Handmade buttons ... ...

Buttons are great, and you'd be surprised how easy it is to make your own, I'm not talking about the plastic ones, I'm talking chunky wood buttons, great as a feature on a knitted hat or some other item.

It's easy to do, you need a saw (a hack saw is easy to use)

Bit battered, but works okay

 You'll also need a drill of some kind and a drill bit (I normally use a 3mm bit)

My post drill.

I use a post drill for making the holes in my buttons, but if you don't have one a cordless drill will work just as well, but be careful when drilling, and if you don't have an electric drill then a hand drill is just as good, but you will need a vice or some way to hold the button still whilst drilling.

Hand drill -

You can buy these quite cheaply.

And obviously you need some kind of wood, sticks are easiest to work with, but if they are freshly cut it's best to leave them in the house some where to dry out a bit first.

Then all you need to do is slice your stick up into sections as thick or thin as you want, although the thinner the sections the harder it is to grip them for sanding.

Ready for slicing -

Gripped tightly.

Now if you don't have a vice you could use a strong clamp to hold the wood, but I'd recommend a vice of some kind, it doesn't have to be expensive, I have a hobby vice I use in my work room at the back of the house, it was less than £10 and is great for small jobs like this.

Once you have some slices of wood it's on to the next step, and this is where things get personal, it's up to you how many holes you drill, where they are and such like, I tend to drill 2 holes in each button.

Ready for drilling -

They look a little rough, but they will turn out nice.

With holes drilled -

4 or 2 ? it's up to you.

You don't have to drill the holes first, I do things this way because if the holes are a little rough they'll get sorted out when I finish the buttons, saves time and extra sanding.
 
The next bit depends on what sort of equipment you have, if like me you have a variety of power tools then you may well have a belt sander or orbital sander, these will do for finishing the buttons as long as you use a fine grit (like 180) sanding sheet/belt if not then you can use a sheet of sand paper (again use a fine grit) and a wooden block, this will take longer, and probably make your arms ache a little, I use my lathe sander to finish the buttons, takes about 2 minutes (give or take) to finish a button.

I built a sanding wheel for my lathe, I made a short video of me using it, please remember to watch your fingers if your using a power sander of some kind, gloves might be an idea, and a mask as things will get dusty.

Sanding video -

Mind your fingers !

As you can see it doesn't take long, and apologies for the video quality, it wasn't as easy as I thought sanding and filming at the same time.

So once all the sanding is done you should have some nice smooth wooden buttons, they might be different sizes and thicknesses, but that just makes them more unique.

I tend to either give my buttons a coat of beeswax to protect them without affecting the colour, or I use linseed oil, which brings out the grain quite well, but you could wax them,varnish them, or paint them.

Finished buttons -

All done, 5 cypress & 2 pear wood.

Here's a picture of a cypress button and a pear wood button coated with linseed oil -

The pear wood is the darker one.

You can see from the picture above that you can make the buttons as round as you like, or leave them a little less finished for a slightly more rustic look, and if this all seems a little like hard work then I know a chap who sells them in his shop ;-) which you can find here (opens in new window) I'm also working on a lathe jig that will allow me to make sets of buttons the same size and decorate the buttons with simple designs.

Thanks for reading.

Experiments with dead wood ... ...

I'm sure people are beginning to wonder about me, seems every time I hear a chain saw I'm off looking to see what's being cut down, although it is paying off, just the other day I acquired 2 large sections of Silver Birch, which was going for fire wood, it'll be a while before I can use it, but even so.

I will also (fingers crossed) be getting some Holly and Apple in a few days time, which will further expand my collection of logs.

A few weeks ago I did a shrub removal job for a friend and I decided I'd have a go a turning some of it, I asked if I could take some, which receive a slight raising of the eye brow, and a look of "what on earth do you want that for ? " but I took some of the more usable pieces home.

It turns out it's some kind of Cypress tree, but because it had been pruned on a regular basis it wasn't very big and as a result of the pruning some of it had died, and it's the dead bit's I took most of, mainly because I figured I could turn it straight away, if it's dead it won't warp or crack as there's no life left in the wood.

Even wood that's been cut down still has life in it, it will shrink and grow with the temperature and humidity of the air, but dead wood won't, at least not so much.

So this is what I made from one bit of the dead wood - 

It's an interesting colour.

It turned pretty well, and I managed to get a great finish on it, and even though it didn't appear to be very hard wood, it is, even though it's a small pot it feels sturdy, and the point on the lid is quite sharp.

Another picture -

With the lid off.

You can't really see it in the pictures, but in some places it has a kind of pale pinky colour to it, which is quite nice. I burned the dark band in while it was on the lathe, this is an easy way to add a little detail to an item, you basically hold a piece of wood to the piece whilst it's revolving and friction does the rest, although if you hold the wood to the piece for too long you'll get fire !

I've found this technique is a good way to add a little extra interest to an item, but it works better on some woods than others, I've also found that it's best to use a piece of the same wood, rather than a random bit you might have lying about, you can also use a welding rod or even one of those ceramic tile saw blades, the ones that you hand cut tiles with.

The Apple tree I have my eye on is also dead, so I hope to start turning that more or less straight away, so I'm quite looking forward to turning a load of new stuff.

Thanks for reading.

Potenstein ... ...

It seems my impatience has got the better of me yet again, but it's not as bad as it sounds... ...

The other day I decided I'd make myself a pen / pencil pot for my desk, so I have some where to keep my drawing pens and such like, so of to the shed I went to find a suitable bit of wood, I chose a piece of pear wood (which was a mistake if I'm honest)

I should have realised I'd run into issues later on down the line, but I set about turning the pot, I was going for a more natural look, and by that I mean keeping some bark on the wood, which isn't as easy as I thought it would be.

Here's the finished pot, still mounted on the lathe -

It's meant to have a bit missing from the rim ;-)

Needless to say I was quite pleased with the finished article, it was quite difficult to keep the bark, mainly because it kept chipping, I think I should have mounted the piece slightly differently on the lathe, that way I could have kept a slightly thicker wall to the pot, but hey ho.

Some more pictures -

Front view, I like the way the bark is cracked.

Here's a side on view -

I like the way the grain stands out.

And another -

I think it's quite organic looking :-)

And just to prove it works ;-) here it is complete with pens and such like.

The pens I use most, at the moment.

And that's that, well no it's not, see the pot sat on my desk for a few days and slowly started to crack, this is my fault for not leaving the wood longer to season, it developed a couple of nasty cracks on either side of it, and looked like it was going to split in half, I was a little gutted.

I've been researching ways to stop certain woods (mainly fruit woods) from cracking and warping so much, as it turns out there are a few ways this can be done, some work better than others, so I went for boiling the wood in the end, yes I did say boiling, and you'd be right in thinking a saucepan and a load of water, and a slightly concerned wife ;-)

Here's a couple of pictures of the cracks that developed - 

There's one on each side.

This one is the worst as it goes all the way through.

These pictures were taken after I boiled the pot, which technically should have been done before it was finished, I should have roughed it out, then boiled it, you may also notice a slight colour change, this wasn't from boiling it, it's from the small amount of red food colouring I added to the water. 

While I was reading about boiling wood, I found a small piece on whether it was possible to add food colouring to the water whilst boiling for different effects, as it turns out it is possible :-)

Another picture that shows the worst crack on the outside, and gives a better idea of the colour the pot went.

It's an interesting colour.

The cracks did close right up after boiling the pot, but they came back, but they don't seem to be getting any worse at least. So the pot sat on my desk, and I wondered what to do about it, I like the pot and didn't want to bin it, and that's when I came up with an idea that involved a small drill bit, some thin copper wire and a mattress needle ;-)

Yes I created potenstein muh ha ha ha ha ! 

I've seen similar things done to turned wood before, so I figured this was a good way to save the pot, and maybe make it better than it would be with a load of cracks, so I've kind of made a feature out of the cracks.

I give you potenstein -

Okay so Frankenstein was made up of different bits, but hey.

You'd be surprised how easy it is to sew wood with copper wire and a needle, of course pre-drilling the holes makes life a lot easier. This would be better if I'd used a thicker gauge wire, which I did try, but it kept breaking, my lovely wife suggested I get some thin leather for next time, which I will because I quite like the pot like this, and plan to experiment further with this idea.

Some more pictures of potenstein -

Side view.

The main split.

You can easily see what I've tried to do, the wire is unlikely to prevent further cracking (fingers crossed that there won't actually be any further cracking) but I like the way it looks, the wire is copper and will start to tarnish and go a slight green colour, which might be nice ?

Thanks for reading.

Handmade mini dibber ... ...

If like us you grow a lot of plants you'll know that sowing the seeds is a bit of a chore, especially making holes for each seed, when the need calls for it.

I normally use a pencil for making seed holes, mainly for writing out the labels, but I've also found the end of a pencil makes for a good seed drill, however there is a down side, that being compost on the end of the pencil, and subsequently behind my ear seeing as that's where I keep my pencils most of the time.

So this morning I made a purpose designed and built mini dibber for planting my seeds. I just used a scrap piece of wood, I seem to have lots of these lying about the shed, used my recently built mini lathe to turn it, which is still working, and the mini lathe works much better now I've welded up the tail stock. 

Here's the mini dibber -

It's just about right for a pocket.

It's turned from a bit of pine, the dark lines are burned in, this is done by just holding another piece of wood to it whilst it's spinning, I wasn't going to add any type of decoration, but figured why not :-)

Another picture - 

Ta Da !

I made the end flat for a reason, that being once your seed is planted you need to tamp the soil down ;-) so it's a duel purpose dibber / pot tamper, it's small enough to be useful even with small cell seed trays.

Here's a picture next to a ruler -

Just about 9cm or nearly 4 inches in old money.

And there you have it, it took about 25 minutes to turn,sand and wax and will serve me well in my veg growing exploits :-) it's also a nice size for a child to use, so if the kids want to help they can use this to make nice neat seed drills at about the right depth, thanks to the markers on the pointy end.

Thanks for reading.

Pot project ... ...

This is the result of a little project I've been working on.

As I've been learning to turn wood I decided to have a go at turning some end grain, this is basically turning the wood at a different angle to the lathe.

This will hopefully go some way to explaining what I'm talking about.

The wood on the lathe is the lid.

So what we have here is a picture of the wood I used for the lid, in the picture I've marked the direction of the grain, the horizontal line under the wood is the direction of the grain for that piece of wood and the vertical line marks the direction of the grain when turning end grain.

One of the reasons for turning the wood like this is because it shows of the grain in a different way, but there is a down side (as I found out) the wood behaves differently, for example it tears at the ends, which isn't a big problem it does require more care and your chisels need to be razor sharp, and even then you'll have a fair bit of sanding to do, as it turns out I used my Oland tools to turn the pot and the lid, I seem to be bale to get them much sharper.

There are ways to combat the tear off like using oils,waxes and even water, but I still didn't have much luck, not that I'm that bothered by it as this was a voyage of discovery :-)

A picture of the lid on the lathe -

It has a nice pattern.

The lid is mounted on my screw chuck, whilst this is a good chuck there's a little waste which I wouldn't get if I used an expanding chuck, which I'm hoping to buy soon, they are a little pricey (about £100 for one that fits my lathe) but it will be worth it.

This next picture is the base of the pot, this is one of the reasons an expanding chuck would be handy.

Fixing holes from screw chuck -

Not a big issue, but not good if I wanted to sell it.

 

You can see the holes where I've fixed the wood to the chuck, whilst these can be sanded out and made less obvious, it would be better to turn them out, and that's where an expanding chuck would be handy because I could mount the pot the other way round and turn out the fixing holes.

A picture of an expanding chuck, this will be the one I get, each jaw moves independently, which will be very useful.

I will be adding this to my collection soon :-)

Here's a picture of the pot I took while finishing it, it wasn't going to have a lid originally, but I changed my mind at the last minute :-)

The pot -

I'm very pleased with the pattern, it looks great.

You can see where the wood has been affected by the fungus that causes the patterns in the grain, it makes for some interesting features, I'm lucky in that all the Birch I have seems to have this all the way through it, on the downside I'm not sure where I might find some more.

The pot looks a little orange, this is mainly because of the oil I've been coating it in to try and prevent any cracking and such like.

The remains of the tree trunk -

I still have a fair bit left, and there's always the Pear ;-)

And here is the finished article -

Not perfect by any means, but an interesting piece.

There's a lot wrong with it, for a start the pot rim has warped slightly and is now an oval shape instead of round, and the lid has shrunk a little so it's quite loose fitting, there are a number of things I could do to fix it though. I could re-turn the rim of the pot down to where the wood is slightly thicker, this would help prevent warping, and I could also make a new lid, but make sure it's a little bigger than it needs to be, this would then help the rim keep it's shape, but it would make getting the lid off a little hard, at least until the wood had settled down.

As it's my first pot type thing though I'm happy with it, and I've learned a lot so the next one I make I can approach it in a different way and hopefully I'll be happier with it.

From a slightly different angle -

I think the pattern of the lid works well with the pattern of the pot.

And another slightly different angle -

Shame about the lid, I may try and fix it, not sure yet.

And that's about it really, the pot has changed colour slightly and now looks a little less orange, it's worth giving it a good few coats of oil though as it keeps the wood in good shape.

The pot after a few days -

Still a little orangey, but it will fade as the oil soaks in.

One of the other down sides of wood turning is the mess, I've been bagging the shavings up so I can use them as a mulch either in the garden or at the allotment, or both :-) it gets very dusty so I've had to come up with some kind of extraction system, which I made using 2 hoovers, I'll write a post about it some time ;-)

Here's a picture of the mess, I have a lot of spiders in my shed, which is why some of the shavings seem to be stuck to the wall :-)

It gets every where.

Hopefully I've solved this little problem now :-) we shall see.

Thanks for reading.

Practice makes perfect, well almost ... ...

Since I've had my lathe I've been trying to get my hands on interesting bits of wood, for a couple of reasons, mainly because each type of wood is different in terms of how it looks when it's made into something, whether it's turned or carved.

But apart from the aesthetics of the wood I've been learning that each wood behaves very differently when you stick it on a lathe, there are factors like age of the wood, how long it's been sitting about before you turn it and such like.

Take these 3 items, all of which I've turned on my lathe, using the same tools and same techniques.

From left to right, Pear,Ash (or maybe Oak) and Spalted Birch.

 

I turned the Spalted Birch candle stick a while ago, but had to wait to see if I could stop it warping and cracking before I sealed it, it's now had a coat of sealer and a good polish. If you look at the top of the Birch candle stick you can see where it's warped a little, this is mainly due to the thickness of the wood, it's quite thin.

I got the Birch from a chap who lives down the road from me, he's had a load of Birch logs in his drive way for ages, so I asked him for some (he intends to use it in a log burner, a waste if you ask me) I got a length about 8 feet long in the end, I still have quite a bit left. What's good about it is that because it was chopped down a while a go it's okay to turn, although it may still warp a little.

Here's the Birch one, it's called Spalted birch because of the way the grain has gone, the dark ragged lines are caused by a fungus, the lighter patches are also a result of the same fungus.

The Birch candle stick (probably the first of many) 

I was pleased with it, even wrote a blog post about it ;-)

The next thing is made from the off cut of a fence post, a few weeks ago we went to visit relatives and on the way there a couple of workmen were fitting new gates to a house, so on the way back I asked for the offcut, I'm still not 100% sure what sort of wood it is, but either way it made a nice candle stick.

Here it is - 

It's either Oak or some kind of Ash.

I have to be perfectly honest I'm not sure what this is, I should have asked the workmen, as I've mentioned it's either Oak or Ash, although as it was part of a fence post I suspect it's Oak, never known anyone to use Ash as fence posts, but I could be wrong.

This was interesting to turn as the wood had been dried before hand (probably kiln dried) and as such it was a very different experience, I was hoping to get it a little larger but it kept loosing parts where the wood had shrunk, in the end I decided I would keep going until it stopped loosing bits and although it's quite small I love the grain in it, even more so as it was destined for the bin being an offcut.

Here's a different view of it - 

Stripey :-)

The last thing I have to show you is a small goblet, yes not another candlestick but a goblet, although it's not any good for drinking out of because of the way it's warping and cracking.

The goblet - 

Made from part of a 60 year old Pear tree.

Yes this too is made from rescued wood, although I'd have to admit I was the one who cut the tree down, in my defence it was in some one's garden and they had offered it on free-cycle, if I didn't take it, it would have been burned. It's lovely wood, but very green and it maybe some time before it's really ready for turning.

I just couldn't wait, it's been sitting in my shed for months and the other day a chopped a small piece off and stuck it on my lathe, and as with the other items it was again an interesting experience, being green wood it's very soft (even though Pear wood is quite hard) and because it's green wood it's still quite wet, which means depending on the way it's kept it may or may not crack and warp, if it's kept in a dry warm environment it will probably crack, and that's what has started to happen with the goblet, whether it will get to a point and stop I don't know, Eucalyptus wood is the same if not worse.

It's an interesting learning curve, but one I'm enjoying and even though some of the things I make suffer from warping or cracking it is a little sad because I spent the time on it, but it helps me to understand what's going on with the wood and the next time I try I will know what to expect and how to prevent it or slow it down.

Here's some more pictures of the things I've mentioned - 

A closer look at the grain.

I'm pretty sure more of the Birch I have will have more of this type of pattern in it, I'm hoping to turn some plates and small pots out of some of it, should be fun.

A closer look at the Ash / Oak candle stick - 

I'm going to keep my eyes open for more fence post offcuts :-)

  Unfortunately I don't have any of this left, so I will keep my eyes open for some more, maybe even a whole fence post or 2, I think I could make some interesting objects out of it.

This fault wasn't apparent from the outside of the wood.

Usually Pear wood has a subtle grain and unless it's polished it doesn't seem to show it, the Pear I have must have had a hard life as it has quite a few faults with it, not that it's a fault as such, I plan to incorporate these faults or natural quirks into some of my designs for extra interest, that's when I know what I turn isn't going to warp and crack apart, although I've seen warping and cracking incorporated into other wood turners designs, which is something else I might try.

All in all I'm enjoying the experience, all of it I've even started to make my own tools for turning, this as I've found is something a lot of other wood turners also do, it means you have a greater range open to you and you can make some tools that do really interesting things, from a wood turning point of view :-)

Thanks for reading.

Homemade lathe tools ... ...

I actually made these tools in the run up to christmas, but I never got round to writing a post about them, christmas being it's usual hectic self.

So here it is ;-)

I've had my lathe for about a year now, I haven't used it as much as I might like, but I'm looking to change that this year. I started with a basic set of lathe chisels, which I bought at the same time (not much point having a lathe with no chisels) they aren't anything special, but they are enough to produce things, like small pots, bowls and other things, so in order to extend the range of what I can make I also purchased a new chuck ( a small screw chuck) and I have made a couple of collet chucks as well, but I found recently that I could do with a new chisel or two for making various things.

Now I could have bought something that would do the job perfectly well, but I decided to make some tools, figuring this would give a me a better understanding of lathe tools in general, and also allow me to make a tool specifically for set purposes.

This is what I ended up with -

They are Oland tools.

They will allow me to make a greater range of bowls and such like, and for less than the price of say a new bowl gouge, and from what I have read while researching they are more versatile tools.

I made them from various things I had lying around, I made two in the same way, but from different tubing to test which one works the best, the third tool is along the same lines, but meant for smaller stuff, and believe it or not the cutting bits will be made from masonry nails (yes masonry nails) which I will have to make into the required shape, and then sharpen, this isn't as difficult as it sounds.

Here is a picture of the respective cutting bits -

The top one is  a nail, yet to be shaped, the others are hss lathe bits.

Like the caption says the top one is a nail and I will have to mess around with it to make it usable for turning. The other 2 bits are high speed steel blanks for metal lathes, these need to be shaped a little to get the right sort of edge on them, but being high speed steel they are very hard and will keep a good sharp edge.

You may have noticed the slight notch out of one of the bits (the middle one) I ground it into the bit to help with holding it in one of the bars as the grub screws aren't as tight as I would like, I may have to make new ones.

I got the two steel bits from ebay for a grand total of 4 quid (plus 1.50 postage) not bad really, considering  a lathe chisel can be very expensive, all three together probably cost me about 15 quid in all, plus the time to make them, a good bowl gouge can cost 30 quid or more for one, I got three for half the price ;-)

To fix the bits into the holders I've drilled and threaded hole, which I then use homemade grub screws in to fix the bits.

Grubs screws - 

You can see I have already had to make a new screw and thread.

The screws are made from a length of threaded bar, which I cut a groove in so as I could use a screw driver to do them up, I then tapped out the holes I drilled in the holders. The cutting bits slide into the tubes and are a good fit, so I can get a pretty tight fixing.

I had some steel tubing in the shed which is what the bottom one in the picture (above) is made from, the top one in the picture is a piece of metal electrical conduit I had spare, both seem to work well. I still might grind the ends down a little more, as you can see I've already ground them a little to round them off.

The holder for the smaller bits (the ones I will make from masonry nails) is a piece of solid square bar, I had to first drill into the centre of the bar to make a hole to take the nails, then another hole was drilled at a right angle to the first hole so as I could use a grub screw to hold the nail in place.

Here is a picture - 

It still needs a little work.

You can see it's more or less the same as the other two tools, I still have to grind the end down some what to make it smaller and thus easier to get inside smaller bowls and vases and the like, but it'll only take a couple of minutes on my bench grinder, making the nails into a workable tool may take longer. You can make out the grub screw, which fits almost flush with the surrounding metal, but I will no doubt need to modify it a little once I've ground the end of the bar down more.

And that's pretty much it really, I have yet to test them out, but I'm confident they will perform well (fingers crossed)

In the end I decided not to turn wooden handles for each of the bars, so instead I used natural string, which I wound tightly around the ends of the tools to make a nice handle, then I used mod podge to seal it all, this also helps to make sure the string doesn't unwind.

The handle - 

As handles go it's pretty good.

Here are all three again so you can see I used the same method for all of them.

Almost reading for a trial run turning something.

These are the first tools I've made from scratch for a specific job, I've modified plenty before to better suit a job.

I am quite proud of them to be honest, although I'll no doubt do a lot of swearing if they don't work ;-)

Here are some of the things I've made so far using my other chisels - 

A plant pot maker - 

I wrote a post about it ;-)

This was made from part of an old fence post, I try to recycle what I can, I recently acquired a 60 year old pear tree, which some one offered on freecycle, I had to cut it down as it had been hacked about to make room for a shed, if I hadn't taken it, it was destined for the bonfire, now it's in my shed waiting to be turned into interesting things, so in a way it will live on, still a shame it had to be cut down.

Here are a couple of things I made last year, a pot made from eucalyptus from our garden and a kids rolling pin for using with play dough.

My daughter loves the rolling pin.

Thanks for reading.