Quickie

Hi All,
Just a quickie to you know that I have a free book offer running that might be of interest to some of you. The book is called "Carp Rustlers" and is the first in a series featuring, "The fishing Detectives."

Please download a free copy from Amazon and have a good laugh. I hope you enjoy it. To get your free copy just follow this link.

The book will only be free until Saturday 15th of September so why not do it now.

By the way, I've also finished another pen that should have been turned from a piece of holly. The bloke next door knew I did a bit of wood turning, so when he cut down a small holly bush he asked me if I wanted the trunk. You could hardly call it a trunk because it was only about an inch and a half thick at the most. Anyway, I accepted it and promised to make him a pen from it. This was about a year ago, I knew it would be no good doing it straight away because the wood would be too wet and it would crack when it dried out.

Anyway, I left it for about a year and then at the week-end I decided to give it a go. I cut two pieces to be used for pen blanks, turned them down a bit and then drilled the holes for the tubes. At this point I didn't know if the wood would still crack, so I didn't glue the tubes in yet because I didn't want to wast them. I decided I'd wait a couple of days and see what happened. Well I'm glad I did because the very next day one of the blanks had a big split in it.

I know some people get pleasure from turning wet or unseasoned wood, but I'm getting too old to be bothering with wood the splits. So now on it will be season wood only for me.

To rescue the situation, I made a pen from fully seasoned piece of lime.

The black lines are pyrography and the colouring was done with markers. It then had several coats of melamine lacquer. Looks nice enough for me and the bloke next door said he was chuffed with it so everybody is happy. I've been doing a bit more carving and will show you that in my next post.
PS, Don't forget to download the book.

Eggs

Hi all,
Some of you may know that I purchased a lathe so that I could turn my own pieces of wood for my pyrography projects. It has worked out very well but sometimes there is no need to bother with wood turning at all. Recently, my wife ordered some eggs off Amazon with a view to painting them, I said I could turn her some but didn't want to put me to trouble. When the eggs arrived I was amazed at the quality and the price so I nicked one for a bit of pyrography.

I drew on some honeysuckle and set about it with my pyrography iron and it came out well. The price of the eggs was so cheap and certainly not worth me making them on the lathe. Here is the link on Amazon

These eggs are perfect for pyrography and I have decided to do a bowl full of them to sit on our coffee table with a variety of designs. I did another one almost straight away, but this time a drew a random flower pattern on the egg.

I also tried a different pyrography technique. Usually, and in the case of the honeysuckle egg, my process is to draw the flowers and leaves and then outline them with my spoon tipped pyrography iron. I then shade in the rest.

However, for this flower pattern, I didn't bother with outlining and just went straight in with the shading. It is hard to pick up the difference from photos, but in reality it gives a much more pleasing effect. It certainly takes away some of the harshness and leaves the object smooth to the touch. I shall be trying it again soon.

If there is one difficulty with doing pyrography on eggs, it is the finishing part. I like to give mine a couple of coats of melamine lacquer to give them some shine and protection, but they are difficult to hold whilst applying to lacquer. So seeing that I'd decided to do a bowl full of them, I made myself a little jig to make the finishing easier.

Here it is in all its glory. A couple of nails glued into dowels and a frame to support them. It only took about a hour to make and works wonderfully.

All comments welcome.

Carving a Whoot

Hi All,
I've been busy doing something a little bit different. My wife has written a children's book about some imaginary creatures called Whoots. That's fine, the only trouble is she has asked me to illustrate it for her. It will be a bit of a challenge because although I'm not bad when it comes to drawing trees and flowers etc, I'm haven't got a clue when it comes to figures, especially ones that reside in somebody else's head.

I did manage to draw something along the lines that she thought would suit the illustrations in her story, but it was very static. So to give me some assistance when it comes to drawing figures in more active poses and not just in profile or a front view I thought I would carve a set of figures and use them for the basis of any future drawing.

I hope that all makes sense.
Anyway, here is the first character from her book. His name is Samlore.

He is carved/whittled from a piece of lime and his clothes are accentuated with pyrography. Basically he is a bit of a doggy type thing in a posh blokes clothes. He isn't anything special but the Mrs likes him. Now all I have to do is a full family of them

I'm finding this whittling/carving quite interesting. I does keep the grey matter turning as you try to imagine the shapes you are trying to create. I also find it very soothing for the soul. Perhaps it's because some of it takes me back to my childhood. Having spent my younger years in the countryside, I always had a knife and was always whittling things out of wood.

 It's funny how times have changed because back then most of us lads had pen knives and some of us had sheath knives that we wore attached to our belts. There was never any trouble and nobody ever got stabbed, but now kids can get locked up for even daring to look at something with a sharp blade.
It's a shame how the world has gone, but that's life.
 I am now halfway through doing some pyrography on a wood egg, so I will show you that in my next post. Eggs are great for pyrography and all sorts of decoration plus they are cheap. I'll give you a link in my next post.

Triffid Desk Pen

Hi all,
I finally managed to finish the desk pen that I started a few week ago. It has been a long process but I believe it turned out alright. So here it is, What do you think?

My wife isn't sure about it. "It's either great or hideous," she said then started laughing. That knocked my confidence a bit so I put images of it on a couple of forums to see what other users thought and almost everybody liked it. One thing is for sure, there isn't another one like it anywhere. in the whole while world and that feels good.

They say that beauty is in the eye of the beholder and I like it. Granted it might not be every body's cup of tea but they don't have to live with it. The thing is, I've now started getting other ideas for long desk pens and holders so keep an eye on this space, you never know what will turn up.

The project I'm working on at the moment is something completely different. A couple of years ago my wife wrote a children's book, but before publishing can happen it needs illustrating. I volunteered for the job but then realised I didn't know how to draw figures. I'm okay with roses, flowers and that sort of stuff but when it comes to figures I haven't got a clue. To make matters worse, the characters in her book are in her imagination so trying to get that down on paper is very difficult.

So, my solution is to make a set of wooden figures that I can then use as models for the illustrations in the book. Might be a daft idea but I've started the first one and will show it in my next post.

Any questions or comments please fire away.

Back Trouble

Hi all,
I'm afraid there's been little progress on the desk pen. I did have the flower head on my lathe but then I managed to do my back in, so any further turning was out of the question. I've had a back issue for years now and ever now and again the muscles feel like they've snapped and it takes about a week to get straight again. The thing is, I wasn't even doing any lifting at the time, I'd just bent over to pick up a piece of paper and that was it.
Here's how I left the project on the lathe. You can see how the flower is taking shape.

You have to imagine the flower siting on top of the base.

With the pen sticking out of it.

While my back has been bad I've tried to keep productive with things that I can do while sitting.
To that end, I thought I'd have a go at a bit of whittling. I had seen this guy called Doug, on youtube and he does some great little figures. I'll put a link to his channel at the end of this post.

One of the things he whittles, he calls a 5 minute wizard and here's how I got on with it.

It took me longer than 5 minutes but I was well pleased with the result. It is carved from a piece of lime about 1 inch or 25mm square.

I found there was something very enjoyable about whittling, not least because it requires few tools and can be done whilst sitting down without even the need for a table. I just sat on a chair in the back garden and whittled away like an old cowboy. In fact I found the the whole process so soothing that I purchased a book about carving Santas by a man called Tom Wolff and did this one of his.

It was just a bit of fun and I was more concerned about the process than the finished product, but it ain't too shabby. He's the miserablist looking santa you ever saw, but perhaps he just hates chimneys.

I was amazed at how much detail I could get into a small carving with just a knife. My head is now full of ideas for whittlings which will incorporate turning and pyrography so please keep watching this blog if you want to see how I get on.

A word of warning, If you are tempted to have a go at whittling, please purchase a safety glove because slashing a finger is not something you want to do.

In my next post, if my back allows, I should have a desk pen set to show you, so I'm looking forward to that.
 Here the link to Doug Outside's channel please enjoy.

Pen Holder

Hi All,
The desk pen and holder are coming on well, especially now that the horrible hot weather has gone.
I know some like it hot, but I find it unpleasant and it stops me doing creative things.

Anyway here's a reminder of what I was hoping to carve out of wood.

This is a model made from Plasticine which will give me an idea about how to create the right shape when I carve it from wood. I hadn't got a chunk of lime wood that was big enough so the first thing I did was to stick three pieces together.

I then drilled a hole in the middle to accept the stalk. After that I drew a sketch on the wood and then began roughing it out to make sure everything was going where I wanted it.

I know it looks like a load of crap at this stage, but I was hoping it would get better once I'd started some proper carving.

Now it's starting to look like something half decent. I've also done a trial run of some pyrography texture which will form a backdrop for the leaves. I do all the carving with a mixture of tools, knives and a Dremel. I know there a purist carvers out there who use either hand or power tools, but I'm getting to old for that sort of stuff. I just go for the tool that will do what I want it to do, be it a traditional chisel or a power tool.

Here it is after the carving was finished and the pyrography was done.

I'm very pleased with how it has turned out. Now all I have to do is turn a long elegant pen and then carve a flower for it to fit into.

If you are interested in the outcome please watch this space and if you have any comments or questions they will be welcome.

Desk Pen

Hi All,
My next project will involve several skills. Drawing, pyrography, wood turning and carving. I is probable my most ambitious project so far .What I have in mind is a desk pen with a pen holder in the shape of a flower
The pen itself will be long and hopefully elegant and carry a pyrography pattern of leaves.
The base and pen holder will be the most difficult because it will have carved leaves and a flower to hold the pen.

The first thing I did was have a practise run to see if I could turn a longer than average pen and to see what my intended pyrography design would look like. The pen below was turned from a piece of lime and had a hole drilled into it to take a Bic pen insert.

The pen above is 7 inches long and about the limit that I can achieve in one piece. The problem with going longer is the drilling. I have an extended drill bit, but once the drill goes past about 5 inches, it starts to wonder off centre because it tends to follow the softest path in the grain of the wood. This means that to make the longer pen that I had in mind, I would have to make it thicker if I was to avoid turning into the drilled hole which would be at an unknown depth in the blank.

A thicker pen didn't fit in with what I had in mind so I decided on a compromise. When I make the actual pen, which will be about 10 inches long, I will make it in 3 sections. It will be much easier to drill straight holes through blanks which are just over 3 inches long each.

Having sorted what I was going to do with the pen part of the project I turned my attention to the base. The first thing I did was make a model of what I had in mind from some Plasticine. It won't be exact but will give me a good idea of how to go on when it comes to the carving. I am relatively new to carving and this will be something new to me. Anyway, here's the model of what I have in mind.

The hole in the middle is where the stalk that will hold the flower will  go. All I've got to do now is make it out of wood. Please keep an eye in this space for updates.