Voyage to Darkness Continues

Well, onwards and upwards. The ebonized bowl is coming along slowly but surely. Now the outside has several coats of ebony the inside is starting to come along. As you can see, there are still areas that need covering. We have had humid and rainy days which greatly increases the drying time. So, we have to wait longer for every new layer. Traditionally lacquering is referred to "Japanese Lacquer" which comes from many many (possibly hundreds) of layers of lacquer from the lacquer tree. This website shows how the Asian process is done: http://www.urushi-kobo.com/process.html. As we go along, our ebonizing liquid is made from a stain and pigments. There is some minor finish layers included in the commercial stain we are using. Once the color is clear and black, we will be adding the proper finish layers of clear shellac and polyacrylic. This combination has proven to be optimal under the additional pressures of the shave bowl which is often wet. In general, finishes are not made to withstand being in water. We have also finished some really beautiful Shave Brushes in wenge, purpleheart and mahogany.

The shape of things...

Every few months we take some time to look around and see interesting shapes and they way we can use them in our work. From art pottery to 17th century punch bowls. This sounds like a lot of divergent shapes. This art pottery was very interesting in it's form. Now, in order to simplify it for our purposes, the handle became solid and the deep ribbing wouldn't translate very well into wood, but here is one of the inspiration pieces: . In this punch bowl it was the outline that was so appealing: Finally, here is a lidded bowl from ages ago. It's amazing to look through the ages as more things change the more things stay the same. This vessel is from the 2nd or 3rd century all are courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum in New York City. It is an incredible museum and if you ever have the chance to go there - do. . This is the final lidded box. It is larger than a shaving bowl and is more of an object d'art. There is a well inside but the diameter is 8 inches across. The cross current grain of the mahogany reminds us of the waves in the ocean whether it might be a rip current or waves crashing in to the beach. If you would like to take this home or see more of our work, please visit our Etsy Shop, Lovgren & Daughter.

Write Away! Wooden Pens turned on a lathe.

One of the items that we make is wooden pens. They are great fun to make. From the beginning when they are blocks of wood, to their turning and the trials and tribulations of working with wood. They crack and pop and sometimes the blanks (hunks of wood)dry and distort especially those made of fruit woods like pistachio and apple. It is a whole new ball game. . This is a blank of laminated woods which gives us stripes in the end product. These on still on the mandrel (metal rod) fresh from the lathe. . Here these are the pieces drying on paper plates, we use a nail to support them vertically. Best way to dry round things. If you have noticed, I write on the plates where the pieces are in the finishing process. It really helped when we were working on a large order for the Woodson Art Museum in Wisconsin. . Here is the striped pen as a result of the blank from the first picture. We also make fountain pens but that's a topic for another day. To see more, visit our Etsy Shop: Lovgren & Daughter. Nice to visit with you today!

Waves of Grain

We have new decorative bowl made of Mahogany. We are still putting the final coats of finish on it now. . We took some of the musical instrument grade mahogany and laminated it together. Laminating is actually when you glue boards together to make a thickness that suits your needs. In this case, we alternated the grain patterns so that you can see them flow cross currently as your eye travels up the bowl. . This bowl started out as a shave bowl, it was rather large for a shave bowl but in cutting it down we would have lost the gentle form that compliments the grain. . We hope you like it as much as we do. It will be available in our Etsy shop: Lovgren & Daughter in a few days.

Spring!

Ahh the beauty of Spring whe the air is sweet and the outdoors welcomes in the new season. As a Tree Hugger, It is the sweet smell of the maples, the grape hyacinth and tulips that draws me outside. My heart belongs to the woods of my younger days. They were full of maple and pine and beaver dams and quiet. You could sit and wait for the beavers to glide noiselessly through the ponds they created. Spring came slowly to the stream deep in the woods. Ice sheets and burms dripped, dripped, dripped into a raging stream only to wash themselves away to a trickle or oatmeal mud as the summer marched in. So, welcome Spring and the memories of springs long ago lived. Hello, the sap is running and the old wood lilacs are in bloom.

Buttons! We've got buttons! Really great buttons!

After delving into the Spalted Maple and Holly the results show how nicely they came out: I really like how the bandsaw left the texture in the Holly. We also had some of the Cocobolo in smaller pieces. Again, we kept it because the color is AMAZING! Good Cocobolo does not come cheaply. It is much more rare now but we have a supplier that is ethically responsible and buys up unproductive coffee plantations and is replanting them with Cocobolo trees. Thus, there is a source that is renewing all the time. These buttons are great: And the larger buttons:

Mahogany real Guitar Grade Mahogany

We are very fortunate here in North Eastern PA. We aren't very far from the Legendary Martin Guitars. Through a friend we came to have some mahogany that was left over from the beautiful craftsmanship of the Martin Guitar Company. If you find yourself in PA, go see Martin: http://www.martinguitar.com/about-martin/visit-us.html. For our next set of shave bowls, we have used this mahogany to create a classically elegant shave bowl. You can see the beautiful grain in the bowl top. This bowl should grace the bathroom vanity not to be hidden in a cupboard. Here is a shave brush also made out of mahogany for a matched set. The brush is perfect for wet shaving. Yes, life is beautiful. Choose to have beautiful things in your life. If you are interested in bring these home please visit our Etsy Shop: Lovgren & Daughter. https://www.etsy.com/shop/LovgrenandDaughter.

Magic Mushrooms and their Piney Friends

the same mushrooms we are familiar with from Alice in Wonderland and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory are the bright red ones. In our part of North America we don't have those naturally occurring. We do have a variation which is a lighter color with an orangey peachy top. They start out as little bumps. Then they look like a stalk and deflated top. Here's one I found wandering over some pine tree roots. . Later the mushroom raises it's top and grows a bit more about 6 inches. They are really beautiful. Since it grows on the roots of pine trees, I'm thinking the pine trees are about at the end of their lives. Well played, Mother Nature.

Spalting in the buff

We use a lot of spalted wood. Wood that goes through a biological process once it has fallen or has been cut. Hurricane Sandy did a lot of natural re-decoration even up the hills of PA. So, you have wood and you have some wood that has been "maturing", readying itself to return to the soil. To break down the cellulose in wood, we rely on fungi, bacteria and insects to help move a tree into entropy. The come in and eat and feed and breakdown those tough cell walls. The fungi also grow in very different shapes and have of different types all up and down the genus. . and bless these natural processes in their infinite combination that can recycle lumber and create such beauty. Thanks Mother Nature - good job, we rely on you!

Graceful Nakashima

There are w few woodworkers that are so revered as George Nakashima. He was a Japanese-American woodworker who use great slabs of wood in their most natural state to combine them with the foundation that creates a chair or a table or a desk. This is one of the rooms in his home. His trademark addition is a butterfly joint to stabilizes wood. While they are necessary to stop wood from cracking apart as it ages, they are also beautiful. His daughter continues his work at their Pennsylvania home. A more complete picture can be found at their website: http://www.nakashimawoodworker.com/ from which I borrowed the photos as an example to help educate those people who pass by the blog. What the Nakashima's imbue their work with the Zen-like lines that are calm and natural. We are blessed the such a talented woodworker lived among us. We are also indebted to his daughter, Mira who carries on in her father's tradition while moving forward into the 21st century.

Button, button, who's got the button?

Here are some of the first experiments with buttons Okay, tried some different approaches. The Lighter ones are holly and I like the texture the wide toothed bandsaw gave them. I like the large spalted Maple because they remind me of picture jasper a naturally occurring sedimentary rock. I like them. Now I'm off to design some button cards and holes in the buttons. Very excited to add them to the Etsy shop. Cool. Buttons are cool.

Branching Out

SO we've got some really interesting pieces of wood that are too small for the projects we work on. But there is still a lot of great wood out there. One of our trees a stately Maple was severely damaged during Hurricane Sandy and there are branches galore. We also have the annual pruning of the Apple trees: And some trimming of the Japanese Maples which give us this beautiful leaves in the fall. So we've been thinking about adding wooden buttons and glass coasters to the products we currently make. Stayed tuned for the updates as the new projects take shape. Saw dust awaits! Kristin

Mr. Krenov’s knives and planes adhered to the natural contours of the wood and the patterns of its grain. He loved curves, and was known for creating door panels with concave, billowing shapes, like sails in the wind. David Welter, the shop technician for the woodworking program, was Mr. Krenov’s credo “that the work had life in it.” “It wasn’t about showing off technique as much as about having a personality in the work,” Mr. Welter said in a telephone interview last week. “He worked with material rather than on material; it wasn’t a matter of conquering the wood. He had just a killer instinct for wood combination, the colors and textures, melding them to make works with an elegant simplicity.” http://jameskrenov.com/images/kremarbl_white.jpg http://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/interviews/oral-history-interview-james-krenov-11905 http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/20/us/20krenov.html?_r=0