Indonesia - Hi! How are ya!

Quick shout out to Indonesia for stopping by the blog.  Hope to see you again!

Cepat berteriak ke Indonesia untuk mampir blog. Harapan untuk melihat Anda lagi!

Drying time, Humidity and the Oven

Drying Fast and slow.

When applying finishes, you want a clean, smooth wood surface in order to get a glass like finish on the item ou are making.

Most finishes are evaporative - which means that they need to dry by something in them evaporating into the atmosphere.  Like wall paint.  Put it on wet, then water evaporates and it is then dry.

So there are factors that either slow or speed this process.  One of the is humidity if there more water in the air, the slower that the finish will dry. 

It's humid in the summer.  It's humid when it rains.  Cool and rainy is possibly the longest wait for the finish to dry. 

Waiting is not my personal forte.  AND, in waiting your finish is wet a lot longer.  Like when the furnace kicks on for the first time in the Fall and throws dust around.  Dust LOVES finishes.  It Looks for them.  Dust will get in your finish.  Cat hair, dog hair, feathers, and dust will get in your finish. 

So, in order to get the finish to evaporate you can put pieces in the oven.  And turn on the light.  The humidity is very low.  The light bulb raises the temp to about 90F.  Perfect.  No dust, warm and dry.  Perfect to let a piece set overnight.  I walk away. 

Now, once in an apartment I started the oven and successfully burned up the directions.  I look in the oven now before turning it on. EVERY time.   Always.

Until the afternoon Eric decided to pre-heat the oven.  And didn't look.  Shellac burned up pretty quickly.  The finishes had to be dragged off and redone from the beginning.  Finishing takes 4 days to accomplish on one piece.  4 days gone.  4 Days.  GONE.

NOW - we have a system.  See below:  Lol.

Best Supplier of Wood

Let's take a moment to consider our wood.  Yes, we do use wood from our own property.  We have used Apple and Maple and are waiting for the Willow to dry out.

One of our favorite wood suppliers is NC Wood.  We get a lot of spalted and ambrosia turning blanks from Gary at NC Woods.

Not only do they have exceptional wood but they have just about the best customer service around.

You can visit their ebay shop at http://stores.ebay.com/NCWood or their new website at http://www.ncwood.biz/Ambrosia-Maple_c7.htm?%20%20coupon=Ambrosia25.

So, if you looking for some great wood give them a visit. 

btw - I don't have a referral interest in recommending this great company.

Thanks for stopping by!  Leave a comment if you have any questions or just want to chat :)

Paint the Rainbow!

Tops and their finished look

After matching the tops and their handles with color, then at least two coats of shellac.  In between each coat you have to sand the layers to make sure there aren't any bumps.

Shellac is frowned upon currently because it reacts to water.  Think about the white rings on your grandmother's table.  BUT and this is HUGE shellac as a base coat provides great build or depth of color in the finish. 

What does that mean?  Depth of finish creates more refractive light to see the wood.  Or, it looks better. 

We use a poly as a top coat to protect against water and many other solvents like alcohol.  Solvents - dissolve finish.  Shellac is based in alcohol so if rubbing alcohol spills on it - it gets gooey and smudgey and basically ruins your day.

The is the bare handle                                                 Handle with color on it

 

 

 

In the last photo you can see how the colors blend into the bowl and look like a matching piece.  Some of the intensity is lost with applying another coat of shellac, snading that down with 600 grit sand paper and proceeding with the poly coats of finish. 

 

 

 

 

Color; what to do when you parts don't match

Color.  Sometimes we need to adjust the color.

In making Handles for shave bowls, sometimes we have to use regular maple instead of spalted.  Luckily, we have a source in Maine that rescues wood from a toy manufacturing plant and we can take those scraps in still make a wooden handle that is still up cycled from wood that could potentially end up in the trash.

The only "problem" is that the wood is light maple without any spalting.

So, the non color of the handle is much lighter than the bottom and would look hinkey.  In several handles are quite different than the bowls' lids:

The next posts will describe different ways to even out the color and it will produce handles that beautifully match the bowls and their tops.

Hello to the rest of the world!

Привет! Через статистика есть немало русских зрителей. Это слишком круто! Добро пожаловать, и я надеюсь, что вы оставить записку, чтобы поздороваться. Если Google Translate делает ошибки, прости меня.

Salut! Grâce à des statistiques il ya un bon peu de téléspectateurs français. C'est trop cool! Bienvenue et j'espère que vous laissez une note pour dire bonjour. Si google translate fait des erreurs, pardonnez-moi.

Hallo! Durch die Statistik Es gibt durchaus ein paar deutsche Zuschauer. Das ist zu cool! Willkommen und ich hoffe, Sie lassen eine Notiz Hallo zu sagen. Wenn Google Translate macht Fehler, vergib mir.

Hej! Genom statistiken finns en hel del svenska tittare. Det är för cool! Välkommen och jag hoppas du lämnar ett meddelande att säga hej. Om Google Translate gör fel, förlåt mig.

Cześć! Poprzez statystyki są sporo polskich widzów. To jest zbyt cool! Witamy i mam nadzieję zostawić notatkę się przywitać. Jeśli Google Translate popełnia błędy, wybacz mi.

Hi!  Through the stats there are quite a few American viewers.  That is too cool!  Welcome and I hope you leave a note to say hello.  If google translate makes errors, forgive me. 

From Rough to Round

Now that we have an approximate shape that is circular we can mount it on the lathe for the rounding out parts.

This is the blank mounted on the lathe.  You can see here one of the vertical cuts to remove the corner went a little too deep.  It's okay.  There is enough wood to make minor adjustments while it is on the lathe.

Eric at the lathe making the first passes.

Eric is at the lathe rounding and shaping.  Notice the tool rest this is where a turner rests their tools to ensure an even cut. 

This is the very roughed out bowl.  Now we can see the cool shapes and colors that will be part of the bowl.