A new project

I sold the 2 pieces in the last post and am pleased with the response I have had at the local market, the markets are quiet during our winter and I need something to do.
Last year I entered a wood work exhibition with 5 of my turned bowl, I won a second prize, the people around me were saying I should enter some furniture I have made, the rules stipulate entries need to be made in the year of entry, I need a chest of drawers for my bedroom, I have some veneer that is asking to be put to good use, I wanted to have another go at making the inlay I put in the legs here.
I made a block of the inlay in January but I was not happy with the result so I have remade it then glued it to the legs.
I made the panels that will be the ends to the unit, Its a pattern I have used before, this time its a double so the pattern is 2 high and made using a mahogany that is 3mm thick, its a course grain so I am using an oil on it that will leave the features of the grain showing, these panels are about 700mm high and 350 wide the veneer is glued to a 12mm MDF later I vacuum pressed it onto a 9mm ply so the MDF is not seen and I have thickness to fix the drawer sides to.
The whole unit is over 1300mm long it will be 2 drawer wide in the bottom 2/3 and 2 drawers high then the top 1/3 will be 3 drawers wide so 7 drawers in all each drawer being about 200mm high the fronts will be round.
I was given a piece of tree trunk 2 years ago that turned out to be Japanese cedar I had chain sawed it up expecting to turn it into bowls, I had it drying and it was still big enough to be used for the drawer sides so the plan is to leave the wood natural with the hope the smell will be there every time I open the drawers the bottom of the drawers will be bamboo ply.
At the moment I have no idea what I will do with the top only that the inlay going down the legs will continue around the edge of the top.
The wood show is held during September so I would like to have this finished by the end of August, its a big project and I have a long way to go.

 

Different Bowls

I got lucky and was given some large pieces of wood, the first was a piece of pohutukawa, this bowl is 270mm wide and 60mm high the blank I was given was much bigger but had a split through it so the easiest way was to put the axe through it and see where the split went, I don't like to waste wood so it told me to leave it square then there was some bits on those wings I wanted to remove so this is where it took me, I have seen this type of design called manta ray as in the swimming stingray type creature, it was a lot of work but worth the effort as it is a nice piece of wood.





The second piece of wood I was given was not so thick but a far bigger diameter, the platter has turned out to be 520 diameter and about43mm high, it was very difficult to sand as it instantly clogged up the sandpaper, that alone should have told me what the wood is the smell was there but I could not believe I would be given such a wonderful piece of kauri, most kauri I have come across has not been so colorful being almost mono colour this piece is different.
There were some voids that became bigger as I dug out the bark or
loose wood then to be filled with epoxy and wood dust so again a while in the making and the biggest piece I have turned.

New Wood

The wood is new to me, it had become too big at the bottom of a neighbors garden, its a Rimu tree and maybe 60 years old and for that kind of tree its young so I don't expect to find any great colour in it, I have been slowly cutting it up and rough turning it I have about 6 pieces turned and in cardboard boxes drying now.
I gained some dry Tawa, nice clean white Tawa, it is 8" X 2" I cut a piece off and turned it into a platter with wings just to see the quality of it, the one on the right is Matai and came from the local beach so a piece of drift wood, all these timbers are native to New Zealand.
I know people like rustic but I also like to achieve a good looking finish to what I turn so I am torn between leaving in the natural flows or trying to produce perfect pieces of wood which is very rare given that wood is so prone to movement, the Matai has some splits while the Tawa is perfect.
I have been working on some bowls I turned wet during the year, the one on the right is Elm Burl and is 8 1/4" diameter, now it is dry it is hard and nice to work with, the back one is Pohutukawa another New Zealand native timber this piece is 10" diameter a few cracks have appeared that I glued up as I went along so there were a few day work involved with this one, the bowl on the left is Cherry
a piece of wood I exchanged for some of my Elm Burl it was dry but split, I cut the block by the split, machined a good surface and glued the 2 pieces together before I turned a shape again I found shakes in the wood that had to be glued up before the final turning, all these pieces have been rewarding to get to a final point.
 
 

Sphere

I have made spheres before both solid and hollow, the hollow one I glued together
for ease of sanding, I wanted to do something that looked like a Celtic knot so I decided to combined all three a hollow sphere that came apart with a Celtic knot inlay.
It is 94mm outer diameter with a wall of about 3or 4mm and as round as a wood lathe can get it.
The wood I used is Totara for the main part and the inlay is Tawa, both are old and very dry.
It has been a week in the making as I could only glue in one inlay a day and there were 8 to glue in, if I got up early I could get 2 glued in a day.
Yesterday and today were turning days, today it fell on the floor twice so there has been some moments of panic when I thought I had to start all over again.
The dark patches are glue that I have had to put on due to cracks and I hope to sand it out if the whole thing does not disintegrate when I am finishing it. 

Pine for a wood show

There is a wood show coming up next month at a small town not far
away, I have visited these last 3 years, now this year I am in to either sell or compete with other turners, most of the work I have priced high hoping not to sell as it is of the best work I have done, as for wining, if I do I will be happy, if I don't well we will have to wait and see, I have not made any great effort as I consider I am learning and there is a lot of learning to do, as we know beauty is in the eye of the beholder and for the most part I am happy with what I do.
This is Pinus Radiata there is a category for it in the show so this is my effort, a design I wanted to try, it is sat on the 4 outer feet and the middle is suspended about 6mm clear, I intend to leave it as natural wood no finish coating.
To me it looks like a dog bowl and I have called it this for the show, I was given the wood as a huge log as it was cut from the tree trunk, it has been sat drying for over a year and turned easily.
My other entry's I have shown in past posts.

I've been turning wood

I was given a lump of Japanese Walnut that has been stored inside for years so was bone dry and covered in dust making it difficult to see what I had been given, I could see some splits in the wood so cut off that end a put it on the lathe this bowl is 200mm wide and 70mm high this size enabled me to take a small bowl out of the inside.
The colours are some of the best I have ever seen in wood, someone saying a galactic scene.
I did glue up the cracks but it was easy to turn and is very light given its size, I have a piece that will give me 2 more bowls so now I look forward to seeing what that reveals.

 
 

Chooks, tail feathers and bowls

We now have 2 chickens in the bottom corner of our garden, I built a run and chicken house out of left overs from house renovations, I think these are black orpingtons chickens, one of them was laying eggs as soon as we got her then one day the neighbors dog barked and she had to go see what the noise was about, over the fence she went it must have been right into the waiting dog as she lost her tail feathers before she found their wood shed to hide in, we only got one more egg now I think the experience has put her off laying for a few days.
I have been standing in a shower of wet wood shavings for a few days rough turning wet wood for it to dry I wanted to do some finer work and took some thin scraps I thought were a bit useless along with a piece that had sap wood.
I wanted to see if I could do hollow form by gluing 2 pieces together, 3 of the pieces I had were only 20mm thick so with a slight hollow became the bottoms and one top, these pieces are 220mm diameter the tall one is 63mm and the unfinished one stands at 53mm including the ring I glued on, at present I am contemplating how to hold the bowl on the lathe while I finish the top ring.
The wood is not entirely dry, there was movement overnight while I turned them so the wood has become very thin as I had to re turn turn them, they now make a good drum.
I wanted to make the opening large enough to be able to see the grain of the wood inside the other one won't be so big but then the grain of the wood is better on the top.