Quite a week

Last week I offered to make some clock surrounds for our local miniature railway club, someone had given me a piece of a Norfolk Pine tree and it has been stood drying for a while now, I cut of enough to dress up a stick of 4 x 2 and made 2 of these, with them screwed to a board I was able to turn them to fit the plastic clock, seen here they have some exterior grade stain protection on them, they will be mounter back to back above the railway station just like the real thing.  

Next project was to make a sister to the last bowl I showed

the new one is on the left, it stands a little higher at 120mm high and 160mm wide at the top, again the bottom part is glued to the top but was actually taken from inside the top part, the wood is Tawa that is spalted so the black lines are a mould or fungus that  was causing the wood to rot.

While this was happening I was also playing with another piece of Norfolk Pine trying to create a plant pot stand, I made it to fit the plant in the picture, after it was finished I decided it needed feet so it has 4 feet made from Purple Hart turned to look like balls, the darkness inside the bowl is a waterproof coating should we ever over water the plant, the finish to the rest of the wood is a wax.

Then at the end of the week came the big surprise a phone call with the offer of a freshly cut burl from a Weeping Elm, it is much bigger than I had expected and has me wondering what I will do with it all, I was very eager to find out what it looked like inside so on Saturday with a fresh chain on the chain saw it was amazingly easy to cut and find out what is inside, I did get one piece on the wood lathe, with water and chips flying around I rough turned a bowl that is now sat in its own wet wood chips in a cardboard box with the hope it will dry slowly with no adverse effects, the colour is just wonderful and I hope one day to cut it differently so I can show off the burl effects

 

 

Spalted drift wood

I have been walking the local beaches eyeing up the drift wood again, this is spalted Tawa, spalting is the early stage of rot, this piece started  much larger I turned it on the lathe till I was down to solid wood but still there was a soft spot running through it that I tried to harden using an epoxy treatment I was not happy so cut the top half off leaving me with about 55mm it was then I realised I could take out the center and glue it on the bottom giving me what you see here.
The total height is 105mm and 165mm over all across the top.

To have a better look click on the image.