Mushrooms!

Caught mushroom fever last week and turned a couple dozen of them.

They turn pretty quick, and the cost is nominal.

All of the wood came from a few Ash trees I cut down and a large Oak branch that fell down a couple weeks ago.


A 5" high mushroom can be turned on the lathe, sanded on the lathe and then dipped in BLO-Thinner (boiled linseed oil cut 50/50 with paint thinner) all in about 10-15 minutes, and kinda fun too.

Pens, pens, pens

The pictures below show some of the more than 300 pens I have made over the past year or so. I have given some away, sold a few and others are on display in an art gallery right now.

Pens are pretty easy to make once you have the right equipment and materials, and a little bit of patience. In total time it takes about 30 minutes to make a pen but that time is spent over a day or more depending. Maybe I'll do a tutorial on how I create a pen.


These pens are "Slimline Fancy" style and there are many other styles available. Within that style structure there are about 13 different kinds of pen finishes with gold and chrome being the most common. They are "twist" type pens where you twist the top half of the pen to make the point come out of the bottom.

Pedestal Bowl

This is a pedestal bowl I recently made. It is 7"d x 7"h and is made from aspen, walnut and maple woods. This bowl is currently on display in the Pryde Bayliss art gallery in downtown Nashville, Brown County, Indiana as well as 10 more of my bowls and 34 of my custom pens.

Spruce Bowl

Here is a Spruce bowl I turned on my lathe.
It is about 9" in diameter x about 3" high.

Spruce is a soft wood from a conifer tree and turns very easily, too easily it seems.
I prefer turning hardwoods as it seems like I have better control of the cutting process/
But spruce is inexpensive and easily found.

A Wooden Bowl

The pictures below show some of the steps I use to make a wooden bowl on my lathe. This particular bowl is made of mahogany and aspen wood and is approximately 7" in diameter and 4" tall.

Many times this is how I start a woodworking project, by drawing it in AutoCAD on my computer.

This bowl consists of (4) pieces of 3/4" thick mahogany and (1) 3/4" thick piece of aspen, glued and clamped.


Here, the glued up mahogany and aspen are mounted on my Turncrafter lathe. Notice that on the headstock side (left) is a piece of spruce which is glued to the last piece of mahogany. This piece of wood is sacrificial and will be cut away from the final bowl. It is there so that I have a place to screw the steel faceplate to so as to keep the screws from damaging the mahogany.

The wood was glued up as 7-1/4" square pieces and then after the glue dried I found the center and then drew a circle on the end with a compass. Then I cut the corners off on my Palmgren band saw.


The wood has been rounded on the lathe and is ready for the outside to be roughed into shape.


In this picture the outside of the bowl has been roughed into shape and I've started hollowing out the interior. Look at the amount of wood shavings that are produced.


The bowl shaping is complete and now I will move on to the extensive amount of sanding that is necessary.


The bowl has been sanded and this shot shows the side profile.


You can see the interior in this picture.


I use MicroMesh in the final sanding stage.


I screw clamped a 12" steel pipe to the toolrest so that I could reach further into the interior of the bowl with the carving tools.


Some of my lathe carving tools, most were purchased from PennState Industries.

First Post - The Workshop

This is the first post on this blog and it has a picture of the outside of my workshop from this past Jan 2010.

The building is 24'x36' and the right 1/3 is my office and the left 2/3 is my workshop, so the workshop is about 24'x24' and the office is about 12'x24'. In later posts I will show some pictures of the inside of the shop. It has an 8' high ceiling and is fully insulated. Eventually there will be a wood burning stove in the shop and I'll burn all my scrap wood and sawdust in it as well as any paper products that accumulate.

Currently my power tool inventory is this:

• DeWalt DW744 Table Saw
• Palmgren 10" Band Saw
• Craftsman 10" Compound Miter Saw
• Turncrafter 10" Midi Lathe
• Delta 10" Drill Press
• Craftsman 4"x36" Stationary Belt Sander
• Craftsman 5 Gallon Compressor

I also have numerous 18v powered hand tools, mainly Ryobi, and lots of unpowered hand tools as well.

Most of my power tools are on stands with casters so I can move them around as necessary.

There are (2) 8'w x 7'h overhead garage doors on the east side of the shop, a 3'x3' single hung window in the center of the south wall and another window in the center of the rear wall or west wall, over top of my 8' workbench.

Flanking each side of the workbench are 4' wide floor to ceiling tool and equipment cabinets. On the north wall of the shop are 12' long shelves containing miscellaneous stuff as well as paints, stains and various other supplies. On the south wall next to the overhead door is where I store most of my raw materials, lumber.

The shop is a work in process which began in the fall of 2006 when I and a helper built it. Currently there is R13 insulation in the walls which are sheathed on the inside with 1/2" OSB (oriented strand board). The ceiling has R38 insulation but no sheathing yet. The sheathing will be installed before the next cold season starts. The floor is poured concrete.

There are (4) 4' long fluorescent shop lights in the ceiling as well as a ceiling fan right in the middle. This past winter I heated the shop with (1) 4' long 1000 watt baseboard heater. The heater is undersized and it takes 24 hours after turning it on for the temperature to get up to the 60 degree range.

Welp, that's all for now, I'll post more about the shop, the tools, the materials and the end results of what I do in this shop. I'll also post some info on the office which is the heart of where of the ideas and plans originate.