Quick little project completed today. I found an old magazine with the acrobatic Bear in it so I decided to have a go at making one. I had something similar when I was a young lad. Pretty simple to operate, gently squeeze together the bottom sticks which make the bear flip over, squeeze again and he flips back. The grandchildren should have fun with it.
Sorry about the picture orientation, not sure why my iPad turned them this was?

I started this project last fall when I harvested a large limb from my neighbors Mulberry tree. The lamps shape came from trial and error of earlier lamp attempts. Drilling the 3/8” hole the length of the lamp was made easier with the 4 jaw chuck. I purchased a set of jaws some time ago but never used them until now, I’ll be using them a lot more after this turning! I used China Wood Tung oil for the finish, putting on 3 coats with 24 hours between coats.

I like this lamp very much, the Mulberry yellow tuned golden with the bit of sapwood at the base complementing the shape and color.

Hope you like it, thanks for looking!

First off I want to thank Steven Marin of Woodworking for Mere Mortals http://www.WoodworkingForMereMortals.com for the idea! As a new woodworker I found this to be a good challenge to my budding skills ;-)

I started my picture journal a little late so here’s where I started. I need a chunk of wood at least 1 1/2” thick and to my luck I found an old bed headboard on the curb heading for the dump. I brought it home cleaned it up and found it had a wonderful grain to it. I used Steve’s template and cut it out on the bandsaw. The body was really the same as making a bandsaw box. I used this method to saw off 1/4” front and back and then a jigsaw to cut the acoustic chamber in the middle section.
I wanted to use marbles for the swinging hammers but could not see a way to tie them to the harp. I decided I could turn them on my lathe. After MANY attempts I finally learned how to turn a sphere on the lathe. I finally got three close to the same size and reasonably round. Next I needed a way to suspend them over the strings. My first thought was to use bolts but that didn’t really appeal to me so again “why not turn some on the lathe” (so I did. I got to use my calipers to get the peg dimensions so I could mount them on the harp.
Now the “how am I going to attache the guitar strings”? Again bolts with holes drilled popped up that’s how Steve did it. and Again why not turn some on the lathe, didn’t work so well! The wood pegs I turned could not stand the sideways pull the tuned guitar strings created. I found some anchor pegs at the local guitar shop and found tuning pegs on Amazon for a couple of dollars . I ended up using two part epoxy on the anchor pins to keep them in place but the turning pegs were perfect and held the tension perfectly. I built my own bridge using some maple I had laying around and a stout piece of steel wire.
The first picture is the completed harp I am pretty pleased at how it turned out. To see all the pictures take a look at my flickr pictures at this address: http://www.flickr.com/photos/kelly_fuller/sets/72157623384806745/

I tell my grandchildren when they open the door and hear the music it means their guardian angle is entering the room with them. They seems to enjoy that thought.

Thanks for looking and if you see Steve Marin give him a thanks from me!!

I like this pen a lot!Creating this pen was a new challenge for me. I had no idea what the finished product was going to look like when I started the design. I was really impressed, as I started to remove wood from the square blank I started with to see this pattern emerge.

Another learning adventure! I decided to try my hand at making a segmented pen this time. Again, joining is THE key to success! As will all woods there is always a surprise waiting for you inside and this turning didn’t disappointment me. The picture does not show the burst of light emitted by the wood well! There is a distinct glow coming out of opposite sides of this pen, even with low light you can see the glow, pretty cool!!!!

Sorry about the duplication! I don’t know what caused this to happen.

Simple project but learned more about segmented turning. Now on bigger and better turning ;-P

Maple (soft) and Walnut woods represented here, both are from limbs I milled earlier this spring.

This is my first attempt at turning anything segmented. While not all that complicated I did discover the need to have perfectly matched mating surfaces? The smallest gap ruins the piece, yep this is not my first attempt but my first success ;-D Not sure who in the family will claim such a large key bob, but I am sure someone will.

Simple project but learned more about segmented turning. Now on bigger and better turning ;-P

Maple (soft) and Walnut woods represented here, both are from limbs I milled earlier this spring.

This is my first attempt at turning anything segmented. While not all that complicated I did discover the need to have perfectly matched mating surfaces? The smallest gap ruins the piece, yep this is not my first attempt but my first success ;-D Not sure who in the family will claim such a large key bob, but I am sure someone will.

Our 5 year old grandson Cooper was the drive on the design and making of this fleet of cars and trucks. I wanted more detail but he would have no part of that, he drew the outline in sawdust of what he wanted them to look like. We used repurposed wood mostly from the neighbors old deck. The wheels are plywood plugs from a yard tool storage unit I made last fall. Cooper learned how to hold a paintbrush and proper painting technique. We painted with acrylic paints with a final coat of enamel spray for shine.
On some of the semi trailer I used the “bandsaw box” technique to get the hollowed out look.

I will add, Cooper learned patients! A rare lesson in our times, it took several visits to finish this project. With each visit we would establish what we wanted to accomplish and work to that end. Sometimes we were successful and a few times we fell short, life is not always perfect there are wins and losses.

I spent the day up in my shop with just me! What a rare treat!! The oak pulls are for my mothers house, her pulls are, well just plain ugly, and need replaced. I used friction polish on the pens and pulls
A friend knows the chemistry needed to replace the organic matter in an Iowa corn cob to plastic. When you turn the cob you know very quickly by the smell! It is indeed plastic.

The wood for the walnut pen was harvested last year in our backyard. The picture does not show the grain very well, it is quite a handsome pen.
The last snow storm/blizzard fell a lot of trees here, the oak pulls are from a large oak branch I drug home behind my Geo Metro after that storm.

Started with two limbs from the neighbors lilac bush and a mulberry tree, put them on my lathe and magically my first lamp materialized out of the logs.

For The brace I used mulberry and the lamp body lilac wood.

This project was A lot of fun and challenging in a couple areas. I’m quite sure there will be more lamp turnings in my future.

Walnut joiners mallet

Last fall I cut some volunteer walnut trees out of the fence line. I let the season outside for the long Iowa winter, bringing it inside late this spring.

I applied 3 sloppy wet coats of Tung Oil, 0000 steel wool between coats. Now I think it is too pretty to use!

These is a mallets turned from hard volunteer Mulberry tree, seasoned over the winter and turned this spring.
This is dense wood with vivid golden colors accented by the browns of the grain.
Finished with 3 coats of Tung Oil, any future touch-ups will be very easy.

This is a mallet turned from hard volunteer Lilac, seasoned over the winter and turned this spring.
It’s a brute of a mallet, heavier then others I have made. This is denser wood with vivid contrasting colors; golden to white and on to stark black. A very striking piece (pun intended ;-D)!
Finished with 3 coats of Tung Oil, any future touch-ups will be very easy.

Wght: 23.3 oz
Diameter: 3.5 inches (at largest part of head)
Diameter: 3-1/8 (approx) inches (at smallest part of head)
Length: 11.5 inches

Mulberry and cedar wood weekend.

Picture #2 My neighbor cut down a “volunteer” mulberry tree the other day. He gave my the larger limbs for helping him with the cutting. I needed a good solid mallet in the shop so I cut a 12 inch log out and mounted it in the lathe. I was surprised at how yellow the wood is and very dense. I applied several coats of TUNG oil and now I think it is too pretty to every strike a blow with it ;-P, but I will sooner or later.

Picture #3 This mallet was turned from a Mulberry tree the neighbor cut down. I’m not sure what the mallet is good for except maybe stopping an intruder in the house. But I had fun turning it. I stained with a walnut gel and top coated with several coats of TUNG oil
While turning this piece I noticed a large bug tunnel and as I turning the piece smaller the hole became larger. When I had finished turning to shape I stopped the lathe, the hole was up and low and behold a bug/grub came crawling out of the hole, pretty dizzy little fellow I must add. I quickly dispatched him out the back door and I am sure a sparrow had a feast on that fat little grub.

Picture #4: I had a few minutes up in the shop the other day. I found one of my 3D reindeer that had not been finished. Here is my attempt at painting a reindeer. Pretty pathetic but it still looks like a reindeer, sort-of ;-D

These are the scrap from the 3D reindeer I posted in the past. I have re sawn all to approx 1/4”, and there are 13 reindeer of them.
LJ’s I need some ideas on what I can do with them and throwing them away is not an option ;-D

I wanted to see just how LARGE I could go with my 3D reindeer. This one is 2-5/8” x 13” in size; I used 2 cedar 2×6 to get the width. I must say there was a huge amount of waste after cutting but it was a LOT easier then the smaller versions I made last Christmas. My plan is to make 9 of these ”Giant” reindeer and a scaled sleigh for next years Christmas display on our front porch.

As always thanks for look’n and comment’n ;-D

The technique is Very similar to cutting my castles in logs. I had to establish the correct band-saw table angle so the continuous rings would hold the basket up. In this case 7 degrees was the magic number. I use popular for this prototype, it took the red dye pretty well, I applied 2 coats of Danish oil to finish it off.

I apologize for not giving credit, I got this idea from an article but I cannot for the life of me find it to give due credit to.

This is my last set of Reindeer for this year anyway. Thanks to Dale for the start-up plan I was able to create one last herd.

Merry Christmas to all you Lumber Jocks!

I am finally done, 43 individual reindeer! What started out as a way of training me on the used of my band-saw escalated into a herd production. Now my grown children and our grandchildren have a set of Reindeer including the infamous Rudolph the Red Nose reindeer.
The cedar wood I used was salvaged from my neighbors deck. They were loading the worn decking onto their trailer headed for the local landfill, I scarfed it up before they pull away. The last picture is the pair of reindeer I made for them in appreciation for their donation. No, the antler-less one is not a mistake, it’s a doe and yes I know both male and female reindeer have antlers but the doe losses her’s after calving (i.e. Rudolph). ;-D
The smaller sets (3) all have tree hanging hooks attached so they can be used a Christmas Tree ornaments.
Back the the original task, YES I did learn how to use my Jet 18” band-saw, and I did learn a lot on technique!