My FIL owns some land in the mountains of PA, a few years ago some of it was cleared and the wood used to build a cabin. Well I also got some of the leftovers and it is taking up space in my garage. I cut one portion of a board down to use as pen blanks and ornaments for the family for Christmas this year. But someone is moving to Europe and not sure if we will see them during the holidays so these are the first two pieces I have turned so they could have a piece of home to take with them.

Thanks for looking.

CtL

a month or two ago the woodturning club I joined had a good deal on bottle openers from Woodriver. I somewhere around a dozen of them and figured they would be fun to add to the catalog. Well I finally got around to turning a few (after realizing I needed to buy a cone center) I like they way they turned out. I look forward to doing more of them as they are a very fun and quite adaptive project.
The ones pictured here are Maple and Mesquite finished with HUT.

These are also my first real between center projects and I learned a number of new things including working on my parting off skills. I am looking forward to more of these and also the ice cream scoops I purchased so I can practice more of the lathe skills.

Thanks for looking.

CtL

Yes here are more “pen”dants I really do like these kits. The other reason for these is it is teacher appreciation week next week at my daughter’s school and the PTA has asked for donations to give out to teachers and faculty. So the first two pens you see here are on the way to the school. The others are going into my inventory.
The first pen is a mystery exotic.
2 is holly that I placed in a baggie of dye over night then let air out. Blue is the school color.
pens 3&4 are Zebra wood but I dyed pen 3 on the lathe.
pen 5 is the same as 1 but dyed
pen 6 is laminated pink plywood
pen 7 was a surprise in the wood but I like the way it turned out (pardon the pun)

Thanks for looking.

CtL

Well the good news is all but three of my pens have sold at the park. The better news is that they want more to sell. I am planning to work on cutting up some of the wood I have in my garage this weekend and making some pen blanks. In the meantime though I was able to make a dozen from the blanks I already had prepared. These will go in tomorrow and be up for sale by the weekend.
I also have a meeting coming up in regards to putting some of my peg games into the gift shop. I currently have two I have created just for the park and one more in the works.

Some of the woods used on these; Hydrangea, Beech, Dogwood, Thunder Plum.. not sure about the others. Did just pick up some nice red oak, walnut and cherry I am looking forward to drying out.

Thanks for looking, talk to you all soon.

CtL

I actually was able to take the time in the shop on Friday; once everything was ready for Saturday’s show, to play around and experiment some. I had seen this done by someone here, I think and wanted to give it a try.
As you can see in the pictures I turned the original blank round
then using my parting tool stripped about half an inch down to the tube
Drilled out a scrap piece and then glued it on with CA
Once Dry I trimmed the piece down on the bandsaw, remounted it to the mandrel and turned the scrap piece to round. (missed picture.. removed the bushing) then turned the pen down to final shape.
Sanded and finished.

I need to work on getting a tighter shoulder on the blank and the scrap Which is something that will be a good skill builder for me. I like the way it cam out though and will plan to use some more of my scrap pieces in order to make a few more of this type. I am also looking toward doing this with my “Pen”dants in order to mix up the looks a bit. (see the last picture)

Thanks for looking.

Here are some more ””Functional Necklaces””:http://lumberjocks.com/projects/77566 These are both turned out of reclaimed Dogwood and will be given as two separate raffle prizes. One at the Craft show we are going to next week and one for a volunteer luncheon they are having at the park where I work.
I also made the display with some left over plywood and a 2×4 base.

CtL

My sister’s Birthday was last weekend and since I was going to actually be there for her birthday dinner I wanted to make sure to have something for her besides a card :)
As I mentioned in my post about her Christmas Gift.

She likes Heinz 57 Ketchup in glass bottles. After doing some looking around I found that you can order it in bottles with customized labels. So I ordered her 2 special bottles. But I wanted something more; I know a ketchup tilt! Yep and here it is made to match the condiment hold with one change. I was able to change out the letter very easily on the chef’s hat to her initial instead. A quick change, some ironing onto a a nice piece of aspen I had in the shop and the proper cut angle and we were good to go.

She loved the whole gift and I am sure this will find a place in her kitchen.

CtL

One of the New Year tasks for 2013 was to better organize the sewing room. As you can see in pics 2 and 3 things had gotten a bit crazy. I collect wood and my DW collects fabric. She has gotten some great deals recently on a large amount of fabric and the organization just got behind. I am happy to report that this task is almost entirely taken care of. This project is not 100% complete as I have one more wall mountable cabinet to make for her, but with the recent news that we have a craft fair coming up in March, that will have to wait for a short period of time.

This is one of the bigger projects that I have worked on and all the pieces had to match. So I did learn a good number of tricks for handling large pieces in my small shop. You can see in pic 4 how I used my table saw with some wood added to make an extension for my miter saw. This also allowed me to position it so that I could create a stop so all 6 sides were cut to the same length. I also notched all the sides to fit over the trim in the room. The 5th pic shows all the parts cut, predrilled and ready to move to the garage for assembly. I used the Kreg Jig to predrill all the parts and the final assembly was pretty easy. All in all I am very happy with the way it turned out and she likes them as well and as you can see has taken some time to put things together.

Oh almost forgot the wood is all laminate that I have had in my shop for quite a while now due to a clearance sale at the big Orange Place almost 4 years ago now. I actually built my lumber rack when I bough this stuff. But considering it was only like $4 a panel I think the wait was worth it.

Now off to make stuff for the fair.

CtL

It seems that my mom is beginning to develop arthritis and it is getting harder for her to write. She mentioned that she is trying to locate a pen that is thick enough to be comfortable. Well since I am heading to see her soon I thought I would try turning one for her. I pulled a random blank I had made from some work wood and when I began turning I found this great color to it. I honestly have no idea what the wood is, there is a possibility of Hydrangea since I had a large batch of that not that long ago. But anywho, I wanted to make sure it would be thick enough for her to use so I used a centerband from a refrigerator pen set that I had on hand. The kit is justa standard 7mm with a clip from PSI.

I am hoping she is able to use this one.

Thanks all for looking.

CtL

This is my entry for the Wooden Wear-ables contest. It is what I have started to call a Lanyard Pen as I have a sold a few and my daughter has given one to her teacher for that purpose. They are great to where on a lanyard or necklace as the pen just unscrews from the cap.
This one is made with Holly that I cut and dried myself. You can see that it has some of the grey streaking in it which can be quite common in Holly when it dries. In this case I used it to my advantage and let it help accent the wood.

Thanks for looking and good luck to everyone that is entering the contest.

CtL

Evening All,
Tomorrow evening is an anniversary dinner for the woodturning group I joined this past year.They are asking folks to not only bring food but also items that they make. It is open to the whole family so I am looking forward to taking my wife and daughter and having them see some of the really nice stuff that other members of the group make. They are also asking for folks to bring stuff that other family members due whether it is wood related or not. So my wife will be taking some sewn items, maybe a piece of pottery if I can talk her into it. As you can see in the 3rd and 4th pics my daughter turned a pen to day so she could take it with her.

In the 1st pic is a collection of various Slimline pens with different clips on them.
2nd picture shows some 7mm variations.
5th pic shows a pen tilt I made quickly today with a pen that has been around for a bit but gave a nice contrast to the tilt.

Thanks all for looking, I hope everyone has a good weekend in and out of the shop. I have a number of projects to be working on and looking forward to them.

CtL

Ok so hopefully those that are receiving this will not see it here as it is on the way to them…. That being said my sister and her husband love to have BBQs and parties. They are big into the Retro stuff and actually own a few large scale game machines.
I was trying to come up with an idea for Christmas and I thought of a condiment holder for them and also some of my sister’s favorite condiment, Heinz 57 in a glass bottle. Thanks to followyourheart for her blog on making a condiment tote. It was a big help to give me a simple place to start. I was able to find a font from Font-a-licious that had video game characters in it. Kind of like wing dings with video game characters. I also found 2 other fonts on fontspace.com that were old school video game fonts. I thought this would be great for the decor of the box. the 2 sides have Space Invaders on them as this is a game they own. and the front and back have custom messages with various characters. The handle is done up with the chef from Burgertime. All of the decor was ironed on as I have done before, the holder is pine and finished with spray on poly.

I had a lot of fun designing it once I found the fonts and also did some new techniques on my table saw that I have seen done before but never tried with my saw. A good project and learning experience.

Thanks all for looking.

CtL

As some of you know my daughter joins me in my shop quite often. As of this Christmas she is going to be introduced to her mom’s sewing room and how to work a small sewing machine that we bought for her. I thought that a sewing box was in order to hold some of the needed items. This is what I came up with. The drawer is able to hold her needle threaders and small items. The scissor hole goes all the way through so it can hold a full size pair of shears when she is able to handle them. I decided upon a magnetic pin holder instead of a cushion. The button on the handle is from my Grandmother’s button collection (my daughter is named after her)

The woods are Ash and Purpleheart with no finish I just want it to age over time.

Thanks all for looking hope you all have fun completing those holiday projects you are working on.

CtL

My shop is full of pink and purple sawdust and wood chips. A couple of guys from the turning club I belong to purchased a very large pallet of laminated cut offs, they brought them to the last meeting in order to sell them to the group and recoup the cost. I bought a good size pile as you can see in pic 2 (plan though to try and get some more) It was all pretty oddly shaped but I managed to get a number of standard pen blanks and also some mini blanks out of each of the blocks using my table saw.
The pens you see here are the first ones that I turned from this group. As soon as I saw the pink cutoffs I knew exactly how to use them, I just bought a number of the Breast Cancer Awareness clips from wood-n-whimsies and have been trying to come up with a good dye to use them. I will be making more in the not too distant future as soon as I finish up some other holiday items. I like how these turned out and how well the wood turns and sands. Seems to work a bit better then the small pieces I recently purchased from two different wood working stores.

Thanks all for looking.

CtL

Some of you may recall that my daughter did some pen turning last year for her kindergarten teachers.

This year she decided to make a total of 5 pens These are the first 2 and will go to 2 of her teachers. She is getting much better at the lathe each time she uses it. Even just since the Father's Day project that we did this year. I am very proud of her. She even worked with me to round out the blank this time, in the past I had rounded out the blank and then she helped to turn it the rest of the way. She worked on each pen this time from start to finish. She enjoys it a lot and they make a very personal gift from her. We will take some time next weekend to work on a few more. Oh, almost forgot both of these are made from a laminated blank, the smaller one is a lidded mini pen for use on a lanyard or key chain.

She has also gotten involved in one of my wife’s hobbies of making beaded book markers. She decided to that 2 of her teachers should receive those for Christmas and she put them together with her mother’s help. Again I am very proud of her for thinking outside the box and wanting to give something made by her own hands.

That being said, I need to get myself into the shop and build some gifts this week. Look forward to seeing everything in the coming weeks that folks are working on for giving. Hope you all have a great time int he next few weeks in and out of the shop.

CtL

Since I sold a few of the mini pens at the first two fairs I decided to replace the stock.
The first pic shows the mini twist type the other 2 are of the mini keychain kit that has a screw on cap. These are new to me, just got them last week. I really like that they turn and assemble very quickly, though I may have to cut a few thicker blocks as the 3/4” they recommend does not leave much wood to work with. the other thing I like about them is that they use a standard slimline length tube.

I sliced the Rainbow blanks out of a larger chunk of wood I bought at Woodcraft the others are all from wood that I have cut at work; the 2 twists are Curly Willow, 1 of the others is Hydrangea I am not sure about the other 2.

Have a fair this weekend and next then we are done for the season. Course now I have to clan up my shop and make a few Christmas Gifts :)

CtL

So last year my work was doing a Halloween Program and I cut out a really cool Grave Yard set with the help of some folks here. This year however we have gone with a brand new Holiday Light Show. The staff here has been working since August putting up lights and working on prepping for the show. The shop selling our “Bling” is the Snowflake Shop so I wanted to do something cool to hang the merchandise on. These were cut from Luann and Pegboard I used turners tape to hold the two boards together and then cut them with a jigsaw. the legs are and “H” style frame made of 2×4s. Once again I owe many thanks to some coworkers for doing the tracing and making them look so good with a paint job. They have been a big and hit and a great help as we can move them around for sales purposes depending on how busy we are on certain nights.

Picture 6 is a picture of just a small portion of the several 100 thousand lights we have around the park right now.
Thanks for looking.

CtL

My daughter is already in first grade(time sure flies) and we are working on her focus and concentration while doing schoolwork. One decision that we made was to move her homework away from the kitchen table and to a nice quite nook in the dining room. It was decided that she needed a proper crayon and pencil holder to help her find her stuff faster then sorting through a pile or the large container that it has been in (causing a major distraction)
I enlisted her help to build the new holder. We measured the windowsill it would sit on and decided on the proper size, then found the needed wood. She helped all the way through, from glue up to final sanding. She even drilled the holes using the drill press and helped make a couple of cuts using the chop saw. As always shop safety was stressed at all points and she did an awesome job. Working in the shop is just one more way I am trying to teach her that focus.

I look forward to the next project as I am having a better and better time with her in the shop when she will join me.

CtL

A few of the recent posts reminded that Challenge 14 still had not ended. I had a few additional ideas that will take a bit longer and as power is going in and out right now I am limiting what it is I am working on. I fired up my old scroll saw and decided to make a few of these guys out of scrap wood. The plans and information were in a recent book I purchased ” American Folk Toys How to Make Them” by Dick Schnacke, I was able to find a pattern by looking up SkyHook online. I remember having one of these when I was younger and it is a possibility it is still floating around. But either way I figured I would make a few and maybe even make enough to sell at our next fair. just something fun to play with.

Thanks for looking.
Hope everyone on the East Coast stays safe and makes it through Sandy.

CtL

So I have not been posting much lately as I have been readying up for craft fairs. My wife and I did one fair last year and liked it enough that this year we signed on to do 4 local fairs. The one we did last year (HOA) our church and two local schools. It should be interesting to say the least. The first one is tomorrow morning at the church then the HOA one is next weekend. The other two are later in the month but still back to back. I am hoping that I will have to make some additional product, but we’ll see. In the pics is a small sampling of what I have been making.
Pic 1- Selection of peg games.
Pic 2- Display crates for our table. The wife painted these up real nice with two different colors.
Pic 3- a display rack for beaded bookmarks and the lanyard pens in pic 4
Pic 4- a few of the lanyard pens. I also made about 30 standard pens.

I’ll post more pics in a blog this weekend once we are done with the show including one of our table as I think seeing other set ups helps people think about what they want.

Thanks all for looking.

CtL