I just came home today and saw one of the neighbor’s guys cutting a limb off their apple tree. He told me he was going to dump the wood for fire wood and I convinced him to drop it in my barn. I told him I would show him what it looks like turned so I made him this bowl this afternoon. It started out 8” but there was spot that seemed to chip out even with the smallest cut. I touched it and 1 1/2” fell off the height so this is what is left. It is 6” and about 2 1/4 high and finished with EEE and Shellawax. It is warping as I write this so I got done just in time.

When I’m at shows I always get asked what these little round things are and have to explain that they are for sticking up notes or a magazine on a refrigerator. I have been thinking about making a mini refrigerator to show them and then I got this stainless Whirlpool dishwasher front panel from our scrap drive at church. Just what I had been looking for—it is stainless steel but a magnet will stick to it.

I scaled our current refrigerator and went from there. It was design as you go. I can store all the magnets inside when I carry it in the tote plus my awl display will also fit in there. The catch on the door was the last thing that got designed last night. I had lots of different drawings, but this was the simplest. The blade has a rectangular hole in it and fits on a rectangular part of the shaft and you turn it into a slot in the wood frame.

The last shot shows the fixture I made to hold the long pieces to cut the slots for the steel on the band saw. The steel is .030 and the blade is .032… what luck!!
The High school shop teacher gave me a 6” wide piece of mahogany that was a weird shaped cut off and that became the frame. It was finished with Clear matte spray and then assembled with glue and dowels

I had this project in mind ever since Mads said he saw a plywood mallet in Paris. I wondered what it would look like with the head and handle all made from plywood. So, I laid up 4 blocks and cut some maple for the faces.

They is maple plywood with solid maple faces that are glued in with a 1” dia. tenon. I wanted the grip to be more “hand shaped” so the grip area is oval. I turned in on three centers that were in a hardwood piece on the end. I was afraid the centers that close to each other in plywood might break away.
They came out pretty good with the grain of the plywood accented with every high spot turned on the pieces.

They are 10” long and the heads are 2 1/8” dia. and 5 1/2” long and finished with clear matte spray.

This is a cherry bowl that was ordered last Sunday & to be done by the end of May. It is 7” in diameter and 3 1/4” high. Wall thickness is about 3/16” . It was a bit green when I started and has moved slightly since taking it off the lathe.

It is finished with several coats of clear matte spray.

SOLD

This is a fence for the miter saw bench in in our Arizona wood shop.
I laminated 4 pieces of maple plywood to make it. This stuff had black -almost like plastic- layers on the outside. It was rough and Titebond 3 stuck it together real well. I did not have a T- slot cutter so I used a 12 degree dovetail bit for the grooves and made 2 aluminum nuts to ride in them.
I made the knobs out of maple and put T-nuts in with epoxy.
It is fitted with two stops. One is reversible 2 ways. One way is to use the short or long side – the long side is for short pieces where you need the stop right close to the blade. The short side works for pieces way far away from the blade. Then it can be flipped over and used with the 45 degree miter against the fence for short and long pieces. I use this set up to cut picture frame members to keep them exactly the same length. The second cut end rides on the angle rather than gaging from the thin edge which is not reliable for repeatability.

The other stop is the flip stop which I thought might be nice to have in case you are in the middle of a job and someone else needs to cut something. You can flip it up and then down and be right back where you were.

In the end view notice there is a piece of oak in with that plywood. I did not tighten one of the fence bolts on the router table for making the first rough cut in the center of the dove tails and the 1/2” bit wandered way off center. I had to make a “patch” and then get on with it.

The long stop is red oak. The body of the flip gage is mahogany and the flipper is white oak. I just used what I had in the size I needed. They are finished with clear lacquer.

I have an order for a cutting board of my design so I thought why not try the maple plywood. It has food safe glue and I use it for everything else. I added in some strips of walnut and solid maple on the ends. It has curved ends and hand hold reliefs on the bottom side. The ends are doweled and glued on.

It is 1” x 8” x 13.5”. I was not thinking…......it is a little too long for the golden rectangle.

It is finished with Behandla salad bowl finish.

These are two pistachio frames I made for a couple of the marquetry scenes I worked on in Arizona at LJ Shipwright’s place in Green Valley. LJ Dingle (Danny) and I went to Paul’s place to meet him for the first time , see his nice shop and he had a project prepped for us to do on his Chevalet. We actually got to cut this out of four pieces of veneer of different colors. Danny did most of the cutting because my shoulder is not up to holding it up that long.That is one fine cutting machine that Paul made!!!! Paul made me a believer in hide glue! That stuff is so strong and no clamps needed!!

After cutting out all the veneer, Paul put the pieces together and glued them on a substrate and gave them to me at the McDonalds as he was passing by our place on his way to San Diego. Danny and I each got 2 of them.

I thought they should be presented with some local wood frames so I used pistachio. This was scrap from the burn pile at the saw mill and had long cracks in it so I did not get much yield of 3/4” stock. So one frame is 3/4” and one is 3/8” thick.

I wanted the dark brown line just inside the sap wood to meet at the corners so I had to layout the first cut to remove the sap wood so that dimension to the outer edge was somewhat close. They did meet okay.

I finished them with clear matte spray until they reached a semi gloss. I signed the thick one just under the signature of the bug that bored the holes in the wood!.

This is a project I never got around to this winter in Az.. This is another half dozen awls with hardened tips and brass ferrules and cartridge cases embedded in the ends.
From left to right is an Osage Orange one then 2 Pistachio ones and then 3 spalted Beech ones.
The first 2 on the left have S&W 500 casings and the rest have 44 mag casings. These higher caliber casings are compliments of LJ Hillbilly Shooter…............Thanks, John!!!!!!!!!

They are finished with EEE and Shellawax

I had this block laid up for a while and decided to turn it after I put my lathe back together. It is maple plywood and measures 6” dia. x 4 1/4” high. It is finished with EEE and Shellawax, but I think I will lacquer it to a higher gloss

My Craftsman lathe quit yesterday and I had to tear it completely apart to get the motor out. I found out that the motor was okay electrically, but the armature was rubbing the field windings. It was not bent but it is put together with two aluminum end plates with bearings in the center. I turned one end plate around 180 degrees and put it back together and it runs fine now.

I turned this bowl and wine bottle stopper just to try it out.

The stopper is made from a core of Mesquite and it is wrapped with Cholla cactus- both from the Arizona desert.
Just goofing around!!!!!!!!!! It is finished with clear matte spray.
In the top I embedded a cartridge case from a Smith and Wesson 500….......Compliments of LJ Hillbilly shooter
Thanks, John!!!!!!!!

This is a cherry cutting board with a bowling pin inserted in it. Actually I made 2 of them. It took about the same time. This was made for an order but I did not tell them what the final product would look like.

I started with 1” cherry board that was in a bunch of wood I was going to burn . I had the pattern for the pin made and thought this would be a good contrasting color for the board. This was the first job I started with the inlay kit but the last one to finish. I made the bowling pin insert out of 5 pieces of maple and some real red box elder. Good thing I did not need much red wood!! I made a plywood pattern for router bushing. Most of the time, the patterns are double faced taped on but I don’t trust it so I make provisions to screw the pattern down. The last 2 shots show the pattern on the pin and then on the center section of the board. I scabbed on 4 pieces of wood to the center section so I could hit them with the far out screw pattern. Then I cut off the extra pieces and finished the board. There are two strips or maple inserted in the cherry. They should stand out more as the cherry darkens with age.
I finished them with Behandla Salad Bowl Finish….................................Jim

This is a little experimentation into the “other world”. Actually I was given these pieces of Corain when I went to Illinois last week. There were two 6” round green cut out pieces that I’d thought I never use and a few large ones.
The green was just the right shade for an alien so this idea was hatched. The aliens are inserted, not just inlaid. They are the same on the front and back as are the eyes. I bought this inlay kit with the bushings and the 1/8” router bit and have never used it. This was a test. I made the inner and outer pattern in the corian about 3/16” deep. Then I cut it out leaving just a little material away from the pattern line. I used a straight router bit with a bearing to ride the pattern lines and routed the pieces to size just like they would be with the inlay for veneer. They dropped right in. The eyes are black corian and had to be hand fitted because they were too small to make with the inlay kit. They have a matte finish sanded with 400 grit. I was going to buff them up to a high polish but counters like that are high maintenance so I left them matte. You can easily sand out the cutting marks.

The other item is a picture frame made from some scrap pistachio wood. That wood is so pretty I cannot throw any usable piece in the burn barrel. Some of the voids and worm holes are filled with epoxy and ground turquoise dust. I made a pulverizer yesterday to smash the little pieces of turquoise I found this winter in AZ. There is turquoises, malachite and little azurite mixed in that dust.
The end shot shows how I textured the edge with a brass wire wheel. It makes it the same look from the sap wood to the dark broken wood on the top. The plastic inset just pushes right into a round blind hole in the face. It comes apart to insert the photo.

It is finished with several coats of clear matte spray.

.............................Jim

These are two trivets I made for the order from my daughter. She needs one so she’ll have a choice.
The dark one is made from a piece of Pistachio wood (4 5/8” dia.) from the scrap pile at the sawmill in Casa Grande. I just glued a spigot to the back and turned it round and added a few grooves.

The lighter one is maple ( 5 3/4” dia.) with a 1/2” walnut core. The faces are 1/8” so I just cut grooves through the faces on both sides to expose the walnut.

They are both finished with Behandla salad bowl finish and can be easily washed after use.

I have an order for some kitchen items and some of them were refrigerator magnets. While I was working on the lathe, I thought I’d try out some of the new pistachio wood to see how it turned and how it looks when finished. That I made into a bottle stopper.

The stopper has a tiger eye cabochon imbedded in the top and is finished with EEE and Shellawax.

The 4 refrigerator magnets were made from scraps on the back shelf. The first 2 are spalted beech wood, the yellow one is from a little block someone gave me and I did not write the name on it so it is nameless, the last one is female box elder.
They are all finished with EEE and Shellawax,too. I had to space the magnets apart in the picture because they jump at each other and cling in a bunch if I don’t. Actually, the magnets are so strong and so brittle that I have had them sitting on the bench getting ready to install them and one would attract the other from inches away and would crack one in two pieces. Now I take them out one at a time!!
.............Jim

This is my first attempt at turning a burl. someone gave me this small walnut burl this winter and I had no idea what to do with it. I saw one turned into a vase at our turners guild meeting so I thought that what it will be.

This one almost did not make it when it broke through that hole. I taped up the outside to keep it solid and to avoid a lot more chatter. I left kind of floating ring on the outside and it seemed to help hold it together. This piece has bark, sap wood, heart wood and rot wood in it, but it turned very easily. Sanding was a challenge on the inside.

I need to build a stock of pieces for the art fair in May and this is the start.

It is 3 1/2” dia. and 4” high and finished with matte clear spray.

These are 4 spoons that I finished out of the 16 I started in Dec. The internal scoop sanding was holding me up because I cannot sand very much with the arthritis in my thumbs. Then I bought a Guinevere inflatable sanding ball and that speeded it way up!!
Anyway, they all have names:

The first one is a muffin master made from Cherry. It is made partially on the lathe and then the scoop is shaped by hand. This is one designed for me when I bake muffins. It is so comfortable when stirring that thick batter and the scoop holds enough for one muffin.

The next two are the Salad Twins made from Cherry. These were made to order- three pair in total.

The last one is Left-hand Side and Bottom Scraper made from Box Elder. There is also an unfinished right handed one in the pack.

All are finished with Behandla salad bowl finish.

I just finished the other 12 and added them in shot #6

This broken cutting board was dropped off by my daughter in our garage last Dec before we went south. I’m not doing much woodworking right now but I thought I’d give this old board a new life. It was in 6 pieces- someone had mistakenly put it in the dishwasher and all the joints came apart and they were very rough with all the grain raised. I thought it was maple so I made one new end piece out of maple for the one that was cracked almost all the way through. while I was at it, 3 pieces of walnut just happened to drop in between some of the boards. I lengthened the finger groove on the bottom side to cut out some of the remaining cracks.
I was going to make a whole new one, but this was a favorite of hers so I went this route to rebuild it. I’ll surprise her with it tomorrow. It is finished with Behandla salad bowl finish.

This was a request to make a hat rack in the shape of one of those old glass insulators for a friend from N Dakota.
I turned the insulator out of mesquite, the stand off is china berry and the back board is mountain mahogany.
The last shot is Gordon with his hat rack. It is made to hold a cowboy hat or a baseball cap. I made the rings on the insulator spaced far enough apart to hold the back strap of a the cap.
It is finished with EEE and Shellawax.

I was asked if I could repair this swing for Dennis and thought I’d give it a go. It was made from 7/8” red oak. You can not find any thick oak here in Casa Grande, so I settled on 1/2” and 3/4” stock from the Depot. The problem was that the members were split out at the ends and one of them had a poor pine patch over it with a bunch of screws through it. That end had to be cut shorter to get rid of all the bad wood.

I made a new back bar by laminating two 1/2” pieces and making it 2” longer for a thicker bar and much more wood on the ends.

The arms were a little more work. I made a template of the shape and then cut off the ends and routed them down to 1/2”. Then I laminated two pieces of 3/4” stock over them to cut to the shape of the original . These had to be routed down 1/4” so they fit flush when glued on the center section. I added 2 – 3/8” dowels for insurance. I cut the ends longer so they were larger in each dimension for added strength on the ends.

Thank God for that HF 90 degree drill for transferring the mounting holes to the arms!!!!!!!!!

When I bolted them together, I used washers on top and bottom so the pressure was straight down on the wood. I think part of the problem was the eye bolts were forcing the wood apart by having the ring end drawn into the holes. I added lock nuts to keep them from coming loose with the movement.

The last shot shows Dennis on his swing! He is “back in the saddle again” as they say out here!!!!!!!!!!

We have just about finished the first phase of our new wood shop in our Arizona RV park. I have been working with LJ Dingle ( Danny) and many of the guys from the park to put this together this far.
This miter saw table was thrown together from scraps we had laying around and from flea market purchases. We just finished the rear chip chute today. We will have good fences with gage stops on it next year.
Many of the tools were from garage sales and donated along the donations from the residents, too. We still have benches to build on the back wall next year, but we do have the shop completely waterproofed as it was tested in the big rain 2 weeks ago. We need a planer and floor model drill press yet.

Here are some pictures of the site before we started building:

Danny has more photos of the construction process

Recently I met with some Lumberjocks in Arizona and they gave me some material that I turned into projects. The first one is a black Corian grapefruit bowl. The Corian is from LJ Lizzardhead in Tempe, Az. It is 5 layers with 5 minute epoxy in between. A mesquite spigot was glued on to keep the full height of the Corian for the bowl.

The second piece is a door stop made from Osage Orange given to me by LJ Shipwright from Green Valley, Az. I got the design from a fellow Michigan guild member, Gary, who lives about 7 miles away in Eloy, Az. He had a door stopper like it so I turned a piece to use back in Michigan.

The last shot is Gary and me at his house with our show and tell projects that I sent back to the W Mich. Woodworkers Guild. Gary’s house is full of neat projects that he built for his Arizona house. I have invited him to join us on Lumberjocks and share the array of very unique projects he has produced.

This has been a very nice winter meeting a lot of fellow woodworkers in this state!!

The bowl is finished with EEE and Shellawax and the door stop is finished with clear matte spray finish.