Making, Crafting, Creating... aka Whatcha workin' on?

Another camphor laurel pot:

Spindle-turned, hence the mostly plain exterior. I think I’m going to go back to cross-grain stuff for a while; harder to sand, but more interesting to look at.

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Work in progress:

Cypress, from a tree that used to stand a few houses away from here.

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Cypress bowl done:

It was supposed to be about an inch taller with a flared lip, but I misjudged the structural strength of cypress a touch. Cut it too thin and had it flake apart from centrifugal force.

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I don’t think I posted this one yet, but I had to take a photo even if the camera on my tablet is crap, because I have to mail it out this weekend. The companion to my other dog painting of the little terrier resting his head by his paw.

My situation is still very tenuous, so if anyone has still been waiting to ask about a painting, I’m almost caught up with my backlog and could start working on one on the first of May.

I present to you Millie Moo, recently deceased, and a very good dog. I couldn’t get a more cyan feel to the blanket, but the original is slightly more colorful.

ETA: I think it’s been one year since I painted this one of my cat Ruby, and someone finally bought it for full price even after I had offered it as trade for a small favor. I hadn’t seen this person in ten years, but they found me on facebook, and after a half an hour of conversation, she told me to check my PayPal account.
People can be rude. People can be indifferent to suffering. People can be downright evil. But sometimes, people can be more wonderful than words can express.

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Begin with half a log of cypress:

Trim to shape:

Soak in glue to stabilise the bark:

Tidy up the base:

All done:

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You should start selling these. They are lovely.

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I just had about 90 minutes to help my kid make a stuffed puppy for a friend’s birthday party (she requested handmade gifts) but I still barely know how to sew so it’s more of a piglet now.

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That totally reminds me of the beanbag frogs we had as kids! That’s so cute!

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After we got back from the birthday party my other kid wanted one. I guess it’s some kind of chinchilla?

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Another cypress bowl…

Time to move to some different timber, methinks.

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Back to the Camphor Laurel; more hassle to sand, but lotsa pretty patterns.

Split your log:

Trim to square and mount:

Round off:

Do the basic shaping and carve a mounting socket:

Flip it around, ready to hollow out:

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Cutting all done:

Sand and wax:

Tidy up the base:

Final product:

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Halfway through this one:

And I’ve got this interesting lump to play with next:

Cypress sandwiched between Camphor Laurel.

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When you die, ask them to bury you surrounded by any of your unsold bowls in preparation for the afterlife. :wink:

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Hmm, forgot about this thread. Awesome stuff on display, go boingers :slight_smile:

I guess folks might be interested in the light-hearted LARP scenario for beginners my son and I wrote a couple of months back… it was easy to set up, pretty much ran itself, and should fill a pleasant 30 to 60 minutes (especially for SF geeks!)

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I’m planning to use a bunch of IVAR shelves to build a cupboard for our kitchen. To do this I need to shorten the shelf pieces to fit the space.

This is apparently trivially easy. You can slide out the plastic slot thing which clicks onto the pins in the supports, cut the shelf to size, cut a new slot in the end of the shortened piece and reinsert the plastic thingy.

Except this apparently requires the use of a 1/8" slot cutter router bit. See here if my explanation is insufficiently technical:

For the love of whatever deity or other concept you care to name, I can only find one manufacturer who makes such a thing for sale in the UK and it costs £50.

So, knowing how the internet works, now that I have said that this thing is almost impossible to find and is expensive, I confidently expect at least 12 people pointing out that I am an idiot and that a suitable part is available at B&Q and/or someone telling me that this is the worst way to do it and instead I should…

Any takers?

I suppose I could just cut the shelves to the right size and shape and form grooves for the pins straight into the shelf. That would involve a bit more measuring and cutting but hey.

Note: suggestions that I not bother with the IVAR and just build the whole thing from scratch do not count.

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Latest one:

Camphor Laurel again, with a knothole filled with pink calcite crystals.

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Take three. This one is like 80% of the way to being a raccoon.

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Just had a little stamp made up to sign my bowls…

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I’m telling you, you should sell these. they are lovely.

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