I haven’t visited my blog for a while and that is because I have no photos to share. The reason is I am now in a furniture workshop attempting to make a small cabinet. The way things are going I might have a photo around next Christmas.
In the meantime I have been playing with the scroll saw and I came up with this one:
And one turned bowl:
I think this one is in need of lid.
First long weekend in October is the Woodcraft guild ACT exhibition opportunity. That is the only one where furnitures are on display. My table might find its way there.
Also a few of my small turned items that I’ve posted here over the last few months.
I have an internal struggle with the size of the things I make. When I worked with clay I strived to make bigger artefacts but instead of getting bigger they just got heavier. Not great. Now I am aiming for large wood items but this time the lathe size is the limiting factor. So I enjoy making small objects and aim to make them as cute as possible. Hope you think so too.
I also started experimenting with different king of timber. Burl, Banksia fruit and laminated wood as I learned glued blocks of wood is called….. It is also know as segmented turning but mine look nothing like what you see when you google that term….
I’ve been busy with my coffee table adventure and here is the result:
It was complicated and I wouldn’t have been able to get anywhere without the help of the Furniture Sig in the woodcraft guild, Canberra.
In addition I continued with turning and got some absolutely beautiful things. Here are some:
These items will be up for sale at the botanical garden Canberra when the Woodcraft Guild will have its annual exhibition in October 2025.
I’ve been wanting to work on the big lath for a while now but was a bit intimidated. However I bought a few very big blanks for turning so had to overcome that somehow……. and I did.
This is the largest bowl I’ve turned so far.
Also….. the wine cup I showed you before was actually supposed to be a scoop which I didn’t want to make cause I liked the shape too much. However, I did ended up making another one:
And we had Hanukah somewhere in the middle, so turning tops were in order
Not much to say about that one except that I got a very helpful hand from our very own Richard Raffan. He would have done a lot better but I’m quite happy with the one.
I’ve been turning for some time now and the tools start to feel more familiar and less scary. The results I think show. More bowels, boxes and plates. The largest so far is this beautiful camphor laurel that smells like nothing else. Some people love the smell, I don’t. But it’s too beautiful to miss out on.
It’s a variety of timbers: Olive tree, Tasmanian Oak, Pine, Box Elder, Bush plum and more.
I’ve also finally finished my decorative shelves unit:
This how my wall looks like now. A burst of creativity.
I hope it will not be too long before my next post.
As I said, lightning speed. A shallow small tray like plate.
I’m used to pottery time table. You make a bowl on a wheel, the next day you shape the other side, then you have to wait for it to dry, fire first firing, make a glaze, decide if you deep the bowl in the glaze, pour the glaze over it or spray it on. Then decide what kind of firing to finish with. By the end of a few weeks you have a finished product., phew.
So when I make a bowl, from a piece of wood to a shiny finished product in one session of wood turning I’m blown away by how fast it. And in pictures – from block of wood to a bowl.
Every piece of timber is different, so I’m learning. And this next one was very different. It started as a half cylinder. The other difference is that I’ve drilled the hole which will help me put it on the lathe, on the wrong side of the timber. That meant that I had two option, one was to make a smaller bowl and eliminate the wrong hole or keep it and change the orientation of the bowl. And that is what I decided to do. That resulted in a live edge bowl which I like, so maybe I will keep doing that on purpose.
This is another tiny bowl made of green wood from an unknown tree.
G. Shy Crafts 