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Wood Turning – Phil’s First Wooden Bowls
A friend came to stay for a few days recently and expressed an interest in trying his hand at wood turning and making some wooden bowls. I was absolutely delighted. I am passionate about my work and if I can turn someone else on to the wonders of wood in general and making wooden bowls by wood turning in particular I am not going to pass up on the opportunity! It is a chance to have a captive audience and to bore someone to tears… I warned Phil that I am a terribly bad teacher. I have had very little practice at it which does not help and I do…
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A Spring in my Step
A spring in my step is the best way to describe how I’m feeling today but before I say why I need to give a little background to the story. One day totally out of the blue someone I hardly knew turned up. He is a mechanic by trade but was helping clear a totally neglected field of overgrown gorse bushes. The back of his pick-up was full of gorse – the biggest I’ve ever seen. I have plenty of what I consider to be overgrown gorse in the hedge in my field. The largest stems are a bit over an inch, maybe 30mm. These ones were up to 4…
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Laburnum Tea Lights
Had a lovely morning in the workshop turning a couple of branches of Laburnum into Tea lights. Christmas is coming. I know, autumn is only just here but in business one needs to think ahead! This Laburnum came from trimming around the electricity wires. Keeping them clear is essential work. They are only branches so the trees will still be growing. I’ve had them for years so they are very dry which is important for the tea-lights because a large bulk of wood is still left. If it was turned green/fresh it could crack or shrink badly. The sapwood has a little spalting in it. Spalting is where fungus has…
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Using the Way a Tree Grows in My Work
Using the way a tree grows enables me to get the most out of the wood I have. Some wood is reliable and reasonably predictable in its behaviour but some wood is “wild” and very unpredictable. Some wood turners prefer to just stick to the predictable. The wild wood can make a bowl warp – something I prefer to celebrate when it happens. It is exactly what I would mean by “using the way a tree grows in my work”. Or in other words “letting the wood have the last say”. The normal way for a tree to grow is evenly around the pith. This ash tree shows the way…
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Swimming With Seals
I couldn’t believe it when I ended up swimming with seals. Near me is a beautiful little cove. It is at least twenty minutes walk and since the path down the cliff at the end of that is very steep with hairpin bends it is usually deserted. At high tide it is just rocks but there is a small beach when the tide has gone out. There are old worn steps carved into the slate rock helping the descent. Who created them a long time ago? Smugglers, maybe? When I haven’t been working this year I have been busy in the garden so I haven’t been swimming once in the sea. 21st…
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My New Gallery! Woodturning on Display
At last, I have my woodturning on display. One of the advantages of a small-holding is out-houses and sheds. A big incentive to moving to where I live now is the space it offered me for the woodworking. The cottage is very small but I have enough sheds for workshop, storage space for wood (both ‘in the round’ and converted into planks) and even space left over for ‘all the things that will come in handy sometime’. One of these buildings (appropriately a wooden one) I have been converting into a little gallery. It means that I can now offer a much more appropriate setting for people to view the work than when they…
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Gŵyl Ceiau Teifi / Cardigan Quays Festival.
Gŵyl Ceiau Teifi / Cardigan Quays Festival has been held for several years on the banks of the river Teifi in Cardigan on August bank holiday Saturday. This year the organisers wanted to make a special effort to provide a space for local makers. One of the organisers, Nick Newland of www.swallowboats.com said “We would like to celebrate this talent by providing a place where makers can meet and demonstrate to our community and to visitors what a great place Cardigan is for creative careers, and incidentally, where makers can exchange ideas and discuss mutual problems.” I was very pleased to have a stand at Gŵyl Ceiau Teifi / Cardigan Quays…
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Yew Wood
Yew wood offers interesting and challenging work and it is possible to be rewarded by the most beautiful bowls. My last blog about Yew was more about the trees than the wood so here are just a few examples of how Yew wood bowls can look. The purple along one side of this bowl is where a nail had been in the Yew tree. This causes the beautiful colour. Often the metal causes too much of a problem to be able to continue to turn the piece since as soon as the turning tool (gouge) touches the metal it blunts it. I managed to get the nail out and continue…
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At Home, The Future
As a woodworker it obviously makes a lot of sense that I love wood – its texture, figuring, infinite variety of subtle changes within the same species let alone between different trees, the varied challenges thrown up by environmental factors during growth, etc… However, does it make so much sense that I also love trees? Surely if I love trees I don’t want to see them chopped down? True, but they are not chopped down for me. In fact much of the wood I use comes from trees that will still be growing for a long time to come and I’ll blog about that in the future. What I wanted…