Two bowls available

I have made two bowls available for purchase at my other site, flaminglotuscreations.com. They are the red maple and black cherry bowls I recently posted here.

Black cherry bowl

This is a black cherry bowl from a blank I got at the local club meeting a few months back. It measures 9 1/2". The pith in the bottom does not penetrate the inside surface, and I left in the crack intentionally.

First try with the European pen

Here's my first try with the European style twist pen. It has a great feel, both size and weight. This is birds-eye maple, with not enough bird's eyes! I'll definitely do more of these.

Red maple and apple bowls

After packing the kitchen for our remodeling I buffed a few bowls, including these red maple and apple ones. The maple is 6" in diameter and the apple is 5".





You can see our kitchen "before pics" here. Ugh...

Pens from this weekend

Ok, I admit it. I'm totally hooked on pens. They're waaaay too much fun, and they're great instant gratification. (By the way, the teacher's really liked their gift pens this past Friday.) I did four more this weekend, and only four because we're getting ready for a kitchen upheaval (that's a bit of an understatement). I've been using the slimline kits, but I added a bit of contour to these.

Here they are, in order in the photo below:

1. Cocobolo, with only a polish for finish. That wood is so hard and oily that it shines with almost no effort.
2. Imbuia, finished with Liberon friction polish and the Liberon stick wax. Many, many coats of both.
3. Curly maple, finished with polish and Butcher's paste wax (many many many coats! this wood just sucked up everything I put on it).
4. Bolivian rosewood, finished with a different brand of friction polish called Hut, followed by stick wax.
   

My favorite is the cocobolo:

More Pens!

Tonight I finished 3 pens to be given as teacher gifts on Friday. Left to right, they are birdseye maple, cocobolo, and purpleheart. All finished with Behlen's woodturner's finish and Butcher's paste wax. Making these pens is fun!

Pens!

We need a gift for my son's teachers (by Friday.. I might add) and I figured this is a good excuse to grab a full set of penmaking tools. So I dragged the littlest one to the store tonight and we loaded up. Here's the result.



These are "slimline" pens. The top one is redheart, and the bottom is olivewood. The readheart is finished with CA, Liberon polish, and Liberon stick wax. The olivewood is finished with CA and a different brand of woodurning polish (I can't remember the name right now). The olivewood one was first, and took about 90 minutes because I was reading the book. The second took about 40 minutes, and I only lost one blank to the CA drying too fast.

These were a lot of fun, and I plan to do a bunch more.

Portfolio

I've created a new portfolio and posted several nostepinnes for sale at my new site www.flaminglotuscreations.com. Have a look!

Box elder round-bottom bowl

This is from a box elder branch, turned end-grain. It's about 5 inches across, and has a round bottom. It's not very practical, but it gives it a nice floating look. It was a fun experiment, and I'll likely do more of these.

Cherry utility bowl

Here's a utility bowl, about 9" across, that I turned to completion from wet cherry. I probably said this before, but I really like to turn to completion in one step because the warping of the bowls makes them look so real and natural. It also makes me think of bowls turned generations ago that are still surviving but keep getting better with age. This one has been in use in my kitchen for a few weeks, and current holds lemons!

Speed test

I just took a dogwood blank that I got at tonight's club meeting and did a bowl, sanded to 400, with a finished bottom in under 40 minutes. Not fast by some people's standards, but a lot faster than I used to be.

Recent work

In between making nostepinnes, I've had a chance to work on a few bowls. Here are some recent completions. First is a boxelder bowl, 7" wide, with a nice ambrosia streak and a natural hole & bark inclusion. It's treated with danish oil, buffed, and waxed.



Second is a madrone burl, 6" diameter, buffed and treated with mineral oil.



Third is a beech enclosed form with a bark inclusion, 5" diameter, with danish oil, buffed, and waxed.

Got some buffing done

I buffed (but didn't wax) most of my shelf. I did wax (and therefore finish) 2 more bowls that I'll photograph tomorrow. One beech enclosed form and one boxelder bowl with a natural hole and some nice red streaks that I really like.

Logjam

My to-be-buffed shelf is getting backed up. All these items have been oiled and are drying before they can be buffed.



Notice the 6 nostepinnes? I'm building up a stock to sell on etsy. I turned 5 of those today from tiger birch. On the right is a box elder bowl that I finish-turned tonight. I also recently finished a madrone burl bowl that I haven't photographed yet. I'll get the phototent out when I buff these and then I'll post some photos of my recent work.

Also this weekend I sent one of my wet-turned cherry utility bowls to Idaho with my wife's aunt and uncle. They really liked it and I hope they'll use it.