u/shes-so-much

A friend invited me to pick through his firewood pile, and when I cut some of it up and saw that I had red oak on my hands, I decided to experiment with ebonizing again. On the left, a bowl I wiped with iron acetate before hollowing. On the right, I brushed it onto the entire piece. I think I prefer doing the outside and then hollowing; it gives a nice crisp line between the black and the natural wood color. Finished them both with Tried & True Original Wood Finish.

My second attempt (first success) at making a tri-wing bowl by turning a cube between opposing corners. Last time it broke on me; this time I used an appropriate gauge to mark and flatten one corner so I could drill for a worm screw. In hindsight a spur drive center would probably have worked fine. Pretty happy with it. Finished with spray lacquer.

I grabbed a friend's offcut and turned this teeny tiny little guy.

I reload my own ammo, and the operating handle on my press has a knob at the top, just a black plastic ball, which simply won't do. I had been planning to grab a chunk of wood and turn something, and when I popped into my local Woodcraft and found a 1.5x1.5x3 piece of lignum vitae for $7, I knew that was the one.

Holy crap this stuff is nice to turn.

Sometimes nature just drops beauty in your lap. This piece was turned from a piece of an ash tree that came down in someone's yard. We're members at the same makerspace, and he was organizing his storage and getting rid of some old stuff he didn't have any plans for, and he gave me this piece. It had some tearout issues at first, but a good application of sanding sealer let me get it really smooth, working up through the grits and finishing with abrasive paste before shining it up with some friction polish. The piece is just wild with color, spalting, and visible growth rings. I didn't do anything elaborate with it and I think that was the right call, because it lets the natural beauty of the wood speak for itself.

Started with a maple blank, my last from the same lot of wood as the walnut bowl that lost a tenon and had to be saved with a new piece of wood on the bottom.

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This one, I accidentally turned the bottom so thin that my hand punched right through it, and I initially tossed it, but thought better of it and pulled it out. The wood is simply too beautiful to toss, and rescuing damaged pieces is a good skill building challenge.

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Someone gave me a piece of Gonçalo Alves, which I glued on, and I tossed it on a jam chuck to turn down a new tenon. The Gonçalo turns *beautifully*, by the way. Fortunately I had enough meat left on the walls of the bowl to true it up again. Got it all cleaned up and sanded to 500 grit, then abrasive paste, 0000 steel wool, and a couple coats of Mylands friction polish. Tossed it in the Cole jaws to turn the Gonçalo down into a foot. Thrilled with the results.

You can't open up the flute of your gouge as much as you can with wood. Sometimes it will make horrible noises and give you the worst chipout you've ever seen. But if you do it right, it turns beautifully, you can create an incredible looking piece of art and some schmuck in a YouTube comment who's never turned a thing in his life will say it's a crutch and you're not a real woodturner.

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Picture unrelated. Maple and claro walnut shavings in clear epoxy.

Picked up a frankly unreasonable number of bowl blanks yesterday (like 15, ranging from 6-10 inches) and turned this from a gorgeous piece of black walnut.

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I'm particularly fond of the dark band where it transitions from sapwood to heartwood. Just a really cool piece of wood.

I've been turning for a couple weeks at a local makerspace. I started with spindles and have been practicing whenever I get the chance, and I took a bowl turning class yesterday and turned three bowls. This is bowl #4, turned on a Rikon lathe with traditional tools (another thing I've been practicing, having started out with carbide tools).

Materials are a chunk of 200-something-year-old reclaimed wood (looks like oak?) from an old house, cracks filled with Alumilite Clear Cast colored with Mad Micas "I Dream of Purple" mica powder, cured for approximately 24 hours at 40 PSI. It took about an hour and a half to turn. Sanded to 1200 grit, burned lines with a wire, and finished with several coats of Howard's Feed-N-Wax. I'm definitely getting more confident with my turning, and I'm absolutely hooked. It's so much fun.

I have more of this wood, too, so I've got plans. I wasn't expecting grain this beautiful from the weathered old beam I was pulling rusty nails out of yesterday.

A maple bowl from the bowl-turning class I took, and a black walnut one I made afterwards. I'm nothing if not ambitious, so I've got a bowl blank made from some really old reclaimed timber with Alumilite Clear Cast filling the cracks curing in my pressure pot right now.