First Commission

Posted on 15. December 2015 by fuzzy

I have had a few enquiries over the last 6 months, but none went further than a few friendly emails. People probably didn’t want to spend the money, seeing that one-off artistic boxes or bowls are considerably dearer than the mass produced stuff you can buy on the high street. And it is true, I am not able, nor indeed willing,  to compete with the cheap imports from Morocco or elsewhere.

However, I did get an intriguing note from the WMWT chairman, and this has now turned into my first proper commission. A company called Moseley Violins in Birmingham are in need of some pins for some antique instruments, mostly guitars from the 17th and 18th century. The originals are made from ivory, and that is no longer an option due to the import ban on this material.

We have for now agreed on making them from bone, which I will be sourcing from Highland Horn, and I have sent them a sample made from cherry, which was accepted. So now I have placed an order for some bone rods, and hopefully they will arrive soon. Not a big job, just 16 pins, and they are quite small (about 10mm diameter on the head, and 25mm long), but it all has to start somewhere. And in this case, it’s right here.

Posted in General | Leave a comment

And again!

Posted on 10. December 2015 by fuzzy

In preparation for the summer, when I intend to show my work at a number of public events (schedule will be published as soon as it is nailed down), I have started making stock. On Sunday night, I rough turned 5 bowls, all about 8″ diameter and between 2″ and 5″ deep from various pieces of raw wood, some soaking wet. In less than 2 hours.

I know there are professional bowl turners out there, who would put me to shame. They can probably do this in 1 hour. But, and that’s a big but, I am not a professional, and I don’t have a production turning lathe. So I reckon for somebody with less than 2 years experience, that’s pretty good going.

Right at the end I must have gotten tired, paid less attention to what I was doing, and I got one almighty catch while roughing out the inside of a bowl. Doesn’t happen very often nowadays, but every now and then it does happen. In any case, this is how it went: I get the catch, the lathe doesn’t stop. In fact, I don’t even remember it slowing down. The tool is OK, and so is my arm.

The bowl, however, came right off the lathe (at about 1500rpm). Since I was cutting on the inside, I was well out of the line of fire, and in reality it just sort of dropped off and onto the floor. I pick it up, the lathe is still spinning, and first I thought maybe it just wrenched its way out of the chuck.

Nope, sir. It ripped the tenon right off the bottom of the bowl. Just not strong enough.

Luckily enough there was enough meat, pardon, wood, left, to make another chucking point (this time expansion chucking), and I finished it all of with no further problem.

Posted in Turning | Leave a comment

A toast to Steve Earis

Posted on 8. December 2015 by fuzzy

Last Saturday I went to meet Steve Earis, a fellow woodturner from Slough. This was in response to his announcement that he would have plenty of boxwood to share.

Now Slough isn’t exactly my backyard, it’s a one-way trip of over 100 miles. However, the promise of (almost) free boxwood in decent sizes was good.

When I arrived there (and after rousing Steve, who, like me, is not a morning person) we quickly got talking about all things wood. Let me tell you, this guy has a phenomenal knowledge of the various types of wood. He is also a strong supporter of (and contributor to) the wood-database, a site with tons of information about hundreds of useful types of wood.

He makes a living out of turning skittle sets for traditional bowling alleys, and in consequence has (literally) tons of sycamore and beech in his backyard. But there’s also a significant pile of all sorts, and an entire 6’x8′ shed with cured slabs of just about anything you care to mention.

I brought him a boot full of “mystery” wood, which he thinks is some kind of prunus, possibly a cherry. He might be right. In any case, he decided to keep most of that cherry, and in turn I was allowed to get myself some stuff from his “firewood” pile. I can’t even remember all the names of the species I walked away with, in addition to some fine piece of wenge. In fact, I think I left with more wood in the car than I arrived with. To be fair, though, I did pay him some money, too.

On the whole, I must say, Steve is one of the nicest guys you will meet in woodturning, and he makes some pretty decent bowls, too. So here’s a toast to Steve!

Posted in General | Leave a comment

Not strong enough

Posted on 8. December 2015 by fuzzy

Over the weekend I swapped a whole lot of “mystery” wood with Steve Earis (who, it must be said, is a most generous fellow wood turner). Amongst the pieces I took away were a few small half rounds of yew, some of which I converted promptly into rough turned bowls.

A cutoff from one of these pieces was too small for another bowl, but too big to just throw away. So I decided to make a winged box out of it. It all went rather swimmingly, until I decided that it was time to revers mount it, so that I could finish the underside of box and wings. I had deliberately left the box walls at about 5mm, thinking “will need some strength here, otherwise this is just going to fly off the chuck”.

When I tightened the chuck in expansion mode (so as not to leave any marks on the outside), I went just that little bit too far. Ominous sound -> visual inspection -> firewood. That’s how fast it goes. Not even the wonderwood yew was up for this.

Lesson learned. Next time I’ll use a jam chuck. Not brilliant either, and probably needs the tailstock up against the box bottom, but at least I will have a finished box.

Posted in Turning | Leave a comment

Gravity

Posted on 29. November 2015 by fuzzy

Last night I did some roughing out of various shapes, and as is often the case, needed to change jaws on the chuck. I usually find the set of jaws to go on, open the box and then use the lid to receive the jaws coming off the chuck.
Same procedure here. Except right at the end, I managed to toss the lid with the jaws onto the floor. 3 of them were quickly retrieved, but I could not find the 4th one.

At this point the shop floor was covered about 4 inches deep in shavings, and there were shavings everywhere in the workshop. I decided to have a bit of a cleanup, and filled a refuse bag with shavings. The missing jaw, however, was not there. Nowhere to be seen.

So I emptied the entire refuse bag onto the shop floor and searched through it. Still no luck. At that point I decided that I’d had enough, and went to bed.

This morning I put everything back in the bag, half-filled another, cleaned the work shop, in short I made quite an effort. But no jaw. OK, I thought, I must have missed it somehow. So I took the entire refuse bag to my wife’s horse yard, spread it out on the floor of an empty horse box, and sifted through it with a rake. No jaw.

Back home, some more cleaning of the workshop. Then a cigarette to get the brain cells working. A coffee. Nothing.

Eventually I got down on my belly, and with a search light looked under all the cupboards. And there it was. About as far from the lathe as it could have gone, and camouflaged behind a cupboard leg and some styrofoam.

Now I ask you: this is a piece of metal with an odd shape. It doesn’t roll, it cannot roll. It’s heavy. If I drop this from 1m onto your foot, you’re going to scream (I have on occasion). How did this thing end up in that remote corner? I haven’t the foggiest idea.

The only conclusion I can offer is that gravity must have been suspended in that very moment it fell out of the box.

Posted in General, Musings | Leave a comment