As a woodturner, I don’t throw a heavy, out-of-round piece of wood on the chuck, set the lathe speed up high, throw my safety glasses and face mask aside and hope for the best! Although I’m sure my face could use some adjusting, I think that 15 pounds of wood spinning at 3,000 rpm might just be […]
Kaitlin’s Casting
The kiddo and I cast a blank a while back and I finally got around to turning it. The ‘wood’ inside is just the tops of acorns found in the yard. We weren’t sure how much resin to mix and ended up making 2 batches. We pearlized the 2nd batch and swirled it in a […]
Buffalo, you infernal beast!
Quite a while back I turned a Wall St. II pen out of 1/2 a blank of buffalo horn. Within days, an unsightly split formed up the side. I wrote this off to it being too hot, cold, dry, or some incompetence on my part. Little did I know that it is most likely the […]
Penturning Tip – “I Got Glue in the Tube”
I was working on some pens the other day and I used about 4 gallons too much glue putting a pen tube into a blank. As opposed to using a solvent to clean it out and possibly hurting the integrity of the bond of blank to tube, I searched around the shop and came up […]
A Pen Problem
The top of a classic slimline pen consists of a press-fit cap that fits into a ring on the clip prior to being pressed into the top of the pen tube. The outside diameters of the cap and the clip ring are the same as the bushing that the pen was turned to. Ideally, there […]
Fall is here!
Fall is upon us, and that means…. that I’m already way behind in preparing for Christmas! I would like to take a few snowman ornaments to a craft show at the end of the month, so I’d best get to turning. Here are 2 in the glue-up process awaiting their eyes, nose and buttons. These […]
A quick note on dust
Dust is the bane of the woodturner and woodworker. We tend to think that it exists only during sanding. Whereas we create the most dust while sanding, dangerous particles can be created any time we take a tool to wood (or corian, acrylic, etc). We stir up dust in our shops with every step we […]
Late notice, but good opportunity
Stuart Mortimer, from England, will be in Gainesville, GA for an all-day demo hosted by the Chattahoochee Woodturners on Monday, October 7th. You can find the full details here. Contact Mike or Al ASAP in order to make sure that you can get fed! I’ve seen Mr. Mortimer at a Symposium in the past, and […]
A New Virtual Home (Take 2.5)
C’mon… One would think I could get this right… eventually… I’m in the process of switching hosting providers… The one that I was using upped their rates to their “regular, non-promotional rate”. Usually, I wouldn’t mind too much, but since their “regular” rate isn’t listed anywhere on their website, I considered that a bit dishonest. […]
Custom order
I recently received a custom order request for several slimline pens with a specific clip. The parts are in, so it is time to get to work! I have months to complete the order, but I may as well start on this rainy day off work. The blanks are from a grab bag, so I […]