More Mugs

Made up a few more mugs ! One waiting for an insert.  I am really liking the Mahoney's finish.  Makes the wood look very rich I think.  May not be for every type of wood, but on the cherry in particular I think it's very nice.  Easy to refresh as well.  Next time I do a walnut piece I'll be trying it again.

1. Boxelder, burned butterfly, polyurethane, buffed and waxed

 Cherry, burend initials, Mahoney's Oil and Wax Finish over Walnut Oil

Maple, staved, burned abstract fish, Mahoney's Oil & Wax Finish over Walnut Oil

Travel Mugs

Just finished turning a bunch of travel mugs.  Stainless Steel inserts and various woods, all with a poly finish that has been buffed and waxed.  Some are done with a stave construction and some are from a solid blank.

12 Travel Mugs and 1 Cocktail Shaker

One More Travel Mug with a wood burned Dragon Fly and worm holes filled with turquoise.  This one is out of White Birch

Xmas Ornaments

Ornaments.  All of them have been hollowed, so they are pretty light weight.  One is for the gift exchange at our clubs Christmas Party tonight.

Spalted Maple

Spalted Maple

Corkscrew Willow

Our recent meeting

At our meeting this past Saturday Steve Promo gave us tips on using a bandsaw for roughing out turning blanks. I for one learned quite a bit from Steve's demonstration. One of the major take-always for me was Steve's recommendation for Timberwolf Bandsaw blades. Steve recommended the 3/8" and 1/2" 3 TPI AS blades. Steve buys his blades from Suffolk Machinery.

I went to Suffolk 's website and did quite a bit of reading there. Of particular interest was the description of the various blade types available. I did a cut and paste of the description of the "AS" blades below.

THE AS (Alternate Set): These blades are only available in 3/8″ x 3tpi, 1/2″x 3tpi and 1/2″ x 2tpi. These blades are unique in their body thickness, set, and rake angle. They are .032 thick, have a full alternate set, a unique rake angle of 8.5° and also incorporate the unique geometry of our PC tooth design. These blades are primarily used by wood-turners and wood-carvers when roughing out blanks from burls and logs. Their performance is excellent if the thickness of your material exceeds 6 to 8 inches These blades are not meant to be used on three wheel band saws or any saw with less than a 90″ blade length or a wheel diameter of less than 14″.

As you see in their description above these blades are designed specifically for our needs.   I have 2 on order. 

I also noted that if clubs get a group order together they would get a 30% discount. We might want to keep this in mind. 

http://www.suffolkmachinery.com/

Thank you Steve for a very informative demo.

Negative Rake Scraper Info

At our last meeting Jim lead a discussion about negative rake scrapers. Jim was telling us how several of the demonstrators at the national symposium where using them to do the final cuts to there work. 

Below is a link to Rudy Lopez web site. It should land you on the PDF article about negative rake scrapers. At the bottom of the article it will tell where to look for more info. Specificly it references an article in a past AAW Journal. 

http://www.rudolphlopez.com/pdfs/Negative%20Rake%20Scraper%20Jig%20and%20Info.pdf

New Turnings

I haven't been on my lathe at all this year.  The last I turned was just before Christmas.  I have had other projects that I needed to be working on.
We needed a gift for a wedding and my wife suggested I turn a wine bottle coaster and a re-corker.  So I did.  I made 4 sets.  One from beech and maple and two from boxelder.
The pictures below show the beech, maple and one of the boxelder.  The fourth is wrapped up with a bottle of wine and gone.

It felt good to be back in the shop turning.  I have a bunch of coffee mugs that I need to get doe next.

Our recent meeting

Our club meet on Saturday June 7 th. 

For our program we had a discussion session. The session was lead by Gary Weiermiller and our guest John Hebron. John is an accomplished potter and he talked about pottery making and selling on the art fair circuit. 

There was also a lot of discussion about what is art. 

I think everyone in attendance came away feeling as though it was a very worthwhile meeting. 

Thank you John and Gary. 

MAF Demo Day 2

I am couple of days late with this update.  Yesterday was a travel day so it was a bit busy.

The weekend was a full one.  The demonstration started with a breakfast from 8 am to 9 am and then the demo ran to about 4 - 4:30 pm with a lunch.
I can't say enough about the club in Holly.  A great facility and a great organization.  And Rudy was a great demonstrator.  He has a few different techniques that we normally see and I am itchy to try a few of them out myself.

For reverse chucking,  Rudy like to use products from " Rubber Chucky Products " rubberchucky.com
Don Doyle was there both days with his products, and of course I bought some of them.  I'll bring my purchases to the next club meeting.  Hopefully I will have tried them out by then.

The club has 9 Jet 1640 lathes for hands on training.  Of course the hands on workshops was full.



Below are some iPhone shots of day 2.

Rudy Lopez Demo

On a spur of the moment decision, I am at the Rudy Lopez demonstrations at the Michigan Association of Woodturners Club in Holly Michigan.
The club , an AAW club like ours, has a great set up.  I have included a few pictures of the room this morning before the demonstration.  As you will see in the pictures, they have a great AV set up for their demonstrations.  They have 6 monitors showing 3 camera views.

Rudy comes form the Tampa area and will be demonstration at the National Symposium next month. He does a great job.  I have included pictures of the projects he demonstrated today.  There is another day of demonstrations tomorrow and hands on workshops Monday and Tuesday.

I was told by the club president that Gary Weiermiller has presented here,  I am guessing it was before they bought the Powermatic lathe, because I did not see his signature on it.

Look for updates tomorrow night.

Interesting Bowl Making Video

https://www.hollandbowlmill.com

The above link is to the Holland Bowmill website.  If you look in the right hand column of the home page there is a video of the process they use to manufacture their bowls.  I found their process very interesting.   In particular their drying process and the fact they they really don't turn the bowls twice despite starting with green wood.

We are in Holland this weekend I'll be looking for their bowls while here to seed them for myself.

Sorry I'll be missing the May meeting tomorrow.

Tom C

Update

Haven't posted in a while so I thought a would throw up some pics from our last 2 meetings. Just some iPhone shots from the show and tell table. 

Interesting Video

Click Here for video


Above is a link to an interesting video.  The video features turning and carving.