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.

Posted in Colouring wood, Finishing | Tagged , | 4 Comments

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.

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Stand-Alone Tool Carousel

Posted on December 4, 2010 by Ed Pretty

Free standing tool carousel

 At one time my lathe was against a wall so storing my tools was a simple matter of providing a rack on the wall. When I got serious about turning I moved things around to get the lathe out in the middle of the shop. A wonderful thing at cleanup time but where to keep my tools? I decided to make a self-supporting carousel that I could easily move when required.  It doesn’t collect shavings and tends to keep me organized because it is easy to use and close at hand.  I chose to configure the carousel in two tiers because the number of tools I have would make a very large and ungainly unit that would be quite unstable. This one is quite compact and still has room for more tools on the bottom tier.

I’ve included some photos that I think are pretty self explanitory. The top tier holds spindle turning tools and bottom tier holds bowl turning tools. The top tier is a bit un-nerving with all those sharp spears waiting to take an eye out (yes, I listened to my mother) so I keep a bucket over them when not in use to keep from gouging myself – literally. Reaching across rather then turning the carousel can be a bit scary but I cured myself of that. The base is an old harrow disk so is very stable, easy to sweep around (tapered to nothing at the edges) and rolls along simply by slightly tilting the whole affair with the thrust bearing letting it roll  to another location.   

Thrust bearing and recess turned in top plate.

 The bearing is a somewhat complicated affair used only because I had a thrust bearing and a metal lathe to adapt it. A far easier method for most (and me if I wasn’t so stubborn) would be to use a Lazy Susan bearing. Obviously the base can be anything one wants (maybe even a small cabinet) with wheels to make it easy to move around.  

 

Naked set up ready for sleeves

 The sizing of the plywood circles for the top tier was critical and a little hard to calculate exactly without calculus because the ABS sleeves don’t contact each other at exactly 180 degrees. I did fine with a bit of ordinary math, guestimation and flex in the ABS, but the key was to keep the top tier tight to support one another. You will note the top two plates are the same diameter. The top plate of the lower tier is also that diameter because the lower sleeves fasten outside of the upper sleeves. The lower plate of the lower tier reflects the larger diameter of the second tier. You will also note that because the sleeves on the bottom tier don’t touch each other, two different diameters can be used for the sleeves, accomodating the larger handles on some bowl gouges. The bottom screws holding the sleeves to the plywood double as bottom stops in most cases. For shorter tools I simply put a screw through the sleeve at the appropriate length. All bottom stops have a piece of rubber fuel line over the screw to provide a bit of cushion for the tool handle. The top screw is easily accessed because the tops are cut at an angle which also aids in removing and replacing the tool. If a sleeve is holding a longer tool requiring a stop lower down, the bottom screw securing it to the plate is accessed through a larger hole on the outside. The killer ready-rod I used, like the bearing,  was some I had on hand. If assembling yours in this way, I am sure 1/4″ or 5/16″ would be fine. In my case everything hung from the top plate requiring something to hold everything together in tension. If you use a Lazy Susan bearing you won’t need it because everything will be in compression so you can simply screw everything together. 

Inverted bucket protects the tools and me when not in use.

 If I were to do anything different I might raise the whole unit a bit so that the top tools weren’t staring me straight in the eye, although I would still keep the bucket over them just in case. It hasn’t been enough of a concern to make me change it now that it’s made, but clearly that height is significant to each user.  

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 Lathes and Tools, Woodturning Tech Talk | Tagged | 1 Comment

New Gallery Opening

Posted on November 26, 2010 by Ed Pretty

Last night I attended the opening of Fluff Rentals’ new gallery, Fluff For Keeps. As galleries go this one is a bit different. Fluff Rentals offers interior design services and up until now only rented the necessary furnishings. Their target market for the new retail section is professional designers and customers of their design services rather than the public at large. That being said, the emphasis is on fine furnishings and to a lesser degree, art that compliments their style: enter – the woodturner. The owner, interior designer Patti Houston, saw my work at the Mind and Matter Art Festival in July and vowed to have one of my pieces in her newly renovated home – which I am working on right now. She recently branched out into her new retail addition, selling furnishings and art (hence the “for keeps”) and asked myself and a painter, Nicole Carrie to exhibit our work in her new retail section.

Throughout the evening there was terrific interest in my work.  As I was taking off my jacket I was approached by a woman asking about my work, stating that she wanted a piece but in a specific colour, so the evening seemed promising right away. Throughout the evening I found myself explaining my processes and generally discussing turned wood art to several very attentive people. It was no surprise that none were even aware of the depth of our craft and  were further blown away with the use of colour in my work. It was an ideal opportunity to educate some very influential people about turned wood art.

Vancouver Sun reporter Lucy Hyslop submitted an article in today’s (November 26th) paper reporting on the opening, and I quote (ahem :)) “Houston tries to represent local artists such as ceramicists and painters and cites her showcasing of the “stunning” woodturner, Ed Pretty and the “to-die-for” paintings of Nicole Carrie…”

Considering the clientele, this may be an unexpected break for not only myself but turned wood art at large because in  an email this morning Patti requested as many turning as I could produce.  It seems that in spite of a snow storm that kept many attendees (read: designers) away, there was still an overwhelming interest in woodturning.

As you might expect, the piece for Patti’s new home is going to be very special.

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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Congratulations to Art Liestman

Posted on November 17, 2010 by Ed Pretty

Art Liestman is a friend and co-member of the Greater Vancouver Woodturners Guild. Art is one of those un-assuming people who, although he has many things he could brag about, never brags at all. He willingly shares what he knows with others yet is right in there with the rest of us when there is something new to learn, never leaving the impression that he is somehow at a higher level. He is the founder of the guild, he is an insightful artist who has inspired many of us to do our best and he is an artist of note in the international woodturning community. Because Art never brags, I am going to have to do it for him here.

Art recently returned from Chicago where his work was showcased at SOFA (Sculptural Objects and Functional Art), an annual international art exposition in Chicago. That in itself is big enough news but he was able to top even that. In Art’s typical style, 0ne evening at a meeting he said, “Come over here for a minute, there’s something I would like to show you”. I followed Art over to his seat where he showed me a copy of Craft Arts International, an Australian publication showcasing both established and emerging artists around the world. There was a small sticky tab part way through so I dutifully turned to that page, only to see a  feature article on none other than our very own Art Liestman. His work was showcased pictorially and there was an excellent write up on Art, his history and his inspiration. He had nonchallantly handed me something that was clearly a crowning achievement, yet presented it as though it was just another article of general interest.

I didn’t have the opportunity to read the article in its entirety but thankfully a member of WoW (Woodturners on the Web), Denise deRose, had taken the time to photocopy the article and post it on the blog in pdf format. At the risk of violating enough copyright laws to put me in jail for a couple of years, I am reposting her file below with thanks. Please read the article about Art Liestman, an international artist of very deserved acclaim, who considers himself  simply a maker like the rest of us.

ArtLiestmanCAI- 80[1]

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 , , | Comments Off on Congratulations to Art Liestman

Drying wood with Silica gel

Posted on November 11, 2010 by Ed Pretty

Some time back a woodturning friend had a brainwave when his wife bought some silica gel (which is, in fact, in bead form) for drying flowers. He thought if it could dry flowers, why not wood? He presented the idea to the guild, citing a couple of small plates as examples of the success he had achieved.  When I dry wood for re-turning or to completion I use both the “shelf” method and the microwave (I have my very own :)) depending on my need for speed and of course size. Mostly I use the microwave for hollowforms and tubes while large bowls and platters get the “bag and switch” treatment if they are of any size. My issue with the latter is that I am not that disciplined that I monitor things religiously enough over long periods. The microwave on the other hand  can be a bit too aggresive requiring each piece to be monitored carefully during the process. The silica gel seems to be in between the two methods so adding it to my arsenal seemed like a good idea.  

Silica Gell sold by Lee Valley

I purchased a small jug of gel from the Lee Valley Tools gardening catalogue. Lee Valley’s gardening section – to me at least – goes completely un-noticed. I did not inherit my mother’s green thumb nor her love of mucking around in the garden. Nor was she able to instill any horticultural desires through endless hours of forced weeding; I preferred my father’s shop.  But I digress. The gel is available in 2 Kg. containers for about $20+ dollars, as I recall. The instructions include three methods of use: “air” drying, oven drying and microwave drying. Basically, the air method takes 5 or more days, the oven method requires a few hours and the microwave even less. The air dry method is much faster than traditional “shelving” methods, the microwave method adds a greater element of control and the oven method is – to me at least – a new tool completely. All three require a container to hold both the piece and the gel, so obviously it needs to be compatible with said shelf, oven or  microwave.  A word of advice: although various kitchen bowls might be ideal from your perspective, that view will probably not be shared by all in the household. Like the  microwave – you may have to get your own :(. The piece must be completely covered so the container should be just large enough to accept the piece and of course you must have enough gel to cover the piece: you may have to buy more than one jug. 

My first venture was with a small hollowform turned from green, spalting Arbutus turned to about 1/2″ wall thickness with a fairly large lump of wood where it had been chucked. It was a shot in the dark because the wood was quite spalted. I kept it in the material for 5 days as per the instructions (for drying flowers). It had lost all its weight in water because reburying it for another few days caused no additional change in weight. There was about the same change in dimension as I would have expected in any other drying method but unfortunately there was a crack through the large chucking mass which could be expected (it dried slower than the thinner portion).  The only thing left was to reconstitute the gel by drying in the oven. All in all, not a bad first experiment considering the short drying time.  

Next effort I will fill the vessel with silica gel but also bury any portions that have a heavier cross section so that water is pulled from that portion at about the same rate as the thin portion. Hopefully drying in this way may not cause the uneven shrinkage.  

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 Drying wood | 7 Comments

I’m pretty stoked about this one.

Posted on November 9, 2010 by Ed Pretty

After. Now that's better.

I am a member of a website called World of Woodturners (WOW) where members post pictures of their work as well as comment on pieces, ask questions and offer suggestions. The membership reaches around the world and counts many well-known names familiar to many of us. Today I posted the picture of the winged bowl in my post earlier about gilding. Each day one of a few appointed people select their choice of a photo for the “cover”, which is the lead picture on the front page of the blog. Pascal Oudet selected the picture of the winged bowl today and I received several very supportive comments about the finish. Much credit to Eric Lofstrom who provided the actual turning.

Membership on the blog is by invitation. If anyone is interested in being a member, please advise me by email. I will require your name and email address to send an invitation.

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, General | 1 Comment