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Spalted woods. Which wood to spalt?
Which wood to spalt? Beech is by far the easiest wood to spalt well. It almost always ends up with black line and distinctly different colours. This bowl shows only one area left with the wood in its natural state. All the rest has been affected by fungi. I don’t know how many different ones. It was at the very limit of having enough structural integrity to work. Even with the gauge straight off the grinder it was difficult not to get tear out on the end grain. This wood had been left outside in all weathers for a year and a few months. It was a large tree and…
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Turned Miniature Eisteddfod Chair
Having had the honour to be commissioned again to make a miniature chair for Cymdeithas Ceredigion‘s 2016 Eisteddfod I decided to put my all into making a turned miniature chair. Since turning is my main medium for working with wood it made sense to explore this method to make the chair. I’ve made chairs for Cymdeithas Ceredigion before, both a full size chair and two miniature chairs, however I used more traditional methods for these chairs. (The 2015 miniature chair, described here and here, was made out of Laburnum and the 2014 was made of Elm.) I had a prototype turned chair floating around the workshop which I’d made a…
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Marketing Woodturning
I have been woodturning for ten years now. In fact I even did a little before that, about fifteen years ago. However, most of this time I have also been a carer so not only was my time limited but also I never knew if I would have to drop everything else for a while if the person I was looking after needed more help. I therefore deliberately kept a low profile with the woodturning. I put my work into local shops and galleries and left them to sell on my behalf. I am grateful for this service. I do not begrudge shops their commission, I am a firm believer…
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Cankered Ash
Cankered Ash is a beautiful wood. Ash is so often beautiful anyway but Cankered Ash is wonderful. It has all the sorts of things I really enjoy with wood. It is unpredictable and moves after it has been turned – even if it is turned quite dry but especially if it is turned fresh. There must be a lot of stresses in it. It often has a particularly good colour and sheen to it, rich and deep. And, of course, it also has holes in it! Quite why they are appealing I don’t know but it isn’t only me. It seems that the more holes there are in a piece…
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My Big Lathe
This is my favourite lathe and was in fact the first lathe that I bought though I didn’t use it straight away. I can turn up to 24″ diameter on this lathe. I love the history associated with this lathe. It started life as a metal spinning lathe – something I’d never even heard of when I first had the lathe. It was in a poor state and I had to derust then paint it. There was no tool rest and when I was asking Huw to make one for me I really didn’t know what I needed. This tool rest can be moved at a couple of different points…