  The lid is made of Ebony wood and the finial is Bloodwood. 

Today I made three honey dippers.  I have submitted my request to be in the office craft show scheduled for March 11 and 12.  If I get in, I’ll be selling more smaller items like pens and honey dippers.  I also cut some pen blanks.  During the holiday office craft show, the pens sold well.  I’ll turn about 7 or 8 pens next weekend.  I just ordered a new mandrel that is advertised not to bend when bringing up the tail stock.  We shall see.

Doing more hollowing

Over the past couple weeks I have started looking at doing more hollowing.  I like to do this and I think there are less people doing this.  I was also thinking about making these as pet urns.  We shall see how it goes.

Last weekend I made a couple small lidded boxes and a larger hollowed form.  I also made a bowl with a small opening with ebony top.  It’s all about the hollowing.

Coming back from Woodworking Show

Now I have come back from the woodworking show, I have purchased and received some new woodturning toys.  The first is the bandsaw guides.  We saw the demonstration and the guy was cutting straight pieces with the band saw.  I only got the guides that will support resaw straight cuts.  I do not think I’ll need the other types of cuts.

The other thing I purchased was a vacuum chucking system.  Since I worked at the Craft Supplies booth helping with the pen turning, I got a 20% discount on most anything I ordered.  I ordered the Gast ¼ HP vacuum chuck.  I also got the holdfast adapter that will allow me to attach the vacuum chuck to my lathe and some sheets of neoprene.  I also ordered a new woodturning smock.

After getting the order in the mail, I realized that I had not ordered a drum chuck.  I am planning on making some of my own, but I wanted to start with some basic ones.  I had a couple $10 gift cards from CraftSupply and they are offering free shipping until the end of January on orders over $125.  I ordered the 5 – ½ and 3 – ½ inch drum chucks.  They just arrived in the mail this afternoon.  I’ll probably setup them up tomorrow evening. 

I plan to use the vacuum chucking system to turn bowls and platters 10 inches and larger.  Anything over 10 inches would be reversed chucked by undercutting the bowl portion of the platter and expanding the robber knobs on the chuck into the undercut area.  This works, but restricts the design.  I will try my hand at some natural edge bowls where the rim of the bowl is uneven.

Last week I received an order for turning a drawer pull knob.  It is called a tier drop shape.  It comes from a Victorian dresser.  The lady is going to paint the knob, so it does not matter what type of wood I use.  I’ll probably use Walnut.

Going to the Woodworking show

This weekend is the woodworking show.  I spent the afternoon over at the show yesterday.  I saw a few things that were of some interest.  The item that caught my eye was a jig setup for the ban saw that allowed for cuts with no drift.  I saw the demonstration a couple years ago, but was not sure what the demonstration was.  This time we spent a few minutes watching the band saw demonstration.  You never know exactly what the tools will actually do in the hands of mere mortals though.  The thing that got my interest was that later on in the day I talked to a woodturner club member who had one.  He liked it.  Tomorrow, I’m going back over to the show and I think I’ll pick up one.

Tomorrow I’ll be going over to the show to help in the woodturning section of Craft Supplies.  I spent some time watching the pen turning area to see how they were doing.  It was pretty simple.  They have 3 lathes setup.  Each person is given a carbon ended tool and a skew, both to use as a scraper.   They have all the pen blanks ready to go.  Should be interesting.

Today I turned the caps for 3 acorn birdhouse ornaments along with the perches.  These will be sold at the local nature reserve to raise money.  I’ll probably turn them in at the club meeting this Thursday.

Getting through the holidays

Over the Christmas week I finally ended up selling items for the holidays.  I sold a handful of Christmas ornaments.  During the Christmas weekend I made 2 bowls and a new wren house.  I saw a wren house at winter fare on December 5^th.  It looks pretty good.

I just joined Zibbet to sell my works instead of ETSY.  My website www.blindwooturner.com still points to ETSY for now.  My Zibbet website is www.zibbet.com/dpdevendra.  I am having a little problem with accessibility that I am trying to work out with the Zibbet group.