David and Goliath

Posted on 12. November 2015 by fuzzy

As most of my esteemed readers will know, I am a member of the AWGB (for the non-wood-turners, that’s the Association of Wood Turners of Great Britain). I haven’t sought them out to become a member, it was part and parcel of both of the clubs that I am a member of.

I have also been to their last seminar, which, as far as I am concerned, was absolutely worth the money and has given me a real boost in many, many aspects.

As it turns out, the AWGB is a bit in a pickle. There weren’t enough delegates at the seminar, and they now have to carry a shortfall of close to 10k. This was enough to make them stop and think, with a huge long thread on their forum, to generate ideas of what needed to be changed to make this more of a success.

At the very same time, there are three quite new and unknown wood turners who are trying to put together a UK and Ireland Wood Turning Symposium, with a lot of marketing hype and big fanfares.

Now let’s compare the two offerings: The AWGB offer an all-inclusive deal for 3 days, with overnight accommodation, all meals and drinks (except the bar), 12 professional demonstrators (6 from overseas), a host of trade stands and an instant gallery for a total of £275. On the other end of the scale, UKIWS offer only day tickets for £15 each, with some public demonstrations, mostly of little known turners, no accomodation, no food, no drinks, no gallery, and only a handful of trade stands. If you want to see a proper pro turning, it’s extra. You want to stay overnight, it’s extra. You want food, extra. You want coffee…, well, you get the message.

This is a little like comparing an easyjet cattle class flight ticket with a business class flight from, say, Singapore Airlines or Emirates. Just not in the same category. However: easyjet make money. Yes, they have to sell loads of tickets, but their possible market place is huge.  And their costs are low. Whereas (as amply demonstrated by the lack of uptake) the market for AWGB seminars is limited. Not everybody can afford it or want to spend the money.

Now, instead of actually listening to any of this, all the folks on the AWGB forum can think of is to heckle those posters who dare to criticise the AWGB. Clearly it hasn’t hurt bad enough. Yet.

Maybe they need some new kids on the block (UKIWS) to pull that magic rabbit out of the hat, to wake up and realize that what has worked in the past, doesn’t work any longer. I think some really hard thinking is in order here. However, the signs are not good. There is some gentle shoulder-tapping and congratulations over a job well done, but no serious questioning of ideas and practices. No doubt, I will have more to say on this as the stories unfold.

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Black poplar bowl

Posted on 5. November 2015 by fuzzy

When I got home last night, I couldn’t wait and immediately started working on the piece of black poplar I got from Mark. It turns very nicely, but does need a bit of sanding. During the sanding I noticed that the grain was actually quite open, and that gave me an idea.

A while ago I did a demo for one of my clubs, and one of my demo pieces ended up a right mess. I was trying to do a tealight holder in open grained wood, with the grain brushed out and then filled in with type of glittery guilt cream. Stupidly I had left the lemon oil at home, and my attempts of wiping the excess off with some other stuff did not work at all.

But last night, I got the result I wanted. Tata!

black-poplar-dish

Not bad for 2 hours work, if I may say so myself. The picture doesn’t even do it full justice, as the colours shimmer depending on how the light falls on them.

 

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And some more wood

Posted on 5. November 2015 by fuzzy

Last night I went to see Mark, the tree surgeon, who had promised to build a stock of promising cuts of wood. And let me tell you, he did, and in style.

He has listened to all my advice, and now has a pile of probably several tonnes of wood. Straight pieces, crotches, curly wood, odd species. All there. Let me see if I can remember all of them: Prickly pear, apple, cherry (some huuuuge pieces), monkey puzzle, cedar, redwood, sycamore, blackbeam (not sure what that is), acacia, plum, damson. And those are just the ones I can recall. There’s probably more.

And all of them are cut down the pith, end grain sealed, bark still on. The man is a treasure. Here’s what I took away from him:

boot-with-wood

From left to right: a piece of acacia, some rippled sycamore, with a small piece of cedar in the back, and some cedar (bottom) and black beam (top). What you can’t see are two more pieces I had already taken out of the boot, one of black poplar and another piece of cedar.

I’ve never had black poplar before, but it turns very nice, but more about that in a separate post.

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The power of shrinkage

Posted on 26. October 2015 by fuzzy

I mentioned a while ago that I got a whole lot of yew from a friendly benefactor. In return I promised to make him some items for his home. Amongst these items are three tall, elegant and simple candle holders.

Now yew is one of those woods that just love to split. I know that (don’t ask me how), and therefore I looked at my little creations and pondered what to do about it. In the end I resorted to drilling a one inch hole through the entire length of the candle holders, it won’t make much of a difference, since in the top there is going to be one of those Ikea glass tea light holders, so nobody is going to see it.

Then I put them aside for a few weeks to dry out a bit before any finish is applied. This evening I decided that the time had come to put the finish on. A little bit of final sanding, some sanding sealer and then my wipe-on poly that worked so well on the yew vase. All good to this point (just before I started with the poly). Final check: does the glass holder still fit in?

And here’s the surprise: it fits, but only on one of them. When I made these, the openings at the top had between 1 and 2mm space. But 2 of them were still quite green, hence the drying period. They have now shrunk so much, that not only have I lost the 1mm play, the glass dish now sticks out on top. Which means I’ll have to put them back on the lathe and figure out a way to widen the openings without completely destroying the shape.

What it did do though, was prevent most of the splitting. In fact, those two holders where the dish doesn’t fit any longer, haven’t developed any cracks at all. So in summary: the method worked, but the result was not anticipated. Need to leave more space to play with. At least I figured it out before the finish went on.

Life goes on…

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So much to do and so little time

Posted on 25. October 2015 by fuzzy

I looked at my home page today and thought: wow, my last post is from 15/10, that’s more than a week ago, and I don’t have anything sensational or big to report. Where’s all the time gone?

But reflecting a little more, I think this is just natural. Life is simply not sensational all the time, and if it were, it would be pretty exhausting.

So what have I been doing in these last 10 days? Well, here’s an overview, and it probably reads like your average wood turner’s diary, just stretched out a little (since I am not a full time wood turner).

I applied for, and got accepted, membership in a high-end home ware e-trading site. Now anxiously awaiting further news on how to set up my shop there. This could potentially be very good. OTOH, it could be the same disaster as Etsy and Folksy turned out to be (at least they were cheap).

Remember that post about some free lime wood? Well, I did some work with that on the weekend when I got it, but there was still plenty of work left. In fact, last Sunday I spent more than 4 hours chain-sawing all of it into a nice stack of blanks of various sizes, which are now a neat little stack in the garden with a tarpaulin covering them. In the process I managed to almost ruin a chainsaw blade, and blunt both of them. Now I am waiting for delivery of some files so I can sharpen the chains again. And I ended up with three large bin bags full of shavings. My wife’s horses were very grateful, I believe.

I finally got around to making myself a proper tool rack for all my turning tools. So far they lived in a make-do cardboard tube solution, which was hanging off the edge of my metal turning tool shelf. Due to the combined weight, that shelf was threatening to fall apart any time soon. Last weekend I also bought a half sheet of exterior plywood (the good stuff), and I have now made myself a rack for all my turning tools. Pictures to follow soon.

I also used some more of that same sheet to finalize work on a universal support table. Sounds grand, but it really is just a piece of plywood, square in size, but with one corner cut away for a small bowl and the opposite corner cut out for a bigger bowl, and a bracket underneath. This I can clamp onto a round tool rest (the Report Sorby type), and therefore mount in my banjo in just about any position I like. At the same time, I made a small sled for my Proxxon tool. I can now use this to do all sorts of geometrical carving my pieces, although a first attempt has shown me that this needs some practice. Again, pictures to follow.

I finally finished a large (14″) beech bowl, very plain and simple. I made a start on a blue, black and gold canister from spalted sycamore. I also made three little Christmas ornaments, but they are not finished yet. And finally, last night, I made a rustic winged bowl from a piece of oak. Actually came out very nice. Oh, yes, I also made some more progress on one of my designed art boxes. As above, plenty of pictures to follow.

I bought some more tools and consumables from Axminster, and I spent time on ebay buying a few nice bowl blanks (which I will probably abuse into jewellery boxes). I also bought some cut-offs from a local hardwood store. I had a bit of a shock there: black walnut is EXPENSIVE!

So, in hindsight, and considering I actually have a full time job, and do work in the household, like shopping and ironing, I think I did actually get quite a lot done, even though today was a very quiet day, and I didn’t even go into my workshop at all (very unusual for me on a Sunday).

I think sometimes we all just need to remind ourselves of all those little things we do all the time, and not expect life to be a 24-7 party or one big adventure movie, and we’d all be a much happier bunch.

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