Lex my Student today

My student today was Lex who was here for a days Woodturning experiance prior to setting up his own workshop.
Lex was one of the most natural would be Woodturners that I have ever had here I only had to show him somethin once and he could do it.That made for an easy day for me.
lex told me his wife Ruth's favourite colour was turquoise so he turned a beutiful beech bowl with a turquoise rim.

Texturing and colouring Wide rimmed Bowls

Earlier in the week Derek was my student here for two days Bowl turning to include some texturing and colour.
The first day Derek turned a nice plain Beech Bowl.
On the second day the plan was for Derek to turn an Ash bowl and create some texture and colour.

Derek making the beads with the Ashle Isles beading tool

 A gentle scorching to add some colour and to remove some soft grain

 Removing soft grain with a bronze bristle brush

Verdigris wax scrubbed well into the grain.

Wax part removed with kitchen towel

 More wax removed with Lemon oil to highlight the grain.

The Ash bowl was completed by lunch time ont the second day as you can see we spoil our Students

After lunch the rest of the day was spent showing Derek several different techniques for decorating a wide rimmed Bowl.
These techniques are shown in following pics.

 The rim on this Sycamore blank is carved using the Arbortech fitted with the King Arthur chainsaw type cutter.

 The rim has now been textured over the top of the carving with the Crown Tools texturing tool

 Rim lightly scorched

 The rim has now been coloured with Chestnut spirit stains Red Oronge and yellow to give a graded effect.

The rim of this Sycamore blank has been coloured with the new Chestnut Iridescent paints
First the rim is coloured black with Chestnut Ebonising lacquer then colours applied with a sponge in the following order  Purple Vivid blue and Azure.

 Lines carved to highlight rim

 The rim has now been carved with Arbortech V shaped carver

This next bowl is coloured with Martin Saban Smiths's Intrinsic Colour Collection
First the Sycamore Blank is coloured black

 In this picture a lot of the black has been sanded back and the first colour Ruby applied

 As you can see in this picture some more areas have been sanded back and Flame is applied

 More areas sanded back and the final colour Honey applied

The rim is grooved and two coats of Lacquer applied

 Here is Derek with the two bowls he completed and took home.

 

Jax and Vicky

Sometimes I cannot beleave how lucky I am.Semi retired and teaching Woodturning to lovely Ladies like Jax and Vicky.They were here today for a days Woodturning experiance.
They both turned lovely Beech Bowls

Chris

My Student yesterday was Chris who was here for a days Woodturning experiance with a view to taking it up a a hobby.
Chris turned a very respectable Beech Bowl with a bit of texture on the rim.
Very well done Chris

John

My Student  today John has had a small lathe for about a year and prior to upgrading came here for a couple of days Bowl making Tuition.
John was good company and worked hard turning four very nice Bowls the first was a nice Beech Bowl.Then John turned a very nice Mulberry natural edge Bowl and two Walnut Bowls.The Walnut bowls were turned from a log john brought with him.

Here are a few pics from the two days.

Dave and Jill

My Students today were Dave and Jill .They were here to have a days Woodturning experiance to see if they liked Woodturning enough to invest in the equiptment to take it up as a hobby.
They have asked me to Email them my recomendations for equiptment so that means they will be going ahead soon
They both enjoyed their day here and so did I they were good company.
Dave turned a beutiful Beech Bowl with lovely figuring and as you can see by Jill's hair in the following pic she likes colour.
Jill's Bowl is turned from Beech with a coloured wide rim.
Very well done both of you I look forward to seeing you soon.

A day with Jenni

A few weeks ago Jenni contacted me and booked in to do some woodturning as part of her UNI course.In her Email she said she needed to make a small bowl and three handles.I thought that will be OK until a couple of days ago I got the Drawings for this project and it was not going to be anything like as simple as I first thought.I have never seen such detailed drawings and as I never work to drawings for woodturning I was more than a bit concerned.There was no way a complete novice was going to work to such exacting standards.I pointed this out to Jenni in a telephone conversation and to be honest I felt even more concerned afterwords as I did not think she grasped how difficult it would be.
Waiting for her to turn up in the morning my tummy was tied up in knots because i was sure this was going to be one of the worst teaching experiences of my life.
When Jenni turned up she was a 22 year old with the most engaging personality and I immediately relaxed.We sat down to discuss our way forward and Jenni explained that she was on a design course at UNI and the design and drawing element was more important than the turning part. So that we could work exactly to the dimensions of the drawing she said she would be happy for me to have a big input in the turning.Because it was critical that we work strictly to the drawing and it exacting dimensions Jenni did all the roughing out and a lot of the sanding.It turned out to be one of the most pleasant days I have ever had in my workshop we worked as a team on this project and got the desired result.
Basically the project was a pestle and Mortar with handles as per the drawings below.
There is an extra handle because there is a grinding mechanism to go on the top.

Jenni took some pictures throuhgt the day that I will add as soon as I have them.

If you left click on the drawings they will become clearer