Blast from the past

Posted on 23. March 2016 by fuzzy

2 weeks ago an old friend of mine visited for a few days. How fast time goes!

When I arrived in Johannesburg (SA) in early January 1996, Viv Crone was supposed to be my boss. Except he wasn’t there, because he was recovering from cancer treatment. This turned out to be quite a good thing in more than one way. On one hand I got a boss from whom I learned a lot (Carl Mostert) and on the other hand, Viv and I became good friends over the next few years, and now this friendship has been renewed.

He could only stay with us for two days and didn’t want to “put us out in any way”. So I decided to take him along to the things I would have done if he wasn’t around. On the first day we took a trip to Oswestry, to visit North Shropshire Timbers, and then on to Bala in North Wales, where we paid Les Symmonds a visit in his shop.

North Shropshire Timbers is one of these places that look a little like a bomb just hit them. There are complete trees lying around everywhere, and when we arrived, nobody was to be seen. Eventually we found the son (the place is run by father and son) and he was very helpful, and eventually I drove away with some very nice kiln dried English Oak, at a much lower price than had been quoted anywhere else. This is a big timber yard (for England), covering several football pitches of land, and they have all sorts, if you are willing to spend some time looking for it. Loads of oak, in substantial dimensions. There were entire stacks of beams, 8″x 8″ and about 8′ long or longer, and slabs 3-4″ thick, ideal for rustic solid tables.

Les Symmonds runs a very nice little shop in Bala, and since we were in the area, we took a drive across the Welsh mountains (with snow caps) to Bala. Les is a retired special needs teacher and became a full time wood turner about 3 years ago. His shop seems to be going well, and both Viv and I bout some small items to take home with us.

IMAG0064[1]On the second day, we spent most of our time in my workshop. Basically Viv had a full day of tuition, and some fun. For starters, we rounded off some oak blanks, and made a few dibbers. Simple enough to make, and gave him a bit of a feel for the tools.

Then we rough turned a piece of lime into a bowl. this gave him some exposure to pull cuts and green wood turning. After lunch. we picked a rough turned bowl and finished it. Here’s the man with his finished items:

Apologies for the quality. I could only use my mobile phone, and the light in the house was not good. Here are some close ups of the dibber and the bowl:

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We used some dyes to give the dibber a carrot appearance. The bowl is from beech,, about 10″ diameter and 2.5″ high, with a wax finish on the inside, and some red stain and acrylic lacquer finish on the outside.

 

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Viv seems to have enjoyed himself tremendously, and he’s now sent my a picture from his house back in SA, where the bowl takes pride of place on the coffee table.

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Recent work

Posted on 22. March 2016 by fuzzy

In preparation for my planned activities this summer (a number of events, see calendar for details) I have started making stock. Loads of bowls and platters, a few vases, and plenty of candle sticks. If you’re interested, pop over to the shop and have a look at the latest additions. Over the next few days I will be adding many more products, so watch out!

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Skewed Carrots

Posted on 6. March 2016 by fuzzy

No, this is not a typo. It’s not skewered carrots, either.

As the esteemed reader of this blog will know, we (Helen and I) will attend a number of events this year, with the idea of tempting the general public into spending the hard-earned cash on some of my efforts (for the simple minds: we are trying to flog some of my stuff).

When you do this sort of thing, obviously one the the things that come to mind is the question: what are people going to buy? After all, there’s not much point in selling jewelry at a live animal auction. Or, for that matter, selling live pigs at a jewelry fair.

Well, in the end, and since we are doing this for the first time, there is some guess work involved. One of our guesses was that there might be folks interested in gardening. So the idea here is to make some dibbers. You know, like a wooden stick with grooves on the side, you stick it onto the soil twist a little, and there’s your whole for planting a seedling.

I thought, OK, I’ve seen Steve Jones doing some excellent skew chisel work on youtube, let’s see how good I can be. Cut some blanks from an oak plank, 1″ thick and 1″ wide, 10″ long. The first one took me about 15 minutes, but then I figured out a few things, and when I got to the end  (i.e. the 12th one), I had it down to 8 minutes. I reckon Steve can probably do one in under 5 minutes, but then, he’s been doing this sort of thing for 25 years.

So I end up in the kitchen with 12 dibbers, all same size and more or less the same shape, with burned rings on them and nice round handle. That’s when Michael (my stepson) pipes up they look like carrots. So here’s the idea: we dye the bottom part orange, up to the last ring or so, and then the handle gets dyed green.

There you go: skewed carrots. You never such a thing existed, did you?

Oh, and for the uninitiated: the carrot thing should be clear enough. They are made from a square piece of wood, and most of the work is done with a skew chisel, that’s a turning tool with the cutting edge set at an angle, hence the name. It has a reputation for being difficult (well earned) and at the same time being the favourite tool of the production spindle turner (for a good reason). Practice, practice, practice, and then more practice.

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On your marks!

Posted on 1. March 2016 by fuzzy

I think I have already written about thinking of going to some events this year, not as a visitor, but as a seller. It first started out with our last visit to the Badminton Horse Trials.

This has now become much more serious. I found out that there is a company called the Rural Crafts Association, who organize pavilions at many of the major rural events throughout the UK. I have signed up with them, and have recently received my confirmation for the 4 events I have booked. In order to not get completely washed out and saddled with a huge bill, I am not going to be at Badminton (as a trader), and we (Helen and I) will start with a much smaller event at Chatsworth.

So now the race is on! Loads of things to do before the first event in May.

  1. I have to build a trade stall. Planning is in the advanced stage and soon I will be ordering all the bits and pieces. It will be quite a clean design, modular, almost Bauhaus style. Initially for a 2mx3m stand (with one open side) or a 3mx4m stand (with 2 open sides).
  2. I have to get public and product liability sorted out.
  3. I have to make stock. Loads of it! And hopefully I’ll get the mix right.

If anybody is interested, I’ll put up an events calendar on the site.

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Saving bowls

Posted on 28. February 2016 by fuzzy

2 weeks ago I visited a lady close to Bath to buy some tools from the workshop of her husband who had passed away a while ago. Among them was a brand new set of Kel McNaughton medium size bowl savers, complete with post. They still had the original rubber protection on the tips of the blades.

As luck will have it, on the very day before that, my tree surgeon left two huge cherry pieces on my doorstep, with a note asking me for a quote to turn two big bowls from them. Each piece as easily big enough to get a 16″ bowl and about 5-6″ thick. Obviously I put two and two together and decided to give my bowl saver a go.

First I cut the corners off the blanks (with the chainsaw, my bandsaw isn’t big enough for that), then mounted them on faceplates and rough turned the outside, including a recess for my biggest jaws. Then reverse onto the jaws, face off the front, and off we go.

I read up the user guide on the McNaughton website, and that was quite useful. I also remembered that there was a video on youtube, but at the moment there’s no sound on my computer, so I couldn’t consult that. I thought the worst that can happen is that I ruin a blank and have to go back for another.

I can tell you, this is serious work. I managed to get 6 bowls out of the 2 blanks, which I reckon isn’t too bad for a total newbie. I am pretty sure a more experienced turner (with the bowl saver) would have gotten 4 or 5 out of each blank, but I was pretty happy. Having said that, I did go through the bottom of one of the big bowls, so I now have to decide whether to fix that (with another piece of cherry) or throw it away. In any case, here’s the haul:

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