Pear Wood Box V.2

 

I posted this box before but I didn't like its proportions. Just didn't look right. So, I made a base for it, giving it a more pleasing look.

Redwood Basket/Bowl

 

Here's another "Basket" bowl, made with my scroll saw. This is one inch thick Redwood I salvaged from a 110 year old chicken coop that was being torn down. Back then, here in redwood country they were using old growth redwood for chicken coops! This is clear heartwood with growth rings very close together. This was a really big old tree. This was from a rough sawn board that I cleaned up with a wire brush, then ran through my planer. And it's still an inch thick.

So, what we have here is a 5 inch high by 7.5 inch diameter stack of slightly offset concentric "rings" which make up this "basket". The shape of the rings is my own design. I think this would have looked better with rings that were half as thick as these. These thick ones make the basket too deep and narrow. It is fairly stable though it doesn't look it. I put 3 coats of Danish Oil as a finish.

Scroll Saw Bowl Test

 

Something a little different this time. A scroll saw bowl. It measures 5 inches high and approx. 7 inches diameter. This is my first attempt at this kind of creation. I'm also breaking in a new scroll saw - a vast improvement over my old scroll saw from the early 1980's. So if you look closely you can see the rough cuts and glue squeeze-out and stuff. This is cut from a flat board and then the concentric cut-outs are glued in place, each one off-set from the one below it, creating a visually interesting construction. So, I guess technically this is more like a basket than a bowl. It is surprisingly stable and doesn't tip over easily. I'm ready to try this with some better, nicer looking wood now that I know what I'm doing. Meanwhile here are some photos of my first attempt. I like how the light works on this thing. The shadows from an overhead light makes a dramatic showing.

Small Sycamore Box

 

Here's a small Sycamore wood box measuring 3.75 inches high by 2.75 inches diameter. The finial is Walnut wood. The lid is loose-fitting for one-handed lid removal. This is nice looking wood with an interesting grain that looks like crepe paper or maybe skin. Difficult to see in these photos. There's a small foot on the bottom. I cut a couple of thin grooves near the rim of the box. I did some texturing on in rings around the lid. This was wet sanded up to 320 grit with orange oil/wax. Burnished with it's own shavings.

Small Sycamore Wood Bowl

 

This Sycamore wood bowl measures 3 inches in diameter and about 1 inch tall. From a neighbor's tree trimming job, I got a few pieces of this wood. Interesting grain close-up. A nice little change bowl perhaps. Wet sanded up to 400 grit with orange oil/wax mix. Fluted sides.

A Different Kind of Bowl

 

This bowl is 11.5 inches long, 5.5 inches wide and 3.5 inches high. Here, I'm trying a different kind of bowl construction. All the wood on this is from scraps and salvaged wood. 

 

On this one, I started with a stack of 10 10-segment rings, one of them being wider than the others. The feet would be cut out of the wider segmented ring. After I turned and sanded the inside and outside of this "bowl", I took it off the lathe (above). The woods are (top to bottom): Poplar from a piece of wood from piano, with the 1/8 inch Mahogany veneer still attached, then 2 layers of Redwood, next,Walnut then Maple from an old cutting board, then White Oak edge trim from a table I restored, then the wide ring which is more of the Maple cutting board wood, and below that a few more layers of the White Oak.

I carefully cut the stack in half. Then I made a template for the legs so I could make exact copies to trace onto the wood. I cut away everything on the wide ring that wasn't the feet. That was followed by a lot of sanding. 

Then, with some tricky clamping, I glued the two halves together and made the top rim flat and level. I leveled the feet. More sanding, then orange oil/wax followed with the final coatings of  Danish Oil. There are a few minor imperfections but it's not bad for my first attempt at this kind of thing.

click on any image to see a larger version

 

Small Elm Wood Box

 

This is an Elm wood box measuring 3 inches tall and 3.5 inches in diameter. The wood is Elm heart wood, from the same tree as the red/orange Elm wood bowl recently posted. This wood looks almost like Walnut. The lighter wood is Sycamore. The knob on top is a green glass marble; becoming a sort of trademark. I've a bunch of these so you'll be seeing them often. The finish is wet sanded with orange oil, sanded up to 320 grit. 

Small Pedastal Box

 

Here is a small box I turned last week. It measures 6 inches tall by 2.75 inches in diameter. The woods, top to bottom: spalted Maple finial, Pear at finial base, Walnut, Pear and spalted Maple base. There were worm holes in the Walnut which I filled with faux gold epoxy. Finish is a high gloss lacquer. I don't usually like a high gloss finish on my wood work but it looks nice on this piece of Walnut wood to I went with it. Still, I'm not real pleased with the look. This box was a chance to work on practice with a spindle gouge doing all that fancy beading and coves. Some texturing was done on the base of the lid. 

Elm Wood Bowl

 This Elm wood bowl measures 8 inches in diameter and 2 inches high. The color and grain on this piece of wood is beautiful. I turned this from a piece of Elm wood from a tree in my yard that split at a rotten section of a big branch. I found a piece of a cut off from that which was discarded as useless. I came across it as I was cleaning the yard around that work site a couple of months after we cut up that tree. I thought it was worth putting on the lathe because the grain looked like it might be good. It sure was. I put a little texturing at the top and under side of the rim, with the lines pointed in opposing directions. This bowl was wet sanded with orange oil/beeswax then 2 coats of Danish oil. I can't wait to make more stuff out of this wood.

Small Elm Wood Cup

 

This is an Elm wood cup I made as a test: I've not used this kind of wood before and I wanted to see how it worked with my lathe tools, what the color and grain looked like and how it finishes before I commit to working on a larger piece of this wood. The cup measures 2 inches high and 2.5 inches in diameter. I found that this is excellent wood for turning: it's very dense, very hard, with lovely coloring and grain. Tough on my tools, dulling them quickly. This was wet sanded with orange oil/beeswax up to a grit of 400, then burnished with wood shavings. Final finish was 2 coats of Danish oil. I'm looking forward to working some more of this wood.

Maple and Mahogany Pencil Pot

 

I made a pencil pot for my wife. This one's made out of segmented rings of Maple (light color) and Mahogany (dark color). The base and top rim are Maple. Some of the Maple is spalted. I added some texturing on the rim and base. This was wet sanded with orange oil/beeswax solution up to 400 grit. The pot was given a coat of satin finish to ward off grit and grime of handling. The cup measures 3.25 inches tall and 3 inches in diameter.

Small Maple and Pear Wood Canister

 

This box measures 5 inches tall by 1 inch in diameter (the base is 1.5 inches diameter). The finial and the base are Pear wood. The body is Maple with a friction fit lid. Wet sanded with mineral oil. Finished with orange oil/beeswax finish.

Small Walnut Wood Box

 

This Walnut wood box is 1.5 inches in diameter and 3 inches tall. The lid is friction fit. A green glass sphere of a knob. Wet sanded with mineral oil up to 320 grit. No finish on the final box. There is some texturing around the lid.