A little scare

As you can see from this picture from my last post I have 2 lights that illuminate the wood as I am turning, one a desk lamp and the other a magnetic base flexible light designed more for this type of environment.  Both are expecting 75W bulbs or less and they have 100W in them.  I was making a lot of chips yesterday and was doing pretty well.  I had taken Sociallady to the below ground metro to get to work and the kids were around.  While turning I had noticed a slight burning smell but didn't think too much of it, thinking maybe toast from one of the kids.  The phone rang and they came down to get me for the phone.  Grandma was worried about metro derailment on the news and we talked that all was well.  I had taken all my turning gear off, I drifted upstairs to check on things and my social networks.  When I came downstairs there was smoke in the air.  The desk lamp had collected chips, dried them out and started them smoldering..I unplugged the light, took it outside and dumped the ashes in the snow.  Some were bright orange! I turned the box fan on in the open door and the bathroom fan but it was very slow to leave.  I left for a while with the kids home and said I need one of them to turn the fan off and shut the door.  When I came back about two hours later, I learn that the door was just shut (something about you do it, no not me, you!) and the fan was slowed but not turned off.  (ah youth).  I still smelled it today when I went down to turn today.  My brain may be smelling that for months to come!

Beech Branch

I have been working on a Beech Branch that came from the Smail's in Galeton. I cut the pith out but only took 1/3 or less from the log. I have heard that the branches have stresses in them that cause breaking and distortion. . Playing the cards that I have I cut the end with the pith and I am trying to make a separate bowl out of that as well. I centered the the log on my faceplate and with the smallest removal of bark at the corner. I turned it round and determined that I didn't want to make it that big so I turned it into two pieces of about the same size, about 4 inches deep, including tenon.

I turned the first bowl about 1/4 inch thick and started to sand it. It has a long way to go but I am done turning it and going to work with the sanding the rest of the way... There is some formating that needs to be done with sandpaper but it should come out nice if the tension does not twist it in knots.

The second bowl I didn't want to get too far along. If turning first one messes it up, wanted to learn from it and not mess this one up.. I have one bowl that I just turned from the "dried" rough turned blank and I like the way it came out. It did not move much so I am hoping the same for these. The wood is medium brown with some character in the grain lines.

snowmageddon

Wow...the snow of the century, at least for the DC area... 35 inches or so in a week is not bad anywhere, just a disaster here..... This has given me some time with the wood... I pulled out the chain saw and cut up some logs using the large pile of snow in the driveway as the sawhorse. I cut up some beech from pa and see if I can get something to come out from that wood...OMG I am not doing very well with those logs... I have broken bowls all over the place lately...not sure why...working with woods I don't usually work with...may have some thing to do with it..but some is my stupidity... that comes by the bucketful ...

I inherited a second webber grill from neighbors when the moved. sitting under the deck for months, decided to try drying wood in it, not sure how it will work in the snowstorm but we will see... I put a 40 watt bulb in it and it now has 2 bowls that were rough turned, see how it goes, need to keep an eye on it though...first bowl in there seemed fine so far...oak from WVA.

snow day...good day

Today was a very good day for my turning.. I emptied the gas tank on the chainsaw, bought a new can and gas, put oil in it and the chainsaw WORKED! Wow ... that was the first it was running and stayed running for several months!

One of the logs I cut was Smail Ash, and I turned a bowl out of it.. it had the rings starting to crack in the center...I glued it up and left it pretty thick so that it would not break. It came out quite nice...ok, it is drying and may move some... I got a small profile base on it and it looks nice. See how it looks when I put finish on it. I wanted to cover the difference in ca glue and not in the heart wood so I covered the whole heartwood section with CA and it currently looks good... see how the CA and finish work together... We will see...

yesterday I turned a small glass, goblet, or egg dish, whatever you want to call it. it was fun...I will have to try more of them, maybe bigger.

early year smaller turnings

Some of my recent turnings and not sure I am really happy with them all. This first one I am most happy and disappointed with all in the same bowl. I think it had good potential and nicely thin and pretty consistent thickness. used the cole jaws and tailstock. when I took the piece of wood out from the tailstock, I tried making another cut and caught enough of it to crack it pretty badly. it did not go all the way to the rim and I super glued it and it is not horrible and usable. As the side view shows it warped even though I roughed it out and let it dry for several weeks. This is wood that I received from Brenda L. and it is from the land that she is building a house on. I did a similar move on another bowl that turned out to be very consistent thickness. I could tell this because it split into two pieces.

These three are pretty small, about 4-5 inches high. Left is Galeton Ash, turned pretty nicely. I liked how it came out. Didn't move much and nice lines. Middle one is cherry I think. Deb's wood I think and some natural edge. I like the small base and hope to try some more of that. The third is chestnut oak from Linda's WVA tree and shows (not in this shot) some of the interesting grain I found in parts of the tree.. some of this tree looked pretty bad but turned out very nice. If it is chestnut oak, it is related more toward white oak and smelled of tannins. This wood moved quite a bit in all the bowls I have done...

This is from the Mary F. Maple with the spalt and character. This moved some as well and I got pretty close in a spot at the bottom. It is not that noticeable and other than the the base not being very flat it is a pretty good bowl.

Stoppers

This year I started turning bottle stoppers. This picture is of the ones that I took to Christmas with the family to give away. I have had some fun with these...quick, unique, satisfying. I had the larger stoppers for several years and tried to build my own mandrel, but it never worked well and I gave up. I recently purchased a mandrel from Ruth Niles with some of the shorter stoppers. It works like a champ! I knew I was going to make some presents and I needed to order some more stoppers so I ordered from Ruth again. When the check got there she emailed me to say that she sent them out. I thought this is cool, response from a real people. Then a couple of days later, she called me, said that she had a couple of orders "get lost" in NJ and wondered if I got my order. I said no, she called back next day...I said I was not in a hurry, lets see if it comes and it came on Thursday. I really love buying from small companies that care about the customer.

Commission

This is the first "commission" I have had.  I try and give bowls to people who give me wood but this was can you make me some bowls if I give you some wood... She wanted to pay me and ask what I would charge.  I have no idea what to charge and no idea what they are worth.  It was taken from land her husband's family owns in WVA and that the parents never got to move to and there is just a camp there now that the boys use it I guess.  She wanted to give one to her husband and his mother.  Both of these are from the same log, claimed to be a Chestnut Oak.   Clearly oak and darker than the other log that looks to be white oak.

I roughed out both blanks and turned what the wood gave me, like I almost always do, sometime I have to start having design ideas but  I have not gotten there yet.  This first one is rather V shaped with some curves to it.  It has a couple of nice knots in it that give it some character.  I roughed it out with a tenon on the end and got it fairly even and thin.  It stayed pretty round, though some of my pictures don't show that and there was little or no cracking. 

..

The second one is another story.  I had a recessed dovetail and when I roughed it out it was pretty thick and thicker at the base.  it has a large knot in it and it started to crack on the outside near the knot.  I turned out the cracks and made a bowl from what was left..  The knot kept cracking and has some CA holding it together..   It moved a lot but doesn't look that bad in pictures.  Maybe it came back as it dried.    I put a couple of coats of salad bowl finish on them and looked pretty good rubbed down with steel wool a little bit.