Another piece from Mountain Karee

Last week I started on a fairly big piece of Mountain Karee, which will now take some time to dry before I can do some decorative work and finish the piece. It also gives me some time to develop some ideas on what decoration I will do. I still have some of the Mountain Karee (Bergkaree in Afrikaans) left and this week I chose a healthy piece and made an endgrain hollow form. Two ago years while in Paris, I got hold of a book of the well known French potter, Robert Deblander, who managed a good balance between form and graphic decoration. I still want to explore some of his ideas on graphic decoration, using the techniques I learned from Nick Agar during my course with him but this week I am using one of his ideas on shape for a hollow form. As woodturners we can learn a lot about shape, looking at shapes coming from pottery, ceramics and glass.

My photograpy is still not great, this picture taken with my Iphone, but in the new year I will work on this. The sapwood of the Bergkaree is very light but with some interesting small burls which should give it some charater. The top and bottom where the heartwood is visible should give a nice deep red finish once it is dry.

The piece is 24cm high by 23cm diameter and currently weighs 1,5kg. I will also now leave it to dry and then decide whether I will do any decoration or just simply sand and finish. Hollowing was done with my Woodcut tools but for the last section the 5/8 shaft of the Woodcut was not sufficient so I had to use my 3/4 inch John Jordan hollowing. Wall thickness is about 5 to 6 mm

Back again

I have not been posting anything for quite a while and decided to add some of my latest pieces I am working on. I also updated my portfolio with some of my work I have done in 2013, so have a look if you are interested. As quite often happens, we had a big thunderstorm at the beginning of summer in Pretoria and the strong wind uprooted a 'Bergkaree' (Mountain Karee) tree at the place at the place where I work. I took the opportunity to start on a fairly large piece coming from a place where the trunk was already quite rotten. The idea is to see if I can get some special effects from the rotten wood. At the same time I am testing the capacity of my Stubby lathe.

The biggest test for me was however getting the piece of wood single handed mounted on the lathe without a hoist. Adding a hoist to my workshop will have to be one of my next projects. Unfortunately I did not weigh the blank before starting to work on it but I guess it must have been over 30kg, maybe closer to 40kg. It was turned and hollowed and still weighed 7,5kg, measuring 44cm diameter by 26 cm high.

The rotten areas can be seen but I will leave it now to dry before creating some special effects on these areas. For interest sake a photo after completion of the turnning to see all the shavings

Woodturning with Martin Adomat

I had the opportunity of doing a woodturning course with Martin Adomat in Bethlehem which is a suburb of a town called Lengenwang in southern Germany. The theme of the course was 'Design and structuring'. The turning was done with wet oak as it has a lot of acid in the wood which reacts nicely with the later treatment. For the surface decoration I did the grooves with a sharp parting tools and then brushing it with a bronze brush attached to a hand drill. Finally it was then 'smoked' overnight with ammoniac which gave a dark finish with lots of variation and character.

The next photo is a close up of the surface effect after the 'smoking'

After drying, the wood moved quite a bit to give an oval form

I like the effect that can be achieved and still want to experiment a bit more with some variation, also to see which other south african woods has enough acid to give similar effects.
Photographs again are not very proffesional as they were taken in my small flat in Ulm with my cellphone.

Another turn

The large bowl in my previous blog has now dried completely, it came off the lathe at allmost 5 kg and has now stabilised at 2,8 kg. It dried very nicely without any cracking and is now ready for finishing. This I hope to do in the next few weeks so will keep you up to date with the progress. I have again done a lot of travelling in the past month but managed to be at home this weekend. I am not only a woodturner but really like machinery as well and I have been looking for a metal lathe now for some time. I managed to find a second hand lathe/ mill combination which is still in a very good condition. I visited the owner yesterday and am now the proud owner of an Emco V10p lathe/mill combination. I still need to get it to my place so will have to arrange transport and some hands to help me carry. Will post some pictures when it arrives in my workshop. I also did some turning yesterday afternoon and used a piece of Wild Syringa which I got in the morning from At Smit. It was still wet on the inside but dry on the outside with the marks which worms, ants and insetcs have left. I have tried to retain this and give the turning some character. See the attached photograph, it still needs final sanding and finishing. The quality of the photo is not great as it was done quickly with my cellphone.

First turning for 2012

Had a good rest during December in Jongensfontein but shortly after my return I was back in Germany again. Returned yesterday and on my arrival I found a large piece of  Cape Ash in my garage which my fellow woodturner At Smit had left in my workshop. It had been cut during the week and I could not resist the temptation to put it on my lathe. The piece was about 30kg and I started on a large bowl.

After a while the workshop was filled with shavings which will take some time to clean. The wall thickness is about 15mm which will take some time to dry without cracking. My recipe is to cover it with the shavings and newspapers and then seal it in a plastic bag. The newspaper is replaced every day untill the weight stays constant. So lets hold breath and see what the result will be in a few weeks.

Holzleute

On my way back from Ulm I stopped in Munich before going to the airport and passed a shop called 'Holzleute' or directly translated 'Wooden people'. They sell some woodturning work which is mostly fairly commmercial, i.e. christmas decorations, peppermills, etc. They however had one piece that I really found very interesting and a real piece of art. It is made of oak and about 50 to 60cm in diameter.

New Vicmarc

I have heard some rumours that Vicmarc is developing a new lathe that has some similarities to the Stubby. I discovered the following photograph on the internet. Judge for yourself