Eynah! (ouch)

Posted on 13. January 2016 by fuzzy

As attentive readers of my blog will know, I have a bandsaw. It’s not your usual type, which is fixed in the upright position. Mine is the type that is meant for an engineering workshop, and usually used with the main body in the horizontal, exerting pressure on the piece to be cut.

The bandsaw can also be flipped up and fitted with a table.

The bandsaw can also be flipped up and fitted with a table.

However, the main body can be lifted into the vertical, and a (small) table can be screwed onto the blade guides, thereby converting it into a convenient tool to cut wood (and other materials) on this little table. It doesn’t go as fast as I’d like, but it works, and I have cut pieces up to 6″ thick on it.

The other day I was doing just that, cutting a round blank out of a largish piece of elm, to yield a bowl blank about 15″ diameter.

As the attentive reader of my blog will know, my workshop is not very big. In fact, it is positively on the small side. In consequence, the piece of elm was fouling against my carpenter’s vice. And that’s where I made a big mistake. Instead of switching the saw off, then moving it and switching it back on, I just tried to lift it a little and shift it towards the lathe to create the necessary space.

Now, it is only a small bandsaw, but it does have some weight. About 40kg, to be precise. So a good hold is required. As I grabbed the saw with both hands, trying to find that good hold, my left hand thumb protruded into the saw blade at precisely the only spot where it could possibly make contact. So it made contact, for about 1 second. That was enough:

Cut-finger

Let me tell you: It hurt. A lot. And it bled. A lot.

As it turns out, I got lucky. I only really cut through the top 2-3mm of skin (yes, skin is that thick, even on your fingers), so the damage is limited. And thanks to the bleeding, no dirt was left in the wound (isn’t that ingenious of Mother Nature?). In any case, I really did learn my lesson that evening.

So please, please, all you readers: do not repeat what I did. Work safe. Switch your machines off before you faff around with them.

(sorry for the fuzzy picture, my phone did not want to focus on the finger, but I guess it shows enough gruesome detail anyway).

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New year, new chances

Posted on 12. January 2016 by fuzzy

So we have finally arrived in 2016. All safe and sound, I hope.

I have now taken on more duties in both of my woodturning clubs. At the West Midlands Woodturners I have become deputy editor of the newsletter and the website, and at the Black Country Woodturners I am now the website administrator, with the job to generate and publish and completely brand new site. It’s work in progress, and I’ll keep you all updated as we go along.

Even more important to me: I have won the overall trophy for the intermediate class at the West Midlands Woodturners, and have been promoted to the advanced class. Now the challenge is on. There are some pretty good turners there, and it will be a lot harder to win any given month. The subject for January is a square edge bowl. I have mine ready for the competition next Sunday, but I won’t post any pictures just yet, so that nobody will be able to recognize my piece (and thereby put any kind of prejudice on the judging).

Bring it on!

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Busy, busy, busy

Posted on 10. January 2016 by fuzzy

Over the Christmas period, I have spent quite a bit of time in my workshop. Some of it produced finished pieces, mostly as presents for family and friends (and there are largely no pictures of these), some for general sale, and more about that later.

However, most of my time was just spent preparing raw lumber into turning blanks. Here’s the result:

raw-stock-1

Here we have some bowl blanks and spindle blanks. The spindle blanks are mostly black poplar, all cut from one piece. The wood is very similar to ash, except for one thing: it stinks. It took me a while to figure out what the smell is most like, but eventually I got there: pig shit.

The bowl blanks are a mixture of sycamore, beech and ash, in varying diameters from 8″ to about 12″.

 

 

raw-stock-2

raw-stock-3

Some more spindle blanks, this time from beech, laburnum, yew, sycamore, and lonely rough turned bowl (from a piece of wood I got from Steve Earis). However, in my drying cabinet there are a further 7 rough turned bowls, and they are slowly getting to the point where I can actually do something with them. None of them are very big, all about 6-8″ across.

And finally a nice big shallow dish from spalted elm. Unfortunately the spalting is mostly on the underside, and I had to turn most of it away, as the wood was so soft it wouldn’t hold up to anything.

I know already that this will either make a very nice wide dish, or it will become part of a sculptural piece that I sketched out a few months ago. Once it’s dry, I’ll make the decision.

So, as you can see, I have plenty of blanks waiting to dry. In addition, my pile of raw cut lumber outside the workshop has also seen some additions just before Christmas, but that will have to wait a while. With all the awful weather we’ve had recently, it has no chance to dry out at all. Well, what can you do?

Tara for now.

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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.

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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.

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