Failed Pen

Hi all,
Sometimes things go right and at other times they turn to a bag of crap. Let's start with the good stuff. I've done a bit of turning and made a couple of vases. The first of which I decided to colour up with a band of polymer clay. If nothing else it would be a change from pyrography bands. I shaped the vase then using my parting tool I turned a groove about 6mm deep. Then I mixed some blue and white polymer clay together and while it still had some separation I filled the groove in the vase with it. Then I fired it in the oven and then turned the shape and finished it.

The pound coin gives you an idea of scale, so you can see that it is a small vase. I guess the outcome was ok but nothing special. It was turned from a piece of sapele that was in the scrap bin so you can't expect too much from a bland piece of wood.

Then I thought I'd make another vase for the fridge, but a different shape to the last one. I thought a bit of segmentation might be alright so I did a couple of light wood bands in the middle.

I was going to flatten one side so that it could be stuck on the fridge but my wife said it was too nice. She stuck a viola in it and put it on the windows sill in the kitchen. So I'm not doing too bad overall, but here is the failure.
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Inspired by something I'd seen on Youtube, I decided to have a go at eggshell mosaic. Further to that notion, I decide that it would look nice on a pen. Anyway, I turned a pen fro African blackwood and recessed it a little in the area where I wanted the eggshell. By the way, this project looks better with white eggshells which I didn't have, so after a full English I grabbed the brown eggshells, before my wife could stick them in the bin, and painted them with white acrylic paint.

I then stuck the eggshells onto the pen in a random pattern so that the blackwood would show up behind. It was a tedious, tiresome and frustrating thing to be doing but I perceived. Luckily I decided to do just the top first and finish that so not to waste time on the bottom part. Am I glad I did, because the CA glue that was supposed to seal the gaps between the eggshells and give me a crystal clear, glossy finish just didn't happen. For what ever reason it went all milky on me. So here is a photo of the mess.

The sad thing is, up until when I put the super glue on, it looked quite promising. So I won't be messing with eggshells again any time soon. It seemed like a cracking idea (pun intended) at the time but we all make mistakes.

To save me wasting the pen blanks and tubes I had another idea. Why don't I cover them with nano mosaics? I will show you how I get on with that idea in my next post.

A little Vase

Hi all,
I thought you might like to see this little bud vase that I made. I saw the idea in a woodturning magazine so I thought I'd have a go. Not only is it a small vase but it has a insert which allows it to hold water and thus keep alive any little flower that are put into it. Plus, I have flattened the back  and inserted a magnet so that it can stick on the side of the fridge.

The wood is sapele and I have burnt two circles around the vase. The flowers are fairy foxgloves and have been in the vase for 4 days now and don't show any sign of drooping. My Mrs is well pleased and wants me to make a load more.

It was easy to make and I enjoyed it, so I might just do her another couple.

By the way, one of my books, "Bun In The Oven," will be free to download until Saturday 9th of June. Please grab a copy and have a good laugh. To get the download just go to the book's tab at the top of the page and click on the cover. That will take you straight to Amazon for the download.

Carved Rabbit with Pyrography

Hi all,
I've just finished my latest carving. It's a rabbit and it was a little more difficult than I thought it would be.

I roughed it out first from a piece of lime wood.

At this point it is still attached to the main piece of wood. I do it like that so that I have something to hold on to whilst most of the material is removed. The rabbit was roughly drawn onto the piece of wood and then I carved away most of the material with a selection of Saburr tooth burrs.These are very good at removing a lot of wood quickly whilst still poviding some control.

The rabbit was further refined with diamond burrs, rifflers and various grades of sand paper.
Here is the finished rabbit after the details were burned in with my pyrography iron.

I kept the finish simple, using several coats of Danish Oil.

This will probably be my last carving for a short while because I have acquired a ganglion on my wrist. The doctor's advice is not to do much repetitive work for a while so carving is going to go on the back burner for a bit. I'm seeing the doctor again on Monday with a view to having said ganglion removed, but we will see.

For those who have not come across a ganglion before her is my description. It comes as a large swell on the wrist in the area wher it joins the hand. It looks like  a marble has got inder the skin. It's a bit like a cyst, with the cause being unknown. Generally it is not painful unless you knock it and then it is absolute murder. I also get pain when my hand gets into certain positions so I am learning to avoid them. It's a stange old world, one minute I've never heared of a ganglion and now I've got one, still i guess its better than waking up with a gammy leg.

I shall continue woodturning so please watch this space for my next post. I'm also thinking about doing some video work of my projects, but it is early days yet.

I did do one of my garden to see how it went. I know next to nothing about video editing but here is a link to youtube and my first decent attempt. It's even got background music