This is my latest bowl. I found out that it can still bite if you don't treat it with the reverance it deserves. The rough blank bit my little finger!!! The rough blank came from our log pile and there are a lot more good bits in there yet!! Seems a shame to burn bowls like that in my humble opinion??
Just before that I had made the reading stand in the top photo. It turned out quite pleasing and useful 'cause it stops me bending me por old neck when I am reading. It really is a *** this getting old(ish)!!
Wonderful shape, Jonz: love the grain, too!
Cheers mate!! I thought that I had better start this thread incase we were accused of joining the East African pirates, stealing threads ?
The most dfficult part was getting under the inside of the rim. I have a set of miniature gouges and they were very handy.
Nice one JJ - colouring looks a bit like spalted beech - shape is great too. What dia. did you end up with? Amazing what you find in the wood pile. I found a great piece of burr, just waiting for the opportunity to do something with it.
Cheers
Postie
So; back to the question, Jonz!
How do you hold the work when you turn the top?
Working on the principle of a pikky's worth 1000 worms??
The piece is put on the screw chuck to start. The base is turned along with the shape of the underside of the piece, sanded to a shine and polished. I use a Liberon canuba wax stick normally. It gives a good hard finish. A 'dovetailed' recess is turned in the base to mount it on the Axminster scroll chuck to do the top.. Gud 'ere init. The drill mounted at the right hand end of the lathe has a flex drive on it for power sanding. Shock horror I hear the perfectionists saying, but it works and even difficuly pieces that have to be turned a low speed can have a lovely finish easiely..
It's an 8 inch diameter and is a piece of spalted platan and it probably came from the side of the Canal du Midi?? A fair amount of our fire wood finishes up on my lathe!!
This goblet came from our neighbours in the U.K. It's VERY spalted beech and I wore a good mask to turn it. Those fungus spores can be unfriendly!! It really is fantastic to see what you have when you stop the lathe!
My lathe is only a cheepie at about £300, but it works well for what I do. There is about another £300 worth of chucks there too. Lots more in the draw. I was given a set of wonderful pinch chucks made of box wood and brass and about 100 years old. I had to have a special adaptor made for the as the thread is different to the thread on the lathe. When I get chance I will take a photo of them and post it.
The lathes I've seen over here are absolute rubbish, but I haven't seen any expensive ones yet? Perhapse they are better.
Might be a cheapy, Jonz, but the headstock looks very robust: and the bed tubes are obviously solid and stop chatter.
As always of course and as you say, it's the extra bits like chucks that cost.............
Nice position in the 'shop, too. Lots of natural light.
Aces, Mate!
Love the goblet, too: nothing for me like natural grain colours and contrasts.
If you could bottle that as hair colourant, the girlies would be queuing down the lane.
My workshop started out as an abri for 2 cars and I had the doors and windows made and built the wall across the front. It really is a dream for me to have that facility. Good insolation in the roof to keep the summer heat out and it works too.
One near miss was that I had the door frame in place and the first row of big French bricks down and realised that my trailor was still in there ! I had to put ramps over the bricks to get it out!!! It is too big to go out of the door way at any angle!!! Was I ever lucky...
I have done a couple more now from the same sort of wood. The rough log at the back of the bowls is about what the bowls started out as. Fascinating what you can find in a bit of log?
Now we got lots of bowls for peanuts, etc.
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