Supersized hollowform completed

Posted on April 26, 2011 by Ed Pretty

Elaine's hollowform. Bowl gouge included for perspective.

In an earlier post I discussed the construction of the tools I needed for turning large hollowforms. I had roughed out the form prior to drying which was to be the next step in the process. I feared the piece might crack. Much to my dismay, the drying process initialized a crack  at the opening as well as some small cracks on the bottom. The top crack would affect the appearance while the bottom cracks were minute and were to be turned away in the finishing process.

Cap detail

To say the least, I was upset. I was able to halt the cracking with CA glue, then watching it a couple of times a day while the piece continued to dry. Finally it had lost enough water that the weight stabalized and was ready to finish turn; about three months, as I had anticipated.

RED! applied.

During that time I thought of various ways in which to turn this disaster into a “design opportunity”. Originally, I had planned on making a cap to close in the opening much like “Black on Black” and “Blue Planet” (see gallery). Continuing on that idea, I envisioned wings or leaves eminating from the cap and finally settled on the design in the photograph, encorporating a bit of texturing to add some interest and contrast with the gloss finish. The shape of the cap also corrected the line of the form that had turned too sharply at the top when turning much of the crack away. In the end I actually felt that the final product was more dramatic than the original concept. To say the least, I was very happy with “the save”.

RED! sanded back.

The original blank weighed 40 lbs. After initial turning it weighed 10 lbs. After drying (loosing about 5 lbs. of water) and finish turning, the piece weighed 4 lbs. – 10 percent of its original weight.

The customer specified a reddy orange/yellow colour combination that I had applied to a Zen Candle that she had purchased earlier. After bleaching the piece twice I applied a red dye which was then sanded back, exposing new wood. Yellow was applied to achieve the final result. If you notice there is an airbrush in the photos. I have had issues with colour contamination in my applicators and dye containers. Using an airbrush eliminates contact with applicators that pick up the original colour from the work. The cap was painted black and textured after turning and carving to shape. Both were finished with (I forget how) many coats of Wipe On Poly.

Yellow applied.

On a sad note, the remainder of the wood that I bought for the piece cracked severely. There is enough to make two more pieces the same size so that is quite a loss, however I have another “save” in mind that may make them equally as spectacular. Here’s hoping!

As always, I encourage your comments and questions, so please refer to the tag line at the bottom of the article to post a comment.

Posted in Colouring wood, Finishing | 5 Comments

Managing wood movement in a built-up piece

Posted on February 9, 2011 by Ed Pretty

The other day I received an email from a person who visited this blog then contacted me about possibly repairing a turning. She described the problem as a wooden band coming unglued at the top of the bowl and wondered if it could be reglued. I took that to be an inlayed banding detail and agreed to look at the problem.   

She lives in Vancouver and had purchased a turned bowl (appears to be a salad bowl)  from a woodturner in New York, hence her query to me instead of the original turner. She sent me some photos of the bowl (unfortunately I couldn’t copy them from the email) after I had said that the first step would be to determine the reason for the separation. As soon as I opened her email with the pictures I knew what had caused the problem. The loose piece wasn’t a strip of inlayed banding at all. Rather, it was the top layer of a built-up bowl. The thick-walled bowl had been constructed of laminated (not segmented) wood approximately 3/4″ – 1″ thick, the grain in each layer shifted 90 degrees away from the layers adjacent. In addition, the pith was present in one of the boards, lending anything but an artistic appearance to the piece. Obviously the differing expansion ratios between layers had finally broken the bond causing the separation. From the appearance of the finish it is possible the bowl had been washed multiple times which may have sped things up a bit. I told her there was no point repairing the damage since it would not only happen again but would likely continue until the bowl was a stack of half-rings on the table.  

The contruction of this bowl was a rookie mistake that was bound to cause this problem sooner or later. The finish sanding was obviously done with 80 grit or rougher which matched the piece with the pith in it, but that’s another story. Layering wood so that the grain is alternately aligned 90 degrees to the next is bound to stess the glue joint as the wood expands and contracts. If the bowl is thin-walled, bending will probably occur, but in this case the bowl had very thick walls cauing the bond to break. Because the wood expands in width significantly more than length, each layer will fight with the next every time there is a change in humidity. If this piece had never been washed it would still have happened; it would just have taken a bit longer. I suspect there may have been another issue as well. If the built up boards were glued together as actual boards in a stack, the glue joint would have been very poor since it needs more pressure than normal shop methods of clamping will provide. Joints like that are best done two together then one added at a time after that. Only very heavy duty hydraulic presses can supply enough force to glue several pieces together at once.  

There is a method of laminated turning called “bowl from a board”. This is a method of ripping a full board in half lengthwise then bandsawing half circles at an angle from the two pieces. The half circles are glued together to make full rings then restacked so that they form a conical blank, gluing them one at a time, with the joints 90 degrees apart so that each is supported by the next (obviously what this turner was trying to do). This works for two main reasons: first, it is all the same piece of wood so humidity is the same throughout so the relative expansion is reduced somewhat. Second, the walls are typically much thinner than the example I was looking at, so the glue joints are allowed to flex enough to stay together. That being said, I have seen some of these come apart as well.   

Segmented turners deal with this issue in every piece they make. While attending a demo by Malcolm Tibbets I learned that to completely avoid separation due to conflicting expansion rates, the grain in all the pieces in a built up piece must always be oriented in the same way. They can be end grain or flat grain but must be all the same orientation. Each piece is of course shaped like a piece of pie within each ring – not flat boards like the high-school job that I was looking at. He suggested going one step further by turning a groove in the bottom ring to hold the bottom like a panel in a panel constructed door so that it could move freely. Malcolm brought a couple of failures that had grain in opposing directions to prove his point.  

lime wax

The segmented holly ring is thin enough to move with the single piece of ash used for the main body.

 

I am not a segmented turner at all but I do glue wood together from time to time for aesthetic reasons or to reduce waste. I turned a lidded vessel from ash with a trim ring and foot made from segmented holly. Malcolm assured me that in this case the rings were thin enough that they would flex with the movement of the main flat-grained body, so I breathed a sigh of relief – because it had already been sold. Malcolm’s lessons have paid off by making me aware of the significance of conflicting wood expansion, so hopefully someone in New York won’t be calling another turner there to repair one of my turnings.  

As always, I encourage your comments and questions, so please refer to the tag line at the bottom of the article to post a comment.

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A very satisfied customer

Posted on January 31, 2011 by Ed Pretty

Debutante.

Patti Houston of Fluff Rentals and Fluff for Keeps commissioned a piece a while ago and we delivered it to her office/warehouse last week. Several gals work for her there, interior designers all. Patti was very happy with  “Debutante” (by her request it was to be a surprise) and the girls there were as well. Kris, Patti’s right hand gal, handles their blogging and posted a comment on the piece (actually pieces). A very flattering comment, especially coming from a creative group such as Patti and her team. People like this who appreciate my work make the long hours worthwhile.

Thank you to Patti for all your support and trusting my judgement. Something not given often and something I take very seriously. I am honoured to have been given the opportunity to make something to someone with such discriminating tastes.

http://rentfluff.wordpress.com/2011/01/31/amazing-work/

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Supersized hollow form

Posted on January 31, 2011 by Ed Pretty

New hollowing rig.

Many years ago I watched a deep hollowing demonstration by the late Frank Sudol. Sudols’ forte was very large, very thin pierced hollow forms. I took a class using his boring tools and found it quite easy. I started down the road of building said boring tool and related equipment but that was interrupted by my domestic restructuring.

Fast forward to the present. I was commissioned by a customer who liked my hollow forms to make something bigger than my normal fare. Eighteen to twenty four inches bigger! I told her I wasn’t set up for it and that figured wood like that would be hard to come by but I would look into it. My wood sleuths kept their eyes open for suitable figured maple for the job and one day I got a call. They had what I needed! Drat. Now I would have to out my money where my mouth was and build the tooling needed for the job.

35 pounds of shavings/10 pounds of vessel

My customer is great. She fronted me the money for the wood and said she would wait any length of time it took to build the tools, turn the piece and let it dry. How cool is that?! It took two weeks off and on to build the steady rest, get the boring bar machined, get a drill extension machined and fab the works. Now I am in the deep hollowing business, I guess.

I finished the hollowform today and it’s drying in the basement. How long that takes is undetermined of course. The wall is 3/4″ due to the 9″ diameter so it will take a while; not the 2 mil wall thickness that Sudol did. That meant that I had to measure the walls rather than use light to gauge thickness. I put silica gell beads inside to help keep the drying rate of the thicker bottom even with the thinner walls, so we’ll see how that works out.

Semi finished hollow form 22-1/2" tall

Once dry – and as long as it doesn’t crack – I’ll re-turn it (including taking that ugly steady rest land off), dye it the special orange/yellow she likes so much and finish it. Here’s hoping.

As always, I encourage your comments and questions, so please refer to the tag line at the bottom of the article to post a comment.

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Bee tea. My first tea pot.

Posted on January 26, 2011 by Ed Pretty

Bee Tea

 Our guild president offered a challenge to turn a tea pot after Art Liestman did a demo on the pots made by woodturners. This is my effort. The body is birch burl, the spout and top/dipper are birch, the legs are yew and the wings/handle are ash. I apologize for the line in the pictures. My digital camera packed it in and these were the first pictures where it showed up. 🙁

Tea pots have become the standard used by woodturners to demonstrate their personal style. The tea pot is recognized and used universally, therefore making it the ideal, if not somewhat improbable, vehicle. Naturally they are not functional, but that is irrelivant. In my case, colour and figured wood play a dominant role in my work

Bee Tea and accessories

 so it had to be “in your face and out there”.  Aside from that I also wanted to showcase as much as I had learned from visiting demonstrators to encourage other turners to make the most of these wonderful opportunities. In this case I drew on the multi-centered style of Mark Sfirri for the legs and top (actually, a honey dipper disguised as a top),  Dave Schweitzer’s teachings for the hollowform and Mike Hosaluk’s procedure of deconstructing and reconstructing turnings for the spout. Although not visible, an epoxy trick learned from Marilyn Campbell helped out on the very tight bend on the back end of the steam-bent handle/wings. I attempted to give the piece some “attitude” by leaning it forward and to one side, twisting the spout and kicking the stinger up at a jaunty angle. Trying to have as much going on a possible, I made a tea bag out of dyed birch shavings and cheesecloth, something I haven’t seen in a teapot yet.

Bee tea heading south

This project took about a month of on and off work and I enjoyed every minute of it. I think I had more fun doing this piece than anything else I have turned. I’ve had pleanty of ideas spin off from this so I doubt if this is the last. 

As always, comments are encouraged and appreciated. Please see the tag line below to make a comment.

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It’s time to lime (but not your lawn)

Posted on January 1, 2011 by Ed Pretty

A Black Tie Affair. Painted oak with lime wax

Recently I have received requests from a few other turners for tips on using lime wax. There’s not a lot of literature on the process that I am aware of except a book that I have myself; “Colouring Techniques for Woodturners” by Jan Sanders. I picked the book up about 12 years ago from Lee Valley and I believe they still sell it. For me it has been an excellent resource and motivator for the treatment of wood post-turning. Because I seem to be getting more calls and emails about liming recently I thought I would write a post about it so I could simply direct folks to this site – so if sent you, “Welcome”. If I didn’t, “Welcome”. 🙂  

For the purpose of this explanation I will use the terms “lime wax” or “liming” for simplicity. In truth, it is possible to apply all kinds of colours of wax that aren’t white and I usually refer to them as “tint waxes” for clarity, but the process is the same. Also, lime wax isn’t really wax, but rather some kind of very fine powder (I don’t think it’s lime, but rather some kind of oxide) in an oil base while coloured waxes are actually wax with colour added.  

Gypsy Queen. Dyed elm with gold tint wax.

To start off with, my approach to colouringwood is something that I do to emphasise grain characteristics such as the figure in wood or perhaps grain lines that naturally have significant contrast (sap wood and heart wood, for example) or just to get away from a bland brown (contrary to popular belief, I don’t think all wood is bland).  Although the wood may be coloured, liming is used to emphasizes grain direction and pattern. “Gypsy Queen” is an example where both dying and liming are used to enhance both a grain characteristic and grain pattern. The process requires a ring-porous wood for best effect.  Ring-porous wood is wood that has the pores isolated into rings rather than dispersed throughout the wood as does diffuse-porous wood. The rings of pores, once treated with a contrasting tint or lime wax, stand out and become the focal point of the piece. Ring-porous woods include ash, oak, elm, hickory, chestnut. I’m sure there are more but these are all species that I have used successfully. In such cases as “Black Tie Affair” I have eliminated the colour of the wood entirely, making the grain lines the dominant feature of the piece. In some I have coloured the wood with dye, keeping the nature of the grain intact but added contrasting or complimenting tint wax for accent. Still others, I have not coloured the wood at all but used black wax to enhance the grain.  

None of this is effective at all on diffuse-porous wood. I once tried to use lime wax on black walnut, thinking the contrast might look good. Walnut has zillions of little fissures throughout the wood. All it did was make the piece look messy and totally ruined it. So… no diffuse-porous wood, Grasshopper.   

Midas. Painted Elm with gold tint wax.

The order of business for liming is to turn the piece, finish sand, open the grain, apply a finish and then apply the lime wax. It’s important that all the steps in this procedure are followed and that each is attended to with great detail. First: turning and sanding. Any anomalies in the turning will stand out like a sore thumb. In the same way that grain lines are emphasized, so is tear out and undesirable marks from poor tool control. Sanding is critical and if any dye is applied that will raise the grain, I always raise the grain first then resand prior to using the dye so that doesn’t cause a problem later. Opening the grain is a key step that you probably haven’t done before in other finishes. Using a small brass brush (or very vigorous work with a stiff plastic brush), thoroughly  follow every grain line, brushing all bits if sanding dust and wood fibers from the pores. If you miss any it will be like a neon bald patch when it is way too late to do anything about it. You will notice that there is an incredible amount of debris removed from the pores if you put a piece of white paper under your work. If you are going to colour the wood, now is when you apply dye or paint. You will notice that not even dye penetrates the pores because of the surface tension of the liquid. If using paint, spray rather than brush it on. I prefer lacquer – mostly because that’s all I’ve used – so other bases may be OK but you will have to experiment on your own. 

There seems to be a misunderstanding that the procedure is to apply the lime wax before putting any finish on the piece. Do not apply lime wax before finishing. If you do there will be no opportunity to apply any further finish,  but most critically, if you have applied a dye and it has not been sealed with a finish, the lime wax will pull the colour into it and you won’t get the shocking white contrast, just a tint of the colour that you applied. I know because I did that my first time.  

Outer Planet. Dyed elm with red tint wax.

 So you have the piece turned, sanded, pores opened and colour applied. Some have been hesitant to apply the finish before waxing thinking that the pores would be sealed up and unable to accept wax. Nothing could be further from the truth. When the finish is applied it actually makes the pores deeper and wider but still leaves a “key” at the bottom. The trick is to stop before the pores get “round bottomed” so that the wax won’t key into it. After finishing a couple of pieces you get to know what to look for. If you don’t believe that the pores remain during finishing, think about any time you tried to finish a piece with deep grain pores and tried to fill them with finish. The same thing happens here only it’s a good thing. Understand that a rough finish like deep orange peel or simple roughness due to too much thinner will retain the wax and the result is very unattractive. If you have orange peel or roughness, sand it back before you get too many coats and finish off with a good last coat.  

Untitled. Dyed (yes, it's blue dye) chestnut with lime wax.

Once the finish is complete it’s time to apply the lime wax. Follow the instructions! Wax on – wax off. Leave it on for only a few minutes like you would your car. If you wait too long it is very hard to remove the excess. Remove excess lime wax with neutral wax and you’re done. Liberon of course recommends their clear furniture wax but I have used all kinds and even neutral shoe polish works well.  

Storm Brewing. Dyed oak with gold tint. Note that you have to be prepared to live with cracks (about 4 o'clock)

I have been asked where to get some of the supplies for lime waxing. Lime wax itself is made by Liberon and available through Craft Supply and Woodchuckers. They also make a gilded tint wax as I recall. I use coloured wax that I got at a shoe repair store. I bought gold, silver, red, blue and yellow (metallics and primary colours). Black shoe polish works great for, of all things, black. 🙂 I have spoken to a turner who used white shoe polish as a substitute for lime wax although I am not sure he used wax or the paint-on type used for the old saddle shoes. His piece looked very nice but you’re on your own for that one. I have also experimented with paint  as a tint but not enough to comment on it here. The brass brushes are available at paint stores. They look like brass tooth brushes. I have used a brush that I got at the grocery store that had plastic and brass bristles; it worked very well but I had to work pretty hard to get what I wanted.  

Good luck and have fun. As you can see, liming gets a bit addicting, so be careful.  

As always, I encourage your comments and questions, so please refer to the tag line at the bottom of the article to post a comment.

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Art as utility

Posted on December 24, 2010 by Ed Pretty

Today a potter-friend posted some pictures of some pottery that he had fired in a campfire while he was on holidays. My first thought was how great the pieces looked and how they conveyed a message of ancient wonders. In his comment he noted that he was only able to use a wax finish rather than the usual glaze to preserve the random carbon patterns left behind by the campfire. He said, and I quote, “Unfortunately, I can’t put a clear glaze over the finish as that would destroy the carbon patterns, so I have used a shiny wax to finish them, and they are decorative only”. The sentence was preceded with the word “unfortunately” so it worried me that he felt that his work was only worthy if it had some utility as a vase or something else “useful”.  The pieces were fantastic in their own right; organic and just screaming of “ancient discoveries”.  I posted back asking if he felt they were of lesser value being “decorative only”. He assured me he was concerned more with longevity rather than utility when referring to the finish so I was satisfied that he hadn’t fallen from grace as an artist.   

"Diabolo" by Pascal Oudet

 This brings to light something about what woodturning has evolved into in the last 50 or so years. Although we still turn salad bowls and stair ballisters, things turned on the lathe have become art and many woodturners have taken on the veil of artist rather than solely craftsman. The public as a general rule accepts what we do simply as a craft and nothing more, therefore view our work as being of a utilitarian nature.  At various guild demonstrations and at an art festival that I attended last summer I have had many discussions with “the great unwashed” about turnings that they feel have no particular use. For example, a lay person typically seeing a hollowform that appears vase-like feels it has been made to hold flowers. They are astonished that water cannot be put in the “vase”. During the art festival I had this discussion with a lady admiring one of my hollowforms. Just as I thought I was getting through to her, she allowed  that perhaps the piece would be suitable for dried flowers. In frustration, my response to her was “Well, if you think you can improve it by doing that, then be my guest”.  That stopped her in her tracks, finally realizing the point I had been trying to make in our discussion. I had noted earlier that all the paintings at the festival would never be considered suitable for serving trays just because they were flat and had a rim. She didn’t catch it then, but now understood the significance of that comment. Perhaps if she had noticed that each of my pieces had a title, she may have better understood what she was looking at.   

Clearly, Pascal Oudet’s “Diabolo” can’t even hold light, let alone water. Sometimes the only thing that a vessel needs to hold is your attention. In my case, that’s all they are intended to do. Even though woodturnings may have been attractive, their primary purpose for centuries has been of a utilitarian nature. Therefore, at this point in time we should expect people to think  only that woodturnings are craft items meant for utilitarian purposes. We need to turn it around. I think as woodturners it should be our mission to help people understand one of two things: either that not every woodturning has to be utilitarian or – my take – that pleasing the eye and stirring the soul are also utilitarian functions. It’s akin to helping people understanding that paintings aren’t expected to double as serving trays just because they are flat.   

As always, I encourage your comments and questions, so please refer to the tag line at the bottom of the article to post a comment.

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Turned box for surprise gift requires a profile gauge

Posted on December 21, 2010 by Ed Pretty

I won’t say what the surprise is going to be because the recipient might read this. All I’ll say is that the request came from someone wanting to have a turned box shaped like an egg to hold a very special gift. The egg will be wrapped in a Kinder Surpise wrapper so the box had to be the same shape and size as a Kinder Surprise egg for the wrapper to fit.   

Walnut Kinder egg complete with profile gauge and original model

Getting the profile exact was a matter of cutting a pattern out of paper that fit the egg, then transferring that to a piece of aluminum sheet to use as a profile gauge. There was a bit of trial and error involved but I finally got a pattern that worked. The specifications included a wall thickness of 1/8″ or less so I considered a profile gauge for the inside but decided I would try the freehand route first. In the end that was satisfactory, having to turn 5 practice pieces in all. 

I turned a couple out of scrap wood to refine the procedure and the cuts then moved on to more decent material. One was a washout shape-wise, two were turned from maple burl which ended up with surprise bark inclusions in the wrong places. The final one – the charm – was turned from some figured black walnut. That was cool because another of the requirements was that it should look like chocolate.  

The procedure was basic box turning with a rabetted joint. I sized the blank between centers to about a .025″ larger diameter than the finished piece, then used a parting tool to cut the rabbet about 1/16″ (half the wall thickness) smaller than the finished diameter. A thin parting tool was used to part the two halves, leaving a tiny portion on the female side to indicate the inside diameter of the rabbet and the rabbet itself on the other side. I mounted both pieces seperately in a chuck to hollow them out, using a vernier caliper to measure the depth but approximating the inside shape by feel. The male side was turned first so that it could be used as a gauge for the female side. Once the other side was hollowed and the fit was satisfactory I remounted them together between centers to turn the final shape. The profile gauge was made to fit a blank with a 1/2″ tenon on both ends and the joint was marked on the profile gauge as well (see photo). Lining the gauge up with the joint, the ends of the egg were marked and a parting tool used to cut the 1/2″ tenons. After turning to the finished diameter and roughing the shape, the final shape could be refined until the gauge rested on the tenons. After sanding, the tenons were reduced and the waste cut off with a saw. Hand carving and sanding the nubs finished the piece.  

I have turned a few eggs and a few boxes in my time but this is the first box shaped like an egg. It was fun and didn’t take too long at all. The burl eggs will stay in my office so they weren’t a waste even though I won’t be able to wrap them with Kinder Surprise foil wrappers.   

As always, I encourage your comments and questions, so please refer to the tag line at the bottom of the article to post a comment.

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A Day with Doug Fisher

Posted on December 16, 2010 by Ed Pretty

The Weaving of Thoughts by Doug Fisher

Recently our guild hosted Doug Fisher for a one day demo and one day workshop. For those of you who are not aware of Doug’s distinctive style, I have included a couple of pictures of his signature pieces. Typically he turns wall plaques with multi-centered  “frames” around a center area carved in Pacific Northwest native themes. I was fortunate to attend not only the day long demonstration but the one day workshop as well. Spots in the workshop were hotly contested and I was one of the lucky ones to get my money in before several others that had to sit this one out.     

Following is the article that I will be submitting to the guild’s January newsletter. Remember, you saw it here first. 🙂     

Predicting the Past by Doug Fisher

Doug Fisher Demo and Class     

On November 13 and 14 Doug Fisher demonstrated his well known techniques of multi-center turning and bas relief carving. Doug has not had a long career as a demonstrator. As a matter of fact his demonstration for us was only his third, the first being for the AAW symposium in Hartford last year and second for a Victoria, BC guild. That being said, I would say that Doug is a natural because his well organized and polished presentation seemed as though he had been delivering his show for quite some time. Doug started with a brief slide presentation tracing his advancement through his artistic career to the present day, then describing what inspired his distinctive turning style as well as his use of native Pacific Northwest themes. After that he demonstrated both his turning and carving techniques to round out a very full day.     

Doug’s signature pieces are a combination of multi-center turning to produce a frame or armature for his carving in the center. I think the term “armature” is applicable because the works that Doug produces are as much sculpture as they are turnings. Although his multi-center style seems quite complex it was a simple combination of two centers. Doug turned the back of his demo piece first, producing a rather large radius resembling the outside of a bowl with no detailing or foot. Although there was no center detail required, Doug often incorporates a center “medallion” to provide a bit of interest. The purpose of this radius was to act as a rocker allowing him to orient the centers anywhere he wants in a vacuum chuck. Having used a faceplate to turn the back,  the piece was remounted on center in the vacuum chuck to work on the face. At this point, only the outside rim and the first series of “steps” were turned as well as removing the center waste material. When removing waste from the center, he was careful to only remove material to the diameter and depth where the holes were from the screws used for mounting on the faceplate. This would eliminate the possibility of any screw holes showing up inadvertently when it was too late to do anything about them, yet not take any more material than necessary.        

The piece was remounted by rolling the piece in the vacuum chuck to a second center about 2 inches away from the first or natural center. He explained that it is important to place the off-center pattern in line with the grain direction so that it doesn’t result in a confusing pattern. When he showed us the alternatives it was clear that this was an important step. The distance of this center from the true center is somewhat arbitrary; however discretion must be used to allow enough material in the center for a reasonable carving surface; in other words, move it over a bit but not too much. Turning this area reminded me of the off center turning demonstrated by Mark Sfirri. The procedure involved turning a fair bit of air and using “ghost” forms as guidelines. A series of steps were turned that partially cut into the first steps on an angle, being careful not to cut into the center area needed for carving or go past the outside diameter (like we would ever do that :)).     

Remounting to the natural center for a second time allowed him to turn a convex curved surface that would be the final carving area, now surrounded by the two sets of eccentric steps. Although this area is on the natural center, it is offset from the last center so the same process of turning air and using ghost forms for reference was required. The main form was complete at this point, ready to be carved.     

Doug’s process for laying out the center detail was quite simple, although developing that process took quite some time. Doug uses a draw program in his computer to produce a print of his final detail. This sounds as if it is a “cut and paste” operation but he hand draws the detail using the program. This allows him to adjust the size of his drawings as required and also keep a record of his work. Doug had shown us pen and ink drawings that he had done prior to his turning career so it was clear that the computer was not his source of talent. The print is made from that drawing then cut out to fit the area being carved. Spray glue was applied to the back of the drawing which was then applied to the area to be carved. The small amount of distortion between flat paper and the slightly curved surface was insignificant. The carving involved removing any wood that would be negative space using the drawing as a guide. Depending on the complexity of the detail, negative space was marked out to differentiate it from the areas to be left in relief.  Transferring the drawing to the wood was easy enough; carefully burning through the paper with a fine burning tool left a burned tracing of the drawing on the wood that was very easy to follow.  The paper drawing and glue was then removed with solvent.    

The final detail was carved in three stages. The first stage was the rough removal of material using various rotary carving bits, being careful not to remove any detail lines. The second stage was completed using various finer bits to get closer to the lines, still being careful not to remove them. The third stage involved using a burning tool to refine the detail right to the lines, making all lines and corners clean and crisp.  All negative space surfaces were textured as desired using combinations of rotary carving and pyrography.     

Once the carving is complete, a base coat of black ink is applied to the whole piece. Once that is dry, a process of sanding back the relief areas reveals the details of the piece in both the carved center area and the stepped frame areas. By varying the amount of sanding in different areas, visual depth and highlights are added. At this point coloured dyes are applied to the sanded areas.     

Doug uses alcohol based dyes and at one time used several colours but now only buys the primary colours, red, blue and yellow. He is able to mix any colour from these base colours. The dyes were applied carefully with various brushes depending on how small the areas were that were to be coloured. His top coat is always spray lacquer from cans – usually semi gloss.     

The workshop was held the next day at Island Woodcraft, attended by Bruce Campbell, Joel Elder, Jay Mapson, Bev Pears, Des Wilson and myself.     

The class at “work”. Bruce is getting a scolding.

  Once the blanks were cut, we started by mounting the piece to turn the back. Doug pretty much does this in his sleep but he had made some profile jigs for us to use as guides for a suitable radius for the back. A key element of Doug’s process is the vacuum chuck and of course at most, there might be one vacuum chuck in a shop. Doug developed a method of using screws through a short section of 4” pipe between a faceplate and the workpiece to mount and remount the piece for turning the face. This was a pretty good simulation of a vacuum chuck. The screw holes  left in the back of the piece were easily removed by jam chucking the piece and turning a concave detail on the back. This served nicely to provide flat wall mounting.     

Once mounted to turn the front, turning the outside rim and steps on the first center certainly was easy enough, however when remounted on the second center I was quickly reminded of the difficulties experienced in Mark Sfirri’s workshop, looking for the elusive “ghosts” produced by the spinning wood when offset from center. Working on centers in Sfirri’s class  was significantly different because this work was mounted on the face. Difficult at first, it soon became easy enough to identify the various points where wood had been removed and where it was yet to be removed. I found that looking straight at the face of the piece rather than down toward the ways as we did when turning between centers was the charm.     

Turning ate up the whole morning so a natural break allowed us the opportunity to head over to the little Vietnamese restaurant for lunch. This is becoming a favourite part of the day in the workshops. Once back from lunch we were able to start carving. We all had a drawing to apply to the work or at least some idea of what we wanted to do. As well as our own collection of tools, Doug supplied us with all manner of instruments of destruction. We were all able to rough out and refine detail on our pieces using tools supplied by Doug and trading our own tools back and forth.     

Applying the ink that Doug supplied is a little different than the black dye that I normally use. It’s thick! And black! I made the mistake of applying it like the dye I use in my shop (I can use a lot of it) and then proceeded to sand my fingers to a nub just to get some wood clear enough to accept some colour. I actually got one highlight area that I had hoped for, but fatigue set in and that was the end of that. Surprisingly, it was actually identifiable as a Harley Davidson engine (big surprise, huh?) but only to an enthusiast. At this stage I was slapping on some colour and lacquer just to get finished. I’m not used to working to a “close counts” standard, but in this case it served the purpose. We were reminded that “this is your first piece, not a masterpiece” so I felt better about basically hacking a design into the wood just to get a finished piece. My objective was to go through all the processes and for once, being happy with something that was “good enough”. In this case “good enough” was still pretty shabby in my opinion, but I felt practicing all the steps was more important than not completing a finely detailed piece. In the end it wasn’t all that bad and was at least identifiable when I proudly showed the piece off at home. I was able to write about the process here more than a month later because working through the process locked it in my brain.    

Graduating class and teacher.

 The most important thing about the day was that we all had a lot of fun and learned some skills that we didn’t have before. The most prominent aspect of Doug’s work is the native theme that he uses. That isn’t my style and had I focused on that rather than wanting to learn the different processes that he uses, I wouldn’t have taken the class. I made that mistake when I missed Tania Rada, but not this time.     

As always, I encourage your comments and questions, so please refer to the tag line at the bottom of the article to post a comment.

Posted in Colouring wood, General, Woodturning Tech Talk | Tagged , | 2 Comments

Another “cover” shot!

Posted on December 15, 2010 by Ed Pretty

Caldera.

I guess I’m fluffing my own feathers here a bit, but then why have a blog if you can’t do that. 🙂

Recently I started posting shots of my work on the WoW site (Woodturners on the Web). I have been a member of the site for a couple of years now but it took me until now to post because considering the amazing talent that is displayed there, it’s just a little intimidating. Other members comment either favourably or critically and the criticisms are always constructive, so that’s a good thing.  I finally decided to jump in because of the exposure and opportunity to gain knowledge and insight into my designs.  

Each day there is one piece chosen by a team of seven (one for each day of the week) to be the “cover photo” on the front page of the site. In not much more than a month I have had two “covers”. The first was the collaborative piece with Eric Lofstrom that I posted here earlier. A few days ago I had one of my own picked for the cover: “Caldera”.  I received a lot of favourable comment from not only “normal” people like myself, but also from some of the more prominant folks on the site. Some of these are well respected turners internationally, so that makes me feel pretty good.

As always, I encourage your comments and questions, so please refer to the tag line at the bottom of the article to post a comment.

Posted in General | Tagged , | 6 Comments