Thanks for the wood.

My goal in turning is to learn, have fun and get some wood to turn with.  with that plan in mind, I like to give back to the people that gave me the wood.. I have done it with friends and have a plan to do it with other wood I get but sometimes get less motivated.  Today I took a couple of bowls to Deb that I .... well, almost begged on facebook to come and get some of the wood that came down when a "tornado" came through and cleaned out some of the weaker, dying trees in the neighborhood.
I had roughed out several of the blanks and many had  punky spots that were rotting when the tree was up.  I found this one chunk that was pretty clear and made  a pretty nice plain bowl.  I kept looking at it and said that I didn't think it was a good representation of what that tree is about.  I found another log and decided to try natural edge bowl.  I had not tried this in a while and had just seen a demo on making them and cranked one out and it came out real nice.  It has a hole in the bottom where there was a knot but the bark stayed on and even had some nice character to it.   I delivered them both to her and her BF today and made me feel good.

Karma

At the last meeting, Phil was collecting items for the Potomac library exhibit.  I know that they have a big display case and he likes to fill it up.  Displays are not for sales but you can make your own deal if someone calls you...  I do it for the club and to get items out in front of people.  He was not getting many items and since there was no meeting the month before, I figured that most of us forgot.  I offered to bring some items if he needed them.   I reminded him earlier in the week and he said sure, bring some big pieces.  I put together 4 big bowls (including the wide rimmed bowl that is currently the top picture of this blog), loaded them in the car and  Cindy and I took a drive down River Road.  It was a very pretty day for and it is always fun to look at the big houses in Potomac, so we thought we would take the scenic route.   Many signs of winter storms with pine limbs everywhere, but not much I can use for turning.  Then, just before the turn onto river from the slightly less scenic route, tree workers with Oh so much maple laying on the ground, I thought I was dreaming.  I continued down to Phil's house and got a wonderful tour of his collection of wood, glass and clay items.  On the way home I was torn for going to rockville to eat or checking out the wood.  We stopped to see the wood and picked up 5 good chunks. There was soooo much, 6 huge maple trees.  There was ambrosia, spalt and lots of large logs and crotches, I just couldn't get them in my little wagon.   I could have gone back with papa's truck sitting out front of the house but StrongBackBoy was out at GF's, and I didn't have it in me..  Instead I cut up what I had, sealed it, stacked it and started turning it by roughing out one bowl and I got another rounded out... It has me flummoxed a little.  It is spalted and punky on one side and is hard to turn and is very off balanced with a light side and a wet heavy side... I will clean it up tomorrow.  I don't know what will come of it but it has potential!  So everything fell into place, Karma..... Now I hope I can get something worthwhile out of this!

We did stop and eat...Went to Michael's Noodles and it was very good.  Different than anything we had had before but yummy.

Last Saturday they were taking a tree down in the back and I grabbed some logs hoping to make something interesting.  While I was chopping it up with the chainsaw I took one piece that I thought may be interesting.  It had 2 knobs that I believe were limbs that were cut off and grown over.   So I turned it mostly out on Saturday evening.  It needed a lot of sanding and was still attached to the chuck by the tenon and no thought of a base put on it, kept thick to increase stability turning the piece and sanding.
 So Tuesday was my down day and had a chance to sand out the bowl and got it pretty nice, it has distorted some, but I like it.  I saw David E. put a little rounded base on his bowl and I was going to try this.  I was parting it off so that I would put it in a jam chuck and finish the base.  As I was parting it off, it went flying toward the wall and ended up spinning in the space between the wall and base of the lathe.  A little swear word may have exited my lips but the lip had a scrape and the side of the bowl where the sap wood is.  It turns out, as you can see in the photos, my "character" in the wood has a dead spot right in the center of the base.  I currently have cut off the left over on the base and put glue in the rotted part.  I will add a photo when I finish.

Learning from the best.

Getting in the shop for a while during the snowmagedon allowed me to do some experimenting.  We had Warren Carpenter at our November meeting making us think about and showing us how to turn natural edge bowls that add some interest to the design.  I started with a crotch piece of wood.  I was told it is cherry, and it has some cherry qualities,  but I have some doubts.  I need to have it checked.    I took the log and put it on a small faceplate and used some techniques that I learned in the demo.  First I thought about keeping the "branches" as part of the design, and second I learned that when roughing the base tenon, make 2 levels, one to hold the wood and one to make the base.  This allowed me to hold the wood, turn the bowl and have a smaller base than the chuck.  

I was very happy when I finished it and put my salad bowl finish on it, not that I think that it will have salad or much food in it at all but I do like the finish and it will take some moisture without bothering it.  I have showed this off to my coworkers, top picture at my posterous page, but out meeting was canceled so I had to wait until the March MCW meeting.  Turns out that David Ellsworth was the guest demonstrator and he critiqued the show and tell table.  He walked around the table and picked up hollow forms and bowls and described many design features and places for improvement.  He walked back around the table picking up more pieces and went right around my heart bowl in the middle of the table.  He finally picked it up and called it a "sweet bowl"!  He described how the base could be curved ever so slightly because a curved piece fights against the sharp line of the base.  It may take me a couple of months to let this info soak into that thick skull of mine and find the time to put metal to wood, but I hope I can improve my design.

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.