News

Posted on 14. February 2016 by fuzzy

I know I haven’t posted for a while. To be honest, I got really busy at work, and also in the workshop. Now that it’s been decided that we (my wife Helen and me both) will do a number of events this year (I’ll post a separate event list), I really have to get my skates on and make some stock.

So, loads of rough turning. Right now I have around 30 rough turned pieces of all sorts somewhere in the house. And at least half a dozen in various stages of finishing. Generally finishing is not my strong side. I will have to make an extra effort one day to just complete some of my turnings. It’s only really a bit of varnish here and some wax there, that sort of thing. It’s almost like I lose interest once the finishing line is in sight, and move on to the next exciting thing. Bad habit, I know.

I have also had quite a bit of bad luck recently with some pieces. For the next club competition the subject is “goblet with lid and finial”. I had just the right wood for this, a nice piece of yew. Got the inside of the goblet nicely finished, and started turning the outside. Once last final cut (wall strength was down to about 1mm already) and big badaboom, the whole thing went in pieces all over the workshop. I am still not quite sure what exactly happened, maybe I hit a knot a little too hard.

And now I have a hollow form that was actually looking very promising, but it’s now developing cracks and they are getting bigger all the time.  As I was planning some carving on it, I left the walls quite thick, and that may well be the saving grace. The only problem will be that in order to achieve the look I wanted, I’ll have to fill the gaps with some kind of glue and that then puts dyes out of the question. We’ll see.

The good news is that I am now getting quite good at rough turning bowls. 10″ blank, with only the corners cut off, rough outside, and 30 minutes later we have a decent bowl about 1″ thick and in a nice shape.

I’ve also had some luck regarding tools. John BHT put a post on the AWGB forum about some tools for sale and I managed to get in quite early and got some really nice stuff. I ended up spending over £600, but at the same time probably saved about the same amount. Now I have a Tormek 2000 grinding station with all the bits, and a Kel McNaughton bowl saver. I just have to figure out how to use it.

This is where my tree surgeon comes into the picture, again. Yesterday he left two substantial pieces of cherry on my doorstep, with a little note. These pieces are about 5″ thick and will easily yield a 16″ bowl each. The note says “Can you please get me a price for two bowls”. Well, that’s a bit of a predicament. Ordinarily I would charge about £160 for a bowl of that size. But Mark is a friend and a very good source of all sorts of interesting wood. So we came to a different arrangement: £100 for two bowls, and next time I come to his place, I can load my boot full to the rim with whatever wood he has in his shed, free of charge. I reckon he’s still getting a very good deal. But then, the things you do for a friend.

I think that’s all of the news for now. See ya.

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Feedback, please?

Posted on 28. January 2016 by fuzzy

I happen to know that there are actually a few people out there who read this blog on the odd occasion, so my efforts are not completely wasted. However, despite the fact that comments are enabled (albeit with moderation), all I ever get in my comment queue is loads of spam.

A regular favourite are people telling my that my site could go viral, if only I were to spend $50 on their fabulous traffic generation tool. And there’s the guys (and girls, if you believe it) with plenty of contacts to sexy russian/thai/chinese/(insert your favourite nationality here) babes. Having said that, most of them actually use the contact form.

And there’s the usual mixture of penis enlargements (thanks, but no, thanks), viagra pills, lingerie, insurances, and so on and on.

What I don’t get is any actual real feedback from real people talking about the actual articles or items. So here’s my request to all the actually interested readers of this blog: Why don’t you muster all your courage and post some meaningful, relevant, related and above all, genuine comments? That’d be real nice, thank you.

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Joy and pain

Posted on 27. January 2016 by fuzzy

This website runs on my own server. That’s not your usual setup for most people, but considering I actually earn my money doing IT for other people. it shouldn’t be a big surprise, either. It is, in fact, a Linux server (debian, to be precise), and heavily secured. Every day there are hundreds of idiots trying to break into the server itself or one of its websites. As far as I can tell, none of them actually ever get anywhere at all, but it’s like the sea: the waves just keep on crashing with neither rhyme nor reason.

The very same server also runs a mail service for most of my domains, and a handful of other websites. All of this information is in the public domain, and any half-decent web guy can figure it out within a few minutes, so I am not actually spilling any beans here.

This website uses WordPress, one of the best blogging and content management tools available for free. There are thousands of plugins available for just about any purpose under the sun and then some, and there are also hundreds of themes (aka skins) available, most of them for free, making this one of the great success stories on the open source community.

Why am I mentioning all of this? I am writing about it because it is at once a great joy and a big pain in the arse. The great joy is that I can do with this server what I like. If I were to have my sites hosted on some cloud service, I would not have that freedom. I would have to share WordPress with hundreds of other blogs, and could only use the themes and plugins made available by the owners of the server. I would not be able to analyze my logs to death, and I would most certainly not be able to get anywhere near the actual operating system itself. On this, my own server, however, I am god (did I mention that I am an atheist?).

There is a price to pay for this elevation, though. It comes in the mundane, weekly or daily maintenance that has to be done.Log files need analysing. Updates need installing. Sometimes they break things, and then I can spend hours fixing them or searching the interweb for solutions. And there was a steep learning curve, now a distant memory, but it had to be mastered. And every couple of years I need to buy new hardware.

So, as you can see, even a god needs to do housekeeping. That’s actually quite inspiring, if you think about it. Of course, you’d have to be an atheist first, otherwise this is all quite blasphemous.

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African Beauty

Posted on 20. January 2016 by fuzzy

As promised in my last post, here are some pictures of the African Beauty. I bought the blank from ebay a while ago, and it’s been lying around in the kitchen for some time. Every now and then I’d pick it up, admire the wonderful patterns in the wood and then put it down again. Waiting for inspiration (or some other reason to reduce it to shavings).

Then one day I thought: it’s the new year, so I wonder what the Chairman’s Challenge is for January? It was a square bowl. And the lights went on. I have previously made one square bowl out of rippled sycamore. It came out very nicely, so why not do it again?

Here’s the result:

wenge-square-bowl This is what I would call a two-up-two-down bowl. Two opposing corners are pointing upwards, and the other two slope down. You can see it even better in the side profile:

wenge-square-bowl-profile

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have added a separate page describing how such a bowl is made, in case anybody is interested.

 

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A good start

Posted on 17. January 2016 by fuzzy

Today was our first club meeting of the new year, and it was a hands-on day on the subject of bowl turning. To be honest, it was actually on knife’s edge whether I would go at all. I had a bad cold over Christmas, and it’s coming back for a second helping. Brain is dizzy, muscles ache, I feel hot and cold at the same time, and so on. Luckily the throat is alright so far and the nose isn’t runny yet (but that will come as sure as death and taxes, and those are the only two things that are for sure in life).

In any case, I did go, and it was well worth it. I didn’t take any tools or blanks, just my turning smock. And it went as expected: Phil asked me to help out with a little tuition, so I ended up talking and showing two newbies through their first bowl. Quite small ones, about 6″ diameter, but they walked away with nice shapes, and only some sanding to complete (which we generally don’t do during hands-on days, as it’s a nightmare to get rid of the dust). So that went well.

What went even better was the chairman’s challenge. Subject was “A square edged bowl”. I submitted my african beauty (pictures to follow), which is what I call a 2-up-2-down bowl. The underside is turned as if all corners are drooping and the upside is turned as if all corners are rising. When the turning is finished, obviously the 4 corners are a lot thicker than the rest of the bowl, and now have to be worked into shape manually. Lots of sanding, and more sanding. I’ll post pictures soon.

To cut a long story short: I won! With the smallest of margins, mind you, but with a personal high-score of 44 (out of 50), and I am especially proud of the mark 10 in the category “Design: shape and proportion”. And it was a proud moment when Malcolm (who came a very close second with 43 points) walked up to me to congratulate me.

Malcolm is one of the finest turners in the club, and I suspect we will have a fierce competition between us for the rest of the year. Not only is he a fine turner, but he’s also a really nice guy. So now the battle is under way. In the friendliest of manners of course, after all, this is England, not Syria. BRING IT ON!

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