Purple!

I've resisted posting this stuff until now because these wands were gifts for friends and family. I couldn't let on that I was workin' the purple wood. That would've been embarrassing. So anyway, now it's safe to let the cat out of the bag, so to speak. So here's some of what I've been doing.

This is the wand I made for my brother, Anthony. It's a pretty simple design, made out of purpleheart. Right now it looks more like puceheart though, right? Time to fix that.

This is after 10 minutes in the oven at 300º.

At 20 minutes you can really see the color coming out.

After 30 minutes, it's really a rich, even purple color. Just have to let it cool down now.

Under the bench light, you can really see just how purple it gets. Crazy, right? This is no stain, just heat.

Under the lights on the gray background. Pretty, no?

Here's the other one I made for our friend Liz:

This one I actually did with a heat gun instead of the oven. Not sure which method I prefer, but the oven certainly takes less effort on my part. I kind of like the varied color along the wand that the heat gun does, though. We'll see what I do for the next one, I guess.

Okay, that's it for now. Thanks for reading!

Index Your Lathe

You don't even know what that means, right? You shouldn't. You should see the sun and have friends and all the nice stuff. That's the stuff I gave up so I can learn the depths of lathe-related knowledge. I'm like the Raistlin Majere of woodworking.

Anyway, what does it mean to index a lathe? The index is just a way for you to measure the rotation of your lathe. It would generally be measure in degrees, but it can be marked in different ways. Some lathes come pre-indexed, which is very nice. Here's what I did with my mini-lathe:

I added a pointer to the front, made of some brass scrap I had laying around.

I also took a measuring tape and measured the exact circumference of the hand wheel (261mm) and then divided that into three and 4 to get my various measurements. I did a split into quarters (0, 90, 180 and 270) and also one into thirds (0, 120, 240) since I figure that will be all I feel like dealing with for a very long time.


What I did was to wrap some masking tape onto the wheel, then marked it with a pencil. I used a protractor and the tape again to make sure I wasn't crazy. Once I was satisfied, I took my Dremel (Actually a Craftsman rotary tool fitted with Dremel brand bits) with the engraving ball on it and engraved the marks into the metal. This way, even though I'll be handling the wheel a lot, I'm not going to lose my marks. I may go back and sharpen them up at some point, or add more, but I at least have a solid baseline for it.

Here's what I did with it as a first project:

First thing was to turn a simple wand design on the big lathe.

Then I used the tool rest, the index and a pencil to mark lines along the length of the parts to be spiraled. I used a ruler and my measuring tape to mark both the circumferential circles and the diagonals. Spirals take a lot more layout time and energy to do properly than simple turned pieces, but they're awesome.

I took a microplane rasp and some various small round files to the diagonal lines, to start my grooves.

You pretty much just keep going that way until you get the depth you want.

Unfortunately, that's where it all ends, at least for me. I'm not satisfied with my sanding options, so I haven't really done much else. I'm going to keep working on it, for sure, and see if maybe a sharp chisel is my solution. I don't know, but I'll keep working and get back to you. There's no way this little wooden bastard is going to beat me, though. I'll get it.

Next Project?

I actually referenced this site a lot when I was building my own armor, but now I think I have the facilities, tools, patience, and maybe just enough budget to make something fancier happen. But anyway, here are the pictures:

Click the link to see more: kropserkel.com

These guys are amazingly skilled and detailed. Someday, I hope to be half as good at this as they are.

More Things!

I've been doing a lot in the shop lately, and wanted to keep you all informed. For one, I've got more wands up on Etsy, which is cool. Here's the link to the shop: Septimus' Emporium of Handcrafted Geekery

And here are some pics of what I've been up to:

That's a Tormek T-7 wet sharpening system. It's a beast. I suck really hard at free hand sharpening and the Tormek uses a collection of jigs to make things as easy and repeatable as possible. It has completely revolutionized my turning. Woods that frustrated me to no end before now turn easily. Shapes I couldn't accomplish are now possible. Sharp tools really do make all the difference and a few minutes on the Tormek keeps everything in the shop crazy sharp. It's a big investment, but has been absolutely worth it for me. And this is without even sharpening knives and scissors and all the rest. That will come soon enough, I'm sure.

So here are my tiny brooms. Jenna suggested I make some tiny brooms for Christmas ornaments for friends, and I was originally struggling with them, as you can see. None of them really made me happy.

However, the fourth time was the charm on these. I'm super pleased with it and I learned enough to be able to do more of them, for one, and also to be able to use the same technique on full-size brooms, which I think I'll be trying before too long.

Also, I started trying some face turning. Or hollow form turning. I'm still fuzzy on the terminology, but I'm making cup shaped things. This is how they start. Kind of a rough cylinder.

Then we get to hollowing.

Then you kinda rough shape a goblet thingy out of it, I guess.

And then you take pretty pictures. See how easy that was?


And of course, plenty more wands. But everything I've made is on the Etsy site, so you've already seen it. So there you go! That's what I've been up to recently. So much crafting, it makes your head spin.

Etsy Listings

New Etsy listings are up!

http://www.etsy.com/listing/89727754/wand-poplar-9-78-with-satin-finish

http://www.etsy.com/listing/89727452/wand-alder-10-with-satin-finish

http://www.etsy.com/listing/89721639/wand-lignum-vitae-10-18-natural-finish

More projects!

Just wanted to post up a couple new things I turned out this morning. Two mini-wands and a big wand. The minis are alder scrap I had in the shop and the full-size was a piece of poplar.

The minis are really fun to make, and they always come out looking pretty cute, I think. I'll still have to put a coat of poly on these, but they're already looking pretty neat.

This is the full-sized poplar wand. It has a few dings in it, so it would go as a second if someone wanted to buy it. I was paying more attention to the tools than the wood and caught an edge once or twice. Still a pretty wand, though.

I like this design a lot. Especially the handle and pommel (well what would you call it?) but I'm not super happy with the transition bead. If I do another similar design, I'll rework that for sure.

New lathe and more garage space

So a couple posts back I mentioned that I met a fellow wood turner at the Hogwarts party. We talked about turning and general woodworking all night and he happened to have a full-size lathe in his parents' garage across the street that he was looking to sell. It's a fantastic lathe and it was a great price, so I couldn't say no. I also decided shortly before that to keep my side of the garage as a dedicated shop/home gym. So with that, and the opportunity to buy a full-size lathe and really increase my turning capabilities, we enter the next chapter of my turning experience, I guess.

Also, my dad and I built a ceiling rack for all my spare lumber and sheet stock and moved everything up there on Sunday. Here are some pictures so you can see what I mean.

We used our non-patented-but-probably-should-be ceiling suspension system. I actually did hang off of this one as a test and it's rock solid.

We got a base of sheet stock up there and then lumber on the left and remaining sheet stock on the right. The right side is wide enough to fit full 4'x8' sheet stock, which is obviously cool.

This is an improvement, for sure. The more stuff we get out of the garage and off the floor, the better.

There's the bench and board. Exciting stuff! Most exciting is that everything is still organized and put away where it belongs.

Who's this little guy, though? He looks new.

There it is. Shiny new full-size lathe. I can turn up to 12"x36" pieces on this beast. It has a variable speed control, too, which means less stopping and starting for me. I'll do a full review in a little bit. I think I'm also going to have to re-organize the garage a little more to make more room. This is a pretty tight fit right now, and that's not cool. I need room to stretch out when I'm turning.

Thanks for reading!