106 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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109 days ago
by Rj |
24 comments »
I feel really strange writing this I really don’t like to publicize my personal problems but this one goes way beyond just myself.Recently about a month ago my dad passed away . My wife and I have been busy getting his things in order, (he liked collecting cars , boats Etc). We also have to help my mother get her life in order .On top of that This last Sunday morning I got word that my brother lost his life on Saturday (he left behind his wife and daughter she’s 20). I’m going t...
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114 days ago
by Gary Fixler |
11 comments »
In the first half of this blog post, I cut up a Ficus log and made a nearly 11” round for later turning into a bowl. I sealed every part of it in Anchorseal. Flash forward about 12 days, this past Saturday, and I finally chucked it up and made a bowl. Unfortunately, as with everything Ficus I’ve ever sealed, it was covered with mold by this point, and a little bit stinky.
I figured I’d turn the mold away. I went with a faceplate on the soon-to-be-concave side:
...
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117 days ago
by Gary Fixler |
7 comments »
After knocking out a Jacaranda bowl in one lunch break, I was a little fired up that night to do more, so I got a stick of Jacaranda from the pile and cut it into some small pieces for making tiny champagne glasses.
My attempt here was to go very thin-wall. I didn’t bother with process pics (it gets a little tedious sometimes :) You can see light shining through the walls into the interior of the glass:
Unfortunately, I went a little too thin in the middle. Note how mu...
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118 days ago
by Gary Fixler |
9 comments »
This past Wednesday, all in the span of an hour lunch break, I ran home, cut a chunk off the end of one of the Jacaranda logs from my recent haul, resealed the main log with Anchorseal and washed out the brush. Sliced the chunk in half through the pith, and turned one into a thin-walled, simple bowl, took a quick shower, and brought the resultant piece back to show off at work. Amazing what can happen in one hour! The turning itself took less than 15 minutes! I’m getting faster, if not ...
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121 days ago
by Gary Fixler |
6 comments »
Not a drinker, but I still appreciate the form of champagne glasses. I had a chunk of completely unsplit European olive from my pile of blanks, about the right length and diameter when turned to cylindrical to let me try my hand at something beyond plates and bowls, even though I’ve far from mastered them yet.
I put the block between centers, turned it cylindrical, then swapped the head center for my Oneway Talon chuck, and used the tail center to support it a bit as I carved the out...
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124 days ago
by Gary Fixler |
4 comments »
Earlier this week I ended up with some scrap baltic birch ply, and cut it into squares with the band saw. I sanded the faces a bit and glued them all together overnight with Titebond III and a Bessey K-Body clamp:
A little turning later:
And I was starting to get a wine glass shape:
That’s probably where I should have stopped. I knew that going thin-stem with the plywood in this orientation was asking for trouble, but I just kept going anyway, mad with power:
...
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128 days ago
by Gary Fixler |
10 comments »
This past Sunday I decided to saw a Y-shaped Ficus log in half and get some bowl blanks out of it. I couldn’t fit the 14” section under my band saw’s 12” vertical clearance, so I just cut the first half, up to the Y split. Then I spent about 20-30 minutes sawing through the Y with my 24” carpenter saw. Good workout!
I could fit a 10-7/8” circle on each log in the Y area, which I wanted to try turning for the twists in grain and color.
I had to...
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135 days ago
by Gary Fixler |
8 comments »
This is from nearly a month ago. I’m behind on my adventures.
Chucking something properly in a lathe takes a little bit of thought and prep work. I only had about an hour after work, but was in the mood to learn a bit more. In this test, I simply wanted to see if I could make a thin, dish-like object in a small chunk of Indian Laurel (Ficus microcarpa). I had recently acquired a ton of it, so I just pinched it between centers and had at it.
The test dish I would turn was from a pi...
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170 days ago
by Red Rocks School of Fine Woodworking |
2 comments »
This workbench has had an interesting history.
The Hickory was donated by National Lumber Supply. This Hickory makes up the majority of the top. The trestle (base) is constructed in Ash. The height was set for shorter students, actually using a student in one of the fundamentals classes as a model for the bench height. The height is around 30” – so considerably shorter than our normal benches.
The bench trestle got it’s start as a demo for the Fall 09 workbench class. The joi...
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167 entries
