Ex Inani

 A few post ago I posted a smaller version of this, that one was the first I had made I said at the time I would make another one and here it is.

The first one is much finer thinner walled and lighter, this one being thicker and of heavy wood needed a more robust base I also liked the idea of it being able to swing in its mounting in fact by removing the top pin the feature piece can be removed the base turned to face the other direction then the feature remounted top to bottom.

Both the feature and the base were made on the wood lathe, the semi circle white wood that holds the feature is made by laminating 6 pieces of wood together each piece being 2mm thick, within this piece is a bit of everything I like to do, the wood turning, wood bending and laminating, the carving on the base and the pyrogrophy on the base.

The feature piece is Walnut the white curved mounting piece is Tawa and the base is Rimu, the piece stands 440mm high and 300mm wide.

Unless collecting dust is useful this has no use what so ever, however I will enjoy looking at it, tomorrow it will be put in an art exhibition that for me is an extension to the fun I had making it

Spring Time

 Another copy, well its a copy with my slant and improvements made to the one I saw,

now it looks different as now it has bigger hand on the clock, the base has been carved and coloured to look like grass, the spring and base have had a few coats of rattle can lacquer.

The piece I saw only had 3 coils to its spring, he had painted his base and spring green his clock face was white with a small clock set into the flower so it had numbers.

However this is my version, it was at first a daunting challenge, the good part was that the guy who I have copied had shown how he had formed the spring so while it all took a long time to make some of the brain storming was taken out of it.

I did not want to show a clock face so I bought a clock mechanism that I have had to house into the back and make a cover for.

I have glued the spring into the base but the clock face lifts off the spring, and yes it does spring.

Second chance

 My wood turning buddy was given a heavy dry piece of wood he was probably given it because it had big splits in it from the drying process, the wood is pohutukawa a New Zealand native that is well known for splitting as it dries.

My buddy had screwed it onto a face plate and began to turn it on his wood lathe, it was evidentially out of balance and sheered all the screws it leapt off the lathe hitting him on the wrist  leaving him to nurse a wound, he wanted nothing else to do with the wood so dumped it on my man cave floor warning me of the screws still in the wood.

After a few weeks I picked it up and routered out a recess so I could hold it with a lathe chuck, once on the lathe I cut around the screws and removed them, as I turned a bowl the extent of the splits became evident I pondered what to do and settled on turning it thin and piercing away the split areas it then became apparent that it could become 2 halves and putting another bowl inside became an option, then I wanted to see through as much as possible and see the contrasting light wood of the inner bowl (rimu), there was a slight plan but I was never quite sure just how possible it was until I had done it.

 I was at least the third person to consider using this on a lathe I think I have done it justice, it has taken a long time but then good things are worth waiting for.

It is 190mm diameter and 95mm high, the black part is pyrogrophy using a ball tipped nib, as the heat was applied the resin would bubble out of the wood and scorch, the finish is satin from a rattle can, inside the bowl I applied a gold guilders paste before I lacquered it.