You'd think that I did no woodturning for the entire month...while it was not a HEAVY month for woodturning, I did verify that the drill press was now working much better, and I set up my sharpening system and jigs the way that I wanted them (finally). The sharpening system had not really been set up correctly before. The grinder was not bolted down, so it sometimes would move while I was sharpening the tools, which is bad. Also, the spacing between the grinder and the jigs on either side was not optimal either, so I really could only use one side of the grinder at a time.
New wood: I picked up some great cocobolo (not that I needed more, but they got a new shipment at Woodcraft and it was too good to pass up). I also picked up some cheap bird's-eye maple and some burl that looked cool. Yesterday Woodcraft had a 15% off sale, and I took advantage of it. I got some new kits (magnifying glass, letter opener, key ring) and even got a new Spindlemaster tool and a couple of neat books.
A couple of weeks ago I stopped in to Nuance to talk to the owner there. I mentioned possibly doing letter openers and magnifying glasses and such, and she seemed very interested. So, I may do a couple of Classic American sets - either pen and magnifier or pen and letter opener. One set in bloodwood or maple, and one set in cocobolo.
I also got some dyed blanks yesterday. They seem to come out pretty well. I think I am set for wood for a good long while now (yeah, right).
Something I also learned yesterday, that gave me hope for doing wine stoppers and such: The reason why the chuck may be slipping out of the headstock is that the headstock may be dirty. If I clean out the headstock, and clean the taper on the chuck, then it may fit together correctly. It is worth a shot, and gives me hope, as I said. Maybe I can start doing eggs and winestoppers soon.
Showing posts with label Woodcraft. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Woodcraft. Show all posts
Sunday, April 13, 2008
Sunday, February 24, 2008
Another trip to Woodcraft
Yesterday I went with my friend Nelson to Woodcraft. I am going to teach him how to make his own pen today (hopefully), so we went to choose a kit and look at what is available in the store. I bought 5 Classic American click pen kits, and 5 Classic American twist pen kits, and a piece of Olivewood that I just could not resist. The Olivewood could be made into 8 pens, or a few winestoppers. It has a really cool black line running through it.
This is the first time that I will be trying to teach someone else how to do the pens. I guess we will make two of them - one for me to show him how to do it, and one for him to do himself (with probably a bit of help from me).
I used the rest of my Woodcraft gift card (from the holidays), so the out-of-pocket on this visit was only $20.
This is the first time that I will be trying to teach someone else how to do the pens. I guess we will make two of them - one for me to show him how to do it, and one for him to do himself (with probably a bit of help from me).
I used the rest of my Woodcraft gift card (from the holidays), so the out-of-pocket on this visit was only $20.
Sunday, January 20, 2008
Another meeting of the Seacoast Woodturners
Last Tuesday night I went back to Woodcraft for the monthly meeting of the Seacoast Woodturners' Club. I went for the first time last November, but I missed the December meeting due to my trip out to LA. This time there were ten members there, and we discussed various tips and such for turning. I thought I could share some of my issues with drilling burl blanks and not being able to glue the tubes in, but it seems that no one else had ever run into that. All of their suggestions were things that I tried, which surprised me a bit. My use of the file to enlarge the holes did not seem to be something that anyone else had ever tried to do.
We made a bowl in the meeting, which was cool. Aside from one class, I have had no experience with that, so it was neat to take part. The next meeting might cover sharpening tools or making something else. I would like to do a winestopper, but I am not sure how interested the rest of the group would be.
I got my discount card, too...I think that it entitles me to a 10% discount on the nights of the meetings, but I will have to clarify that.
It is a cool group - mostly folks older (and a lot more experienced) than I, which is okay from my perspective. It means that, even though occasionally I get exposed as a newbie, I learn a lot.
We made a bowl in the meeting, which was cool. Aside from one class, I have had no experience with that, so it was neat to take part. The next meeting might cover sharpening tools or making something else. I would like to do a winestopper, but I am not sure how interested the rest of the group would be.
I got my discount card, too...I think that it entitles me to a 10% discount on the nights of the meetings, but I will have to clarify that.
It is a cool group - mostly folks older (and a lot more experienced) than I, which is okay from my perspective. It means that, even though occasionally I get exposed as a newbie, I learn a lot.
Saturday, October 27, 2007
Broker Pens, Purpleheart, Cocobolo and other stories
I feel like Rudyard Kipling, with a post title like that, but I cannot write like him, so I will stick to my own style :-)
The broker pens are done! The holly one will probably not be part of the set, but I have ten others that are completed. I learned a lot during the process. In particular, the sanding technique that I learned from the web site I mentioned in an earlier post has worked out REALLY well. I have also learned, through trial and error, how to better use the skew chisel so that I do not get tearout. For posterity, the full cast of characters:
Final tally: 3 cocobolo (1 very striking, 2 pretty cool), 2 Lignum Vitae (1 with the new sanding technique), and one each of: Bloodwood, Osage Orange (mistakenly called Orangeheart in an earlier post), Bubinga, Pink Ivory, and Bocote.
This morning there was an 'event' at Woodcraft, and there was 10% off of everything in the store (20% off of wood!). So, we went down there (we had also gotten a coupon for a free bag of odds and ends from the store) and, well, spent money again. Most of the money was spent on wood (a BEAUTIFUL piece of Cocobolo, two nice pieces of Bloodwood, and a large piece of Honey Mesquite - something that looks like Mahogany and has a cool grain to it.). Some of the money was spent on a chuck for the lathe. It turns out that the wine stopper starter kit does not include a chuck and a Morse Taper (I'll explain what that is as soon as I have used it successfully), but both are needed for working on the wine stoppers (and can be used for other projects like pepper mills and such).
All told, I spent $92.50 on materials which would normally cost $111.63:
Totals:
Out of pocket $242.47, Total: $341.56
All is not lost, though, as I really think that my pen-making skills are improving. I finally made the Olivewood Slimline pen that I cut and drilled ages ago, and it came out pretty well:
I also finally turned the wood from the Purpleheart Click pen that I cut and drilled a while back. Like other efforts with purpleheart, however, the wood is kind of gray-brown after being turned. This time, instead of going forward with the pen, I am going to let the turned pieces sit for a while and see if oxidation helps to restore the purple colour. If not, I am going to return all of my purpleheart blanks, including a large piece that I was hoping to use for a lamp at some point. It just does not seem worth the effort to turn purpleheart, unless I figure something out that is currently eluding me.
After coming back from Woodcraft and turning the Olivewood pen, I cut and drilled four blanks for click pens from the cocobolo that I bought this morning. I have quite a bit of cocobolo already, but this piece is especially cool, both in its reddish colour and its grain. Two people came up to me in the store and said that they had each seen someone different almost buy the piece that I was buying, and one person said that they were thinking of buying it themselves. When you see a piece like this, you just have to get it.
One of the blanks did not make it past the drilling stage, but I drilled and glued the other three, and this afternoon I turned and sanded and polished it, and I think it is one of my best ever:
I could not decide which picture did it justice (neither one does, really), so I included both. It took a lot of effort to line up the grain, since the bottom of the click pen screws into the top half. With a Classic American pen, you can just line up the grain and push the two halves together, but with a click pen you have to screw it in just right if you are making a pen where there is visible grain. A cool part of this too was that the black parts of the pen were not visible until I had turned it. The outside of the wood looked completely different!
As a last picture, here are two Cocobolo bullet-tip pens. One of them I have had for a while, but the other one I finally finished gluing together recently:
The red hue of the Cocobolo is set off nicely by the silver of the bullet-tip kit.
The broker pens are done! The holly one will probably not be part of the set, but I have ten others that are completed. I learned a lot during the process. In particular, the sanding technique that I learned from the web site I mentioned in an earlier post has worked out REALLY well. I have also learned, through trial and error, how to better use the skew chisel so that I do not get tearout. For posterity, the full cast of characters:
Final tally: 3 cocobolo (1 very striking, 2 pretty cool), 2 Lignum Vitae (1 with the new sanding technique), and one each of: Bloodwood, Osage Orange (mistakenly called Orangeheart in an earlier post), Bubinga, Pink Ivory, and Bocote.
This morning there was an 'event' at Woodcraft, and there was 10% off of everything in the store (20% off of wood!). So, we went down there (we had also gotten a coupon for a free bag of odds and ends from the store) and, well, spent money again. Most of the money was spent on wood (a BEAUTIFUL piece of Cocobolo, two nice pieces of Bloodwood, and a large piece of Honey Mesquite - something that looks like Mahogany and has a cool grain to it.). Some of the money was spent on a chuck for the lathe. It turns out that the wine stopper starter kit does not include a chuck and a Morse Taper (I'll explain what that is as soon as I have used it successfully), but both are needed for working on the wine stoppers (and can be used for other projects like pepper mills and such).
All told, I spent $92.50 on materials which would normally cost $111.63:
Totals:
Out of pocket $242.47, Total: $341.56
All is not lost, though, as I really think that my pen-making skills are improving. I finally made the Olivewood Slimline pen that I cut and drilled ages ago, and it came out pretty well:
I also finally turned the wood from the Purpleheart Click pen that I cut and drilled a while back. Like other efforts with purpleheart, however, the wood is kind of gray-brown after being turned. This time, instead of going forward with the pen, I am going to let the turned pieces sit for a while and see if oxidation helps to restore the purple colour. If not, I am going to return all of my purpleheart blanks, including a large piece that I was hoping to use for a lamp at some point. It just does not seem worth the effort to turn purpleheart, unless I figure something out that is currently eluding me.
After coming back from Woodcraft and turning the Olivewood pen, I cut and drilled four blanks for click pens from the cocobolo that I bought this morning. I have quite a bit of cocobolo already, but this piece is especially cool, both in its reddish colour and its grain. Two people came up to me in the store and said that they had each seen someone different almost buy the piece that I was buying, and one person said that they were thinking of buying it themselves. When you see a piece like this, you just have to get it.
One of the blanks did not make it past the drilling stage, but I drilled and glued the other three, and this afternoon I turned and sanded and polished it, and I think it is one of my best ever:
I could not decide which picture did it justice (neither one does, really), so I included both. It took a lot of effort to line up the grain, since the bottom of the click pen screws into the top half. With a Classic American pen, you can just line up the grain and push the two halves together, but with a click pen you have to screw it in just right if you are making a pen where there is visible grain. A cool part of this too was that the black parts of the pen were not visible until I had turned it. The outside of the wood looked completely different!
As a last picture, here are two Cocobolo bullet-tip pens. One of them I have had for a while, but the other one I finally finished gluing together recently:
The red hue of the Cocobolo is set off nicely by the silver of the bullet-tip kit.
Thursday, August 23, 2007
Just as I thought to try something other than pens...
Last week I decided to spend my gift certificate and use the "$15 off of $50" coupon, so I went to Woodcraft with the idea of getting the starter kit for winestoppers. Winestoppers start as a cube of wood, and are used to close up wine bottles that have been opened but not finished. They do not use a mandrel, and are not therefore done by spindle turning, so I thought that they might provide a bridge between the world of pens and the world of more "freehand" work such as bowls.
And lamps. Not mentioned thus far in this space is the fact that we are redecorating some of the rooms of our house (slowly). While we were discussing lighting, my wife asked me if I could turn a lamp. I had never thought about doing it, but it seemed like something that would be doable. We spoke to one of the woodturning wizards (Chris, the one who taught us in the bowl class), and he said that he had turned several lamps and that it was (relatively) simple to do.
So, I picked up a couple of practice pieces to try to make into lamps. One of the main issues is how to drill the hole for the cord through the lamp when you do not have a drill press that goes all the way through. I have been reading up on ways to do this, and it is a bit daunting, but very interesting too.
So, I came back with the starter kit for the winestoppers, and some wood to use for winestopper blanks, and some wood to use for practicing the whole lamp thing...and suddenly my sister says to me that she wants me to make several Broker-style pens for members of her team at work. This would involve 10 or 11 pens, so I ordered 15 kits (ever the optimist, I assume that 3-4 of my attempts will be wrecked somehow) from Craft Supplies USA, and they should get here in a few days. After they get here, I will concentrate mainly on the pens until they are done.
THEN I might be able to start on the winestoppers and/or lamps. At which point we'll see some more pictures here, I am pretty sure.
I did finally make a good Classic American pen out of Tulipwood, so I feel a bit better.
Budgetary considerations: Woodcraft - $63.27 ($138.78 total), of which $23.27 ($78.78 total) was out of pocket.
Online ordering of kits: $116.35
Now, I will get back $10 for each pen that I attempt for my sister's team, so that will not be all out of pocket either. So, I will not count that among the Woodcraft expenses. I'll just make a note of it.
And lamps. Not mentioned thus far in this space is the fact that we are redecorating some of the rooms of our house (slowly). While we were discussing lighting, my wife asked me if I could turn a lamp. I had never thought about doing it, but it seemed like something that would be doable. We spoke to one of the woodturning wizards (Chris, the one who taught us in the bowl class), and he said that he had turned several lamps and that it was (relatively) simple to do.
So, I picked up a couple of practice pieces to try to make into lamps. One of the main issues is how to drill the hole for the cord through the lamp when you do not have a drill press that goes all the way through. I have been reading up on ways to do this, and it is a bit daunting, but very interesting too.
So, I came back with the starter kit for the winestoppers, and some wood to use for winestopper blanks, and some wood to use for practicing the whole lamp thing...and suddenly my sister says to me that she wants me to make several Broker-style pens for members of her team at work. This would involve 10 or 11 pens, so I ordered 15 kits (ever the optimist, I assume that 3-4 of my attempts will be wrecked somehow) from Craft Supplies USA, and they should get here in a few days. After they get here, I will concentrate mainly on the pens until they are done.
THEN I might be able to start on the winestoppers and/or lamps. At which point we'll see some more pictures here, I am pretty sure.
I did finally make a good Classic American pen out of Tulipwood, so I feel a bit better.
Budgetary considerations: Woodcraft - $63.27 ($138.78 total), of which $23.27 ($78.78 total) was out of pocket.
Online ordering of kits: $116.35
Now, I will get back $10 for each pen that I attempt for my sister's team, so that will not be all out of pocket either. So, I will not count that among the Woodcraft expenses. I'll just make a note of it.
Monday, August 13, 2007
It was on the way home!
I went to my regional office today, and of course Woodcraft is on the way home from there. :-) So, I stopped in to return the plastic hose fitting that did not work. That was $3.99 credit, so I bought a Pink Ivory pen blank and an interesting green sparkly acrylic blank, which came to $3.98. However, since I did not count the hose fitting as being out of pocket before, I must count the blanks as being extra. Total out-of-pocket is now $55.51, with $75.51 being the total spent.
Saturday, August 11, 2007
Another trip to Woodcraft
As we were headed that way anyway, and I had something to return (the plastic fitting that was supposed to connect the bandsaw to the ShopVac, but was not the right size), I decided to bring my Classic American bushings in to compare them to a new set, to see if there was any validity to the theory that mine had gotten sanded down.
Turns out I was right! The bushings do get sanded down (I guess you could TRY to avoid sanding the bushings when you sand the wood, but it would be very difficult). I was told that the bushings are good for about 20 pens or so, then they need to be replaced with a new set.
I bought a new set of bushings for $5.99, and traded my plastic hose fitting for another one that they said should work (a $1 difference), AND they had a special on where you could buy a $25 gift certificate for $12.50. I could not refuse that deal, so I bought one. I hope to use it in association with my "Get $15 off if you spend over $50" coupon that is good until the end of August. In essence, I would be able to get $50 worth of stuff for $22.50.
Since the NEW plastic fitting did not work either, I will have to return it, so if I count the actual out-of-pocket expenses today, it was the gift certificate plus the bushings, which comes to $18.49. This brings the out-of-pocket expenses so far to $51.53 (total is $71.53), but of course I now have the $25 gift certificate to use for future purchases.
Turns out I was right! The bushings do get sanded down (I guess you could TRY to avoid sanding the bushings when you sand the wood, but it would be very difficult). I was told that the bushings are good for about 20 pens or so, then they need to be replaced with a new set.
I bought a new set of bushings for $5.99, and traded my plastic hose fitting for another one that they said should work (a $1 difference), AND they had a special on where you could buy a $25 gift certificate for $12.50. I could not refuse that deal, so I bought one. I hope to use it in association with my "Get $15 off if you spend over $50" coupon that is good until the end of August. In essence, I would be able to get $50 worth of stuff for $22.50.
Since the NEW plastic fitting did not work either, I will have to return it, so if I count the actual out-of-pocket expenses today, it was the gift certificate plus the bushings, which comes to $18.49. This brings the out-of-pocket expenses so far to $51.53 (total is $71.53), but of course I now have the $25 gift certificate to use for future purchases.
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