Last weekend our woodturning club, North Florida Woodturning Association, had the good fortune of hosting Al Hockenbery and his wife Sherry for a demonstration and hands on session. The demonstration was an all day demo on Saturday and the hands on session, with six of the club members was on Sunday.
To see some of Al and Sherry’s work you can visit their website at Hockenbery Woodturnings.
Al was a great demonstrator! He both informed and entertained. Edutainment at it’s best. One of the things I really enjoyed was that he shared many hints and tips as he demonstrated
Continue reading Al Hockenbery Demo
I’ve been wanting to try some different embellishment techniques, one of which was chatter work. However I kept on balking at the price of a new chatter tool. I decided to make my own. It cost me $3.00 and a hour or two on a Sunday afternoon.
I got a 1/2″ x 10″ nipple from the plumbing department at the home improvement store, along with a 3/4″ long 1/4 20 bolt. The rest of the materials I used were in the shop already including a used jigsaw blade.
I mounted the pipe between centers
Continue reading Homemade Chatter Tool
Uphill or downhill. Cutting with the grain or against the grain. Understanding how the grain is orientated on the lathe and which direction to cut in order to get the smoothest cuts possible can be confusing.
Brian Clifford has a great article on his site The Woodturners Workshop which illustrates these concepts very clearly. Here is an brief extract from the article. To read the full article please visit Brian’s site here.
7.1 Introduction
In the previous chapter, in thinking about the way the tool cuts, three important factors were temporarily ignored. These are :
the question of grain
Continue reading Uphill and downhill – cutting with the grain on a lathe
I recently purchased a set of Rockler’s Bench Cookies. I’ve been reading about them all over the internet and no doubt I’m probably the last woodworker in the world to have purchased a set I was excited to try them out and thought I would combine it with an article about router feed direction and bit rotation.
I use a router a lot in my workshop, both hand held and table router. However, I can remember when I got my first router and the learning curve I went through figuring out which direction to move the router when
Continue reading Router feed direction and bit rotation
I picked up a shipment of bowl blanks and hollow form stock from South Africa earlier this week. It was like Christmas came early! Always exciting to open the container and see the beautiful exotic woods. I was born in Zimbabwe and spent seven years in South Africa, attending university and the first couple of years of my working life. So moments like this always help me to reconnect to the land I was born in.
The species I received were Wild Olive, Ironwood, Tamboti, Buffalo Thorn, Cape Beech, Assegai, Candlewood, Australian Blackwood and White Alder. Some of these
Continue reading New shipment for Zambezi Exotics
I finally completed the knife display case and delivered it to the lady who commissioned it. She was very happy with the case, which is the most important thing. It is a wedding anniversary gift for her husband. His collection of Harley knives has been sitting in the closet for many years, so now he will have them out on display.
The case is made from Tiger Maple and African Mahogany and is approx. 16″ x 32″. The joints are inlaid half blind dovetails. The wooden hinges are made from tiger maple. The pockets for the knives were routed
Continue reading The completed knife display case
Choosing and installing hinges has always been a frustrating part of the process of making a hinged box. The array of hinges available is staggering, yet often it is difficult to find just the right hinge for a particular project. I’m also guilty of not planning far enough ahead, and so when it comes time to install a hinge my choices are severally restricted because of the thickness of the wood I’ve used or the design of a particular box. Lastly I’m nervous about mortising for a hinge, messing it up and destroying all the work I’ve put into
Continue reading Making wooden hinges
I planned to make inlaid half blind dovetail joints for the frame of the knife display case. The frame is made from African Mahogany and the inlays are tiger maple. This article will show how I made the joints. For more information on the Leigh Jig please visit their website. The article which I followed is one of Leigh’s technical bulletins. Their manuals are very well written and illustrated. Another excellent source for information on the Leigh Jigs is Al Navas’s blog, Sandal Woods.
When making half blind dovetails with the Leigh Jig it is critical to
Continue reading Inlaid half blind dovetail joints
Loading ...
Recent Comments