Fun Spoons

I've been designing and refining my own range of Treewright Spoons and have produced a set of templates from thin plywood...

Whilst idly perusing googled-up Spoon Designs I came across these two mad ideas...!

As you can see Blogger has decided to let me upload photos again.

Glitch?

As with everything else connected with this *@!% new technology when things go wrong you don't know if it's something you're doing wrong or is everyone else having the same problem.

So - is anyone else out there who's on Blogger having trouble uploading photos at the moment? 
...or is it just me?

Sumach

At the weekend we were demonstrating at the Cambridge Town & Country Show at Parker's Piece in the middle of Cambridge.  A lady noticed several items that I'd made from Sumach (Rhus Typhina) and said that she had just had one cut down in her garden.  She turned up with a big bag of the logs on Sunday morning - lovely.

The wood is quite spectacular and outrageous...

The downside is that it has a very sticky, resinous sap which gets everywhere if you get it on your hands.

I remember reading somewhere that this was once used for a varnish of some kind.

This is what the foliage looks like...

and the fruit, or drupes, look like big furry raspberries.

Things I make from it sell very quickly but it doesn't often come my way.

Turning Saw

I was recently given this turning saw by a kind lady in Yorkshire.

 
Unfortunately one of the blade holders had sheared off...

This is because the the wooden bit inside the brass tube is only 9mm diameter.  So I'll drill them both out and fix them properly.  Apparently it was made by Matt Sears (son of John Brown, Welsh Stick Chairmaker) and many years ago I bought a froe from him after seeing his name and address in the back of Mike Abbott's book "Green Woodwork".
This is the stamp he used on his tools -

and I've only ever seen one drawknife with the same mark.  He upped sticks and moved to the States in the 90's as he couldn't make a living here. 
Hope he's still going but not making wooden tools.

Leaning Tower of Beeza

The bees have been so busy during this hot, dry Spring - the honey flow is massive.  So the hive ended up a bit massive too...

 We took 2 supers of rape honey off on 12th May. and because we weren't really keeping an eye on them, had to take off 4 today!

Cutting off the cappings.

The extractor

Jed really loves his honey and is always hanging around for tastes - think he's OD'd a bit today.