Reclaimed Pine Bowl

A few months ago when taking down the extension on the Park Keepers cottage I sawed through some big old pine purlins. As I sawed I was greeted with the most amazing pine smell and the grain looked beautiful. I put both 4m lumps of timber to one side not quite sure what I'd do with them.
Knocking off from work on Friday night I decided to saw a bit off one and see what I could make from it over the weekend. I pulled out the nails and cut a blank to have a play with.
Considering it's softwood it didn't cut that easily, with the grain tearing if my bowl gouge wasn't sharp enough. I decided to hide nothing on the timber, leaving all the nail holes and any of the white paint that would stay on. I did treat it for wood worm though.
I had a small incident when turning the back away and got a little bit too confident with the lathe running too fast. They say sometimes something happens so fast you don't know what hit you - I certainly knew what hit me square on the nose! I'll keep my face mask on till the end next time - live and learn!

I finished the bowl with finishing oil and then a coat of wax. It's not perfect but I like the feel of the finished piece.

I've got plenty of this wood to play with so I might try and make a few more that I could maybe sell, although I don't know if people would buy a pine bowl - even if the piece of pine is over 200 years old.

Sycamore Bowl

At the weekend I made a sycamore bowl from a blank I brought at Yandles a while back. Its the first time I've worked with this wood and it turns really nicely and takes a good finish.

As for work I've been having problems on Summerfield Park. Last Thursday night we got broken into (through the roof) and someone took about half the copper pipework that had been installed. I then spent Friday boarding it up and trying to make it secure, over the weekend they made another hole in the roof and had the rest of the copper away. This cost the firm I'm working for money and delays the project even further.

Then to top it all off my computer got a virus and I had to completely wipe and reinstall everything (not how I like spending my time!).

Still the sun was shinning today and who knows what the rest of the week will bring.

Alder Burr

We've had a busy weekend with far too many hours spent in a car drving "Up North" and back, so it was nice tonight to spend a couple of hours in the workshop.

I decided to finish the shallow bowl I'd started last week. This was a blank of wood from an Alder tree from my fathers farm, spotting the burr as my brother was chopping it up I asked him to put a few bits to one side for me. I dried them in my old workshop and once turned with a coat of walnut oil they seem to have come up quite nice. Worth the wait to dry the timber (not the best photos in the world sorry)!

A Trip To Yandles

My little brother and I went down to Devon yesterday to visit the woodworking show at Yandles. We both had a really good day, although the tools were more aimed at the type of woodwork I do rather than the green woodwork my brother is into.

That said brother brought a gorgeous hand made travisher (I've no doubt it will be on his blog soon - David Alviti Rustic Creations), where as I brought some High Speed Steel to make some turning tools, ferrules for making new handles, a pair of folding trestles to go in the van, a small microplane so I can try barley twists at some point and a selection of turning blanks so I can practice making some more bowls.

There was a lot of people demonstrating, and it was interesting talking to different people, one that really interested me was a man hewing oak in the traditional way with an axe. I was impressed by how flat, straight and square he managed to get it, although it didn't look like easy work in yesterdays heat!

Back in my workshop I've just started to make a platter/shallow bowl out of a piece of alder burr I've had kicking round for years and considering how many knots are in it it seems to be turning quite easy at the moment. Now the evenings are getting lighter I need to spend more time down the shed, but sometimes its the last thing you want to do when you've been on site all day!

Ash Bowl and a Hobbit Door

I had a small job this week to make a pair of half sized doors for an outside shed, which houses a pressure washer. Nothing very fancy, just ledge and braced door made out of TG&V, the job was made a little bit harder by the left hand side block work being (very) out of plumb. They looked good when they were done and it was a nice job in the February sunshine.

A more fun project this week was turning my first bowl with the grain running across the piece. This has been a little project at wood turning classes for the last couple of weeks and I managed to finish it on Thursday night, it's made out of ash, sanded to 600 grit and finished with Liberon finishing oil. I quite like the shape but it's not a very practical bowl because of it!I also managed to obey the main rule that my wood turning teacher preaches which is to have no evidence of how the piece was held on the lathe.

Christmas Presents

The one advantage of the downtime I've had meant that I could finish all the presents for Christmas.
These ranged from silly little snowmen tree decorations for the ladies in my life:
To a cold frame for my mum (I forgot to take a picture of it finished):
To a bowl from a Alder burr for my wife using a tree my brother cut down 6 years ago on the farm (quite pleased with this as its my first bowl and quite tough wood):
To a carving gouge with a new handle (and a little round mallet to go with it - no picture again) for my brother:
I've also got 2 raised vegetable beds to make for the mothering law but it's not really the right time of year for that. I hope people don't mind homemade gifts