Category Archives: Implements

Overseas Bound

10191I have to fulfill an order from England for a shop. The owner has his own “private label” mead and wanted to offer some hand-turned goblets. And he wanted goblets made in the USA. He didn’t care what they were–my choice. I had one very nice walnut one that I am sending but I wanted something a bit different. This is sycamore and the stem, as you can guess, has been dyed black with a hint of burgundy. It is all one piece but give the illusion of a two piece goblet.  I also thought it should have a mate because if you are buying gifts, you will probably want a pair of them. Creating one from scratch is fun but duplicating it is just work. Notice it has not been cut off yet. I have some special finish coming that is food safe and alcohol friendly and I want to chuck this back up to apply it.

How sweet it is!

12161I have friend raises bees and wanted to give away honey for Christmas gifts and ordered some honey dippers to go with them. These are fun to make and take hardly any wood. These were made from an old maple counter top. I did make one from cedar just to see how it would look but I’m afraid the scent of the cedar will contaminate the honey. I think maple is the perfect choice for these.

Compounding errors

chold2This was my last piece of that spalted maple I had and wanted to do something different with it. It was one of those days where nothing was going right and I would have been better off letting it go but each time I made a mistake I just took a different tack. What I ended up with had no relation at all to what I had originally envisioned. Most mistakes I make with the lathe pertain to “holding” the piece. Plus every time you flip the orientation you have a chance of getting off center. A couple of millimeters off doubles on the first flip, then doubles again and you get my drift. This one ended up going end for end about 6 times after the mistakes I made. But I did end up with a usable candle holder with the nice little flickering LED candle in it. More Views and comments

The ripper

ripperI have a lot of friends who do quilting and it is fun to turn out some “scrap projects” to give a way. I have given several of these and they were amazed that I had made them. This particular one is made out of some very grainy cherry which was not much good for anything else but in this piece it works out fine!More Views and comments