This is the second one of these that I’ve made, and to be honest, I think the muse for this project is on life support and the prognosis is not good for any kind of recovery.  For this one, I decided to do the same pattern throughout the bowl, which is different than the others.  I also limited the coloring to just red, letting the yellow the wood and the blackness of the wood burning make the rest of the color scheme.  Although I really didn’t intend for it to happen, this design looks even more “snake like” than the other one.

This will be thrown in the box with the others:

My daughters are rabid Harry Potter fans.  All of them, without exception!  This all stems from my oldest daughter, Alexa.  When the first book came out in ’97, she read it and was immediately hooked.  I swear, looking back, there were times she’d mutter spells under her breath when she was mad, but I didn’t know what “crucio” meant.  She kept telling everyone who would listen how great the books were, but the other kids were younger and didn’t seem to care.  The second book came out and Alexa was all over it!  It was about then that the mainstream media had picked up how successful the book was and the hype machine started in full swing.  By the time the third book was released, I’m pretty sure that I was one of the only adults in the Midwest who hadn’t read (or started to read) at least one of the books and my other kids were behind the same eight ball.

Alexa had a remedy.  Since my ex-wife and their mother had decreed we would be driving out of state every weekend, everyone was subjected to a three hour car ride on Friday night, and a subsequent three hour car ride back on Sunday night.  Alexa decided that she would start with the first book and read the story to her siblings.  Being trapped in the same car, it would have been rude to turn up the radio or to try to talk over her, so we all sat – in three hour chunks – listening to her read.  She was really into the story and for a jr. high student, she was phenomenal.  Hell, for any grade, she was phenomenal!  All of the characters had their own voice, she read loud enough so the front seat could hear over the engine noise and loud enough the back seat could hear without removing their seatbelts and leaning over the seat.  She even controlled the pace of her reading so it sped up during the really exciting parts and slowed down during the more dramatic moments.  That first Friday, by the time we got to Missouri, the first three hours had passed, yet we all sat in the car, quietly listening, as she finished the chapter she had started.  There began the routine:  Alexa would read, everyone would listen, when we arrived, we’d either finish the current chapter or go through another chapter if the story was at a critical point.  The trip home was largely the same, except since it was usually very late, all reading had to be done by the time we hit the driveway.  With each new book release, the routine would be revived and the drives seemed to go by much faster.

Flash forward 20 years or so and Alexa is still a fan, teaching her fiancé and their son all of the subtleties of the Potter universe and pointing out the glaring differences between the exceptional books and the so-so movies!

Then, she posted on Facebook about an event they would be attending.  It was a full emersion type of evening at a local bar, where patrons were encouraged to create their Harry Potter universe character, dress up in full – Hogwarts house appropriate –  costumes, consume special drinks made for the occasions (butter beer, Polyjuice potions and the like), compete in wizarding games, and answer trivia.  As soon as she saw the event, she started upgrading their current costumes.  (Yes, she has current costumes!)  Here’s the thing, though:  Wizards need wands!  Anyone can go on Amazon and buy one of the replica wands from the movie, but that would mean you’d be walking around with someone else’s wand, not your own.  Really, do you want to be the 15th person to whip out the elder wand and try to stupefy the waitress?  People have also tried to DIY their own with dowel rods or some other Pintrest hack, but that just looks kind of amateurish and the rest of their costumes are spot on!  I figured I could help her out.  Maybe it’s just because I like to see her smile or maybe it’s a very belated thank you for making all of those hundreds of car rides bearable, but I figured I could use the skills I have in wood turning and wood carving to make something “better”.

My first thought and attempt was to make the wand part out of colored resin, with something suspended inside the epoxy, like a dragonheart string or a unicorn tail hair.  Then, that piece could be set into a handle, making a cool looking wand that was in the appropriate house colors.  Great idea, right?  Well something we terribly wrong with the epoxy process and this was the result of the Slytherin wand.  Even casting a “Stiffinup Viagris” spell won’t help this one!

I went to plan B.

The neighbor across the street took down a tree that was growing next to their house and piled all of the branches in the street.  I liberated a few that were fairly straight and about two inches across.  I put the branches on the lathe, turned some kind of handle on them, then tried to get as much of the wood off the wand as possible.  For those not familiar with turning, these wands are 18″ long, and the slowest my little lathe goes is 200 RPM.  Even at that (relatively) slow speed, as wood is removed, the wood will start to flex in the middle, like a jumprope.  Eventually, I took the wands off the lathe, then finished up sanding everything “freehand” on the belt sander.  Added a little color (Black dye and black enamel paint for the Slytherin wand and Danish Oil for the Ravenclaw wand) then added a resin insert into the handle just to show off the house colors.

These ended up being extremely light and somehow I managed to balance the weight of the handle pretty well against the length of the wand.  I think I’m pleased with the way these came out and hope they like them.  I also hope the mailman doesn’t accidently shake the box wrong and end up casting an inadvertent Sectum sempra spell on some unsuspecting passerby.  It could happen…

Some may remember awhile back I made a lidded bowl, using metal reactive paint.  This is paint that has metal flakes imbedded into the paint, so it can be oxidized while it’s wet, causing the paint itself to rust.  Here’s a link to that bowl.

I decided to make a companion piece for this bowl and settled on making a bottle.  Gotta have something to drink while you’re eating the plunder of your enemies, right?  This is made from ash, that had a LARGE number of cracks in the wood.  There’s almost a 1:1 ratio of CA glue to wood under all that paint.  The iron lines at the bottom were made by cutting thin strips of wood (Brazilian mesquite), then soaking them in water and clamping them around a circle to get them to bend.  They, they were attached with upholstery tacks.  The top part was done with thin pieces of basket weaving reeds.

Really like this one and could easily see a plate coming in the very near future…

This woodturning hobby is kinda fun!  The more I do of it, the more I’m starting to understand that it really does take a split personality to be successful.  One part of your mind has to always be thinking about the tool in your hand.  This is the technical part.  The part that tells you to speed up or slow down the lathe, which chisel/scraper/gouge to use, and eventually allows your fingers to be used as consistently accurate calipers to gauge wall thickness.  When making something, this is the part that generally consumes the vast majority of whatever gray matter I have that’s not already devoted to breathing and standing upright.  Another personality is the artistic side.  This is the side that can look at something and realize that the bowl’s too fat or too tall, that the embellishment doesn’t look “right”, or that the overall piece is just plain icky.  Maybe this can be taught, but I suspect some people have a more innate ability to see this stuff than others.  Being able to listen to both personalities is, in my humble opinion, what separates an average turner from a good or great turner.  I think I’m becoming a good turner.

Then there the last tiny little sliver that comes into the mix.  I’ll call it creativity, but I’m not sure that’s the right word.  Others call it having a muse.  It’s being able to look at a block of wood and seeing something to make.  It’s the mental glue that  ties the technical and artistic sides together.  It’s that intangible “thing” that separates a good or great turner from an artist.  I’m convinced this can’t be taught, it’s just somewhere that lurks in a the back of a person’s brain and was likely put there in the womb.  (I also suspect that there are those who are born with this ability, but with the right negative reinforcement as a very young child, it can be killed or locked away to prevent the child from being too far off the anticipated path to financial success.) I’m not claiming to be an artist, I’m no where near that level!  I still have a workshop, not a studio, I don’t create names for what I create that convey some hidden meaning, and I absolutely hate talking with other artists who spend more time talking about their motivation to make the piece than the actual piece itself.

This little project, however, is most likely the closest I’ve come to actually having a muse whisper.  This started as a plain, cherry bowl blank that I had made up as turning fodder for a class I was teaching at my son’s high school.  when I put it on the lathe, the technician in me was intending to make a small, plain, bowl about a quarter inch thick.  It would be good practice.  The artistic side was already offering up ideas for wood burning designs and was pushing hard for a particular pattern inside the bottom, covered in clear colored epoxy.  (I might still get to that project at some point…)  I put the headphones on (which is something I usually don’t do while turning) and quickly roughed out the blank.  It was taller than it should have been for a simple bowl, so the technician inside me changed the plan to make a box.  It would be a taller box, with a flat, inset let on the very top, and it would be sanded to 2000 grit.  The artistic part decided it would have zentangle patterns added, then colored with India ink and perhaps embossed with colored epoxy putty.

As I started to work on the shape, the song “Return to Pooh Corner” by Kenny Loggins came on and I will admit, my mind drifted.  It drifted a LOT!  Before I knew or consciously realized what I was doing, I looked at what was spinning on the lathe in front of me and realized the shape of a hunny pot was staring back at me.  I turned the lathe off and just looked at what I had done, stunned.  The technician said, “ok, well if you’re changing the plan on me, then we need to clean up the cove , get started on a recess for the lid and figure out what tool to use for the hollowing”.  The artistic side had already jumped to a potential process for adding fake honey drips.  The muse just giggled and said, “put the song on repeat.  You and Kenny aren’t done, yet”.

Not to sound all new-age-whack-job, but this was a completely different experience than I’ve had from any other turning that I’ve made.  It’s both exciting and somehow unnerving to realize that my mind “wandered much further today than I should” while I was using a power tool.  That could have been disastrous!  It was also kind of unsettling that as soon as I realized the shape I was looking at was a honey pot, I instantly knew exactly how the final product would look, from the finish on the wood, to the fake honey drops, to where the fake bees would need to be added.

Don’t think I’ll be giving this one away or selling it anytime soon.  This one is different, somehow.

A month or so ago I had taken several pieces of a mulberry log and rough turned bowl blanks.  They were all about equal size and thickness when I put them into the kiln to dry.  They were not so equal when they came out.  The first two  bowls just surrendered to their fate and came out with no cracking, minimal warping, and were quickly finished.  (They’re posted as mulberry bowl #4 and #5.)  The last one must have come from the shady side of the tree and didn’t want to give up the fight…

When it came out of the kiln, I sized up my enemy.  They had warped themselves, not so much so that the blank was unusable, but enough that it would require extra steps and time to make it able to be turned.  Nice try, but I have the skills to best this trick and was clearly winning this battle.  It had a more difficult trick, however, as it cracked itself along 80% of the outside of the blank.  My enemy just smiled up at me as if to say it was now on top.  Since there was no visible sign of the crack on the inside of the blank, I figured the crack wasn’t that deep and I’d be able to “turn it away” while making the final bowl.  Just to be safe, I filled the large visible crack and some smaller cracks on the end grain with two part epoxy mixed with dye.  I figured that would be strong enough to hold everything together as I finished the turning, and if any remained, it would look decorative.  I was clearly back in the lead.  The outside of the bowl worked perfectly!  The surface was smooth, the epoxy repair looked like I had intended, and no blood was shed.  When I flipped the bowl around to turn the inside, about halfway through thinning the wood down, I heard/felt a loud “POP” and the bowl suddenly didn’t look like it was round anymore.  My enemy had counter attacked!  I shut off the lathe and realized that as wood was removed on the inside of the bowl, stress within the wood caused the crack to expand to about 90% of the bowl and the entire inside surface was now cracked as well.  The whole thing was literally being held together by an inch of epoxy on one side and faith in a kind and loving god who had decided I didn’t need to go to the emergency room on the other.  I filled all the exposed parts of the crack with CA glue, set the whole thing aside to let the glue dry, and declared a cease fire.  This enemy was tougher than I expected.

The next day, I took the project over to a friend of mine (Bob) and asked, “What ideas do you have for this?  After a very thorough review of the crack, the epoxy and the CA glue, Bob applied his 40+ years of turning expertise into a single, direct response:  “I think you should throw the whole thing away and start over”.  Subtlety was not a part of his thoughts and he had clearly sided with my enemy.  He wasn’t nearly as trusting as I was about the strength of the epoxy and CA glue to hold things together and painted a picture of just how much damage was going to be done when this bowl completely failed on the lathe and came flying back in my face at 2000 RPMs.  There would be gaping wounds, the sudden loss of multiple teeth, and a growing puddle of blood that would need to be mopped up before it got on the tools.  Then, he earnestly suggested we start a different project.  I could sense the bowl was laughing at me in a way only the truly victorious would comprehend.  While I understood the logical response Bob made, I was somehow saddened by how quickly he had given up the fight and seemed to support the enemy vessel.  When I opened my mouth to respond, I truly was intending to surrender by saying, “Yeah, I think you’re right…”.  But as the words came out I heard myself say,  “Yeah, well, I think I’m gonna risk it anyway.”  The war was not lost, at least not today, Satan!

I swear Bob glanced at me with a look of disapproval so clear you could actually hear it!

We turned the lathe speed down, wore appropriate safety garb, got the cell phone ready to dial 911, and made sure not to stand directly in front of the line of fire when the lathe started spinning.  After 30 minutes of turning, I was back on top.  The epoxy and CA glue was holding just fine, everything was round and ready for sanding.  Then, the evil bowl sprung it’s last attack by using my own work against me.  All those black lines creating by filling in the cracks looks really bad and out of place.  It was like the bowl had purposely made itself look ugly, so no one would want it!  Those lines would need to be addressed, somehow.  Bob’s solution was to use the cracks to provide some kind of alignment/guide as to where the match should be placed when it was put into the chimenea to burn.  I heard surrender and accept defeat at the will of the mighty mulberry bowl.  My solution was to incorporate the lines into some kind of surface embellishment, i.e. never surrender!  When I said that out loud, Bob gave me a look that seemed to be a cross between “why would you even want to try to do that” and “what the hell is wrong with you, boy?”.

The next day, after a couple beers and some Pooh like pondering, I settled on a plan to use the cracks placed as a barricade to my success by the bowl as the stems for ferns.  A little wood burning and some India ink that was supposed to be the color of lettuce and this creation was done.

What do you think?  Was it worth the effort or should I have admitted defeat, handed Bob my zippo and let fire cleanse all mistakes?

I hate making the same thing twice!  Yeah, I’ve done it, but usually it’s been by accident when I make something and then remember later that I’ve actually made something very similar before.  Lately, I’ve been working through a bunch of birch logs that my daughters helped me procure.  For this one, it had the same striking grain pattern as the others, needed a little epoxy, like the others, and would end up being about the same size.  As I started the turning the blank, deja’ vu started to creep in, but what to do?

After looking at the wood, I decided that I’d try to make a footed bowl, which I’ve never done before.  To do this, the bottom of the bowl has to be made into a ring, then pieces of the ring are removed until just the feet remain.  Sounds easy, right?  Well, not so right!  My high school geometry teacher would have shook his head in disgust as I was trying to figure out how to find the exact three points on the circle that would make the legs equidistant from each other.  (Sorry, Mr. Zoerb!)   I finally remember the geometry take home packet we did, where the radius of a circle can be used to make six points on the circle, then I just erased every other one.  Problem solved!

I started out using a Dremel to remove the excess wood, but even with the most aggressive bit that I own, it was taking way too long and the edge looked like it had been gnawed out by beavers.  A quick trip to Farm and Fleet showed me that a 60 grit flap sanding wheel is just as aggressive, but it’s much easier to control and leaves a somewhat smooth edge.  I mounted it in a drill press and started again.  MUCH better!  Once the shape of the legs was done, all I had to do was run through the grits by hand up to 600, then apply some lacquer as a finish, and the final project was done.  Not sure I’ll make another one of these, but if I do, the legs won’t be nearly as long and they’ll be much smaller, like tiny little points that the bowl will sit on.

Here’s the final product:

This one is hands down, the best thing I’ve made in a very long time!

This wood came from the birch tree that the girls helped me salvage this spring.  When I was roughing out the blank, a huge chuck of wood came flying off.  Turns out (no pun intended) that there was a tree branch embedded in the wood that must have broken off and the tree grew around it.  Because of where the divot was, I decided to flip the bowl and make it a natural edge piece, hoping the hole would be turned out.  As the piece was shaped, a whole bunch of stress fractures started appearing in the wood.  I’m not sure this was from the drying process or if it was from the remaining wood readjusting as internal stress was released by the turning.  Either way, once the shape was set, I took it off the lathe and put it in the kiln to finish drying.

After a month in the kiln, I started to re-turn the bowl, but more and more cracks started coming out in the wood.  When I started to add the colored epoxy to fill the big hole that was in the bottom, there were so many cracks within the bowl, epoxy started leaking out all over the place!  Every time I’d get one crack plugged, epoxy would leak from some place else.  It took several layers of tape, several pours of epoxy, and a lot of clean up of the garage floor, but eventually, the cracks were full.  It wasn’t until I started to turn off the tenon on the bottom of the bowl that I realized just how deep the cracks were and how many weird angles they ran through the wood, which explains why it took so much resin.  Most of the sanding had to be done off the lathe, by hand, because the wood really wasn’t that stable.

All things considered, although this was a pain in the ass to make, I think the final product was definitely worth it!

Awhile back, I found this piece that I had turned a year or so ago, then cast aside.  I’m not sure what kind of wood it is or why it wasn’t finished.  Only think I can think of is it was very plain and I must not have had any inspiration on what do to with it.  Today, I pulled it back out and decided to try a different process for splattering it with paint.

For some reason, when the centrifugal force pushed the paint off the bottom of the bowl, instead of coming up thick at first and then starting to thin, it just came off the bottom on the bowl in very tiny streaks.  When it was done, I was just about to sand all the paint off and try something else when it hit me that it almost looked like grass.  I burned some dragonflies into the side, which I think helped.  Maybe it needs a caterpillar and a butterfly somewhere, too…

The last mulberry bowl that I turned I left with a natural finish.  There was no coloring, no woodburning, no other embelishments, and nothing to interfere with the wide growth rings and yellow color.

This is the other half of the log.  Same size, same grain pattern (more or less) and it ended up being nearly the same exact bowl as the last one.  I hate that!  I decided to add some wood burning and some color, just to break things up.  I picked a growth ring on the bowl, then woodburned a design following the ring as it made it’s way around the bowl.  I think I like this one, but now, I’m wondering just how many of these an ash bowl could have…

I’ve lost track of how many bowls I’ve made or remade out of the hoard of mulberry that I got a couple years back.  Here’s another one, only now that I have a little bigger lathe, I can make a little bigger bowls.  This one’s about 15″ across and about 3″ deep.  Really like the grain pattern on this one and the yellowness of the wood.  Still, it looks a little “plain jane” to me.  Maybe if I added some woodburning…