Well I,ve been away for a while during the holiday season but I have been busy making woody stuff when I've had the time. I'll make a post on my holidays and some of the places I've been to (including some enjoyable but costly days at the races) anon ; but for now I'll update on some of the things I've made.
Firstly, some bowls i've made just for the hell of it, from logs I had laying about the place. The large one on the left is about 14" long and is in Sycamore, the smaller one on the right is Blackthorn. I deliberately made these with rounded bottoms so they would find their own central gravity point. To my surprise they are actually quite stable; even when you start loading them up. One of the lads at the Stickmaking club said the Blackthorn one reminded him of a freshwater mussel;- I can see what he means. That particular bowl was carved extremely thin (about 1/8th inch) and done green. Just after it was finished it was very pliable but now its like a nutshell.
Apart from messing about with those bowls for fun I've had a couple of commissions to make. First is a bench I promised my gaffer at work for the locker room for us to use whilst getting ready for pt etc. He was quoted £250 for a nasty plastic thing, so I fished out this scabby looking Elm plank which I paid £4 for. Ok it needed at lot of work doing with it but in the end the grain looks stunning for a coat or 4 of Teak Oil. The legs are Oak by the way. I chose these timbers because the bench will be in a potentially moist atmosphere and both contain a lot of Tannic Acid.
Finally for now another job that I got because of my inability to say no. I'm no woodturner but I do have a lathe and dabble. Somehow I ended up making some stair spindles for a friend of a friend of a friend. It took me ages measuring and turning to end up making these 3 copies from an original broken Victorian spindle- I'll get a pint out of it if I'm lucky!!
Firstly, some bowls i've made just for the hell of it, from logs I had laying about the place. The large one on the left is about 14" long and is in Sycamore, the smaller one on the right is Blackthorn. I deliberately made these with rounded bottoms so they would find their own central gravity point. To my surprise they are actually quite stable; even when you start loading them up. One of the lads at the Stickmaking club said the Blackthorn one reminded him of a freshwater mussel;- I can see what he means. That particular bowl was carved extremely thin (about 1/8th inch) and done green. Just after it was finished it was very pliable but now its like a nutshell.
Apart from messing about with those bowls for fun I've had a couple of commissions to make. First is a bench I promised my gaffer at work for the locker room for us to use whilst getting ready for pt etc. He was quoted £250 for a nasty plastic thing, so I fished out this scabby looking Elm plank which I paid £4 for. Ok it needed at lot of work doing with it but in the end the grain looks stunning for a coat or 4 of Teak Oil. The legs are Oak by the way. I chose these timbers because the bench will be in a potentially moist atmosphere and both contain a lot of Tannic Acid.
Finally for now another job that I got because of my inability to say no. I'm no woodturner but I do have a lathe and dabble. Somehow I ended up making some stair spindles for a friend of a friend of a friend. It took me ages measuring and turning to end up making these 3 copies from an original broken Victorian spindle- I'll get a pint out of it if I'm lucky!!
No comments:
Post a Comment