Well a large lump of Queensland Silky Oak has been turned into a large bowl. The final shape was dictated by the shape of the blank. I was trying to maximise the size.This whole thing of the wood  taking charge of the shape seems to be  a recurring theme in the bowls that I have made .

The bowl is approximately 250mm in diameter and 100mm deep.The bowl was finished with wet and dry paper after the usual dry sanding. I finished it with a food safe oil Ecowoodoil called “Natural Woodwipe”. Must say that is went on well its quite thin and seems to soak in well.

Having problems with a “fatal memory allocation” error. Haven’t been able to access the blog for several weeks. The culprit seems to be a plugin called WPTouch. This hasn’t been a problem up to now with this plugin. Although the error has occurred before when upgrading WordPress.

There doesn’t seem to bea definitive answer to the problem

The logo of the blogging software WordPress. Deutsch: WordPress Logo ??: WordPress Logo (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

although PHP and or the hosting service usually get the blame.

I tried to upload the post from iPhone but this failed as well.  So a cut and paste, an  email and another cut paste and here we are.

Another frustration maybe I can get back to my usual run of posts.

More windows 8 testing. I have used the new operating system for a few more hours. The system has not crashed and seems to run well., A cold start seems much slower than a similar start on Windows 7. There is the much publicised lack of the start button! This had me confused as I had set the machine as dual-boot on my laptop, I thought that I had lost the windows 7 install. Anyway a quick Google search and I found a way to create a desktop shortcut and a new tile on the start page.

I still haven’t been marvelled by the new system. I am using IE 10 for this post and that seems ok as well. At the moment I can’t really see a compelling reason to upgrade. However time will tell.

The system called for an optimization utility to run. Now the system is more responsive.

I couldn’t help myself when it came to the consumer preview of Win 8. I had decided to leave it alone and keep using Win 7 and wait. I am writing this on Win 8 CP (64 Bit) and using IE 10. I partitioned the hard drive on my laptop creating a 100GB drive and installed Win 8 there, all default settings.  The installation was a breeze, the first windows install that I  did was from a pile of floppy disks about 16 as I recall. This time it all done from a USB stick.

Now I have a dual booting system Win7 and 8 both 64bit versions. Win7 is the default system but its was enough to access Win8. There are already several how to guides on the net. I found the on Latopmag’s blog really helpful.

The operating system is harder to assess after only a few hours of use, no crashes. Office 2007 has installed happily, Google Chrome is humming along nicely. Haven’t found where I can set Google as the default search yet in IE10. I didn’t like the absence of a start/shutdown key, but those trusty people in the interwebs already have a work around for that and now I have a shortcut on the desktop and the start page.

This is a nice place to mention the Start page part of the new Metro interface. I am not really sure that I like it or dislike for that matter. It does like many things seem like a good idea but it is different. IT is not unlike the home page in an iPad or the launch pad on OSX Lion, but not exactly the same. I have started deleting tiles that I wouldn’t use. Office 2007 installed a range of tiles including a VBA certificate!

The gestures aren’t really that good as my laptop has a relatively small track pad. I do like pointing to the corners for stuff, top left to switch between apps and top left to access “charms”. The charms allow access to settings, search and start page quickly and easily.

The opinion so far.  Vista was awful, Win7 was great, Win 8 not sure. So far I haven’t been overwhelmed, but not disappointed either, only time will tell.

Being new to this whole bandsaw thing it came as surprise when I managed to melt the blade guides on my bandsaw. I bought the bandsaw as ex floor stock from Carbatec. This saved me some dollars and the machine was fully assembled or so I thought. I have been using the saw for about 2 years without really fiddling with it. The horizontal stop was missing so I have installed that.

The guides have had a major upgrade with roller bearing guides. The whole upgrade took about 3/4 hour. The blade is now much more accurate and stable.  I had to remove the cutting table as per the picture at the lower right. Cutting is more efficient and I think less requires less energy from the bandsaw which might reduce wear and tear. It is always good to work on your machines as it increases your understanding of how it all works.

Upper guides

Lower guides

When wood turning you never know what you will get. It brings to mind the famous line from the Forrest Gump film “life is like a box of chocolates etc……”. I am currently making two pepper grinders from the remnants of a garden sleeper,which as I recall was described as Queensland hard wood. This doesn’t really mean much but the wood is hard meaning that there is a lot of tool sharpening.

There was enough material for to make the grinders about 16 inches long. The timber had been drying in the backyard for about 7 or 8 years, nice and dry without any apparent cracks. HOwever both pieces have cracks and bits flying off during turning. All is not lost bring on the superglue! Using a thin and runny superglue its possible to run the glue into cracks and stabilise them. To deal with the bits that keep flying off there is a thicker version of the glue that is useful to reattached the missing bits. This usually means searching around the shop or in the piles of shavings on the floor. In each case the glue is set using an aerosol accelerator.

Glued piece

Marvellous stuff however there are still the holes left by the bits I couldn’t find. Apparently 5 minute Araldite is the go here. I will see how this goes.

We bought a chair some time ago at a church jumble sale. My wife has an affection for chairs and we have a small collection chairs that are all a little different.
In my eyes the chair is rather unusual. Unlike most wooden chairs the back legs are in two pieces. They are split at the level of the seat. The whole assembly is held together by wood screws; the old fashioned slotted kind. I have never seen this sort of construction before. However talking to a man who is 76 about this chair he said that as a child they had a whole dining suite with chairs like this.
The other feature of the construction is that all the rungs have turned tenons. On first inspection they appear to be dowels, as per my sketch below.

When we purchased the chair the front  rung was missing and this has been on my list of things to do.  My new hobby of wood-turning has allowed me to make a  replacement rung. I was fortunate to have some old timber from a piece of furniture that was long past its use by date.  The new rung is almost inextinguishable from the material found in the chair. A bit of Danish oil and some wax sees the chair ready for a new life.

A small bowl fashioned from some firewood. I had originally intended to make the bowl with a small post in the middle for rings. However as it turned out (no pun intended) I decided that this would be a lead in project. It only me second bowl.
I think that the wood is a piece of red gum. The bowl was largely shaped and turned with scrapers. I finished the bowl with Ubeaut’s EEE polishing cream and shellac.

Well the red gum bowl is coming along except for the big hole in the bottom.  The bowl was mounted  on a chuck after having a recess turned on the base. I got so involved in making the sides thin I scraped out the centre of the chuck mount.

As a newbie woodturner this may have been a total disaster and the bowl would have ended up as scrap. However as I am doing a course the teacher said that he  must have done this 21 dozen times! So a mistake is re-emerging as a feature.

The the inside of the bowl was recessed approximately 10mm beyond the hole. Then a piece of contrasting wood was selected in this case a piece of olive wood. The stepped plug was turned from the piece of olive and then glued in place. The glue used was Titebond II after setting for what will be a couple of weeks the base will be completed.  The new feature will be slightly domed to preserve its thickness.

Making a plug for the base of the bowl

A turned wooden bowl

This started out as a bowl but the recess that i turned on the base for my scroll chuck cracked when I started to hollow it out. Undeterred I pressed on and repurposed the blank. I need to make a base for a trophy at work. We are having a soup competition with a soup off at the end. A custom ladle will adorn this base. It’s made from a piece of Red Gum and finished with Danish oil, the only finish that I had on hand.  A bit rough and ready but fit for purpose, not bad since I bought it at the local garden centre. Handpicked from a pile of firewood.