At the 9 July 2022 Hiawatha Woodturners Club meeting Sam Staffan demonstrated Fractal Burning. Sam ran a sign shop before retiring and used a transformer used in neon signs to generate the high voltage needed for fractal burning of wood. Sam has a sign on his transformer to the effect that this will kill you to remind himself of the danger of working with up to 15,000 volts even in low current, In this video Sam will explain how he mixes one table spoon of baking soda to one quart of water and then sprays the surface of the wood and then applies the probes to pass the current across the wood. He uses insulated gloves and has insulated the wires he holds and a foot pedal swich to turn on the power.
The 9 July Club meeting was held at Sam Staffan's shop. Sam used to have a sign shop and after retiring expanded his interests into working with glass and wood. Sam has three lathes and does pen turning which expanded into larger turned items.
At the club meeting there were some Show and Tell items that show the skill of the club members.
Nice box with a mushroom on the lid.
Wood spoon and spatula turn from one piece of wood. The handles are turned and the spoon and spatula are carved or ground to shape.
Steve Promo turn this large vessel with a hole in the side. It also has some turquoise in a crack.
Steve brought in some of his stone collection and showed how he crushed the stone using a pipe and a steel drop rod (shown on left).
In addition, there were some Bring Backs raffled off.
Above are two large and thick slabs of walnut.
A crouch was brought in along with several slices of aromatic cedar.
Sam Staffan has a very nice shop and displayed around his shop are some very impressive products of his work considering he only started wood turning in June of 2021. Here are some results of his skills:
Some of his wood has been stabilized and turned and other embedded in epoxy and turned. He has added colors and other material to enhanced the look of the end product.
After a discussion by Steve Promo about he club Sam Staffan gave a demonstration of stabilizing wood using a special resin. Here is an edited video of that process.
link: https://youtu.be/Xxeee2XLa_w
During the meeting I recorded several videos of Sam's process including turning wood embedded in epoxy resin. I am working on putting these videos together in a understandable format so they will be posted later. - ajp2
Sam sent a picture of a partially turned object that was stabilized with resin. Interesting shavings or lack there of.
Here are some pictures of a couple of items that were brought in to show the fellow members what we have been working on for the 11 June 2022 club meeting.
The inside has been sanding a painted for a nice contract.
Beautiful wood for this container.
Turned the wood to provide another view of the variations in the wood.
Please note the 9 July 2022 club meeting will be at Sam's shop in Mackinaw City where he will show some of the equipment he uses in his resin turning projects. - ajp2
Steve Promo has been mentoring kids at the LaSalle High School in Saint Ignace in the skills of turn on wood lathes. Recently several have been turning rolling pins. Here are some pictures.
Innovative protective gear to keep the wood shavings out of and off your clothes. Protective mask against the dust of turning and sanding. Well done.
Putting the finishing touches on a rolling pin with strips of darker wood. Looks great.
Steve had a recent project to make four red pine table legs. Each table leg has a tenon opening so it can be fasten to the table tenons.
Finished table legs 28" long with a 3" square top to connect to the table. Hard to believe each leg was turn separately and not on an automated machine.
Close up of the top showing the tenon opening used to fasten to the table.
Another great project by Steve Promo. Beautiful work Steve.
I had a section of a burl and the outer sections had gone bad with lots of worm holes pulpy sections. This box was made from the inner section.
I used CA glue on the bark and was able to retain a small section of the bark. The lid has lots of worm holes and was a little pulpy. I used CA glue on that area. As I turned some additional worm holes appeared and they are lighter as the CA treated worm holes turned dark.
This the box with the lid off. You can see where a knot went thru the lid.
The finished bottom has some decoration.
The bottom of the inside has some interesting grain patterns.
the bottom of the lid shows some interesting grain pattern and a few worm holes.
To turn the lid I turned the lid using a mounting block and made lid so it would fit into the opening of the box. I then used rubber jaws to hold the turned edge and turned the top of the lid. The knob on the top is a different section of wood that was glued between the lid and the mounting block.
At the 14 May 2022 Woodturners meeting Steve Promo showed a hard maple leg he turned for a butcher block he is currently refurbishing. He explained the process he used and gave some other helpful hints on turning spindles from square stock. The maple leg blanks are from laminated lumber and were lined up and the transitions marked so they all match. He suggests mounting the first spindle turned behind the lathe next the new turning for a visual comparison, in addition to using layout lines on the wood and calipers for critical diameters he also put the layout lines on the tool rest for reference. Here are some pictures.
This is the butcher block he is restoring. Lots of sanding. Note the old legs under the butcher block that is setting on as steel frame.
Steve laid out all four leg blanks and added the layout lines across all four to all are marked the same.
As Steve suggested he built a rig to hold his first finished leg behind the one he was currently working on so he could make them all the same. Note the flat corners on the upper part of the leg. Steve used a table saw blade set at 45 degrees to trip the corner off adding a beautiful touch to the legs.
Steve's work is so process that all four legs are identical. Well done Steve. Thanks for sharing.
Above are the finished legs for the butcher block.
The finished professional butcher's block of hard maple. Wonderfully done Steve. I would hate to actually cut meat on it being so pretty and all.
Also at the meeting Sam Staffan gave a talk on his work turning scrap and rejected wood using resin casting. Here are two of his projects more are shown in the video.
Sam used to run a sign shop and developed many skills like etching glass. Here is a etched vase mounted in a turned wood base. Considering he has only been turning for about a year his work is as Steve calls it spectacular.
Here Sam placed sea shells in a mold and filled it with resin and then turned a beautiful candle holder.
Watch the video of his presentation to see more of his work as he talks about how he works and what he has tried as he learns turning.
