Pyrography Box

Hi all,
Following on from the success of my last lidded box I thought I make another one while the going was good. However, this time I thought I do one with a bit more detail in the pyrography.

First I drew a design that I thought would suit a round box lid whilst making sure it was big enough to drape down the sides. When I was happy with the design I turned the box out of a piece of lime wood.

Once the lid was turned, I transferred the drawing to the box using tracedown paper, which makes life easier than using tracing paper. Having said that, the lid part went simply enough but draping the paper over the side was not quite so simple. The drawing distorted as it went down the sides, so I had to abandon the trace down paper and just simply draw the design on the sides by hand, whilst using the original drawing for a guide.

Here is a picture of the top of the finished box.

And here is a picture of the side.

I looks very nice and I'm very pleased with the result. However, I'm not sure that it is worth taking the design down the sides and taking it over the joint between the lid and the box in a mistake. Once you cross the join the user has to match up the position of the lid on the box to make it look right, and whilst this may be enjoyable on the first couple of occasions I guess it will prove to be tedious in the long run.

My next box will just have pyrography on the top so watch this space if you would like to see it.

A bit of pyrography

Hi all,
Having done a 3 lidded boxes and a goblet made from mahogany on the lathe, the time came to be a bit more adventurous. Turning plain items in dark wood is pleasant enough, but I bought the lathe to enhance my pyrography. The problem up until now is that the only hardwood that I have had at my disposal is some mahogany that was given to me by a kind soul who has a shed full of the stuff. He isn't using it because at the moment he is making a Sterling engine from metal, cutting all the parts out himself using his metal lathe. The chap is in his mid eighties so he is an inspiration to me at least.

Anyway, I needed some light wood so I made a 100 mile round trip to ockenden-timber.co.uk/ on the Welsh border. I suppose I could have bought some wood on line but my wife decide a nice run into the countryside would do us both good. We took  the dog and had a picnic and it was a very pleasant day.

The man at ockeneden timber couldn't have been more helpful. They were out of stock on a square end scraper that I particularly wanted, but he said he would send me one by post. It arrived the very next day so how is that for service.

Regarding wood, the lightest colour wood they had was lime and maple so I bought 2off, 75mm square spindles of lime and another the same size made from maple. The spindles are 300mm long and I reckon that I can get 4 lidded boxes out of each spindle. With each spindle costing less than 8 quid it means I can make a blank box for less than £2 each. Below is a picture of one of the lime spindles before it has been introduced to the lathe and the roughing gauge.

He it is again after I'd turned it into a cylinder and cut it in half.

Eventually, and it is probably quicker to do than you think, I made the box and did a quick leaf pyrography design on it to see how it looked after it was polished up. Until now most of my pyrography has been covered with several coats of varnish or even lacquer, so a bit of polish would be different.

So there you have it, the finished article. I very pleased with the result and I think that from here the world is my oyster. I can't wait to get back on the lathe and see if I can do another or was it just a lucky fluke. I know one thing, turning round boxes on a lathe is easier and quicker than building square boxes. Trying to make perfect joints, keeping the thing square and dealing with the vagaries of hinges are now thankfully in the past.

A Goblet

Hi all,
After having an almighty catch on the lathe, a catch is when the tool digs into the wood and either damages it, throws the wood across the room or both. Anyway, I was about to make another lidded box, the fourth in total since I took up woodturning. Here's a picture of the first 3.

The problem was that after sorting out the catch, which meant the wood had to be smoothed out again, and after that there simple wasn't enough diameter left to make a decent box.

You can see in the picture above how much damage was inflicted on the wood. I didn't want to throw a good piece of wood away, so I decided to have a go at making a goblet. It wouldn't be a thin stemmed goblet like the ones seen on youtube of which this is a great example of the wood turners skill.

There are two reasons why mine wouldn't look like the one in the example. Firstly, I have only just started wood turning and can only dream of having the skills that are required to make such an item. Secondly, call me a bit of a miser if you want, but it seems to me to be a waste of good wood. I purchased the lathe turn pieces of wood into nicer looking pieces of wood, I didn't buy it to just turn wood into shavings.

An hobby where you pay good money for a piece of timber 2 inches square, then shave it down to the size of a drinking straw just to prove you can do it is a strange things to do. Mind you, if you just want to convert money into wood shavings it is a good way to go.

Does it sound like I'm jealous? Well perhaps I am, but I'm happy enough with my progress so far. Here's my fat stemmed goblet, lovingly turned from the piece of mahogany on which I had the catch.

 Perhaps it could have been a bit thinner, but after the catch my confidence was low.

Once the goblet was finished it was time to see if I could source some lighter wood so that I could do some pyrography on it. Now you might think it would be easy to source some decent light coloured wood turning blanks in my native Staffordshire but you would be wrong. I think that it is ironic that Staffordshire is billed as, "The Creative County" when nothing could be further from the truth. To get some wood, I would have to go to Derbyshire, Warwickshire or Shropshire/Wales border so that is what I did. The shop was great and I am more than pleased with the results of my trip, which I will relate in my next post.

Spice of Life

Hi all,
I was just beginning to get going with my wood turning, but there is always something to get in the way of progress. The garden seems to need a constant amount of tending and I am also the chief bread maker in our house. We finished up making our own bread after a failed mission to our usual local artisan baker, who for reason known unto them, thought it was acceptable to have a snot laden lad with a heavy cold doing the serving. My wife watched as he licked his fingers to open the plastic bag into which he deposited the loaf for the customer who was being served.

This was unacceptable, so my wife walked out and ordered a bread maker from Amazon. That was in December last year and I've been making bread ever since. Lovely stuff it is too and thoroughly recommended.

Anyway, I was about to turn another lidded box when my wife decided that she wanted a small spice rack making. I set to with the scroll saw and knocked her something up from bits of scrap wood I had lying about the workshop. I also carved some leaves to differentiate it from a shop bought spice rack. The leaves were also decorated with some pyrography.

My wife thinks it is super, so I gained a few brownie points. After the spice rack I was free to get on with my next box but I'm afraid I had a bit of a catastrophe. I had a catch of mega proportions because I was a bit clumsy when approaching the wood with my skew chisel. The result was that, as well as almost giving me a second heart attack, it took a great big chunk of wood out of my project.

Ah well, we all learn by our mistakes, thankfully the wood didn't come flying out of the lathe and break my nose or knock some of my teeth out. Hopefully I have learned a lesson and will be more careful in the future.

Unfortunately, by the time I had turned the wood down to get rid of the marks made by the catch it was too small for a box. so I would have to turn it (no pun intended) into something else. All will be revealed in my next post.