Turning a spinning top...

A short video of me turning a spinning top from oak, it's a simple turning project, but the end results are always pleasing, who doesn't love a spinning top, and it's a good use for those little odd bits of wood you end up with after a project (or is that just me?)

The oak is still a bit green, but it turns well, there's a small video at the end of some of the tops I've made recently.

Here's the video -

Thanks for visiting.

Homemade bowl (friction) sander...

 Thought it was about time I made myself a bowl / friction sander for my wood turning adventures, don't know why I haven't made one before now (no excuse) but now I have, and to my surprise it works quite well, so here's a video of me going through the steps I used to make it, and at the end of this post is a very basic plan with some measurements on it, the measurements will change depending on what size bearings you use and what sort of size you want to make it.

Homemade bowl sander - 

The plan - 

Should give you a rough idea of how it's made.

As I said it's a basic plan to give you a rough idea of the dimensions of the one I made, hopefully you find it useful.

Thanks for reading.

Pin cushion box ... ...

For a while now I've been thinking about adding extra things to the wood I turn, things like metal inlays and perhaps down the line I might even experiment with stones and rocks, like Malachite as an example (still doing research) but for now I've gone with something a little easier, and as with most of the wood I turn I wanted this piece to be useful.


This is how it turned out -

Turned out good, well I think it did anyway.

I've written about how I made it below, well how I made the pin cushion part.

Here's the pin cushion box (without the cushion) -

There's a reason for the gap in the top.

The box itself is simple design wise, it's made from Pear wood, and I've left a little of the bark on for a more natural look and feel, I like leaving bark on the pieces I turn, it some how gives them a more pleasing look, and makes them more tactile when you touch them.

Here's the box with the lid off - 

I didn't worry about sanding and polishing the inside of the lid.

As you can see from the picture above I turned out a small recess to hold the actual pin cushion part, this I thought would give it a better look overall.

Now the pin cushion part was easy to make, well I say easy, I did have to ask my lovely wife for some help, I can sew as long as it involves a really basic stitch.

I cut out a circle of red velvet, which was left over from the excellent Christmas sacks my wife made for the kids (which you can find here - opens in new window) the circle of velvet needed to be a bit larger than the hole I was putting it in.

The velvet ready for sewing - 

I drew round a small bowl for the size.

Making it into a cushion wasn't as hard as I thought, I used some fuzzy stuff from an old cushion to pad the felt out, so basically all I did was to sew round the circle of velvet and then pull it together.

The fuzzy padding stuff - 

Don't know the technical term for this, padding I guess ?

The velvet ready for stuffing - 

Very neat isn't it ?

The cushion already to be fixed to the lid - 

Perfect for pins.

Then all that needed to be done was to glue the cushion into the lid, I used hot glue for this, and that was about it really, pretty simple for a first attempt at using different materials together to make something useful.

It works ! - 

Holds pins, jobs a goodun.

The pot part will hold plenty of pins, and as it's quite heavy it shouldn't move about too much, I made the lid a tight fit, you don't want pins spilling out all over the place.

Plenty of pin storage - 

Loads a pins.

Here's the finished item, I'm quite pleased with it - 

I think the red velvet goes well with the darkness of the wood.

And there you have it, a nice (well I think so) functional piece, simple but effective.

Thanks for reading.

Valentines wooden heart ... ...

This is a quick and easy to make valentines gift, all you need is some sticks, glue (a glue gun is probably best) something to help you make the shape (I used a large  cookie cutter) and some ribbon or string to hang it with.

You don't have to use a mould, but it is much easier to keep it all together while you work out how many sticks you need, I also found it handy to have a mould when gluing it together.


 This is what you are aiming for (or similar) -

The big stick is  apiece of pear wood

 It's up to you how you go about making this, I used a larger stick for the middle of the heart so that I could add mine and my wife's initials, big softy that I am :-)

Basically all you do is fill the mould (cookie cutter) with sections of stick the same length, I made mine about an inch long, it doesn't have to be too precise.

The sticks and cookie cutter -

Already glued but you can see what I did.

Another picture to show the thickness -

I used some eucalyptus sticks, but anything will do.

You can glue the sticks as you go, but I found that it was easier to glue the sticks with them already in the right shape, I kind of cheated by squirting glue from the glue gun into the gaps on what was the back of the heart, that way you don't see the glue from the front, keeping it in the mould makes it much less fiddly.

I wanted a larger piece of wood in the middle so that I could add a little extra to the heart, making it a little more personal. I drew our initials in pencil on the thicker part so that I could use my pyrography tool to burn the wood, if you don't have a pyrography tool you could use a soldering iron, or you can paint it, or use pens, it's up to you.

Pencil outlines - 

Not the neatest of writing.

With the pencil lines burned into the wood -

Now it just needs something for it to hang on.

It's done, well almost now it just needs something, like a loop of string, or in this case ribbon so that it can be hung on a wall, and for that all you need to do is glue the ribbon/string onto the back of the heart.

And you should end up with something like this - 

Easy peasy.

There you have it, a great handmade valentines present, takes hardly any time to make and costs next to nothing, but it's not about how much things cost, it's about the effort you put into it, the effort and though that went into making a very personal valentines gift for the special person in your life, it has to be better than getting a bunch of flowers from the local garage.

Thanks for reading.

Wood turning with intent ... ...

Normally when I turn wood I don't set out to make a specific thing, I tend to just see what happens, and sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't and sometimes I end up with a mess, or at least what looks like a mess at first glance.

One such occasion I wrote about in this post - potenstein (opens in new window) in the end things turned out okay.

This is what potenstein ended up looking like -

Metal and wood working together.

So I decided this time to actually try and make a piece that incorporated wood and another material, in this case some leather, now the last time I experimented it was because the pot I made started to crack and I thought I'd try and salvage it, this time however I set out to actually force the wood to do what I wanted, which in theory sounds easy, but not so, as I've come to discover every bit of wood behaves differently, even pieces cut from the same section will vary in the way they respond to being turned.

I decided to pick a piece of cypress for my experiment, mainly because it is the most predictable of the woods I have, even then it still has a mind of it's own, some bits crack others don't and so on.

Designing a piece of wood with a specific outcome is not really something I've done all that much of, I prefer to let the wood tell me what shape it wants to be (sounds corny, but there you go) even so I had an idea and I did do a few (very rough) sketches of what I wanted to make, so I set about turning a rough shape.

This is how it did look -

Any clues as to what I was trying to do ?

Another reason I picked cypress is because it has a nice grain pattern that I thought would emphasise what I was trying to make, at this point I was kind of hoping it would crack, only it didn't do what I wanted, which is typical really, you can bet if I'd wanted it to stay like this it wouldn't have.

I've finished it now and hopefully you can see what I was trying to do, some parts were a little more complicated than I first though, but from the responses of the few people that have seen it I think I've pulled it off.

The finished piece -

Can you guess what it is yet ?

It took me a while to figure out the best way to lace it up, and as I discovered it wasn't that easy, but it had to be done like this other wise it wouldn't have looked right, I did experiment with various lacing styles, but this one seems to suit it better.
All in all I'm quite pleased with how it turned out, although there are things I'll do differently for the next time I make one and for some of the other ideas I have I will have to adapt the method.

Thanks for reading.

Latest wood turning project ... ...

Apologies if you've been waiting for a post, seems we are currently in a situation where there really aren't enough hours in a day (or days in a week for that matter)

Due to other things I haven't been able to spend as much time at my lathe as I would like, although I'm hoping to sort that out soon.

I have managed to experiment further with the cypress I've recently acquired, I have just the other day got a load more of this type of wood, which to be honest I'm liking a lot, it's easy to work with and even though it's very green I seem to be having a lot less trouble with it in terms of warping and such like.

Latest piece -

Do you want soldiers with that ?

Yes I've made an egg, an egg box actually, again this is made from the cypress I got through freecycle, I'm going to get some more of this, but much larger pieces which I'm hoping to make some much larger pieces from, and perhaps some bowls.

Like most of the boxes / pots I make this is turned from one piece of wood, and I've applied the same logic to turning this as I did with the other cypress pot, that being I turned it a little (roughed it out) and then left it for a week or so then finished it off, this approach seems to be working, but I need to test it on some of the more difficult wood I have, mainly the fruit wood.

This piece isn't perfect, there are some small cracks on the top part (the egg) these I can easily turn out as they aren't very deep, this usually happens around knots in wood, least it does for me.

Some more pictures - 

Lid off, you can see the small cracks in the egg part.

Not as bad as they look.

I have been in some what of a dilemma about these cracks, I have to admit I quite like them, they seem to fit seeing as it's meant to be an egg, so I've wondered about making a small feature of them, however this may not be to everyone's liking so I'm not sure whether to as I intend to sell the piece in my shop, technically it's probably not a good idea to sell things with cracks in them, these won't get any worse, but as I said some people may take a dim view of the box being for sale with defects, I guess if I do decide to leave it as is and put it in my shop I'll find out.

The next thing I'm going to try with this wood is turning it end grain on, mainly to see what patterns appear as often a dull looking piece of wood yields some very interesting features when turned slightly differently, so keep a look out for that.

A few more pictures showing the grain -

The grain seems to suit designs like this.

I may turn the egg part from a different wood next time.

Thanks for reading.

Experimenting ... ...

I tend to think of myself as an experimental type of person, I'm always messing around with ideas on how to do things differently, and it has to be said I don't always get things to work how I wanted, but it's no reason to stop trying.

Just lately my main focus has been on wood turning (no surprise really) and although I have loads of wood I can't use it all as I have to wait for it to season a little first, and it was this that got me to thinking about ways to make sections of wood for turning, with out waiting for wood to season, so I can use already seasoned wood.

And not only that but I was thinking about patterns and wood grain and how to make some more interesting designs, this isn't a new idea for years wood turners have glued various types of wood together for artistic reasons and made some fantastic things.

 So the other day I made this -

What do you think ?

 Okay so it's an experiment, I'm quite happy with it, I like the way the grain goes in kind of a zig zag pattern, this pot is made from 3 different bits of wood, I'm now planning another one, but I'll be putting it together in a slightly different way to see if I can get the grain pattern a little more fluid looking.

It's made from 3 bits of 3inch by 2 inch wood, just normal pine I had lying about, I cut 3 sections and glued them together, with each section aligned differently, I tried to get the grain to run in opposite directions, the next one I make will hopefully stand out a lot more.

I also wanted to see if the glue I used would stand up to being put on a lathe and spun at 2500rpm, was a little worried that things might fly apart at speed, but it held, I left it to set for about 48 hours, and it's just normal wood glue, I also used some clamps to make sure it was held nice and tightly.

One of the problems I need to work on is hiding the joins, I think I can do this by thinking about where I put various design features, and by being clever with my cuts.
You can see the join in both pictures.

The join -

Notice the straight line about half way up ?

It has to be said that you can't see the join that well from various angles, so it won't take much more tweaking, least I don't think it will ? but I'm hoping I can make it as near to invisible as possible, this might be helped by changing the way I glue the wood together, maybe even change the glue, like I said it's all in the tweaking :-)

Over all though I was pleased with it, and the idea works, it just needs a little messing with to perfect it, at least on the outside as having the join visible on the inside isn't as important as what it looks like from the outside, it's a pot, you tend not to spend time staring into it that much, least I don't

You can clearly see the join on the inside - 

The join from the inside.

I could make it less visible by sanding the inside and polishing it, but for this piece I didn't pay too much attention to the inside :-)

Another picture - 

A nice little pot / box

Feel free to add any comments you have on the design, and whether it's worth taking further, I will start working on the next experiment, which is along the same lines, so stay tuned for that.

Thanks for reading.

Homemade peg loom ... ...

The other day I figured I'd make a wooden peg loom, and after a little research I set about finding materials and tools.

I have to be honest I'm not sure what else you can make on a peg loom apart from long rectangle / square type things, so rugs and scarf's :-) but I do know it's pretty easy to make one.

All you need to make a peg loom is a length of wood, it needs to be wide enough to accommodate your pegs, and you'll need something to make the pegs from, lengths of dowel are ideal and all these things can be picked up from any diy shop.

Here's the loom -

Load of holes.

I decided that if I made a couple of rows of holes I could use different sized pegs, which in turn means I can weave different sized things and of different thicknesses, so I guess it's a multi function loom ?

To make the holes all you need is a drill and some drill bits roughly the size of of the dowel you plan to use, you can also use spade bits, again roughly the size of the dowel, spade bits are better for larger dowel sizes.

In case you're wondering, this is a spade bit - 

Bit old and rusty, but it works.

 I made a grid on my piece of wood, I put a mark every half an inch, be sure to leave enough space between each hole as you'll need room to remove the pegs, and you'll also need room for your yarn / wool etc.

The wood ready marked - 

Ready for drilling.

Close up.

So onto the drilling, basically you just need to drill a load of holes evenly (ish) spaced, I should have used a slightly larger piece of wood for my loom as getting all the holes on it was a little bit of a squeeze.

To drill the holes I used my power drill and a drill guide, I would have used my drill stand but it broke, but you don't need to use a guide, just try and keep each hole as straight as possible.

My drill guide ready to go - 

Drill guide not essential.

The other good thing about the drill guide is you can set the depth you want to drill to, but you can just wrap a bit of tape round your spade bit or drill bit.

Using tape for depth guide - 

Insulation tape works well.

I also have a depth guide for drill bits that's a little more secure than tape, I'm pretty sure you can buy depth guides for drill bits in most diy shops.

Drill bit depth guide -

These fix on very securely.

Once you have you drill set up get drilling, try and make the holes deep enough so that the peg won't pull out easily, saves everything falling apart if the loom gets knocked over.

Once you have the holes drilled you then need to sort your dowel out, I used 3 different thicknesses and I cut them to lengths of between 3 inches and 5 inches, 3 inches for the smallest dowel, 4 inches for the next sized up and 5 inches for the largest.

The dowel - 

Ready for cutting.

3 different sizes.

You can use a hack saw to cut the dowel or any type of saw really, it's best to make sure you have enough pegs to fill every hole, even if you don't plan to use loads of pegs, you might later on.

Dowel all cut to length - 

I use rubber bands to hold them in bundles.

Now you need to sand both ends of each dowel (which may take some time) this will make sure the wool / yarn doesn't get snagged on the pegs, if your pegs are a little too tight in their holes you can sand the ends, or use a sharp knife to trim them a little.

Sanding them like this is okay - 

Nice and smooth, sort of.

The last thing you need to do is drill holes in each peg, this is to thread the yarn  you will be using to hold it all together (don't worry I have some pictures of me using it to give you an idea of what I'm on about :-)

I found that having the pegs in the loom was the easiest way to drill the holes, you want each hole about 1cm above the length of wood, and you'll need to make sure that the holes in each peg aren't too big as this will weaken the pegs, you can use larger holes in the larger sized pegs.

Holes drilled in the pegs, nearly ready to weave - 

Ready to weave.

 It's really easy to use a loom like this, and it's easy to build it as well, so it would make a great project for kids to try themselves, although smaller children may need supervising when doing some parts of the build, like the drilling for instance, it's also cheap, I had most of the stuff, and the dowels cost about £4 for all of them.

 You can use all sorts of things to weave with, wool, rope, t-shirt material, you can find some great how to's online and by searching for weaving on a peg loom.

Now here's a few pictures of me weaving on the loom so you have half an idea of what to do with it.

To start get some wool and thread it through each peg - 

Use a needle to help with threading.

Just using 6 pegs for now.

Once you have your pegs threaded you can then start weaving, this is basically a case of winding the thread round the pegs, remember to tie the ends of the thread together, otherwise it'll all slide off the end.

Weaving begins -

Tie your yarn to the starting peg.

Then start winding between each peg.

And this is how you continue, once you reach the top of your pegs you can then pull them out and slide your work down, then put them back into their holes and start winding your yarn again.

About half way.

Carefully slide each peg out.

Don't worry about the gap as you can slide it altogether.

And once you've got to your desired size you can just pull all the pegs out and then all you need to do is cut the threads from the pegs and either tie them off of stitch them back into your work, again watching a few how to's will be an idea (I plan to watch some as well as I quite enjoyed weaving on the loom)

My finished piece, all be it a tester and very small :-)

Not bad ?

I found you can adjust the piece once you've finished it (before you tie it all off) you can bunch it all up or spread it out, it's quite flexible.

And there you have it, now the nights are drawing in and things are getting colder this might be an ideal thing to keep you busy at night and you can make yourself a nice rug :-)

It would also be possible to tie the threads to a piece of dowel and weave through each thread in much the same way you would with a traditional loom, and by looping the wool over the pegs instead of going through them you'll only need to tie off one end, and it has to be said there is a lot of satisfaction to be had in making your own equipment and then making something with it.

Thanks for reading.