Saturday, November 17, 2012

Saturday wrap up

Hi Everyone,

I've been working on some smaller wood turnings of late and I'm going to go a head and show you a couple of photos so you can see what I'm writing about:






I've been turning some small box elder branches I collected last month when a tree blew down in a wind storm in St. Paul along with some other small pieces of wood I've collected over the last year. I've wanted to just do some turning and some experimenting with various shapes and kinds of wood that are different from the lumber I use for bowls and platters. I'm going to continue working on this and I'll be posting an essay soon on artist wood turners whose work I've been studying.

Basswood platter

The priest at our church has been a wonderful friend over the years and I've wanted to make her a platter as a present. I've searched for just the right piece of wood and earlier this year I found an unusual piece of basswood. Basswood is a soft cream colored wood that is better known as a carving wood than a turning wood. The following blank has a lot of character to it and I turned the underside and smoothed it until it looked like ivory. Here's a photo of it on the lathe:



I'll send photos when I'm finished turning it.

Maple Bowls

I've been working on some maple bowls for both a friend who is retiring and another friend who is beginning a new life by buying a home for herself in St. Paul. Here is a photo of the turning blanks to date:


The white oak-Brazilian cherry platter

This is the platter that started me off on turning forms and objects that are not especially for kitchen ware:



No matter what I do this platter always winds up looking flat in photos. It actually is about 1 1/2 inches deep and is a lovely piece.

I'll be posting more photos through the end of the year so stay tuned and be sure and drop by the wood shop. It's an absolute mess right now which means it's been a particularly fruitful time for turning. As always there are more adventures ahead!

If I don't get a chance to post more in the next several days, I'd like to take a moment to say Happy Thanksgiving to all my friends here in the US. I hope everyone has a great day that day.


Best,
VW

No comments:

Post a Comment