Kathy Marshall
07-19-2012, 12:57 AM
I've been wanting to try a little carving, and this little ash blank seemed like a good place to start.
I've obviously got a lot to learn about design and technique, but we've all got to start somewhere. Proper tools should make a world of difference and I should have a little gloat in those regards next week :D.
I turned the bowl to finish, sanded through all the grits, then used the indexing wheel on my lathe to lay out 24 evenly spaced lines. So far so good. Then I got out the dremel tool and used a carbide cutter that's made to cut a nice half round groove. The orientation of the cutterhead in relation to the handle and the rim of the bowl didn't make it easy. It also didn't help that I apparently can't follow a straight line :eek:. The grooves weren't so straight and the depth wasn't quite consistent, so I changed over to a round diamond burr. That helped clean it up a little, but it still wasn't great, so I switched over to another diamond burr that was a tapered cone shape, that let me run down the grooves and clean up and straighten the sides. There were still spots where I occasionally applied a little too much pressure or let it stop in one place too long, so the next step was to grab on of my chain saw files. That gave me a little more control and I was able to clean it up more.
When I was somewhat satisfied with how it was going, I switched to sandpaper, starting with 80 grit. I wrapped a strip around the chainsaw file until is was just shy of the width of the grooves, then sanded through all of the grits. I still wasn't completely happy with it, so I had the bright idea of burning some texture in the grooves. Not such a good idea, the result was, well, ichy.
So back to the shop and some small carving chisels, files (I picked some up at HF) and sandpaper to remove all of the texturing and burn marks.
I had purposely left the rim fairly thick, anticipating that I might have to do some modifications. After a lot more chiseling and sanding, I got to a point where I could accept it, certainly not great, but it was just a practice piece after all. I gave the whole piece a final sanding and then I applied a couple of coats of WIP to the inside, outside and the rim edge.
Since it was a practice piece, I decided to play with some dye on the rim. I started with some blue dye and then lightly sanded back, then added some golden yellow on the flat parts. It looked ok, but wasn't really what I was looking for and the blue wasn't doing it for me, it just didn't go with the color of the natural sapwood and heartwood. So I added a touch of blue to the yellow mix and got a nice shade of green. I applied that over the previous dyes and I liked the results. The green just somehow fit better with the natural color. Since I had applied the WIP to the natural areas, it was a snap to clean up any dye that overlapped those areas, just a little acetone on a shop towel and it wiped right off.
Sprayed some sanding sealer on the dyed areas to set the dye (otherwise it would have wiped all over with new applications of WOP, DAMHIK) then gave another coat of WOP. It can still use another coat or two.
Half & Half for the half sapwood and half heartwood.
It's about 8" x 2 1/4" and at least it helped me get my feet wet!
237201237203237202
Thanks for looking!
Comments and critiques are welcome.
I've obviously got a lot to learn about design and technique, but we've all got to start somewhere. Proper tools should make a world of difference and I should have a little gloat in those regards next week :D.
I turned the bowl to finish, sanded through all the grits, then used the indexing wheel on my lathe to lay out 24 evenly spaced lines. So far so good. Then I got out the dremel tool and used a carbide cutter that's made to cut a nice half round groove. The orientation of the cutterhead in relation to the handle and the rim of the bowl didn't make it easy. It also didn't help that I apparently can't follow a straight line :eek:. The grooves weren't so straight and the depth wasn't quite consistent, so I changed over to a round diamond burr. That helped clean it up a little, but it still wasn't great, so I switched over to another diamond burr that was a tapered cone shape, that let me run down the grooves and clean up and straighten the sides. There were still spots where I occasionally applied a little too much pressure or let it stop in one place too long, so the next step was to grab on of my chain saw files. That gave me a little more control and I was able to clean it up more.
When I was somewhat satisfied with how it was going, I switched to sandpaper, starting with 80 grit. I wrapped a strip around the chainsaw file until is was just shy of the width of the grooves, then sanded through all of the grits. I still wasn't completely happy with it, so I had the bright idea of burning some texture in the grooves. Not such a good idea, the result was, well, ichy.
So back to the shop and some small carving chisels, files (I picked some up at HF) and sandpaper to remove all of the texturing and burn marks.
I had purposely left the rim fairly thick, anticipating that I might have to do some modifications. After a lot more chiseling and sanding, I got to a point where I could accept it, certainly not great, but it was just a practice piece after all. I gave the whole piece a final sanding and then I applied a couple of coats of WIP to the inside, outside and the rim edge.
Since it was a practice piece, I decided to play with some dye on the rim. I started with some blue dye and then lightly sanded back, then added some golden yellow on the flat parts. It looked ok, but wasn't really what I was looking for and the blue wasn't doing it for me, it just didn't go with the color of the natural sapwood and heartwood. So I added a touch of blue to the yellow mix and got a nice shade of green. I applied that over the previous dyes and I liked the results. The green just somehow fit better with the natural color. Since I had applied the WIP to the natural areas, it was a snap to clean up any dye that overlapped those areas, just a little acetone on a shop towel and it wiped right off.
Sprayed some sanding sealer on the dyed areas to set the dye (otherwise it would have wiped all over with new applications of WOP, DAMHIK) then gave another coat of WOP. It can still use another coat or two.
Half & Half for the half sapwood and half heartwood.
It's about 8" x 2 1/4" and at least it helped me get my feet wet!
237201237203237202
Thanks for looking!
Comments and critiques are welcome.