Film Friday – Forging Double Feature

October 14, 2016 / Matt Talley / Leave a comment

Another Cherry Bowl

April 20, 2014 / Matt Talley / Leave a comment

I spent another weekend afternoon playing on the lathe. I made a mate to the cherry bowl I turned last month – the other side of the tree trunk. It was a little smaller block of wood and I roughed it out a little quicker. I decided to keep this one instead of giving it away and use on the dining table for fruit and such. It colored up really nicely – a warm orange that will darken with age, but it has checked a little more than the first one – it hasn’t split and hopefully won’t – but there are a few fine cracks that have popped up here and there.

I started it out thinking it was going to be a different shape, but due to some spongy fruit-wood, it became more of a vertically sided bowl with a deep finger groove on the bottom. Like the last bowl (and most of my bowls and lids), I turned a little detail in the bottom of the bowl because I think that curiosity should be rewarded. The bowl is again finished off with my own mix of beeswax and walnut oil. I am going to let it dry for a few months and reapply.

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From tree to bowl with a LOT of sweat in between

March 18, 2014 / Matt Talley / 1 Comment

I have a colleague that was making over a large section of his property out in the French country-side and he needed a dying cherry tree taken down. It was a big old tree with what looked like lots of good hard wood in the trunk base, so I gave him a hand. I thought I could tun the wood into some nice bowels, mallet heads, honey dippers, etc… and he agreed to let me have some of the wood that was destined for his fire place. Holy Crap it was work – not at all helped by his tiny electric chainsaw. It made me long for my 30″ bar, 2-stroke beast back in my Seattle garage shop.

After cutting 2 good rounds and trimming up the root ball, I split the rounds in two, then put 200 pounds of wood in the back of my tiny Suzuki Swift and hauled it home. Into the garage it went and the wife and I were off to the Saturday Market. I came back to one of the rounds on the next night and decided to prep it for turning. With my Japanese hatchet and hand saw, I worked it into an octagon-ish shape. There was a lot of rot in the outer rings and the sections did not make as large of bowls as I had hopped, but the root ball will make an AMAZING centerpiece on the table for holding bread or fruit at parties. I am getting ahead of my self a little…

Anyway, the first section was a beast! It took me 3 hours to go from the half-round to the round bowl-blank. I almost threw the hunk down and took it over to my neighbors wood pile while just roughing it into shape with the axe. The wood was SO FREAKING HARD! It got worse when I started spinning the thing! My roughing gouge was super sharp when I started and I had to sharpen it twice again during the initial turn. There was a break in the turning where I built a jig for my turning chisels so that the sharpening angle was perfect every time, but that is a different tale…

I have never gone from tree to bowl before and I wanted to see if I could do it well. Usually, I either glue up hardwood scraps or buy a rough elm or maple blank from my hardwood dealer in Seattle (With the coin I drop at his place, he is most assuredly a DEALER! His crack just has figured grain and tight growth rings…) Anyway, I might should have picked a tree with softer wood for my first time, but how many turners back in the US can say that they cut down a old cherry tree in France and made cool stuff with it?!

I finished up the bowl four nights after I started turning the rough shape. I had to work around some rot and cracks, but the final shape turned out really nice. When someone handles the bowl and flips it over, they will find my makers mark and I turned a little detail in the bottom of the bowl because I think that curiosity should be rewarded. The bowl is finished off with my own mix of beeswax and walnut oil. After two coats, it colored up beautifully. There are a couple of spots where it may split along the rim, but that is just the nature of the wood and that specific piece – it will add character to the bowl. This one was done for the guy who gave me the wood and I will turn a couple later for our house.

I was really proud of how it all turned out and the final product made all the sweat and cussing worth it.

Tools I brought with me from the old country…

February 10, 2014 / Matt Talley / Leave a comment

When planning our move to Toulouse, I came to the realization that I would not be able to take my entire shop with me. I didn’t relish the idea of replacing all my power tools and saws with 220vt/60Hz versions, only to have to sell them in a couple of years when we move back to Seattle. I decided that I would bring mostly my hand tools and and spend some quality time working small projects, cutting dovetails, tuning my planes, etc… There were three 24″X24″ boxes and one wooden chest full of edge moulding planes, Stanley Bench Planes, 4 rolls of chisels, mallets, Japanese saws, hand drills, dovetail tools, axes, draw knives, my half set (#2 – #18 even) of 1850ish Gleave hollows and rounds, squares, jigs, rasps, and assorted joinery paraphernalia.

My plan is to use the time here to do the detail work that I am usually in too much of a rush to even contemplate: carved scroll-work, mortised frames, insets, layered stain finishes, edging with the moulding planes, some light carving, maybe even cutting a few linen-fold panels. I have done a couple of little things already, but my first big task is to build a HEAVY work bench so that I will have a proper work space: I am going with a split top Neo-Roubo without a leg vise. I will be installing a cast iron Front Vise and a Screw Vise on the tail of the bench instead. No cabinets underneath so that I can store a shooting board and a Moxon vise. It WILL BE coming home to Seattle with us.

In the interest of full disclosure: I am not a neo-Luddite – I did buy an orbital sander right after we got here and I shipped my Ryobi 18vt tool set (circle saw, 2 drills, reciprocating saw, flashlight, & jig saw). The same sets are sold here and I got a 220vt charger that works with my existing batteries and picked up a couple of fresh new lithium-ion batteries in the process. Aside from the battery tools, I ordered a large wood lathe so that I can make furniture legs, tool handles, bowls, jar lids, platters, etc. I brought all my lathe chisels and chucks with me and I got a model that uses a DC motor that I can change over to one that runs on US current when we move back. It is much larger than my lathe in Seattle and will be a valuable addition to the shop there when we return.