Holly Natural Edged Bowl

This is the bowl that I made in the two Youtube Videos, they can be seen here:

Part One
Part Two

The bowl has been finished with finishing oil and buffed on the 3 wheel system by Chestnut.

I am reasonably happy with the bowl, it has good points all round, the form is OK but a tiny bit flat at the base, I would have preferred a more continuous curve.

More colour and something different.

 

Three small bowls that have a similar colouring, my current favourite combination of several of the Chestnut range of stains.

The first two bowls are the ones that were out of shot in the Holly video, number one is a small Ash bowl, the 20p piece is about the same size as a nickel.

Bowl number two is Sycamore, the design based on suggestions in Richard Raffans book.

Bowl 3 is Ash again, with a nice ridged design giving texture as well as colour.

The next two images are of a wall hanging I made from a scrap of old Elm I found under the workbench, this was a real challenge to work, it flew off the lathe 5 times in the process of it's creation, but the end result justifies the effort I think.

Really Wild Vases

I finally got round to editing these images of some of the items I sold at St Davids.

First up is a little hollow form in Sycamore, this item sold within ten minutes of the gates opening!

The images are in sequence so you get to see all round the vase.

Also here are a couple of shots of the Natural Edged Sycamore Bowl coloured to resemble the blue lagoon at Abereiddi.

Another successful colouring

I am so pleased with this Hollow form, it is exactly the shape I wanted and the colours, inspired by a piece by Phil Irons I saw in a book, have turned out just perfect, plus I have managed to get a first class finish using Chestnut spray lacquer and the buffing wheels, the piece is destined for a nearby art gallery (where it will be for sale) but for a day or two I want to enjoy it at home!

The lower images show the piece prior to colour being applied

Back to work.

After a short break I am getting back into the turning and the latest creation has pleased me much, as well as others who have seen it so far (I know colouring wood is anathema to some, but I really like it!)

So, here is the Deep Blue Bowl.

Really Wild Food Festival at the Bishops Palace St David's

Along with Jane Bevans who does the most wonderful drawings of animals, and Andy Scott who makes garden furniture, I got invited to display my work at the above festival for one day, we arrived early and got the table set up by about 9:30 on a gloriously sunny May bank holiday, we couldn't have wished for better weather. Jane and husband Steve set up alongside us in our assigned "Tent" and we were able to relax for an hour before folks started arriving in earnest to the examine the many stalls with much to see and indeed sample (I was lucky enough to be able to make a quick round and sample a very nice welsh single malt, non chill filtered and bottled at 46%, plus it was also organic! Ralphy should check this stuff out)

As I got back to the stall Jenny was in the process of making the first sale of the day, my prized item, a dark coloured hollow form vase.

We did very well for the day covering our costs and even covering some material outlay for the workshop equipment too.

All in all an excellent day which was only slightly marred by the odd disappearance of a rather nice Thuya Burr & Ebony finial box which, not only was I therefore unable to sell, but I don't have any photo's of it either, I had thought perhaps I left it at home, but when I got back it isn't here, so that's a perturbing mystery.

Here is a nice shot taken by Jane of us at the very beginning of the day after we had set up.

I would like to say thank you to all the nice people who bought the items from me, I enjoyed meeting and talking to you, and even to those who enjoyed a chat but were not tempted!

Pearshaped or what?

"That's life!"  is the frequent expression for vagaries that befall us, so what vagaries have I been under the baleful influence of then?

Well, first off I was progressing very nicely with a smart little hollow form vase,

Alas! An instant of lost concentration reduced it to an example of what to avoid.

Then the lathe itself started playing up, intermittently refusing to start, followed by the extractor fan system failing and a further loss of a good sized bowl down to trying to work too late and again losing concentration, I went through the side wall, too thin!

Nvertheless, not all a loss, I did at least manage to make this neat little Natural Edged Bowl from a nice piece of Ash Burr.

Alls well etc!!

Thin

Well it's absolutely freezing outside, I had an electric ceramic heater set up on the lathe bed itself in an effort to keep warm, it was partially successful!
Reading through a few websites I cam across one covering thin stemmed Goblets, also after viewing the french trembleur turning I was keen to attempt a skinny one, and as such the following pics record the result.

I plan on doing a few more of these for future exhibitions.

I managed to sell a few items from the high street shop but sales have slackened right off again now. Meanwhile I have been invited to display some stuff at the St Davids Wild Food Festival in May, so with that in mind I have been pretty busy roughing out sufficient material to have it dry and ready to finish in time for the event.

I thought while doing this it would be a good opportunity to create another video, this time showing the process of roughing out a natural edged bowl, in Holly. You can see the video here

Much has transpired since the last update, several items sold over the holiday period from a shop in town, family have also been buying up stock for presents etc which is really nice, so several bowls sold including the multicoloured Ash bowl and also the Green vase.

I uploaded a video to youtube demonstrating the buffing wheels, apart from my talking during the process which makes the vocal a bit hard to hear, it was pretty good for a first attempt.

See the video here.

Also a new variation on the colouring with this nice little vase.

See more pics here

After yet another hiatus I have been once again busy in the workshop trying to get some stock together for the present buying spree I am hoping several will be indulging in via my pages on Etsy and Ebay, Optimism rules!

Mainly bowls right now as all the blanks I roughed out earlier are coming dry enough to complete, also I am beginning to experiment a little more with the colouring and so far it has been interesting and rewarding, at least I am not horrified by the results!

So, here are a few pictures to illustrate current stock.

Should one of these take your fancy head to the website www.kimsart.co.uk and go to the woodturning section, find the bowls and click the images, this will take you to the Etsy page for Shopswood.