Today's Student Gary

Today my Student was Gary who plans to take up woodturning as a hobby.Gary is very keen to learn and asked lots of questions which is good.
He is planing to come back for more tuition in the near future and I am sure he will make a very good turner he is a quick learner
Gary turned a very nice Sycamore bowl with a textured and coloured rim that I think will be a Christmas present for his wife Fiona.

Very well done Gary.

Christine and Elaine

Last week Mother and Daughter Christine and Elaine came here for a days Woodturning tuition.
It was a Birthday treat for Elaine.
Christine turned a very nice Sycamore Bowl with a coloured rim and Elaine turned a beautiful Cedar of Lebanon bowl
Two lovely Ladies great company  and easy to teach.

Gathering wood in Devon

A couple of weeks ago Myself ,Adam Cornish, Mark Sanger and my Son Mark spent an enjoyable day gathering wood on a private property in Devon.The trees had been cut down by a Professional tree Surgeon and we were harvesting suitable wood for turning from them.There was some really nice wood inc
Cedar of Leanon (Cedrus Labani )
Holm Oak (Quercue Ilex )
Turkey Oak (Quercus Cerris )
Yew (Taxus Baccata)
The Holm Oak had been cut down about three years ago and is heavily spalted.

Chainsaws used.
Husqvarna 372XP for the large wood with ripping chains and cross cut chains.
Husqvarna 135 for smaller branch wood.
Two super Chainsaws.

Some pictures taken throuught the day by Mark Sanger.



 The end of a very productive and enjoyable day.

How lucky are we to spend the day here

                                  The big saw goes through this Oak like hot butter

                                                         Adam giving orders LOL

Ripping 

 Lunch time Curry and rice

 Mark carrying wood up steep slope

 Mark doing what he does best posing

 Some lovely Yew

 Quite a carry thankfully not for me I was the Chainsaw Guy

Now I have to prosses this lot and that is not a five minute job.

All cut into rounds now ready to rough out .

Sizes from 12" x 3" to 18" x 6"

 That is not supposed to happen

 Spalted Holm Oak

That is my share roughed out and as soon as the outer surface is dry they will be end sealed and put away for the future.Roughly sixty the largest approx18"

A birthday present for Nigel

My Student today was Nigel who's day here was a Birthday present from his Wife Linda.
This was Nigels first go at Woodturning and it was made harder for him because he turned a lovely textured and coloured Bowl from Oak.
I do not normally let first time Students use Oak for several reasons it is more expensive for me to buy it is harder to turn and I don't always have any of a suitable size for a Student to turn.
I recently put a picture up on Face book of some Oak I had bought and Nigel commented is some of that some for me so I thought why not.
I Had turned some nice oak Bowls recently that were scorched and coloured with Martin Saban Smiths coloured wax's.Nigel said he liked them and would like to make the same so that is what he did and turned out a very respectable bowl.
It is coloured with green Wax because Nigel said that is Linda's favourite colour.
Very well done Nigel

Farmer Colin

My Student yesterday was Colin a Farmer from the Blackdown hills near Taunton.
Colin's day here was a Birthday present from his family and I am sure they will be pleased with the Sycamore bowl he made.
Farmers are always very good with their hand because they look after their buildings and machinery and Colin was no exception.
very well done Colin.

Tom and Naomi

An easy day today with Tom and Naomi they were very easy too teach and great company.
Tom and Naomi turned two very nice Sycamore bowls.
Very well done both of you.

Margaret and Helen

Two lovely Lady Students today and I get paid for it what could be better than that.They were great company a lot of fun and they they were easy to teach.They both did well making lovely Sycamore bowls Margarets was plain wood and helens had a textured and coloured rim.

Jax is back

My Student today was Jax who was here for the 5Th time this year and she is improving all the time.Jax does not have a lathe of her own so her only experience is when she comes here.Considering she gets no practise between visits she soon settles back into her turning and this time because she has made such improvement she had time to make two very nice bowls.One is turned from Walnut about 11" x 5" the other is Oak about 8" x 2".She likes making bowls and up to now she has given every one away as presents but she is coming back next month to make one for herself.

Hampshire Sheen Electric Green Embelishing Wax

We are now into Somerset Art Weeks which I enjoy a lot but it does give me one problem.I have to be on duty every day for two weeks inc three weekends the temptation is to spend all of the time in my Workshop making stuff.
The problem with that is that I would end up making ten times as much as I sell and instead of reducing stock it builds more and defeats the object of the exercise.
So it gives me an opportunity to have a play and create new effects.
I was recently demonstrating at Yandles woodworking show and Martin Sabin Smith gave me some Wax's to play with.

 Here is  some info with pics on something I did today followed by some I did yesterday.

This is not necessarily the way that Martin Saban Smith would do this but it is the way I do it some of this might seem to you to be unnecessary but i achieve the finish that I am after.

I started off with an Ash blank with very nice grain and scorched it very heavily to enable me to remove a lot of the soft grain sometimes I scorch it twice. 

 Next I removed the soft grain with this Liming brush from Chestnut products

 I followed this with a good burnishing with this bristle brush from Chestnut products

 I always apply a sealer after scorching and colouring as it stops any bleed from the carbon and helps to stop fading when coloured here I used Chestnut Cellulose sanding sealer by spray

 Ready to apply Green Wax very important to seal before application of wax to avoid smudging this way you can wipe the Wax of the hard grain and leave it only where the soft grain has been removed

 Green wax applied with fingers and allowed to dry for about ten minutes.I did find that the wax is quite soft and by leaving it to dry a bit when I buffed I did not remove too much of the Wax from the grain.

 A close up of the filled grain

From here on you might think that I am going a bit over the top I don't think I am because the results 

are what I like to achieve. I have now turned out the centre and sanded down to 1000 grit then used Yorkshire Grit you might think this is unnecessary as Yorkshire grit recommend sanding to 240 but again this is the way I do it. I used Yorkshire grit to get an even finer finish than achieved by 1000 grit abrasive.The white you see is dust

 Dust removed and Chestnut Acrylic spray on lacquer applied to seal in the wax

 I have then applied two coats of Chestnut spray on Acrylic Gloss lacquer wet on wet application.

 Then I used Chestnut Cut and polish to bring up a super shine on the Lacquer

 This was followed by application of Hampshire sheen High gloss by hand.

 This is the finished result and I think it is a fantastic finish

 here we have the finished bowl in my opinion to a very high standard.You might well think this is a bit over the top but the finish is only as good as the effort you put in.

 This is another Bowl using the same process only this time it is on Oak and after scorching I applied  Martin Saban Smith's Ruby stain from Intrinsic colours

 This one is also in Oak same process but no colour stain

 This one is also oak sanded to 1000 grit and Martin Saban Smith's carbon black stain rubbed all over and then lacquered and polished