First HF

[Richard Jones]

OK, time to put up or shut up. First HF, absolutely green Bradford pear, 5" w x 6.25" h. My wife and I own a florist, so she is all about stuffing flowers in whatever, hence the large foot at the bottom, which she wanted, and the larger opening at the neck, also approved by her. This isn't sanded, since I have no sandpaper capable of sanding dripping wet wood, but I'll give it a day or so and try it a touch-up. I didn't measure wall thickness, but I would guess about 1/8"-3/16". She likes thicker walls on bowls as well.

The Monster did a very nice job of the hollowing, my biggest problem was adjusting the laser. Any tips appreciated. All in all the system is really nice and very easy, even for a novice HF'er such as meself...... Very easy learning curve. If you've been putting this off, don't. Wade in.

Comments welcome and don't be shy. We don't learn if everybody says it's perfect.......

And thanks to all who have "mentored" me in this, I'm probably your oldest student, but I love learning new stuff

Rich

http://photos.imageevent.com/richinva/turning/hollowformsurns/websize/IMG_19363.JPG.

[charlie knighton]

very nice shape and useful, flowers ok, just do not put water in it, since it is green wood, stick some newpaper down the opening for a few days, pull it out daily, if wet, replace with new newspaper

[Dennis Ford]

Good job, that looks great for a first (or 11th).

"I have no sandpaper capable of sanding dripping wet wood"

If you want to sand wet wood, it is possible (but messy) with regular paper. Wet the sand paper down, keep the wood wet and sand away. I use a spray bottle to do this, it doesn't take much water. You may have to spritz the wood fairly often to keep the paper from gumming up.

[David E Keller]

It looks good to me, Rich... Hard to judge the overall form without a true profile shot. You gotta love turning pear, huh?


+1 for the wet sanding if you want to do that. You can use water or an oil... I like to use BLO when wet sanding. Often times, the outer surface is dry enough to sand after I finished hollowing even if the wood is pretty wet at the start.

[John Keeton]

Rich, as David said, it is hard to tell much about the form without a straight on profile shot, but it does appear to be a nice, smooth curve. Nice tool work, too. I hate sanding wet wood, so I will leave suggestions on that to those that do more of that type of thing. I can learn something there, for sure!

[Jamie Donaldson]

If you do like learning new stuff as you say, here's your photography lesson for today. This image was made with a wide angle focal length lens setting, with the camera placed too close to the turning. The result is optical barrel distortion of the form, and moving the camera further away and using a longer focal length lens setting will give a more accurate representation of the profile. Do be careful in attempting to rush the drying of this pear as it is very prone to cracking, just as are most all fruit woods.