Something for Christmas

Well I got this email message that read, I got your name from a lady in an Art Gallery in Clarksburg. I had asked if she knew of anyone who was good at doing wood projects and she gave me your name. Then I was asked if I could make a Trencher Cutting Board? I first had to look up the meaning of trencher cutting board and after that I had to decide if I could turn one of them. After a little digging into what was involved I answered the lady and told her that I could make her Trencher Board. I was commissioned to make two for Christmas.
Her and her husband came by to pick them up about a week ago and just got the email that said that one of them was received with a big Wow!! That was the best I could hear about them. Here is a picture of the Trencher Cutting Board.

My First Commissioned Piece

Just before Christmas my grandson asked me if I could turn a burl if he brought the burl. He talked about a lady who had a burl and what would I charge to turn this burl. We agreed to a price and he brought the burl when him and his parents came for Christmas. After the festivities were over I had a look at this burl and found that I could probably get 2 pieces from it, if I could only figure out what kind of burl I had on my hands. Cutting it was a simple thing with the chainsaw and aromatic too, meaning the wood really smelled when cut into.


The first piece was fitted unto the lathe and it wasn't very long till the whole shop smelled as a matter of fact my wife came out to see what the aroma was all about. She said that it smelled like Pinesol a cleaner that used to be prominent. The wood was very waxy and sticky when turning it. When it came to sanding I needed to clean the sand paper every couple of seconds or so because it filled up so quickly. This bowl I wanted to put antique oil on it and then use the Beal Buffing System on it.

The second piece turned just like the first, really easy wood to work with as far as cutting into it. With this piece I wanted to emphasize the irregular aspects of the burl so to bring that out I needed to put it on the lathe in such a way that I was cutting a lot of air. When I looked at how this piece was starting to develop I knew that I wanted to give this one a real shine since it had wonderful chatoyance and grain pattern. This has been my first time at renting myself out so to speak and it really has worked out well in my opinion.

Pendants for the ladies in my family

 

During one of our clubs events this past summer our president David Bell showed us the process of casting with Allumilite and various different colour pigments. Some of the results were truly amazing. What that demonstration did for me was to get me thinking of some different applications of this really enlightening process. 

Sometime during last spring I received some Cherry burl and had a little piece lying around. My objective was to turn this little chuck of burl into a cylinder about 4cm. in diameter and appr. 10 cm long. The next part of the process was to turn a piece of Black Walnut into a hollow tube that would be about 4.5cm. inside measurement by 10cm long and the walls being .5 cm thick. When I had these done I took them to have the hollow areas and the void areas filled with Allumilite and under pressure cured it in place. Once this was all cured I took this finished piece to the bandsaw and cut the new piece into about 8 slices of 5mm thickness each. The next thing was to turn them an polish them into the finished product as shown in the picture above.

I did post them on a wood turners forum and got really positive comments. I just gave one to my youngest daughter and she really loved hers, I sure hope that the others will be received with the same enthusiasm. 

Blessings on your day, Dirk Hoogendoorn

Christmas is Coming!!

This past week I thought that maybe I should do some turning for Christmas presents or just little tokens to give away. So after doing some musings as to what to turn, pendants, inside out turning or bird house Christmas Tree Ornaments, the decision was the little bird houses. When I was done turning a few of these I wanted to display them for some comments so I took some to the local donut shop. They were an instant hit and I had a few orders for some bird houses very quickly. Now to do some more turning and see if I can't turn that interest into something more tangible. Just yesterday I let the owner of an art gallery see them and asked for her comments on them. She said she loved them, but not the bird. In her words the bird just looks like putting a Walmart dressing on Gucci  attire. Your comments are appreciated.

Grey Bruce Woodturners Guild Demonstration

Well this past weekend my wife and I took our RV to Mac Gregor Point Provincial Park to do some camping and to partake in the "Wild for the Arts" Festival held at the park last Saturday and Sunday.
The weather was sunny during the day and real cool at night, we were really thankful for the furnace in our RV. My wife spent some time on the lovely riding trails there and I spent my time with 2 other turners from our Guild. We demonstrated the various aspects of woodturning and explained the projects that we were working on. We also had the opportunity to showcase our work on our display tables.
The comments that we received from the various visitors that visited our site was really uplifting for me. This was my first full out event for displaying my work and having people watch me turn and listening to me explaining the various stages of the projects that I was turning at the time.
After all was said and done I came away with some new insights as to what I would do the next time that I would be involved in an activity like this. More variety and more smaller and more affordable items on the display table.
Dirk Hoogendoorn, woodturner

My First Blog

Well this is cool, a blog of my own. To share and to inform others of what is going on in my life at this time. This past week I have worked on 4 different turning projects. At the beginning of the week I received a couple of burls from Maple trees. Burls are growths on trees a little like warts that protrude from the tree trunk, or limb. In the burls you can find some of the most amazing wood grain patterns, usually very random throughout the burl. When turned the piece usually shows the extent of the random grain and growth inclusions