SHAVING and LEGGING UP SATISFACTION

 

Stool making has been a most pleasurable job these last few months - re-turning the tops of legs, deciding if the drilled holes will come all the way through so my feature oak wedges will be seen and positioning my trade mark Laburnum dot are all most satisfying. It's simple axe work to get those legs looking right, going with the grain, just going by eye until they look right, then out with the trusty drawknife to get the facets looking purposeful and a neat finish with a spokeshave to give them that wonderful silky thrill when you run your hands down them. This one has an Elm top, the Elm coming from Yorkshire, the Leeds neck of the woods. Legs are also Elm this time from Essex, Magdalen Laver, and from a tree that I felled due to Dutch Elm disease. The satisfaction of getting out all those shapely legs and pairing them up with a smashing lump of wood is excellent.  I always prefer to use oak wedges it's a good contrast on the whole and so tough you can give it a good hefty wallop and it goes straight in to give that friction fit that means it's not going anywhere when the glue's dried.

  

Japanese saws are my go to tool for tidying up the top - great smooth cut on the pull cut and it really doesn't need any extra finishing - I loathe using sandpaper - if you're using the right tools and they're sharp it keeps everything simple clean and tidy.

 

My levelling up technique is the same as has probably been used since folks decided to have legs on their seats and works every time. I use the Japanese saw to cut the ends off - they make excellent kindling - I don't see the need to waste any of this wonderful commodity.

 

Colour Transformation

Some of my recently made and mostly sold stools....

 

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Green Wood Work Experiments & Turning as Thin as You Can

I've been experimenting in the workshop using two different timbers on one product. 

So various experiments with left over pieces of wood that are too short to be useful on their own but used together have added a great dynamic to my range of utensils.  I have lots chunks left over from billets when I've been pole lathe turning, log ends when I've been getting rid of splits and bits that 'might just come in useful' all of which, in the past would have been burnt on the log burner.  The citrus juicers worked brilliantly, the one below is has an Apple handle and Sycamore head.   

This one is a re-claimed Walnut (shelf and the remains of a cupboard from a skip - how it ended up like that I just can't guess) handle and Sycamore head. 

The trickiest part is re-aligning the centres. so you get a good equal looking perfect join where one timber meets the other. I need all my products to look immaculate.

 

 I'm fed up with seeing photos constantly on other social media of things folks produce as Green Woodwork that look like something produced in the kindergarten hopeless class purporting to be 'hand made Traditional Craft'. These types of post bring the whole profession of a Craftsman into disrepute.  They seem to think because it's handmade it's a Traditional Craft and furthermore it can be sold as such when quite frankly the aberrations I've been seeing should be thrown on the fire without more ado. These 'armchair' crafts folks are mere amateurs who should be content to whittle and turn at home and not bombard the general public and true professionals with their crass creativity. It's a bit like opinions - make them, have them, but for goodness sake keep them to yourselves!  Right that's my rant for the day done...

Here's one of my new Rolling Pins.

 

 

 

This one is Ripple Sycamore from Yorkshire with some Apple found in a car park in Epping Forest dumped by some dodgy waste clearance vandals along with builders rubble, redundant bathroom fittings and other household crap. I've accentuated the join here with friction burn lines and it gives the traditional rolling pin a more contemporary look. 

I've found using different coloured wood most satisfying, makes everything look fresh and is eye catching when amongst a plentiful array of kitchen utensils. During the lock-up I've had 90% of my on-line sales for culinary wares and I'm hard pushed to keep my stock levels up. For a couple of weeks I thought I'd become a specialist Spurtle turner as they were selling like hot cakes and I couldn't make them quickly enough to meet demand. I know some turners have very set patterns and knock things out in a matter of minutes but every single thing I make is a new design in itself and takes time and thought.  I know I say 'I just go with the flow and make what the wood tells me' but it's much more than that - yes the wood does speak in it's own mysterious way and that meets somewhere half way with my artistic mind to produce that unique item that can be recognised at a glance as something special.

        

Selection of my turning and carving from recent weeks in the workshop.  The Butter Knife with the striking stripe is from some Damson branchwood from the Abbey Gardens in Waltham Abbey and absolutely outstanding, not just visually but from a carving point of view - a lovely wood to work with as long as your tools are superdooper sharp.  Same goes for carving the juicers, it's great when you get those lovely curls of wood coming from your gouge and I love the star that forms at the business end when you get them perfect - great for keeping the pips in the in the bottom of the skins...

Turning as thin as you dare - waste of time and wood - in my opinion!

This is something, as a turner and daily user,  I'm not terribly fond of - it's just not practical from a usage point of view.  I believe tableware should be robust, fit for use and beautiful. I want my products to last a lifetime if at all possible and not to be turned so thin that they become delicate fragile only to be looked at and certainly not really meant to be used! If I say it's suitable for everyday use I mean it - if a two year old takes it into their head to chuck it onto the tiled floor in disgust it should live to see another day - not crack at the first whack but live again with it's badges of honour, wear and tear, and be around for their child to use a generation later having gained a few dents and a wonderful patina of living a full and rewarding life as a bowl.

This doesn't mean that I can't turn a thin bowl but I am reluctant to do so for the above reasons. I often see turners showing their skills by holding a light bulb to the inside or outside so you can see the light.  Well I'm not making a blooming lampshade am I - I'm making a useful bowl that won't crack, chip, leak or fall over. The same can be said of hand carved spoons. There is a movement to make them so thin you could almost bite a mouthful of wood from the bowl with you broth - not my idea of a fully functioning spoon.  I'm all for great design, elegant appearance that should be strong, robust and last a lifetime brigade. 

So here's a Porringer or Bowl I did turn thin and how I wish I hadn't! It's so frustrating, I really enjoyed the main turning and then I thought right I'm going to mess around again with making the wood really thin which looks good and makes it very lightweight but not as practical as it could be.  I did leave the rim thicker and it has the handles which obviously means it has a greater inherent strength but I always think one rough fall to a marble floor and the bowl could crack or the wood is so thin the broth could soak through, so not ideal. However I do like it's lines and I've left the tooling marks where I've carved the rim - it looks purposeful and I'm marketing it as a snack or sweets bowl! This is Sycamore from the edge of the Abbey Gardens that came down when we had a big blow in early January and has the most amazing silvery sheen in the grain - very beautiful...

I ship all my wares world wide and you can find them here in my shop       

SCOTTISH LABURNUM QUAICHE & WHISKY

Turning A Quaiche

 A Quaiche is the traditional vessel used by Scots to savour their favourite single malts.  It's often a beautiful cup turned from attractive timber with a small handle on either side and mine are made from some Laburnum that traveled from the  Scottish Borders with a mate all the way to Essex.  Often turned from Laburnum, also known as Scottish Mahogany because of it's richly grained dark wood, I decided that today's project was going to be to make at least one of these quirky little cups. Laburnum is a wood that I love though it is horribly dusty when dry, this has some moisture still in it and turned pretty nicely but it doesn't make those wonderful ribbon shavings I get with, say, Sycamore.  This one was a roadside tree and removed as part of a 'tidying' up job by the local council and I failed to see the necessity of depriving the locale of such a beautiful flowering specimen but they're prolific up in Scotland and seen as little more than a weed tree by many!

When preparing the wood for the Quaiche blank you have to remember to make allowance for the handles to be turned as a part of the whole and I spent ages humming and hawing over the best bit of the log to choose.  That done I reached for my handy pencil stub got my centreline marked out and started.  It's seeing that grain come to life as a really sharp chisel (and I mean that sharpness you get where two mirror images of the chisel meet at nothing) otherwise you get covered in nasty chips!

It's the first time in ages that I've turned anything like a Quaiche with that narrow flange around the edge and you do have to keep an eye open for the safety of your knuckles.  Mine escaped intact fortunately but perhaps that's because I'm not a speed merchant.  Anyway hands intact I removed the excess flange leaving behind the handles and carved them into the shape you see here.  Will be here at my online shop  from this evening.
I'd really like to hear your comments about Whisky and ideas about Quaiches, if you have one and use it.  Do you like the flavour of your tipple as you drink from a wooden vessel, does it make you feel special and of course your favourite single malt!