Home / Tag "spalted beech"

Damn dinosaurs

BowlsWoodturningWoodworking

Was watching Conkers Live this week and Stewart Furini was demonstrating spiralling and texturing (something I’d like to have tooling to do more of…) but at one point during the demo, he’d finished some spiralling and had painted and sanded back the piece and this was the result:

It was quite striking at the time and reminded me of something and it took a few minutes to place it:

I don’t have a spiralling tool but I do have carving tools. So I grabbed a blank…

It’s an odd shape, you’re looking at the bottom of the bowl here – I wanted it to fit my hand and to be a little closed over (turned out, it’s a lot closed over). Printed out the scratch marks from a jpg on the web…

Cut those out with a sharp knife, then put cellotape over the sheet and stuck it to the blank, then cut along the edges of the scratches through the cellotape and tidied up afterwards.… Read the rest

Read More
Mark Dennehy in No Comments

Well, poop.

FinishingWoodturningWoodworking

Was bound to happen sooner or later I guess.

So I was mucking around experimenting with some colouring on spalted beech:

Just picked a funny shape because I was experimenting with that as well. Then some yellow stain…

And then some royal blue…

Hm. Potential but maybe not. Sand it all off…

BTW, that’s why I picked this blank – that black line isn’t spalting, it’s a crack. Not sure if this would survive hollowing, so it’s a learning blank 😀

Now, purple…

Eh. Not quite. I mean, it’s okay, but I’d want it lighter. Maybe some gold embellishing wax (or buff-it, since that’s all I had to hand)…

I dunno. I don’t like it much. Too dark. If I’m going to colour wood, I want it to look brighter than that.… Read the rest

Read More
Mark Dennehy in 2 Comments

Long time no type

New Toys!ShedTools
More
WoodturningWoodworking

So yeah, a whole month went by without posting here. Work was a little crazy. But there was time to turn a few more bowls…

Spalting had gone just a touch far on this beech blank, and a check had formed along one of the spalting planes, so I knocked it off with the chisel and that sortof defined what the final shape would be.

Rather pretty in the end. And there were a few new toys that finally arrived three months after ordering them (they’d come from China all the way to my office… which was in lockdown. But they cleared out the mail room a few months in and dropped everything out to us – thanks for that Robbie, if you’re reading this):

The centerfinder in black also has these raised steps that are set distances apart so it’s both a centerfinder and a gauge to set your calipers against.… Read the rest

Read More
Mark Dennehy in No Comments