Learning the Turning #22

Shake, Rattle and Roll

It's disconcerting when a piece of heavy burl detaches itself from the chuck and chases you around the room.  Steel-capped boots will not keep you from playing jump-rope with a wild and wooly blank spinning around the floor at 2000 RPM.

Eventually I caught it under the bandsaw base and it reluctantly returned to my hand.

This piece is from a highly figured piece of Australian wood -- Victorian Ash burl, I believe.  It's heavily flawed, has a bit of live edge (as you can see) and what you can't see is that the wood was harder than the hubs of hell.  I felt like I was turning iron, not wood.  I sanded it up to 1200 grit and the surface looked like glass when I was done.  My wife says it's gorgeous, I say it's rather nice.

Two days to turn a single bowl.  I may not be specialising in burl, Going back to a nice couple of pieces of camphor laurel I have next.

Learning the Turning #21

Huon Pine

The tree made this, not me.  I intend to remember that.

I carved this tribute to a Huon Pine out of the skeleton of a living creature.

That said, I will be sad when I can no longer source turning blanks out of this timber...

This was a fairly smooth cut, sanded in 8 grades from 80 to 1200.  

At 80, you're still shaping it.  After 600, you're just adding a bit of gloss.

Wax finish, applied while turning and melted in by burnishing with Huon Pine shavings from turning this bowl.

When I get my Etsy shop up (soon) I will be selling little bags of the shavings too.  I've seen this before, as Huon Pine is a natural insect repellent.

Learning the Turning #20

Pittosporum

This is a fairly hard wood, unexpected from what is essentially a flower stalk.

I nearly discarded this blank, due to having snapped off the small bit I use to drill pilot holes for the faceplate screws.  It was a pain to drill around the broken bit, but I did prevail in the end.

Showing it to my good lady wife, she immediately said "Mark that one as 'sold'".

I love how she encourages me :)