Came across these two great turned toys (thank you minor details). I love how simple they are and yet are pretty expressive. All of the artists are from Argentina, must be something great in the water there. I might have to rip these off.
el Ramon (scroll down) by Javier López Pereyra.
Alma Allen is a sculptor, furniture maker, and tuner who makes some beautiful pieces. His turned stools are incredible. He has inspired me to take a crack at it.
Do yourself a favor and check out his stuff.
My sister had a baby last week and it’s a boy! So of course I made him wooden egg shaped Weeble Wobble like creatures. Why, what do you make newborn babies?
They wobble fine, still working on the not falling down part.
Anyone see the new Restoration Hardware re-do in New York? There is turned crap everywhere. Is my favorite past time now in vogue (en vogue?)?
Also, check out the great post on Apartment Therapy about woodturning. Johnny Williams is doing some good stuff over there.
I’ve worked with lasers, used some of the most advanced CAD around, I’ve even had a whole factory at my command (once), but I’ve never had as much satisfaction or been so inspired as when I use my lathe. Get yourself a lathe people.
Look what I bought with my Cash Cab winnings.
This thing is a beast. One and a half horse power, 16 inch turning diameter, 400 lbs. of lathe awesome-ness. Getting it to the shop was basically a sitcom. But it’s here now and I can’t wait to make beautiful stuff.
A lathe chisel canvas roll-up carrying case (say that five times). She took an old canvas tote bag and turned it into this.
Thanks mom.
Recently, I got my hands on some logs that have been at the bottom of a lake for about 100 years. I turned a simple bowl, just to see what the wood would give me. I’m very happy with how it turned out. The imperfections give it so much character.
The wood was pretty stinky, I had to put the microwave outside while I dried it out. Thankfully the smell went away once it dried.
I’m not sure what species of wood it is, it might be maple. I believe the gray color is due to the fact that it has been absorbing dirt and silt for a couple decades.
After truing up the bottom of the bowl, I found it wasn’t exactly flat. The bottom comes to a point that allows the bowl to spin. It’s a bowl and a top. This was totally on purpose by the way.
The lake my parents live on has recently been drained. Some sort of algae issue. The lake is man-made and was originally used for ice harvesting. It was amazing to see all of the stumps and logs that have been submerged for the past 100 years.
So I grabbed a couple of lake logs. I’ve read about reclaimed logs, and it’s definitely something I wanted to work with.
I took a first pass at turning a lamp and a bowl. The wood acted like freshly cut green logs. It was very easy to work with.
I’m having trouble identifying the wood species of the logs. The wood (I assume) has been discolored from the lake water, and they smell pretty funky. But what do you expect from wood that’s over a hundred years old?
I posted two new instructables recently, take a look.
Steps on how to wire a turned lamp.
And a quick instructable on how to build a simple tool to thread turned wooden lamps. This tool makes wiring wooden lamps very easy.
My family has the Christmas tradition of making our presents. This year I made turned candle sticks for one of my sisters. I was inspired by some candle sticks I had seen in a design blog somewhere.
An oak side table (or stool, can’t decide) for another sister. Kind of an homage to the Eames Walnut Stools
And a patterned t-shirt using discharge paste (maybe the worst named product ever). Remember the S.E.A. Monkey?
