Repetition can be boring but...

Repetition can be boring but....

I think that repetition is an important but often overlooked aspect of woodturning.

Allot of new woodturners  (and I was the same) will try to make lots of different things in single's/one off's and will often make a bowl in the morning then a box of whatever in the afternoon.

This is totally understandable but I believe that if you want to improve at any aspect of turning you need to work in batches.

I think that working in batches is important but yes it can be boring :-)

Here is a recent batch of boxes I made with internal lids, I will post them in the order that I made them.

Masur birch box with African blackwood lid

Masur birch box with African blackwood lid

Masur birch box with African blackwood lid

Masur birch box with cocobolo collar and masur birch lid

Masur birch box with cocobolo collar and masur birch lid

Masur birch box with cocobolo collar and masur birch lid

Thuya burr box with boxwood internal lid

Thuya burr box with boxwood internal lid

Thuya burr box with boxwood internal lid

Golden madrone box with thyua burr internal lid

Golden madrone box with thyua burr internal lid

Golden madrone box with thyua burr internal lid

English walnut box with acacia burr internal lid

English walnut box with acacia burr internal lid

English walnut box with acacia burr internal lid

Woodturning photography

Woodturning photography

Trying to freeze a wood shaving in flight!

More and more I realise how important it is to have good images of my work or of me making my work. It seems now more than ever the world is very visual and capturing good images are very important to me.

I have spent quite a while reading and practising with my camera and I bought my first DSLR a nikon D3200 about 2 years ago which although at first seems very complicated, it has drastically improved my images.

I now fell confident that I can get good still images of my work on a graduated background, like this box that I made recently.

Black and white ebony box with damson fruit wood collar and internal lid.

But I have always wanted to capture a long ribbon of shaving as it fly's off the gouge makes a beautiful pattern in mid air before finally landing on the workshop floor.

1st try

I tried my iphone 6 on burst mode and this is what I captured

Iphone 6 with burst mode

I like the image as it does show the movement of the shaving but it wasn't what I had in mind as I wanted to shaving to look frozen in time.

2nd try

Next I tried my nikon camera with a 35mm prime lens which is very fast at f1.8

Nikon d3200 35mm prime at F1.8, iso100, 1/100s

I was a bit disappointed with this image and didn't understand how I could make it faster, I automatically thought it was the frames per second that my camera could capture which is 4fps where as some of the more expensive DSLR can capture 8 or 10

I asked a woodturning friend who is a skateboard/bmx photographer and asked on a photography forum and was told it isn't my FPS its the shutter speed and I need to increase the amount of light or increase the iso which will increase the shutter speed (I am using aperture priority mode)

3rd try

Nikon d3200 35mm prime F2.5, iso3200, 1/3200s

At iso3200 I was getting a shutter speed of 1/3200 and now I was starting to get the results I wanted.

4th try

Nikon d3200 35mm prime F2.5 iso 6400, 1/2500

My 4th try is my favourite as it captures a full ribbon, at the higher iso my camera gets whats called noise which on a full screen basically looks a little grainy to me but on smaller images I don't notice it. What I don't understand is that the shutter speed at iso6400 was actually slower than at the lower iso? I will have to ask my friend about that :-)

here is my wife's favourite image from the 600 images that i took during the day

woodturning box making videos

Woodturning boxes videos

Hello folks, here is a series of YouTube videos that I made on turning boxes on my lathe, I thought it was handy to put them all together here to bring more awareness for new turners and to be easier to point to one place that has them all in order.

The first video is all about the importance of rough turning

In this second video I make a simple turned box. 

In the third video I show how I make a hybrid box.

In the final video I show how I apply a book matched insert into a lid

Woodturning workshops

Woodturning workshops

I have recently been looking at a way to shoehorn a 2nd lathe into my workshop!! and this got me thinking about the other workshops I have had.

My first workshop when I first started woodturning was in the corner of a wooden duck shed, the shed was about 20' square and jet black from years of proper creosote being painted on.
The roof was corrugated sheet and got very hot in the sun, inside there was two low roof beams that I hit my head on!! Unfortunately I do not have any pictures of that workshop :-)

My 2nd workshop was on the same site as the first (a garden centre where I worked) but was a new sheet metal type building. It was larger than the 1st (with more headroom!) and again my lathe which by now I had upgraded to a euro 2000 was in the corner.

My 2nd woodturning workshop and euro 2000 lathe.

The building was big at about 50' x 35' and was difficult to heat and control the dust in.
After a couple of years in that workshop I moved house and I moved my lathe (now a vb36) into the garage which is where it still is.

VB36 lathe in my current workshop.

This workshop is 8'x9' and is a bit of a squeeze at times! in fact I cant even get the full lathe in a picture without standing just outside of the door as i cannot get far enough away from it with my camera! maybe I need a wide angle lens :-)

I keep the dust extractor,bandsaw and a compressor outside of the workshop and pipe them in or in the case of the bandsaw wheel it in when I want to use it.

Startrite 352e bandsaw

I better stop waffleing on, maybe I can write more about some of the adaptions I have made in my workshop and tools I have in another blog post?

ohh and to conclude what started this train of thought... trying to squeeze another lathe in.. I decided not to bother in the end as I just could'int make it fit!!

starting over

Starting over

hello folks, I know that this blog has been inactive for a long time but just recently I have felt the need to write more or should I say.. say more than what I do on my social media accounts.

I really enjoy being in my workshop, (especially in the winter months) just the radio and the lathe is a perfect way to spend the hours, but with this time comes isolation, sometimes I don't leave my home/workshop for days at a time and I don't speak to anyone except my wife and daughter for weeks.

Turning an oak bowl

So when I go to write something on my Facebook page or on a woodturning forum I struggle to know what to say and find myself just saying the bare minimum to show the latest piece of work that I have made.

I wonder whether this makes people think that I am arrogant or somehow above the norm? as I don't tend to get the same level of interaction on my accounts that other people seem to get.
That really is not the case and I think its just a lack of practice I suppose and a fear of saying the wrong thing.

So I have decided to write again on this blog and get some practice!! as well as showing or talking about what I have been making or what problems I have been having.