Olive pot, redgum knob, spalted yellow bloodwood lid (salvaged from the blown-out pot).
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Split the log:
Mounted and ready to go:
Got the outside shaped:
And then the rim blew apart while I was carving the inside. Fuck.
But I managed to find the bits and reconstruct it:
ā¦so it should be recoverable.
Irritating, though. Not having much luck this week.
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Iām getting a Star Wars vibe off of these. Remember when Obi-Wan was out on the platform and turned down the tractor beam? Same general feel.
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You do beautiful work. I look forward to your posts showing your creations.
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All done, quite happy with how neatly the repair turned out:
No idea what the timber is; it came from a bit salvaged from a dump.
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I did a second bowl from the other half of that log, and this time Iām going to varnish it to make it usable as an eating bowl:
Unfortunately, it needs about six hours of drying time between coats, and trying to make anything else in the shed while itās drying would result in sawdust all over the varnish. So no new pieces for a few days.
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Just getting started, so itās a bit bare-bones for now and the prices are likely to need some finetuning, but here it is:
Advice appreciated if anyone has any.
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Somewhat nervous about the store.
I donāt want to piss anyone off by selling them something that they arenāt happy with, and pretty much everything I make has at least one little thing that isnāt quite perfect.
ā
BTW: I currently have everything listed at price + postage. Postage would be about $15 within Australia, about $40 overseas. Thatās in Aus dollars; discount as appropriate for customers that arenāt paying in Pacific Pesos.
Etsy tips say that buyers hate postage fees, and suggest that it may be better to instead just raise the price and list postage as free. As in, instead of listing something as $60 plus $15 postage, Iād be better off just listing at $75 with āfreeā postage within Australia (and $25 postage for overseas customers).
Thoughts?
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Itās a weird trick, but it seems to be the case. I mean, itās the same price either way, but if itās rolled into the cost, people tend not to complain about itā¦
[ETA] I also really like how you posted the pictures of your progress for each piece. Very cool! Have you filmed any of theseā¦ there are tons of wood working videos up on youtube that seem to be popular, but Iām not sure if Iāve seen any with people turning pieces of raw wood into bowls and such. It might be a niche you could get into as well. And lots of people who do that also have patreon pages to support their video work, in addition to their wood working activities.
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Iāve come around to the style of thinking that shipping should always be āfree.ā The number one complaint among visitors to the US is that we donāt include the tax in price, and it is stupid, because I want to know how much money I need to spend to take the thing out of the store, not some theoretical price to theoretically buy the thing. When shopping online, I would also like to take it for granted that the price I see is the price I pay to make the thing mine in actual factā¦ and itās true I exclude non-free shipping from my search results for that reason. I canāt fully claim itās rational, but I definitely do it, and so do many others. I think part of it is that you never really know how much shipping is going to be until the very end, and thatās always a bit of a turnoff.
Iām sure itāll turn out okay. You might have to eat it a few times as you learn some of the harder lessons, but thereās not a lot of bowl related liability out there. Absolute worst case is you lose a sale, a customer, and the bowl in one incident. But as long as you have lots of pictures, people will be able to overlook the defectsā¦ especially because āhandmadeā goods are usually never quite perfect.
If it helps, hereās some oddly relevant internet bowl related humor. (I know you make more than bowls).
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Added a bunch more pieces (more to come), changed the shipping to free, tweaked a few other things. Prices still extremely approximate.
Even if I almost never sell anything, I still think itāll be worthwhile. The idea that Iām making product for my store will help motivate me while Iām working; the thought that I was just piling up endless quantities of bowls for no reason was getting a bit demoralising.
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Working on my largest Halloween costume to date: a stegosaurus.
One of my kids will be the front legs, Iāll be the back, and another kid will be riding on top.
The head can be puppeted thanks to the mechanism from a dollar store pooper-scooper, so the plan is for the dinosaur to just eat the candy.
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I think thatās the main reason people open second hand bookshops.
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Are you putting that one in your Etsy store?
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Probably not; itās the first one Iāve ever varnished, and I think I could do a better job of it second time around. It looks fine at distance, but if you examine it really close up thereās one patch where the varnish is a little bit cloudy (imperfect sanding on one of the early varnish layers, now preserved under the good varnish layers on top of it).
But Iāll do another one fairly soon.
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Since my mom gave me her old pressure cooker, I have been making stuff with it.
Jamaican curries and the like. Bought sardines and canned them in olive oil. Sooooo goooood, although no cheaper home made than store bought cans.
Decided to try some local fish instead to see how it turns out. Pictured, a bunch of chub and shiners. I have eaten the chub before and their meat is pink and tasty. Amazing. Should be interesting.
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