Well, due to many events involving felines and family members, I have not been able to do much turning over the last couple of months. However, recently I have made a couple of Wall Street II style pens. This style is efficient because you can make two of them from a single 5 1/2 inch pen blank. I made two out of Tamboti, and gave one to the vet who took care of our cat Carmen during her last couple of months. Now we have introduced our new cats, Herbie and Domino, to her, and she will be their vet too.
I have started another class! There is a woodturning class at the Homestead School in Newmarket, taught by the same guy that taught the pepper mill class. This class covers all of the aspects of basic turning, and meets every other Thursday for eight sessions. I have only had one session so far, but it is a lot of fun and I think I will learn a lot too. I got the class tuition as a holiday present this year.
Surprising bonus at the end of the year - four of my pens at Nuance sold! Apparently people thought that my pens would make a good holiday gift. I had no idea that they had sold until I got a check from the owner of the store. What a great surprise that was!
My old high school is having an auction in April - I went to the last one a couple of years ago and it was a lot of fun. This year I might donate a pen/pencil set or something similar to be auctioned off.
My in-laws got me a dust collection system for the holidays that can be hooked up to my Shop-Vac. I have not set it up yet, but I plan to do so this weekend so I can see if it fits the tools that I have in my shop.
That is all for now - next class is on the 5th of February. The first class we practiced doing coves and beads on spindle work. We turned pieces of wood that were still wet - they came from local trees, and they had not dried out completely yet. It was an interesting experience - the shavings that come off of a wet or "green" piece of wood are much different from those that come off of a kiln-dried piece like a pen blank or exotic wood blank.
Friday, January 30, 2009
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