This little vase is a piece that my wife requested. She had seen a similar shaped piece and went to the local Rockler to find a burl cap to give me for x-mas. Unfortunately the piece of red morrell she purchased was more suited to a bowl (wide and flat) than a vase. So I went and got a beautiful piece of amboyna from the Cambridge Rockler. The piece was the brightest piece of Amboyna I have ever seen. This turning was very challenging because of the live edge flapping around and the huge variations in hardness between the yellow sapwood and the burl. When I was done, I realized that it looked like the torch of the statue of liberty and that is definately looked like it was on fire, hence the name.

The finish is Bartlett gel varnish.

The piece is 7” tall and 3.5” in diameter.

Thanks for looking

Tim

This is a project I finished a couple of months ago. It is a tribute to the Cindy Drozda series of hollow vessels. I saw her beautiful turnings and wanted to try a challenging project, so I gave it a shot. The wood of the base and finial is African blackwood. The cap is madrone burl and the main body is fiddleback eucalyptus burl. The finish is french polish (Shellac). The turning took two nights….the finish took 10 nights. This piece has a perfect mirror finish on it. Working with the shellac is a challenge. I ended up applying it with an airbrush to keep the orange peeling to a minimum. I then wet sanded with micromesh up to 12000. The next step is to use Meguires swirl remover. There are absolutely no sanding marks left. I have even had to touch up the shellac and it was pretty easy. Now that I know the tricks I think I can do it faster. French polish has a significant learning curve.

BTW the proportions are not ideal. The design was modified after the piece grew wings in the final stages of turning. Still happy with the overall product.

Thanks for looking

Tim

Last weekend while walking around the Copely Plaza in Boston my wife and I pulled my wife into a Mont Blanc shop because I wanted to check out the pens. To my surprise she fell in love with one of the pens….a $725 pen of course. Anyway I was “commissioned” to make one as similar as possible to the one she liked.

The one she liked the most was the Etolie de Mont Blanc:

But she really didnt like the clear hemisphere and diamond on the back.

We settled on an all black version of the Mont Blanc Greta Garbo design:

So I had a challenge on my hands. I ended up using a heavily modified chrome navigator pen kit and the back ferrule of a Chrome Toni Twist kit. The material is a solid black acrylic. If you have never turned an all black acrylic pen, get ready to spend the time to get every little scratch out because it will show like no other material.

The body was simple and turned between centers but the cap was a major challenge. It started as one piece that was parted with a round tenon left on the cap. A shoulder was added to the base for the clip to sit in when the parts were reassembled. A round hole was drilled in the base that allowed the cap to be friction fit back into the assembly for final turning. There are no bushings for this kind of work so everything was a minor adjustment and a measurement. After the final turning I tapped the bottom of the cap, and used a threaded rod to hold the cap while I profiled the very top of the pen. All the parts were sanded up to 12000 MM and then polished with Mequire’s swirl remover. When I was done everything was assembled and glued with 2 part plastic epoxy.

I will post some better pictures later but I wanted to share this one tonight.

Tim

This is my latest project. It is an Asian themed jewelry box that my wife and I designed together. It is made of meranti for the case, birdseye maple for the door, drawers, and back, and bloodwood as accents in the segmented turning of the necklace carosel, drawer handles, and on the earring tree.

Front Door – The front door is intended to look like a Shoji screen. The meranti frame is constructed using loose tenons. The birdseye maple panels are beveled on the back by using a raised panel bit and dadoed on the front to receive the thin slats for the shoji screen. Every one of the 34 pieces that make up the screen needed to be sanded to length to make it fit properly. Rare earth magnets are used in the door and the case to keep the door closed. They are hidden under a veneer made by using a plug cutter in the same meranti used on the door. They are invisible in the pictures and are only seen when pointed out.

Wood Hinges – This is my second project that uses wood hinges. They really add an interesting element to the project. My wife did not want to see the hinges at all when the door was closed. I would have used the barrel hinges but the door was too thin. (next time) Instead I used tiny pieces of meranti that match the case and pinned them with a brass rod. The hole for the rod was filled with a piece of meranti turned on the lathe so it was invisble too. There is a #4-40 brass screw that passes through the back of the wood hinge block into the door to give the connection strength.

Necklace Carosel – The initial design of the box had a slide out panel with hooks on both sides for the necklaces. Because the panel was tall and narrow I was concerned about how well it would slide out since it would easily bind up as it slid out (aspect raitio issue) So I decided to have something hanging. I had just bought my lathe so I figured why not turn the carosel on the lathe. The segmented section was something I wanted to try too. The finial on the top/bottom are made of bloodwood and have a wonderful chatoyance. The carosel was in tight quarters so I wanted to have it slide out. A single sliding dovetail probably would have been fine but I love the way the double sliding dovetail looks on the Incra wood block at my local Rockler so I figured I would give that a try. I used my benchtop milling machine to make these with the dovetail bit. There are little stops on the side of the pieces so it does not pull out and actually has a two stage motion like a full extension drawer slide would. A small #4-40 flat head brass machine screw connects the carosel to the slide.

Drawers – The drawers are made of maple with a birdseye maple veneer on the front. The veneer is a single piece that spans all the drawers. The drawers use half blind dovetails. The handles were made by using a forstener bit to cut the recesses, turning a stack of BE veneer on the lathe, glueing a veneer “disk” to the bottom of the flat hole, and then making the bloodwood handles. The drawer bottoms are made of meranti. Some of the drawers have ring bars from Rockler, some are empty and some are getting removable dividers. The drawers have little magnets in the back to keep the front face of the drawers all on the same plane. Small meranti runners are morticed into the case and slots are milled in the sides of the drawers. I have a new appreciation for how much work goes into making drawers. 6 small drawers can consume the same amount of time as the rest of the project.

Earring tree – This was the last thing I made on the box. I had a problem that I needed to fix. I had cut the sliding dovetail for the bottom part of the neclace panel in the bottom of the case but when I changed the design to a hanging carosel I didnt have anthing to fill the sliding dovetail hole. I played with idea of a little mirror that would slide out and actually built one but it wasnt really practical. The earring tree was the next idea. This design is intended to look like the roof of a pagota. The sliding base is made of BE maple, the “fin” is made of meranti and the tree limbs are made of bloodwood. There is a tiny (1/8” x 1/8” x 3/16”) pull embedded in the fin made of ebony that has a pyramid shape on either side of the fin.

Back – The back of the case was made of BE maple that was resawn, joined, and cut with the raised panel bit to give it some detail. On the back of the box you can see the loose tenons used to joint the case. The entire case was intended to be about 1.5” deeper and these tenons would not be visible but I had to shorten the case when I made the mistake of not flipping the case sides as I was using the template bit to shape them. As I was climbing out of the arch it grabbed a piece of the wood and sheared it off. I was not pleased with myself but just changed the design and moved on.

Case – My wife and I both liked the arched design of the legs in Todd Clippinger's Sofa table. We gave the door an arched top too but keep the bottom flat. If you have seen my Fibonacci box, you know that I like to use ratios and proportions that are pleasing to the eye. This project was no different. Many of the dimensions in this box use the same principles. This project included another ratio though for the arches. It uses something called the Waist to Hip Ratio (WHR). The WHR is the circumference of the Waist divided by the circumference of the hip of a person. There are studies that show that a WHR of .7 in women and .9 in men correlate with health, fertility, disease resistance, etc. Studies also show that when shown a sample of body profiles, people gravitate to these “healthier” (grain of salt) profiles and tend to find them attractive. A google search on the subject will give more information. Ironically, Todd even calls the curves “sweet sexy curves”

Finish – The finish is 4 coats of Maloof oil/poly mix, 2 coats of oil/wax mix, and 3 applications of briwax. Most parts were finished before assembly.

Signature – I use a 3/4” forster bit on the bottom to recess a 2009 penny and use a Sharpie to sign. Now I just need to find a 2009 penny.

Photography – Shot at home using a Flotone graduated background (B&H photo), some compact flourescent bulbs from HD, a tripod and my D70s. The key as always with this kind of photo is to make sure you get the white balance correct. You can read more about this on my blog.

I tried many new things, learned a lot, and had a good time on this challenging project.

Thanks for looking and reading

Tim Pastore

EDIT: I didnt really explain how I used the WHR – The WHR is the ratio of change between the thinnest part of a person (waist) and their widest (shoulders and hips). So, for the box, if you take the dimension measured across the front half way up (the waist) and divide it by the dimension across the front of the box at the top or bottom (hips and shoulders) you would get .7. Hope that makes more sense.

EDIT: See the additional pictures I posted below.

Overview
Dimensions: 6 ¾” x 10 15/16” x 4.5”
Materials: Cherry, Brass
Finish: Boiled Linseed Oil
Interior: Two removable trays, each with 4 sections
Top: Basket weave
Hinges: Cherry
Inspirations: Shaker, Fibonacci

The design of the box and materials were inspired by the simplicity of traditional Shaker furniture and boxes. The wooden hinges and clean lines reflect this influence.

The hidden influence used in this design is a mathematical formula known as the Golden Mean or Fibonacci Numbers. This formula quite literally is the math behind the art. Leonardo of Pisa (aka Fibonacci) was an Italian mathematician back in the 1200s. He developed a sequence of numbers that are found to occur in nature in an almost eerie frequency. The sequence is simple, add the two previous number to get the next number. Here is an example:

0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144, 233…

0 + 1 = 1
1 + 1 = 2
1 + 2 = 3
3 + 2 = 5
3 + 5 = 8

Why is this important? Nature has found that in many cases the most efficient configurations or forms are consistent with these numbers. So what does this have to do with design and art? Our brains tend to find things designed around the ratios of these numbers to be pleasing, therefore, artists for centuries have intentionally designed paintings, buildings, music, and other art forms around these ratios. A quick example is in photography. Have you ever heard of the “rule of thirds”? This “rule” states that you should try to set up your subjects, horizons, and other focal points along a set of imaginary lines in the picture. The lines divide the picture in thirds vertically and horizontally. The reason, because a perfectly centered subject is not as pleasing to the eye as one that is slightly off center. A picture may help here:

The picture is divided into 9 rectangles. The camera is positioned to have major objects along the imaginary lines. Again this rule is in place to help make the image more pleasing to the eye. So, how do we get from the Fibonacci string to rule of thirds and then to a basket top box? The picture below is a rectangle that has squares in it that are the numbers in the sequence above 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8. The entire rectangle is 8 units x 13 units (13 is the next number in the sequence). The dividing line between the 8 square and the rest of the squares is dividing the entire 8×13 rectangle into 1/3rd and 2/3rds.

So now we are starting to connect nature to math. You can see the nautilus shell has the same spiral pattern as the Fibonacci squares. You will see the same thing in many flowers, pine cones, ferns, shells, claws, etc in nature.
Now, lets discuss the connection to the box and design in general. Lets start with the inner trays. You will notice that they are similar to the picture above with the progressively smaller boxes. In this design the smaller 1, 1, boxes were omitted because they would be too small to be functional. Next lets look at the overall size of the box. The Fibonacci ratio is 1.618. This is the average of the change from one number in the sequence to the other. For example, the diagram above was 8 units x 13 units. If we take 8 and multiply it by 1.618 we get 12.944 or approximately 13. The wood box dimensions are 6.75” x 10.94”. If we take 6.75” and multiply it by 1.618 we get 10.92”. So the box is close to a perfect “Golden Rectangle”

Lastly, let’s look at the basket weave. The frame around the top is 1” wide. Lets change that 1” to quantity (8) 1/8ths of an inch. In keeping with the Fibonacci sequence, we want to use things that are 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13… In this case, the strips of veneer in the basket are 2/8”, 3/8”, 5/8”, and the frame is 8/8”. The vertical strips are all 5/8” wide. The horizontal pattern is:

Hopefully, this explanation above was helpful. The subject matter is a difficult one to explain without going too technical. Below are some additional links to look at that help with the explanation. A search for Fibonacci, Golden mean, Golden ratio, or Phi, will all result in a long list of information. The last link is a basket weaver that uses Fibonacci in her baskets and even has a book out on the subject.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fibonaccinumber
http://www.world-mysteries.com/sci17.htm
http://www.brsbasket.com/statement2.html

Hello All, My first project on LJ. The project is my first attempt at a bandsaw box and some carving. The inside and outside are designed to look like a nautilus shell

The wood is curly maple and the finish is the two part Sam Maloof system. The top pivots on pin captured between the lower two parts.

I am very happy with the results and wanted to share!

Thanks for looking

Tim