84 days ago
by Gary Fixler |
19 comments »
Just a quick note. I found some logs (again!) and quickly sliced up a half log for the turning. It had some loose bark I tore off, but also some seemingly strongly-affixed pieces that I decided to leave on. Too hard to remove. I was only at around 1000RPM (2nd out of about 6 speed settings on my Jet 12×20), when wHaCk!
A piece of heavy, hard bark about 3”x5”, and around 3/16” thick smacked me really hard in the face. I was wearing a polycarbonate full-face shield fro...
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92 days ago
by Gary Fixler |
16 comments »
Two weeks ago, on a whim, I got home after work, sliced off a piece of smaller branch from my large pile of smaller Jacaranda branches (~2.5”-3” dia.), and turned a bark-rimmed goblet.
Sorry for the gratuitous lighting :)
Let’s fly into it…
The inside is smooth, and today, 15 days of air-drying on my dining room table later, it still has no checks, even around the pith inside, or on the bottom of the base!
Here’s my hand for some b...
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93 days ago
by Ackdaddy |
5 comments »
My wife and I bought a foreclosure about a year ago and are about 75% done with the plans that we set forth in the beginning. The kitchen is completely redone, along with the living room and our expectant baby’s nursery. The bathrooms are in process along with our bedroom.
I’ve sort of taken a break from the home improvement aspect and gotten into a lot more woodworking. I find my hands to be a lot more steady than ever, and my accuracy much improved. So now I am making a k...
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94 days ago
by Gary Fixler |
10 comments »
Well, I tried out the tools I got from mom for my birthday recently. Of note:
1) My 1/2” Sorby Spindlemaster was not a good indicator of how the 3/4” and 1” behave. I’ve been using the 1/2” however I liked, never reading up on how to use it, nor watching any videos. I recently watched one and thought “Huh, I’ve been using it entirely wrong.” I’ve been holding it flat, and using a combination of things with both hands and the tool rest t...
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97 days ago
by Gary Fixler |
14 comments »
Monday of last week, some 12 days ago, I was talking with a coworker who was wearing a small fedora. I commented that I should try to turn him a hat on my lathe. He thought it was a fun idea, and I mentioned I’d seen full-size, wearable cowboy hats online turned from green wood to very thin, then bent in jigs to hold them in proper shape with curled brims and dented-in top until dry, at which point they could be worn. The site was Johannes Michelsen’s woodhat.com, and his gallery ...
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98 days ago
by Gary Fixler |
17 comments »
Everyone’s going to hate me for this, but I just fell – not literally – into a lot of new Robert Sorby turning tools. The 18th (3 days ago) was my 32 birthday (for you programmers, that’s 100000 in binary – I no longer fit in 5 bits!). Mom sent me a box of Rockler goodies from my wishlist. In typical (for my mom) fashion, she overdid the gift-giving. She’s always been very supportive of my endeavors. Thanks, mom! I’ll have to make her several nice thi...
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100 days ago
by Gary Fixler |
7 comments »
I found a nice 5’ piece of red oak at Home Depot that was a bit odd in hue, having more depth to its grain than what I usually see there. I had visions of turning some square plates, so I snagged it:
I really slacked off on pics of this turning. This is the only one:
In it, I’ve cut the end from the plank to square it up and remove the chipped edges. Then I cut 2 pieces off as long as the plank was wide (7-1/4”). Then I cut some squares of birch from a leng...
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101 days ago
by EOD_Eric |
9 comments »
Well, I have spent the past few weeks getting my lathe together. I received a lathe for Christmas and deployed shortly thereafter. Fortunately for me, it was a lower-end midi model that I felt comfortable hauling to Iraq when I deployed at the beginning of February. Now, with my Masters out of the way, I have a few odd hours each week of spare time. I found a stash of wood (I have no idea what species) that was evidently cut down years ago…completely dry with large checks throughout. Th...
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102 days ago
by Gary Fixler |
6 comments »
In my last post, I showed some Jacaranda log halves I’d cut up and sealed in preparation for turning them into bowls. Here’s the first one I turned. It’s a very simple bowl. I concentrated a lot here on just practicing techniques, getting a very flat, slightly rounded slope to the inside bottom, and not suffering any catches or gouges. I didn’t want to leave any tool marks this time.
This is a rough turning, and has been drying now for 10 days. For the first wee...
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104 days ago
by Gary Fixler |
13 comments »
I didn’t take process shots, but I rough-turned these two over the last week or so from the halves of a single jacaranda log resawed in half. Each was bagged immediately in its own shavings to slow drying and resist checking, though one has checked a bit anyway. Once they’ve dried enough to stop moving, I’ll chuck them up again and turn them back to round, and refine their shapes. I still consider myself in early training-mode, and as such, these are just more training piece...
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166 entries
