All done.
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The blue background is actually the dust cover for my Dad’s pool table, BTW. 
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I like that, particularly the wonkyness.
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Made some aqua regia, “king’s water,” for cleaning glassware today. Maybe I’ll drop some TEM images of what I’ve been cooking, but we’re pretty secretive.
The bubbles are chlorine gas, nitric oxide, and nitrosyl chloride. The stuff is so corrosive that as it evaporates and offgases, it attacks the metal parts of the fume hood and rusts it, effectively making the fume hood useless for any other task.
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Fun stuff! If you etch designs into blades with it, in a wax lined glass tray, it’s quite dramatic.
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The thumbprint-free varnished bowl now has ripples in the bottom due to pooled varnish. Too much spray, obviously, but less spray was giving an uneven coat on the sides of the bowl.
Fuck it; I think I’m done with the varnishing experiment.
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I can imagine. I’ve never etched with it. Ferric chloride to etch PCBs is the extent of my etching experience. Looking up on the Googles what people have to say about using the stuff for etching is… interesting. Lots of misinformation and imprecision about preparation. People will do anything to avoid using moles in their calculations.
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That’s too bad. The warm tones of Thumbprint Bowl looked really nice under varnish.
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New dish:
Yet another that was originally supposed to be a bowl.
Thinking of going shopping for some new toys tomorrow:
And maybe buildng one of these:
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Shavehorse complete:
Total construction materials: three 2”x4”x8’ lengths of construction pine, about a dozen big screws, one foot of old broomstick.
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Make your stuff the way you think is best, write the descriptions in a way that is true to yourself.
You can’t please everybody, and this is not an issue where you have to even try to.
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That’s pretty ignorant, given that badgers are what to look out for in calculations.
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That’s a very interesting video, from the North American perspective.
Traditionally our hand axes made to be used with that technique, holding it just below the head, are called hatchets, and using them is called hatchetting. But that’s not an American pattern tool, the eye’s too wide.
“Australia, England & America: three lands separated by a common language.”
I was quite baffled the first time I heard an Aussie singing “Tomahawkin’ Fred”!
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We have bucketloads of dry seasoned timber here, which is good for woodturning.
Unfortunately, it’s shit for carving. To carve, you want soft green stuff.
So, this morning I went to have a poke around my local forest, looking for recently fallen branches etc. No luck.
But on the way home, I noticed some dudes with a chainsaw working on one of my neighbours’ yards.
So, I now have most of a fresh-cut full-grown Pittosporum to play with. 
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It’s going to be months (at least) before I’m vaguely competent at spoon carving, so don’t expect anything shiny any time soon.
However, I do have a lump of Pittosporum that is beginning to vaguely resemble a spoon…
And as an antidote to that crude lump, here’s what it looks like when a skilled spooncarver decides to show off:
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Going shopping for some spoon chisels tomorrow; hogging the bowl out by hook knife alone is doing my head in.
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