Yes, I know it has been a while since I have posted anything. To be honest, I haven't spent a lot of time in the shop recently...until now. As such, I thought I would post a little blurb about and some pics of what I have been up to in the past few weeks.
Those who know me know I am a huge fan of immediate gratification. I don't have a lot of time during the week to enjoy making stacks of wood into smaller pieces of wood, but I do gain a serious feeling of relaxation when I do so. However, I am also not the sort of person who likes to start a project and pick it up again the next day. So, to satisfy my need to ruin wood, relax, and have "one night" projects, I have now contracted the disease that is woodturning.
With that in mind, here are a couple of my first pieces. First up is a bowl I turned from a piece of ... well ... pallet wood. I call it pallet wood because I have no earthly idea what exactly it is. It is a piece of a pallet that the generator we had installed at work came on. It was rather thick stock, so I thought it would be a good batch of wood to butcher while I learned how to turn.
I was a bit worried about using this particular blank as I was afraid that the knot would blow out and bad things would happen. I was pleasantly surprised by how it turned out though.
Next up is a piece that I made from some scrap maple and walnut. I had some 5" square x 3/4" pieces that I was going to use to make something else, but decided to glue them together into a block and see what I could get out of it. Here's what I got out of it...
A slightly funny story, and one to reaffirm the need for a face mask when turning...this bowl was originally four pieces of wood thick, or about 3" tall. I attached the bowl to a faceplate and shaped the outside of it. Then I cut a "hole" in the bottom of the bowl so that I could put the bowl in my chuck and hollow out the inside. Well, I guess my piece of walnut didn't like being in the chuck as as soon as I put gouge to wood the bottom of the bowl blew up. The bowl went flying and rolled across the shop. So I put it back on the faceplate, fixed the blowout and chucked it up again. Blam! Blew out on me again. I finally gave up and cut all the walnut away except for the small ring at the bottom of the bowl. I thought it looked kinda cool like that though.
So, anyway, that's what I've been up to. Yes, there were plenty of other bowl-like things that came before these. No, none of them are worth posting...unless I decide to do the "outtakes" section of the website. But needless to say, making square wood round is very addicting...and very satisfying. Now all I need is a chainsaw :)