Woodturners. Lets see those woodturnering projects

Just a photo I found online. I’ve seen photos of a full dresser Harley towing full dresser Harley too. That’s the one I was looking for but I couldn’t find it quick.

The Goldwing image is actually of a Goldwing tow truck vehicle they use on congested roads in Japan.

 

Well shoot... here i am thinking you're cooler than you actually are! J/k. That bike trip you did to Florida ranks right up there in my opinion. The way you did it was everything. Maybe not my style or "cup of tea" but much respect.

 

Thanks, definitely a quintessential bucket list once in a lifetime trip. (I’m too much of a bore to be cool lol!)

I enjoyed it so much, I’m planning another for September, up to Prince Edward Island, Cape Breton and Nova Scotia Canada. It will be about the same mileage.

 

Tonight’s efforts:

An extra large Bradford pear cooking spoon, heading out to a friend in Texas along with a smaller cooking spoon and a large and small spatula.

And an 8” spalted(?) apple bowl from an apple tree root bulb from one of the numerous orchards in Winchester VA. It was in pretty bad shape, sections of it were very punky and had to be extensively stabilized with thin CA glue, as well as a number of cracks. Some parts of it soaked up the thin CA glue like a sponge.

But in the end, I was able to finish it. (It has a very frustrating deep tool mark ring at the inside bottom corner and because of how punky and soft the wood was I just wasn’t able to get it out.)

This one is headed back to my friend the gentleman farmer who requested the 12” walnut and ash bowl I turned several days ago. He had been storing the apple tree root ball for a while and asked if I wanted to try to make something out of it.

 

Today’s project was an experiment. This fall I did a van life conversion for a friend and installed an acacia butcherblock countertop. We cut out a piece of that countertop to install the combination RV sink and stove.

I looked at that leftover piece this week and thought, what if I cut three circles out of that, and stack them up and glue them together as a bowl blank?

So I was able to get three 9 inch circles, glued and clamped them up last night, and put it on the lathe tonight.

This is the result, a 8 3/4 wide, 4 1/4” tall acacia butcherblock bowl.

Now that I know this works, I contacted a couple regional butcher block countertop makers and asked them to set aside their cut offs and sink cut outs for me for additional bowl blanks.

 

That's nice, beautiful work.

 

Love it!

 

The friend I made this for asked if I would “sign” it, by engraving it on the bottom or something.

I don’t have any way of doing that. But my sister has a 30w laser engraver that also cuts out patterns in up to 1/4” wood. I asked her if she could print something on the bottom of the bowl and she said make up a logo on a free logo maker website, send it to her and she would use her image software to manipulate it into something that would work.

She subsequently printed this on the bowl for me.

 

Once again you out did yourself. Very nice!!

 

I made a simple circle jig for my Rikon 18" bandsaw for cutting out bowl blanks this week. I watched a couple YouTube videos and it was surprisingly easy and quick. A piece of 5/16” bolt was used as the pivot and it can cut 4” to 36” circles and bowl blanks.

 

One of my local independent wood suppliers asked me for a bowl from some of the 2” kiln dried walnut I get from him. He harvests it off his own property in West Virginia and has it milled and kiln dried.

12” walnut bowl, 2” deep.

I tried something new (to me) on this one and glued a waste block to it and made a tenon on that instead of turning a tenon or mortise in the walnut itself, to preserve the 2” thickness of the walnut. It actually worked well.

 

First time I ever attempted a lit for a bowl

Over Christmas I gave a friend a 6” wide, 3” tall spalted maple bowl I made months ago. He had some friends over Friday before Christmas for salmon, and asked me if it would be ok to use this bowl for coarse salt in his kitchen.

Of course!

But if it’s going to be holding salt, it needs a lid, so I brought it back home and turned a lid for it tonight, from another piece of spalted maple I brought home this week.

The bowl and lid matched fairly well, and the lid is relatively air tight, and it makes for a very nice combination. A rubber ring would seal it up well if needed.

 

Nice!

 

Is there an existing thread for newbies just starting woodworking? My son and I have started making cutting boards.

 

I joined a NOVA (northern Virginia) Facebook woodworking group a couple days ago, and they invited me to participate in their first “Maker’s Trade.” Participants will make a wood shop mallet and bring it to the meeting and everyone trades the mallet they brought for another by picking tickets out of a hat.

These guys are making some exquisite jointery type mallets:

I sure wouldn’t mind trading for THAT!

All I can do is make one on my lathe, but they said come participate regardless, even if it’s just a rock on a stick.

So yesterday I picked up some small cut offs of really hard exotic wood, wenge and yellowheart, and laminated them between hickory for the mallet head last night.

I stacked up 2” hickory and walnut squares on a piece of all thread, glued it up and screwed the ends tight to clamp them last night.


I turned the stack on my lathe today. This handle will be secured to the mallet head with the all thread running through the head and screwed tight on each end. I haven’t yet figured out how I’m going to recess the handle into the head and hide the steel hardware, but we don’t meet till February 3rd so I have plenty of time to figure that out.

The mallet is turning out much better than I imagined it would.


And these exotic woods are both hard as a rock and beautiful wood to work with.

 

Love it!

 

Joining a like minded group really helps with knowledge sharing and pushes you to do better work. Love the mallet you made.

 

Don't have a lathe now. But just found this plate plate tucked away in a closet. Actually turned it back in 96. I remember that Cherry was a pleasure to turn.

 

I love working with cherry!

 

Done.