Torquise Inlay

Hi All,
I have been meaning to have a go at a bit of inlay work for a long time. I have done a bit with polymer clay a couple of years ago. Here are some hare bells an the lid of a box.

And, I have even done a few bits with wood. Here I inlaid some tulip wood into the top of a box with a mahogany lid.

However, I haven't tried inlaying gems stones even in dust form. So, I turned a small lidded box out of what I think was rosewood. I bought it over a year ago so I can't remember, and I'd already used the end of the blank with the identification label on. Whatever it was, it turned very well and provided the perfect background for the turquoise.

It turned out very well, in fact, I was pleasantly surprised how simple it was. After I'd turned the lid of the box I used a thin parting tool to make a groove a couple of mm deep. Then I carefully poured the turquoise dust into the groove and soaked it with thin CA glue. Once it had dried I used a round nose scrapper to smooth the turquoise so that it was level with the wood and then I sanded it in the usual way by going through all the grades. I then gave it a coat of wax and polished it up. I'm afraid the pictures don't do it justice because the lid is super glossy and super smooth.

On the carving and pyrography front, I'm having a go at a small rabbit. I'll share that with you in my next post. If you have any questions about any of the inlay stuff above, I'll be happy to answer any questions.

Wise Owl

Hi all,
Ive finally managed to get a couple of projects underway. For a simple start I thought I'd turn, carve and burn a small caricature of an owl. Here is Oliver, or Olly if you want to shorten it, he won't mind.

He looks kind of cute and I quite enjoyed burning the feathers on. It will be good practise for when I try to do a realistic bird in a few weeks time. If there is one think about it that I don't like, it's the beak. Especially from the angle I've photographed it from because in the photo it looks more like a pig's snout. Perhaps I should have called him Porky.

Anyway, for those who are interested, this is how he was made.

Step 1:  I made a rough model out of Plasticine.

This gave me something to follow when removing wood. You may notice that the finished article is a bit taller and on a plinth. The reason for that is, the plinth is actually the bit that the wood was mounted to the lathe with and I kept it on during the carving process to give me something to hold on to. Anyway, I like  the look of the plinth and decided to keep it.

Step 2: I took a square of lime wood and turned it to the overall shape of the owl. By doing this I removed a lot of wood which saved me time when doing the carving.

Step 3: I roughed out the shape.

Once I was happy with it what I'd done, I refined it and sanded it to the final shape.

Step 4: I drew on a few feathers with a pencil and once I was happy with the style I did the rest with my pyrography iron. I also burned the plinth to give it some texture and some colour.

Step: 5 I wiped it down with rubbing alchol to remove any surplace carbon/soot that was created by the burning process. Then I gave it seveal coats of melamine lacquer.

My next project is a small box with a turqoise inlay. I've not done this before so I'm waiting to see how it turns out. All will be revealed in my next post.